Hart of Texas

YOU SHALL NOT PASS!

2010-11-02T13:50:00.000-05:00

we set some new ground rules with the kids before we moved into the new digs with regard to authorized entry. i got the idea from another couple who has 4 kids – they told me their kids are NOT ALLOWED into their bedroom for any reason…ever. huh. when you think about it, it’s only fair that we should have at least one place to ~~hide~~ hang out alone, without fear of screaming smackdowns or flying projectiles. i should be able to sit on this one toilet seat without marinating in urine from backside to feet. with three other functioning televisions in the house, i should be able to watch hbo instead of iCarly alone, in my own bedroom. i think that's not so much to ask.

so far so good...they're keeping the hell out. and i know that for sure because despite the fact that the new house is twice the size, the kids still continue to follow us around everywhere we go. really? you'd rather stand in the kitchen asking for shit you can't have or making inane observations than be up in the playroom watching cartoons and playing with the 19,000 plus toys up there? i knew we should've looked for a dungeon bonus room instead of a playroom.

but i can tell the curiosity is killing them. what is in there that they don't want us to see???? did they get a pony? is there a portal in their closet that leads to a fantastic world made out of candy and toys? they have a bounce house in there - i just know it. and a clown making balloon animals. do you think they're pooping right now? what about now? wait...now? dammit i need to SEE this and comment and ask more questions! how will i know for sure they've pooped unless i ASK...and then COMMENT????? oooh...my world is spinning out of control...

heh heh...suckers.

not that we hadn't already made up our mind on the new rules, but our decision was further supported as sound by what we found under our bed when the movers lifted up the box springs to reveal the following inventory- (9) ea fruit snack packages, empty; (3) ea petrified fruit snacks, flavor unidentifiable; (2) ea bastard socks, kid size; (7) ea matchbox cars, assorted varieties; (1) ea pair of kid underpants, dirty; (2) ea pencils, unsharpened; (3) ea pokemon cards, assorted; (4) ea tissues, used; (1) ea nerf dart, broken; (72) cents, american; (1) ea wad of chewing gum, used, red (affixed to back of headboard); (1) ea drinking straw; (1) ea happy meal toy, broken; (1) ea donut hunk, petrified; (1) ea sandwich crust, furry; (5) ea balls, assorted.

it's like we put up our bed over a landfill. it's like there was an vortex of power underneath our bed that sucked random things out of our children's hands and into its evil clutches. it's like we shared a home with 4 rabid zombie monkeys who knew nothing but destruction and chaos. and CLEARLY this is why we can't have nice things.

sigh...

2010-10-16T11:02:00.000-05:00

so i've been told twice in the past week that my blog habits have begun to smell like the dumpster behind a bad chinese buffet. typically i don't respond well to ~~criticism~~ attempts to make me feel guilty, but here i am anyway. are you happy? huh? are you? let the record show that this post was created with deep-seated feelings of resentment. furthermore, you'll all be sorry when i'm dead.

now that we have THAT out of the way, onward and upward (?) to my random life experiences.

we're moving to a bigger house at the end of the month that will hopefully have a place where i can effectively hide from the kids. i hate moving - why do i have so much shit? furthermore, what would have ever possessed me to open a box containing the shoes i got married in from 1994 and tell myself - oh yeah, i need these as a keepsake. why? because that marriage was so awesome or because the ugly things damn near crippled me when i wore them or because they cause me to fondly recall that my hairdo on the day of my wedding looked like it belonged on a lesbian basketball player?

charlie has a new friend named potato.

potato?

yeah, mom - you know, potato.

potato? the child's name is potato?

you know mom - we played with him on monday and he rode his bike over... remember?

matteo?

YES! potato. that's what i said.

i had my kids parent/teacher conferences on monday and both teachers told me my children were well-adjusted. i don't even think i can add anything to that in order to make it funnier or more ironic.

my parents came over last weekend and my mom gave me this shirt she bought for herself and ended up not liking on her. and she gave me a purse she thought was too big for her to carry. as she handed over the items, henry observed - man, you two are all about fashion. since i've explained to him what gay means, think i shoulda said something?

and, in closing, henry told me this morning that the donuts that he'd been begging for were "not gonna buy themselves." see...i have enough problems without all the blog nagging. leave britney alone!

it's running as fast as it can

2010-08-12T11:35:00.001-05:00

i had the misfortune of ending up in line behind the crazy coupon lady at target last week. tragically, i didn’t notice her organizer full of coupons until i had the entire contents of my cart emptied onto the belt and it was too late to retreat. i opted, instead, for the highly passive-aggressive heavy sighs, hands-on-hips stance and burning stare while she pawed through every coupon ever printed for fully 5 minutes. when she tried to hand over several that were expired, i considered starting a grass-roots movement to make this sort of thing a crime along the lines of fraud. by the time i had finished my citizens arrest fantasy (that involved my wrestling her to the ground, my knee to her back while i proficiently cuffed her and handed her over to security), she was gone. as i watched her go, i fervently wished that she would get a painful and infected paper cut for making me stand in the checkout line an extra 5 minutes with my kids, who, during that time, managed to fondle and beg for every single impulse item and pack of gum. how many times in the span of 5 minutes should a person be required to tell their kid they can’t have any super glue?

i think everybody should have a rap name. mine is quickie-d, which i earned for the landspeed record i set in finalizing my divorce. henry’s is h-dogg, for the obvious reasons, and charlie’s is c-money, for no apparent reason. i don’t have rap names for the newest editions to my family yet. beau could easily be beau-diggity. and now that i read that, he shall henceforth be known as such. what to do with cameron? it’s such a white name. i’d probably have to name him after his red hair and just ignore the name completely. redman? meh. ginger-bread man? better, but not great. i’m open to suggestions on that. and of course the best rap name for someone named chris is already taken by luda. so i have two white members left in my family – please leave your suggestions in the comments section. this racial divide cannot continue.

my idea of a dream home has changed after living under the same roof with four young boys. while before i envisioned floor to ceiling windows overlooking the ocean, i now dream of bulletproof and smudgeproof surfaces that can’t be gazed out of during naptime when little eyes should be closed and mouths shut. i used to crave rich hardwood floors, but now i’m thinking more along the lines of concrete flooring with a drain in the center of each room for easy hosing down. in fact, ideally the house would be more of a boxcar shape, and each room would have a door on each side so that the house could be hosed out completely, floor to ceiling, room by room, and culminating in the gutter system outside the back door. and when i say “hose”, i mean FIREhose. how else are you gonna get up gum? so basically, it’s a cell block of sorts without the bars. or…WITH the bars. jury’s still out on that one.

the following questions should require no response as you are OBSERVING the action in question at the time you are asking it. however, the responses i would LIKE very much to give follow in parentheses:

you take a shower? (no, i just stood out in the sprinklers and then ran back into the bathroom and put on a towel)
you wake up? (i hope i’m still very much asleep because being asked that question yet again is a nightmare.)
you eating dinner? (great question. how did you guess? you’re so perceptive! nothing gets by you.)
you get dressed? (you’d think so, but i actually painted my naked body to look as though i’m wearing clothes. clever, no?)

the following comments should require no response as they are obvious statements of fact, and repeating them incessantly until such time as my head explodes does not make them any more noteworthy. my internal response to each follows in parentheses.

i go to sleep (duh!)
i wake up (the hell you say!)
i have my bear (duh!)
i have my clothes on (no shit!)
i eating dinner (DUH!)

sadly, sarcasm is wasted on the young.

my (sub)urban dictionary

2010-06-03T20:11:00.001-05:00

i have two new favorite turns of phrase, and they both contain the word "shit", which is pretty cool. i've moved away from "assload" to describe a great quantity of whatever and gotten on board with "shit-ton." for whatever reason, when i want to really exaggerate, "shit" says more to me than "ass" as a descriptor, and everybody knows a "ton" is a shit-ton more than a "load."

i'm also really enjoying "bat-shit crazy". i've never truly experienced bat shit all live and in person, but i have a strong feeling that it's crazier than most other shits. i wish i could use this one in a sentence, because i have SO many examples of bat-shit crazy people in my life, but farbeit from me to point fingers.

speaking of bat-shit crazy, i have another special needs story on charlie. we passed a really bad accident on the highway last weekend, and he looked back at us with wide eyes and exclaimed, "M. O. G.!!!!" we laughed like a bastard. (the use of "bastard" in this way is not new for me, but i still do enjoy it frequently. see the film Outside Providence and you'll understand.)

that's it for now. i have a shit-ton of stuff in my netflix queue that i can now stream with my brand new hd roku, and i need to GET ON IT. i feel a tv marathon coming on. if i ever clear away the pizza boxes and empty food wrappers and reemerge from the bedroom, unwashed and bleary, looking totally bat-shit crazy, i'll write a new blog about the greatness that is roku. MOG!

the short bus plays the backstreet boys

2010-05-17T22:33:00.004-05:00

as much as it "grieves me" (as my 7th grade teacher said when he caught me talking in class) to admit it, my precious 4-year old lacks some of the basic 4-year old skills. god love him, where do i start?

okay, for a starter, he puts his shoes on the wrong feet like 97% of the time. considering he has a 50/50 chance of getting it right each time, the odds are in his favor and YET...more days than not i look down and say, "charlie, your shoes are on the wrong feet." how do you f**k that up so consistently? seriously. it's unnatural.

secondly, he's started dressing himself on a regular basis and this "learned skill" has not developed well. he ends up looking like a homeless child way too much of the time. um, honey, i'm pretty sure those red plaid shorts don't go very well with that orange print shirt. yes...i'm almost positive. honey...please...let me help you.

also...and i am loathe to admit it...he tends to put his pants on backwards. and when i say "tends", i mean frequently. and it's not at all in a retro criss-cross way. it's in a heinous, embarrassing way.

"charlie, you have your shorts on backwards." he looks down blankly..."no i don't". and then he feels around to his backside where his butt is protruding through his open fly. "oh, my bad." REALLY? holy crap. he came home from his dad's two weeks ago with his underwear on backwards and his shoes on the wrong feet.

okay okay okay...so we've established that my precious angel is "special". let's put the icing on the cake. this afternoon i had my ipod on in the car and "i want it that way" by the backstreet boys came on. and if you're waiting for an apology for the boy band music on my ipod, you will probably wither and die before you get it. he started to object when it started because it's all slow and he loves the loud pop stuff. and then he got quiet. oddly quiet.

when it was about halfway through, he goes, "who is this anyway?" i said, " it's the backstreet boys," like that's any sort of definitive answer to a 4-year old. he was silent and contemplative through the end, even tolerating my vocal contributions, which are loud and bad. then it's over and he demands, "I WANNA HEAR IT AGAIN." and i oblige. who am i to question what soothes the short-bus rider. nobody. that's who.

i'm really hoping he develops as an athlete because i fear that academics will never be his strong suit. hey, he has a great personality...sigh.

lamont?

2010-05-08T00:33:00.004-05:00

ok so we're having an effing garage effing sale tomorrow. um, yeah. i know i'm bluff-cursing and i don't effing care. if my (super awesome wonderful perfect) parents didn't read this, i totally would be bringing it old skool (you know it's white-person hard core if they spell school with a k. enough said.) i hate garage sales with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. and i come by it honest. i totally witnessed my mother, during a garage sale, do the following:

garage sale shopper: this is marked ten cents. will you take a nickel for it?

my mom: NO! IT'S NOT FOR SALE! she snatches the item from the table and performs a perfect "spin and storm" into the house with said item that is clearly worth 10 cents and NOT 5 cents.

and here's the problem. this shit makes perfect sense to me. okay NO. it's a freaking dime! what sort of personal high do you hope to achieve by talking me down to a nickel? really? is that the person you really want to be? and the sad answer is that they want to be the holy super super awesome garage sale shopper that they already are. yes, please take my $350 coach bag for $3 when i marked it $15. i know it's totally dated and kinda icky now but still...for the love of pete...i paid $350 for it back in the day. i don't want it now for shizzle. but still...i wouldn't carry it now for a million bucks but STILL. IT WAS EXPENSIVE AS A MOFO. so somebody still should want it, yes?

bottom line is the same as always: i hate people. but yes...i'll take their money. i'll even take the predicted $3 for the $350 purse. i just want to get rid of it, truth be told. at the end of the day, i might even seriously consider paying someone to take the crap that doesn't sell. i hate it THAT much. LAMONT?

deep dark depression...excessive misery

2010-05-05T22:12:00.001-05:00

so it hasn't been all shits and giggles at the brooks/hart household of late. let me try and break it down for simplicity's sake...

1. chris got sick
2. i got sick
3. chris didn't go to the doctor. i went to the doctor - got a zpack. got better.
4. chris got sort of better.
5. chris got sick again.
6. chris got real sick.
7. chris got pneumonia.
8. chris went into the hospital to have his chest drained with a tube.
9. the fluid in chris' chest had turned to gel, ergo the chest tube was no use.
10. chris underwent surgery during which his lungs were SCRAPED of the gunk.
11. chris spent 24 hours with a ventilator down his throat in intensive care. during this time, he attempted to get out of his bed to pee at least 47 times despite the fact that he was catheterized.
12. chris was restrained in his hospital bed and shot up with enough morphine to kill a horse.
13. chris described to me the things he saw when he got a shot of morphine - "a multi-level aztec waterfall."
14. i commented, "well, that's very specific, honey."
15. chris ended up spending 8 days in the hospital, during which his mother lived with us helping with all the heathens. it was a LONG week.

daddy's back now, thank you GOD. this has been the murphy's law 6 weeks from H-E-doublehockeysticks. yeah, that's right. doublehockeysticks. i said it. and i meant it. apologies. i'm stressed.

i did have the opportunity during this time to remember what my life was like before mr. wonderful came into my life, and i have to say without any doubt...I DON'T LIKE IT. the kids were belligerent and disrespectful. and i'm talking about MY kids. i had totally forgotten (blissfully) how it was without a strong man in the house and it came rushing back to me in the most horrifying way.

so...if there is anything good to come of this awful experience, it is that i fully appreciate chris and what he's done for my family in less than a year. i am very lucky.

sorry this post isn't more snarky. getting your chest scraped out is serious shit, so roll with it. love you mean it.

i deserve it

2010-04-16T22:19:00.000-05:00

just a quick note. so the other day henry was going to a new friend's house...well, not a new friend, per se. but it was the first time he'd visited said friend's new house. for a starter, i talked to the mom who, as it turns out, works at henry's school, and still invited him over anyway. bonus!

so we were waiting for them to be done with dinner at the house before i took him over there...i look over at him and notice he looks fairly ghetto. (let the record show he picked out his own outfit that morning...i have zero culpability in this thing.) i said, "hey, since this is your first time over there, don't you want to make yourself more presentable?"

he looks down at his threads and replies, "no. why? what, do you want me to wear a tux or something? it's not like this is a date or anything..."

AND...let's remember...he's EIGHT! okay...even as i was laughing, i knew i deserved this. it's totally something i would say. dammit! my mother's not even dead and still she's laughing in her reserved grave. fml.

beautiful things

2010-04-01T00:32:00.001-05:00

oh yeah. i'm breakin out the unicorns and rainbows, bitches. 'cause this shit is gonna be beautiful.

1. in the drive through at dunkin' donuts with charlie (who is 4, if you'll recall) in a long, long line...waiting...waiting...from the backseat i hear, "why don't these assholes move?!?" honey, i say, don't talk like that. "but you say it, mom." he's got me there.

2. i'm at the haircut place on sunday getting the boys' haircuts. at some point or other, i see a cluster of hairdressers with concerned faces around charlie. i immediately think - they've seen the bruises and are calling cps. wait - i never leave bruises on his head. wtf? i ask henry's hairdresser. she says the lady cutting charlie's hair has cut his ear. it's bleeding. he's unconcerned. henry is finished with his haircut and wanders over to observe the hubbub. he looks up at the poor woman cutting charlie's hair and says (i shit you NOT), "wow. is this your first day on the job?" i felt sorta bad about that until they charged me full price for charlie's haircut. as henry would say - you got served!

3. i fell down at work yesterday. not just stumbled. not just tripped. i freaking fell the eff down - ass up. in case you were wondering, i was wearing heels and a short dress. jealous? i knew you would be. thanks be to GOD that nobody (that i know of or could see, otherwise their lives would certainly be threatened) saw this awesome super display of graceful shit. HOWEVER. i have a rug burn on my effing knee. yeah, that's right. and no crazy fabulous sex story to back it up either. fml. for the more inquisitive souls (i.e. those that work with me, god love you), i fell in the effing hall outside the ladies room, thankfully before i rounded the corner to be in full view of the lobby. my only consolation is that had i actually rounded said corner, i was indeed wearing clean panties. small consolation indeed. it's almost an all new low... but there's my after-hours life to consider. case closed.

4. i had a software training class today, and kevina was in attendance. guess where i sat? talk about fml...that was his freaking theme song all day long. first half of the day was mind-numbing. boring shit we already knew. i made him buy me lunch and met his houston/austin counterpart who, as it turns out, loves making his life as miserable as i do. we're definitely besties (or WERE at least until after lunch.) kevina took quite a bit of ribbing from my bestie during lunch and was (bored and) ready to strike during the afternoon session. perfect. so without boring the living shit out of you, the software is a "shared" thing where you build jobs, give them names, add things to sell and/or quote, etc. and the trainer has his pc hooked up to an overhead projector where we can all see the "shared" files, which you can name ANY FREAKING THING YOU WANT TO. ding! light bulb. everybody in training also can see what jobs you're creating...so about 100 computers in total. did i mention almost everybody knows everybody else? no? okay - never mind.

he leans over to me about 2:30 and says, "i should totally create a job with counterpart's name and make it something totally embarrassing so it'll come up on everybody's computer, and maybe on the big screen." as the voice of reason, i naturally lean over and whisper, "you're a total pussy if you don't." so with our combined evil genius, we come up with the project name "tony lecavalier's men's erotic massage" and add that mf to the list of jobs. by this time, i have peed myself copiously and kevina is bent over double and cramping from the strain of our genius. he hits enter...and nothing. motherfucker! after all that work and enjoyment. so...having been the only one of the two of us who has actually LISTENED to the training class and therefore knows what the eff i'm doing, i walk him through how to share his new project with the entire class, and hopefully the big screen. AND...as we look around the room...we see the fruits of our labor.

tony (aka my former bestie) is beside himself. he sends kevina a text "omg, i can't believe you used my last name" and "it's on everybody in the room's computer right now." and this, my friends is how you measure your evil genius. sadly, it never made it up onto the big screen. evidently, as best i can conclude, this has happened in the past and the trainer has sagely NOT allowed the trainees to share in what goes up on the screen. (bastard buzz-kill). so whatever whatever - at this point, i'm just relieved not to have been kicked out.

as we were leaving, i told him that it was worth every penny of the $179 class cost for this prank. and i patted him on the back and said, "okay, see you later, kevin," my nametag on the back of his shirt was my parting gift. greatest.day.ever.

is this a tax deduction?

2010-03-19T23:03:00.001-05:00

this shit is surreal. i am forty freaking years old. and TWICE in my life...two times...i have been asked to donate my eggs to make a baby for someone who can't have their own. so what's more disturbing? the fact that i'm 40 or the fact that, having met me, anyone would want any part of my gene pool? seriously....think about that shit.

the first offer came when i was 28. and this is the most disturbing offer by far - i worked with this lady about 4 months when she disclosed that she and/or her husband was/were infertile and that she was looking into invitro. and she freaking asked me for my eggs. kicker was that i thought she was white trash and also untalented in her field. so i'm thinking...do i want to be a "mother" to a white trash untalented baby? i had no kids of my own at the time, so this was uncharted territory. or worse....they would have a brilliant and gorgeous baby that looked just like me and raise it all stupid and white trash and whatnot. um, no. i begged off.

second request came two days ago from my oldest, dearest friend. he asks me, "so are you done having kids?" you can only imagine my reply. he tells me he's always wanted kids (really? really really? cause i've known you for 20+ years and this is the first i've heard of it.) he's predictably gay, as are most of my oldest and dearest friends. and he's in a new relationship. so i'm left to wonder...does he really want this or is he reacting to the new (fabulous...i love him) guy?

doesn't really matter. my eggs are old. and i smoke. no self-respecting fertility professional would even allow me to donate an egg for the cause. so this is my grand statement: i have made two gorgeous boys. i don't need any further affirmation of my awesome genes. i have two handsome, completely extraordinary geniuses. who are both fixated on their penises. perfect.

night of the zombies

2010-02-09T11:26:00.001-06:00

i think i can best relate the events of last night's focus group in bullet points. (just be glad i'm not doing it all in haiku.)

all the way there, henry badgers me for a larger share of the $125. i remind him he could very well walk away with nothing if he doesn't shut the hell up. he fake cries and then moves on to badgering me about playing a game on my iphone - denied again.
we get there early, find the office suite and approach the front desk to sign in. immediately, an 8-year old boy bounds out of the waiting room and approaches the newcomers in a very dramatic and animated pose - feet spread and hands outstretched, eyes wide with excitement. "i have something VERY important to tell EVERYONE," he shouts. we all look around, a bit nonplussed, and await the announcement. "TONIGHT...IS THE NIGHT...OF THE ZOMBIES!" i look at henry, and he gives me a look like "wtf kind of freaks did they recruit for this thing?" or maybe that's what i was thinking.
we go into the waiting area (holding cell) until everybody shows. zombie kid continues to yammer on about zombies, and the mother doesn't even have the decency to be mortified about it...or tell him to shut up at the very least. at some point, henry's had enough of this bs and decides to go question zombie boy...what zombies? what do they look like? where are they coming from? why tonight? eventually zombie boy breaks under the inquisition and resorts to muttering quietly to self. (thank you GOD...and henry).
henry gets a sandwich off the tray and a soda out of the fridge, then proceeds to direct all newcomers to what he clearly begins to think of as his own personal secret stash of sodas. he becomes, in effect, the soda police. photo below shows him eating said proferred sandwich.

kid behind us starts playing with his mom's iphone - bugger! i'm peer pressured into letting henry take mine so he can play games. immediately he runs to the back of the room with my phone to snap the photo below of the poor, unsuspecting mother because she was wearing a super awesome longhorn sweatshirt.

moderator lady comes in and introduces herself to the kids, one at a time. most of them look at her like she has three heads - why are you talking to me when my mother is RIGHT HERE?
organizer lady comes in and says, "if i call your name, stand up and follow me. if i don't call your name, wait here." henry's name is not called - i immediately begin to experience deep personal shame over our shortcomings, whatever they may be.
organizer lady calls the three rejected mothers into the hall to explain that they overbooked and everybody showed, so she's gonna pay us our cash and send us home - woohoo!
i give henry his $25 when we get to the car, and miraculously, the sight of the cold hard cash in his palm quells his complaints about being underpaid. and as to being underappreciated, i offer the following condolences: "sorry you didn't get to give everybody your opinion." he says, looking lovingly down at his windfall, "eh, i didn't want to give my opinion anyway."
i suspend reality and decide to accept this lie as the truth.

superheroes and other really important issues

2010-02-04T16:21:00.000-06:00

when henry was three years old, he told me one night while he was in the bathtub that his penis was a superhero, and then followed it up with, "penis to the rescue!" true story. i remember telling him that, in fact, i'd never met a man who didn't think his penis was a superhero...so go on with your bad self. well evidently somebody out there with a marketing degree heard this proclamation and has just been waiting for the opportunity to tap into this ocean of genius that is my son's imagination.

i got a call two days ago from a company that i've done some focus groups with in the past. they were recruiting mothers and their 8-year old sons for a discussion on the topic of superheroes. when i told henry, i thought he might wet himself right on the spot. i'm pretty sure he's still looking for a downside - so they're going to put him in a room with a bunch of other 8-year old boys and a grown up who's going to ask him questions about superheroes and actually CARES what he thinks...for the opinionated child (and let's face it - he came out of MY uterus), this has to be a dream come true.

so after they screened me on the phone, they asked to talk to henry. i could hear the lady's questions through the earpiece, and the interview process went something like this:

which of thing following things do you like to do? just say yes or no...
watch tv? yes
watch movies? yes
go on the internet? not really (which is a baldfaced lie - he LOVES it)
read books or magazines: NO (geez, you didn't have to be so adamant about it...)

what tv shows do you like to watch?
ummm...pokemon. (oh really? you're not going to mention icarly? sneaky little bastard)
and why do you like pokemon?
well, i collect the cards, and when i found out there was a tv show, i just HAD to watch it. (god, he's product placement company's wet dream)

what movies do you like to watch?
indianajonesandthekingdomofthecrystalskull (seemingly all one word) and...uh...the fantastic four. (to my knowledge, he's never seen the fantastic four...so so interesting)
and why do you like indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull?
because there's lots of action and fighting in it
and why do you like the fantastic four?
pretty much the same reason (smartass)

and here's where it starts to get good...

henry, if you could be a superhero, what would you be?
you mean like a real superhero or one i make up? (don't say superpenis, don't say superpenis...)
either one. (d'oh!)
ummmm...i think i'd be...spiderman. (loud exhale of relief)
and why would you like to be spiderman?
because i could shoot people with webs and swing around on buildings. (and save innocent people from bad guys...?)
and what else would you do if you were spiderman?
i'd climb on the walls. (and fight evil to keep all of mankind safe from harm...? no?)
and how would that make you feel if you could do those things?
pretty awesome!

despite his obvious lack of moral conviction regarding the safety and freedom of all the good guys out there, we were approved for this focus group. i guess they don't really care whether or not he gets the warm fuzzies from keeping down evil so long as he badgers his relatives until he gets the action figure/t-shirt/backpack/etc. i feel so cheap.

eh, who am i kidding? they're paying me $125 to schlep my kid in and pick his brain about fictional characters. if i was really cheap, i'd do it for $50. (by the way, i would do it for $50).

speaking of haikus...

2010-01-31T16:17:00.000-06:00

january sucks.
cabin fever, cold weather -
this is the last day!

why don't kids shut up?
i need, i want, can i have?
damn these fertile loins!

just had stomach flu...
lots and lots of vomiting.
gatorade is good.

i'm losing my mind.
can only talk in haikus.
straight jacket - me - now.

shopping for v.d.

2010-01-25T16:54:00.001-06:00

oh get your mind out of the gutter - i'm talking about valentine's day, of course. this marks the first year in at least 10 that i actually gave a shit about this holiday and therefore am already searching for an appropriate gift. when i googled "valentine's day gifts for him", i predictably got 6,000+ pages of monogrammed cufflinks, embroidered robes and stupid paperweights shaped like hearts bearing some banal, hallmark-type message. um...no. not for me.

and seeing as i'm not creative, my second attempt involved asking creative people i know for ideas. my friend kate mentioned that her husband likes funny t-shirts. bingo! so does chris. and i've made my peace with this - i am dating a sci-fi geek who has questionable taste in music and loves the message t-shirt. so be it. kate directed me to a site where her husband likes to shop, and i found the following candidates. just to keep it interesting, i'll post a poll where you can vote for your favorite, assuming anyone is still reading this blather. if you are - vote or die! (knowing full-well i have no way of actually following through on this threat...or do i?)

meat is murder...tasty, tasty murder

love the message, have my doubts about the color. if it comes in another color (which i was too lazy to research), it might be a solid contender.

subli'mawesomeinal

this is a personal favorite of mine. plus you can't go wrong with a black t-shirt.

rock is dead and paper killed it

it's a cultural statement made with sophomoric humor. other than the three stooges doing the martin luther king, jr. "i have a dream" speech, i can't imagine that it gets any better than this.

friends actually let friends do lots of stupid things

'nuff said.

mow, hawk

oh come on...it's funny! of course, explaining it to everybody might possible take some of the fun out of it. nah, probably not.

i hate t-shirts as much as i love irony

this one is kind of douchebaggy, but i like it anyway. if you're not attending shakespeare in the park or protesting the civil rights violations in tibet, i think you could pull it off.

haikus are easy

but sometimes they don't make sense

refrigerator

this is easily my favorite...i'm just not sure he knows what a haiku is...which could seriously jeapordize the hilarity he experiences when he firsts sees it. i just have to decide if it's worth it because i personally think it's so funny.

opinions welcome - voting obligatory.

confession

2010-01-21T16:39:00.000-06:00

they say confession is good for the soul...whoever THEY is. well screw them too. i'm just telling this story because after i stopped being mad, i realized it was sort of ridiculous - and i do enjoy laughing at my own expense.

so for the past 3 or 4 months, i've been literally BOMBARDED with stupid emails, and not the normal interesting penis enlarging stuff. most of the emails are newsletters or bulletins from foodservice-related businesses. okay listen - i get about 19 free foodservice rags every month, and i don't have time to read them. i should, but i don't. i don't even try anymore - they go straight from my inbox into file 13 before a single speck of dust has time to gather. it's all i can do to find the time to read my cosmo every month, and we all know how important that is.

for the first month or so, i just deleted them...figured it was regular old spam that got through the filter. after about 6 weeks, i started getting irritated. it became apparent that some shit-for-brains foodservice company sold my freakin' email address and that i was going to continue to receive all this crap until i made the effort to unsubscribe...from every single one.

thus began my mission - scroll down, find unsubscribe button, click, unsubscribe myself, close, delete. of course every publication was "so sorry to see me go" and wanted to know why. i skipped the text box the first hundred or so times. then i decided i needed to make a point, so i started typing "didn't subscribe" into the text box before i unsubscribed myself. surely at some point they'll stop coming...foolish girl.

today i had about 5 things going at once - my desk looked like something detonated on top of it and i was in the zone to get some things wrapped up. about that time, i got another of these bulletins via email - my third in the span of one afternoon. okay, that's it. i did my usual scroll down, find unsubscribe button, click, unsubscribe myself routine...and then i came to the "so sorry...why?" box and i guess i just lost my shit. i'm not proud to admit that i typed the following feedback:

some asshole sold my email address so i get about 500 of these stupid emails every day that i didn't subscribe to and have to delete and unsubscribe from. go away!

i was totally high on rage and righteous indignation. of course after the buzz wore off, it dawned on me that, though it might've given me the shivers at the time, it was in all likelihood a total waste of time. i'm still gonna get those emails, and i'm still gonna have to unsubscribe myself and delete them...5-10 times a day for the rest of my natural life. not only that, but the asshole that sold my email address will likely never be forwarded my hate mail. i kinda feel bad for the philadelphia macaroni company now as i have obviously besmirched their good name and probably altered public opinion about their fine publication, the flour and ingredient update (january 2010 edition).

eh, who cares. anybody boring enough to send a monthly newsletter about flour deserves a good ass-chewing now and again.

free association

2010-01-20T16:34:00.000-06:00

re: facebook quizzes
i can't tell you how disappointing it is to be taking one of those real important facebook quizzes (like what does your eye color say about you? or what is your hippie name?) only to discover the damn thing was evidently written by somebody who's clearly as dumb as a sack of hammers. and a large preponderance of the aforementioned real important quizzes are very obviously so. i mean, you assume you're getting super-accurate insight when you click to take the quiz...you know, really delving into what makes you tick. and who's more qualified to give you this information than some weirdo on facebook, right? exactly! to illustrate my point, i offer the following taken DIRECTLY from assorted facebook quizzes.

quiz title: WHAT KIND OF PERSOMN ARE YOU? (see, right there we already have problems...if the author is actually asking that question non-rhetorically, i'd have to say the answer is "not smart".)
question from this quiz: what would you do if someone tells you an insult? (i'd probably tell them the finger, but that wasn't even one of the answers to choose from.)

quiz title: WHO YOU REALY ARE with the tagline "kno yourself more close". (no really...it says exactly that. i'm serious!)
questions from this quiz: what will you do if you be a millionaire? possible answers include: donat to anyone who need help..make a lots of business, that can give a lots of money...and finally used your money to enjoy as long as you still alive. (i'm pretty sure the author will never have to struggle with the burdens that accompany wealth and fame, even if he eventually goes on to make a lots of business.)

re: colorsplash iPhone app
not since i downloaded bejeweled have i become as obsessed with an app. and for the first two hours after watching the tutorial, i furiously splashed color all over every picture i could find and then emailed and mms'ed them to everyone i knew. i'm pretty sure it was obnoxious. the fruits of this labor are shown below. tell me you're not totally blown away by my coolness...i dare you.

i really need a hobby.

re: 2-year olds

chris has a two-year old, and i have recently come to realize that i've forgotten so much about dealing with a kid this age. and i think maybe this forgetfulness is god's way of perpetuating the species.

blocked-out fact #1: the incessant questions. what's that? my watch. your watch? yes. your watch? yes. your watch? (i look away and ignore.) ahnie... (which is what he calls me, and it's VERY cute). AHNIE.... AHHHHNIEEEEE!!!!! yes! what is it????? s'at your watch?

blocked-out fact #2: inability to entertain self. go in the playroom please. (he circles once around the sofa and is back.) you need to go in the playroom and watch the movie you wanted to watch. we put it on and you're not watching it. (he breaks out a head tilt and smile, trying like hell to distract us from the fact that he's not goin' anywhere anytime soon.) go play...in the PLAYROOM, LIKE I SAID! (he pouts, retreats to the playroom and remains there long enough for us to count aloud "three...two...one..." and he's back, predictably with a toy that's "not wohkeen") no, it's not working - it doesn't have any batteries. take it back in the playroom and go watch your movie. (he drops the toy on the floor and stands in front of the television singing.)

blocked out fact #3: refusal to shut up and go to sleep. see, i completely forgot the bloody battles that ensued when my kids were little, trying to get them to stay in the bed and go to sleep. these days, when i call bedtime, my kids are exhausted and know it and are out cold within 5 minutes. not so with the little ones. this 2-year old shares a room with his 3-year old brother, and they fully consider bedtime the hour at which it's time to get this party started. we have a monitor in the bedroom, so we hear it every time they swallow, breathe or roll over. they know this. we tell them this on a daily basis. but as soon as daddy leaves the room, it's like that reality just blinks out of existence. they talk, they sing, they chant, they climb out of bed and clink the blinds around, they throw things, they open drawers and drag things out, they open the door and try to escape...and we hear EVERYTHING. the typical nap time/bedtime smackdown involves at least 3 trips in there to threaten, yell and spank. after each such instance, the mournful sounds of wailing and crying echo through the monitor...for about 60 seconds...after which they abruptly subside and are replaced with talking, singing and chanting, like nothing ever happened. how is it even humanly possible for a memory to be THAT short? you still have a welt on your ass because you were making noise that we heard THROUGH THE MONITOR but you're going to go on ahead and continue on with that plan anyway. really? does it seem like a solid plan to you? really? really really?

re: birth control

i'm a huge fan.

best.calendar.ever

2010-01-11T11:04:00.001-06:00

my friend kate received what may be the best desk calendar in the history of calendars. i was about to make fun of her fluffy kitten calendar when i read the caption, which said, "your baby's ugly" in large, bold letters. the calendar is entitled "breaking bad news with baby animals" and features a weekly photo of an adorable baby animal along with a piece of really bad news. brilliant! the humor is sick to be sure, but sick in the way that i enjoy quite a lot.

following are a few examples:

this is genius, in my opinion. there are others that i enjoyed as well, such as "i used to be a man," "it's syphillis," and "those pants make your butt look big." best part is that each page is a postcard you can mail off to someone at the conclusion of each week.

so let's consider this post informational in nature - you don't have to break bad news the hard way in 2010 - soften the blow with pictures of baby animals. (why wasn't this my idea...???)

the art of wasting time

2010-01-06T14:10:00.002-06:00

i'm sure it is shocking to discover that i suck quite a bit of time in front of the computer doing nothing either socially or morally redeeming. seriously...most of the sites i have bookmarked are pure drivel - entertaining drivel to be sure - but certainly not contributing toward the betterment of society as a whole. so basically, i spend a lot of time looking at sites with content that resembles this blog.

i say all that in the hopes that you're not waiting for an apology for the links i'm about to post. you know what you're getting into. but as such, these are the things i'm totally addicted to of late.

1. engrish.com as it turns out, translating the asian languages into english is really complicated and the results of this exercise are highly entertaining (to me).

2. awkward family photos having seen the photo below, i assume you can figure out why i think this site is so hilarious. there are submissions here that make even the olan mills nightmare below look good, and that's saying something.

3. shit my dad says this is actually a twitter site written by a 29-year old guy who lives with his 73-year old dad. as stated on the site, he just "writes down shit that he says." i can only hope to be this cantankerous when i'm 73, because i'm already pretty sure i'll be as outspoken. new reason to live...

4. people of wal-mart if you're feeling pretty good about the human race, this site is a sure-fire cure. most disturbing to me is the sheer number of photos that were taken in texas. all i can say is...thank god for florida.

5. epic fail after you've spent a day going all the way back to page 1 on this site (oh trust me, you will), you'll find that if you check daily, you may have to slog through a lot of video that is only marginally funny. but every now and again, you come across something like this, which makes it all worthwhile...

6. ugliest tattoos guess what this one's about? i don't have any tattoos personally, and now i'm pretty sure i won't going forward either. if you think you may have come across the dumbest person alive, check this site before you make any bold statements.

7. stuff white people like this one doesn't update as often as i'd like, but if you're new to the site, there's more than enough material to keep you entertained for a while. among my favorites are camping, hating people who wear ed hardy, and black music that black people don't listen to anymore. if none of these speak to you, i'm sure you'll find something that does and will be amazed how white you really are.

okay that's all of the genius i can share today - i don't want anybody to have an intellectual meltdown after checking these sites. they may not make you any smarter, but they will certainly make you FEEL smarter, provided your're not featured therein. and if you are...thanks for the laughs.

blame it on rio

2009-12-30T15:15:00.000-06:00

so my friend rosebud and i got a wild hair (pun totally intended) back in september and decided we'd go together for a waxing. girls talk about absolutely everything, so it shouldn't be any surprise that we'd discussed the notion of getting a brazilian waxing in graphic detail. neither of us had ever had one, hence the notion of going together for moral support. granted, we had no illusions of lying side by side on adjacent tables and holding hands during the procedure - i think you have to pay extra for that type of experience - but it was more the idea that we might never get out of the car and go inside without encouragement from one another.

i ended up being grateful for the xanax i borrowed from a friend (not that i returned it when i was done, but i digress) because the moments before the procedure begins are really the most awkward, oddly enough. i'm just gonna tell it like it was, so stop reading if you're squeamish. (you know you won't, and then you'll be sorry. okay...i DID warn you.)

you gotta get naked from the waist down and lie on your back on the table with your knees apart and the soles of your feet together. i'll give you a minute to get the picture, and two minutes for those with less imagination who actually need to lie down and arrange themselves as such in order to fully understand the vulnerability factor. i've had two babies and countless gynecological exams, and i gotta tell you - this shit is awkward.

the waxing center where we went uses this type of wax that doesn't require the cloth strips - they just lay the wax down with a big popsicle stick, wait for it to dry and then let it rip. it's supposed to be less painful than the traditional waxing method, which is sort of like saying getting cut to the bone with a sharp knife is so much less painful than getting cut to the bone with a dull knife. in all honesty though, i had imagined it so much worse than it actually ended up being. it felt sort of like...well...sort of like having your hair ripped out by the root in big patches. it hurts like a bastard for about two seconds, and then after you resume normal breathing, you're all brave like, "whatever - is that all you got?" it's probably much less convincing when your eyes are watering and your voice is wavering like the first time you watched steel magnolias.

the whole thing lasted 20 minutes tops, and it was all we could do not to high-five or chest bump in the lobby when we were done. somehow, it didn't seem decorous. besides, we were both too high on cool (and xanax) to let anybody know how proud we were of actually getting out of the car, let alone going inside and going through with it. our nonchalance was flawless, and our bravado was enviable, i'm sure.

so onto the part where the male readers, assuming there are any, stop reading. i'd totally recommend it because shaving sucks. we even talked another girl at work into going, and she liked the results but said she wouldn't do it again. as for rosebud and i...we're completely converted. we are available for moral support mondays through fridays, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. for an additional fee, we'll even demonstrate the best way to turn a wince into a tight smile or a scream into something closely resembling a cough. yeah, we got game. hair's to us!

and the award goes to...

2009-12-30T10:30:00.003-06:00

okay yes, i know, i KNOW. i'm a total slacker and i've abandoned my blog. well i'm here now so let's just call it an extended hiatus.

many many things have happened since i channeled courtney love over the summer, which is where i left you...hanging, as it were. the events that transpired over the past 6 months are so bizarre when i look back at how it unfolded, that it's going to be a challenge to summarize and edit for a pg rating.

as you may have surmised, i met a boy. well...a man to be more precise, though he is slightly younger than i. while i won't divulge the details regarding how our paths crossed in the first place, i will say that i met him on MY terms with MY rules and according to MY timeline. i made it crystal clear at the onset that i wasn't looking for a relationship and i had absolutely zero expectations that it would be anything but a good time. and we did have quite a good time, which is all i'll say to that point.

i will admit that i went into the whole thing all hard and cynical. it wasn't romantic, by my design. it wasn't sweet, and i didn't spend my afternoons dreamily doodling his name all over my math book cover. it was more function over form in nature...it was simple and it pleased me in its simplicity.

funny thing about time. you can give somebody the emotional stiff arm for a while, but if you spend enough time together, you start peeling away layers from each other and start to see what's underneath whether you intended to or not. it was pretty disconcerting to discover that i liked what i was seeing under all the defenses...i admired it, i appreciated it, and i was impressed by it. i honestly really didn't think this sort of man existed outside of my father, which adds another layer of horror when i'm forced to consider that i'm dating my dad.

in summary - i'm not the man anymore. i get to be the girl, and as it turns out, i really like it. i have a partner for the first time ever, rather than someone i have to carry or prop up. i am accepted and appreciated for who i am, which i fully realize is no small task. i'm happier than i've been in many, many years. gag if you must - i promise to refrain from such sentimentality going forward, but i indulged myself this once. it must be the girl coming out in me.

finally!

2009-08-05T09:06:00.002-05:00

reunited...and it feels so good.

channeling courtney love

2009-07-21T09:18:00.004-05:00

got invited to a rock and roll costume party on saturday night, so who else in the world would i go as besides courtney love? sadly, this is the only photo that has surfaced to date, and it's sad because it was evidently taken so late in the evening that all my hookery make-up was gone.

it bears noting that the black eyeliner stayed on for over 24 hours...i wasn't sure i could get it off without turpentine. but the bright red smeared lipstick didn't make it very long, clearly.

the other sad part is that the rest of my costume isn't shown here, 'cause it was also pretty hookerific...denim miniskirt and red stilettos. it goes without saying that when we stopped to get gas, i was not the one who got out of the car to pay. thank god we didn't have a flat...this outfit wasn't something i would've enjoyed explaining.

i was initially embarrassed when i saw this photo and realized i was breaking out the shocker, but when i stopped to think about it, i realized this was totally a courtney move, so i figured it was fitting. you really can't take me anywhere...

the greatest part of the evening was the moment we stepped through the front door - i heard wild screaming from the kitchen. "courtney's here, courtney's here!" i couldn't imagine what in the world all the hubbub was about...and then kurt cobain stepped out out into the hallway. what a reunion that was. somebody somewhere surely has a pic of kurt and i together, and i'm dying to see it. if i get my hands on it, i'll post it for sure.

only courtney move i didn't break out (besides the hard drug addiction, of course) was the whole falling down thing. i just knew i'd bust it at some point in those shoes, but i managed to stay on my feet the whole time. is it wrong to be disappointed about that?

falling down on the blog

2009-06-29T09:43:00.007-05:00

i'm still alive. i have nothing to say that's fit for print, but i'm still here. i'm sorry to say that i'm extremely boring - my life is fabulous and i have nothing snarky to say and nothing to complain about. who am i? i feel like a total disappointment.

so i'll make it my mission to get disgruntled about something this week and blog about it ad nauseam.

stacey's in town again for a few days and we totally got the band back together again last night. oh the laughs...oh the phone convos that i don't remember but are showing up on my phone as sent and received. i'm pretty sure we terrorized more than 4 people last night. there's no telling what i said, and i'm more than a little terrified of what's gonna come back to me today. thank god my friends know what they're dealing with and have decided to love me anyway.

as to the "fit for print" part...you'll have to call or email me if you want the deets. this is a family show, after all...

oh grasshopper...

2009-06-05T10:49:00.004-05:00

let me start by saying the whole david carradine thing is very sad - no joke. we were discussing it yesterday around the water cooler, and one of my friends added a piece of info that i hadn't heard yet, which is that he was found in the hotel room nude. first thing i said, being the classy girl that i am, was "maybe he pulled a michael hutchence." then i remembered... dude, he was 72. if that's what he was doing, that's pretty ambitious for such an old guy, right?

so then today my theory is all over the news (i am a genius, by the way). the family's all vocal about how it wasn't intentional suicide...and i won't even put into print what they're claiming went down, but i'm sure you're with me. here's the thing that i didn't understand when hutchence died and don't understand any better about this one. why is auto erotic asphyxiation a better thing to have done than hang yourself? (i know i said i wouldn't put it in print, but there you go...)

is that really a cooler way to go? i wasn't suicidal, but i was all naked and hanging myself in a hotel room and going to town. which sounds better at the funeral? and he was in bangkok...you can buy sex there, so why the solo job in the hotel room? i have so many questions...clearly i'm nowhere near ready to take the pebble from his hand. rip, dude.

i'm just a girl...on a date with her cousin

2009-06-01T09:12:00.002-05:00

it's not QUITE as bad as it sounds. so my cuz asked me to get tickets to no doubt several months ago and i asked our beverage director to talk to the liquor company that sponsors this venue (superpages, nee smirnoff center, nee starplex...but will always be the sweatplex to me). i ususally get tickets when i ask for them this way, but it's always at the last minute. so by the time i got them (friday afternoon for a saturday concert), my cousin's fiancee had already bought tickets to the pit with a friend, and he had planned not to go. so that's how i ended up on a date with my cousin. i can't tell you how tempting it was just to forget to tell him and get a real date, but blood is thicker than water, and besides that, i'd never live it down. he'd give me hell FOREVER.

two opening acts - the sounds and paramore. i'm too lazy to google, but i'm pretty sure that paramore has a huge twilight following, because all the teenage girls and tweens knew EVERY word to EVERY song...what else could it be? they were pretty good, and i knew a couple of songs...but this was excessive. i even heard a group of them say, "i'm outta here," after they left the stage. really? teen angst is still hilarious.

no doubt was fabulous. i'm sorry - i can't even hate gwen stefani for being so cute and stylish because she was so talented and (seemingly) down-to-earth and nice. their final encore was an adam ant song (stand and deliver) that i'm pretty sure all the tweens around us thought was an unreleased song of theirs. wonder how much time they spent on itunes trying to find that on saturday night? "hey yo taylor, i found that song but this weird guy with a white stripe on his face and braids keeps coming up instead of gwen...i don't get it. dude, he totally STOLE her song!" teenagers are so stupid.

the only minus for the evening was the fact that my babysitter was texting me every 15 minutes wanting to know when i'd be home. honestly...i can't stand the sitter that i ended up with, and the boys don't much like her either, but the two that i like weren't available. so i ended up with texty texterson. leave me alone! it's not like the kids weren't already asleep anyway. but i digress...

the saddest part of the evening is the fact that my cousin wasn't the worst date i've ever had...but i'm not going to think about that too much. with our family history, nothing good can come of it.

the band got back together

2009-05-27T15:31:00.004-05:00

my best friend from tampa came in over the weekend and i'm still in self-imposed rehab. not really, but i just kinda enjoy saying that.

highlights were as follows:

two margarita lunch on friday followed by tipsy shopping (got the cutest dress EVER) and mani-pedis, followed by coma nap and dinner at one of my steakhouses. we decided on the "chef's table" for dinner, and that's where he brings out whatever he's working on or feels like, so not only was it a surprise, it was FABULOUS. thank you, tommy.

then on saturday we headed to the lakehouse where we were joined by my mom, crazy theresa and her mom shelly. thank god this place is out in the woods, 'cause we were loud. i tried to talk my cousin who is the chief of police in that town to come out in his car with his lights on and pretend to arrest theresa, but he wouldn't do it. he's such a buzz-kill sometimes.

sunday consisted primarily of recovery and tv - and the kids came home. henry loves his aunt 'tacey, and he was in rare form. at one point in the day he called us hippies, and i asked him if he even knew what a hippie was. "of course i do - it's somebody that doesn't have cable." he was also in temporary hot water earlier that day because of some derogatory remark he made about our figures, but he got out of it in a hurry.

stacey: henry, be very careful with this spaghetti - it's very hot.

henry: hotter than you?

stacey: you're not in trouble anymore.

yep...i made that kid.

now we're planning my 40th birthday blowout in the fall, and aunt 'tacey is in charge - i'm afraid. i mean, it's not like i need any help humiliating myself in public, but i'm trusting her (perhaps foolishly) to keep some semblance of decorum surrounding the event. who am i kidding? it'll be ugly. who wants to come?

everything's coming up millhouse...

2009-05-14T09:46:00.003-05:00

my life is fun of late. spring is here, and i'm feeling full of positive thoughts. i'll try not to trigger your gag reflex with my cloying and over-the-top sunny disposition, but i'm feelin' it.

for a starter, i've lost close to 10 lbs and am totally in the zone. turns out, all you have to do is not eat - who knew? i see skinny jeans in my future. i'm feeling so full of myself that i bought myself a killer pair of red high heels. i ordered them from zappos, so i'm not sure if i'll be able to walk in them yet, but at least i'll look hot while i fall down.

i've also had tremendous laughs this week, watching and rewatching the snl digital short from saturday. if you haven't seen it, stop everything and check it out. i only wish i'd thought of it because it's pure irreverent genius.

in keeping with the spirit of spring fever, i also have put a toe in the man pool. it's been so long since i've been out there, it's all very new and yet oddly reminiscent of days (long) gone by. the boys haven't changed, but i certainly have. i know what i want and what i don't want, and i'm not shy about expressing it. i think i might be a little scary. it's so much fun, especially having ZERO long-term designs...no pressure, just good times. i've been a little slow on the uptake in figuring some things out, but i'm getting there. i had completely forgotten what a rush the pursuit can be.

i'm headed to austin for a weekend with the gays, and i couldn't be more excited. i haven't been in about 2 years, i think, which is pitiful. we're going for mani-pedis on saturday and then we'll hook up with gay prom date and his partner and an old high school friend that night. i have a fabulous dress all picked out so that i can be the queen of the queens. they even agreed to take me around to some places where hetero males will be, so i'll have the best of both worlds. look for obnoxious mobile uploads this weekend.

if you haven't thrown up yet, go on and get it over with. i feel like is should apologize, but i'm not going to. my hair just looks too good today to be apologetic...

i can't take no mow

2009-05-10T20:20:00.003-05:00

in keeping with my fervent assertion that i don't need a man, i took on the lawn for the first time last night. it didn't go well.

for a starter, i took me 15 minutes to get the damn thing cranked up. i almost pulled my shoulder out of socket yanking on the stupid cord, and i'm pretty sure i flooded it at least 3 times. i was exhausted by the time i got the thing running.

so going in a straight line isn't so bad, but i'm still not sure how to turn the thing with any level of success. i watched my dad do it and it looks so easy. i'm pretty sure i looked like austin powers trying to turn his cart around in a really narrow hallway...forward, reverse, forward, reverse...until you're completely wedged in.

and let's talk about the weight of the mower. while the one i was using was self-propelled, that's not much help when you're trying to drag it backwards to get the huge swath you missed when you lifted a hand to wipe the sweat out of your eyes.

i know i'm out of shape, but i seriously thought i was about to have an aneurysm before i could finish. i was covered in sweat, grass and mud, and my face was a really interesting shade of aubergine. today i'm so sore i can barely lift my cranking arm, and i still have dirt under my fingernails, even after my shower.

the worst part is that it doesn't even look that good. i didn't blow, i didn't weedeat, and there is more than one little patch of high grass that i couldn't muster the energy to go back for. needless to say, i'm SO over the notion of cutting my own grass. i'll cut something extraneous out of the budget like electricity or food in order to afford to pay somebody to do it. i may be hot and hungry, but at least i won't be behind that mower again anytime soon. if i still can't afford it, i'll just get a goat. not only do they take care of your lawn for you, but it's a great way to really get to know your neighbors.

hair i am!

2009-05-01T14:23:00.008-05:00

i got wind of a website today that lets you upload your photo and try different hairstyles on your face. needless to say, i had to get right on it. my favorite part was the celebrity hairstyles. i looked so good in all of them that it's hard to choose which one i'll be requesting at my next haircut appointment. maybe i'll set up a poll...

is that a songbird i hear? no, it's mariah carey! that's right, mimi is on the scene looking smashing in a sleeveless green cotton sweater that's perfect for...uh...standing out in the middle of a field.

look out mariah, beyonce's back in the big apple and strutting her stuff in this flawless green cotton sweater...oh, how embarrassing!

oh no she di'int! tyra's on set for a photo shoot sporting the same green sweater. somebody needs to call her stylist.

hey tweens - it's miley! she's surfside today looking adorable in this green sweater...when did her boobs get so big? huh...

here's one lady who could use a good stylist - lady gaga has gone ultra conservative in this green sweater that she evidently borrowed from miley. while it may not be her most flattering look, at least her coochie isn't hanging out in this photo.

i know it's going to be hard to pick - like i said...all so attractive. let the record show that i no longer own this green sweater, and i think we all know why.

angie who?

2009-04-27T14:04:00.004-05:00

it's aging indignity time again, people. i get to go to the hospital tomorrow for an angiogram so the doc can take a look at my renal arteries. jealous? just wait 'til i tell you the deets.

first of all, i have to be there at 11:30 for a 1:30 procedure that lasts approximately 2 hours. can't eat tonight after midnight, so tomorrow will be a long, hungry day. secondly, they're not putting me under for this thing. really? can i request it? they're just giving me a local to the "area of insertion", which is at the top of the front of my leg. then they'll run a catheter to my kidney (which is kind of a long way, by my estimation...) and shoot me full of contrast dye so they can check out my goodies.

doc thinks i might have what's called... fibro... something... dysplasia... something. that's the medical term. in layman's terms, it's where muscle fibers grow over an artery and constrict the blood flow, which raises blood pressure. they don't know what causes it, but it happens to women more than men, which is yet another reason to love being a woman. so if they get in there and i do have it, he'll just blow up a balloon in my artery and tear away the fibers. now i KNOW you're so jealous you can't stand it. and wait 'til i get the bill! there are just so many cool things about it, i'm not sure where to start.

and in closing, my doc's name is abraham jacob and wears an earring. and he's from lubbock. you can't front on that!

more point, less power

2009-04-22T14:08:00.006-05:00

i meet with salespeople all the time - it's my job. most of the time, it's painless, and sometimes, it's even enjoyable. for the most part, salespeople figure out pretty quickly that i like to get to the point, keep it brief, and then we're all done. usually the younger salespeople get it...they move faster, talk faster and have places to be.

there's still a generation of salespeople out there, however, who are inexplicably clinging to some old methods that are actually counterproductive. when i hear the words, "i put together a powerpoint presentation to show you a little bit about who we are and what we do...," i literally want to get under my desk. i certainly stop listening. my eyes glaze over and sometimes, i actually float out of my body and look down at myself not watching the presentation. and then even my soul gets bored.

so i start working on my computer, looking up to glance at the cover page with my company name on it. i also nod every so often. (i don't want to be rude...) i actually found the graphic for this post during the 4 pages of company history. i managed to look up at the production locations dot map while checking my bank account balance. i got halfway through this post during the customer testimonials pages. i can multitask like a bastard.

powerpoint sucks. you should see how many results i had from the google image search "powerpoint sucks". why? because it sucks! it's boring, and it's not any less boring if your bullet points fade in or pop from left or wipe right. nobody's reading them anyway.

the only insult worse than breaking out the laptop is printing out your powerpoint presentation and handing a copy to each person in the group (commonly known as "paperpoint") - not only are you boring, but you're killing trees while being boring. actually, now that i think about it, it's not all bad - while the salesperson is going through the company org chart, you can flip ahead to the one slide in the presentation that actually contains relevant information.

if you're in sales, please don't be offended. consider this post a free tip that you can put into practice immediately. and in closing, i have prepared my own powerpoint presentation for all powerpoint users everywhere.

mistah numbah two

2009-04-20T15:40:00.002-05:00

it's been a while since my project reunion post and subsequent update with the one measly response i had. but here it is 8 months later and i have another success story - well, sort of.

thank god for facebook - i finally found todd lane (pictured here with me in my extremely short light pink windshorts...so hot). get this - he emails me back and said he feels awful because i did get the address right last summer, and he's been carrying around my letter in his briefcase meaning to email me but kept forgetting. men. so typical.

anyway, he does live here locally and i'm hoping to meet up with him at some point and catch up. he looks exactly the same, except there's quite a lot less hair. and i look exactly the same as well...except there's quite a lot more ass. eh, what can you do? getting older is a bitch.

so this means i only have one person left to track down in order to fulfill my mission. robert cowan, where are you?

i only have time for a quickie

2009-04-16T09:24:00.004-05:00

i probably don't have time to even organize my thoughts today, so this may just be another random dissertation. there's nothing huge going on, but there are always lots of little things worth noting, and in no particular order...here you go.

i rsvp'ed "2" to a wedding, and i have no date. it was a leap of faith, actually, so now i have less than a month to find somebody fabulous to take with me. i love a good wedding, and i refuse to go alone. my fallback has always been to take a girlfriend, but after the christmas party debacle, i can't afford to generate any more false rumors with regard to my sexual preference. i wonder if this is why i don't have a date in the first place....so i think it's important that i show up with a hot guy who's not gay or related to me. i'm starting to think of it less in terms of a wedding date and more like a mission statement. i'm here, i'm not queer...get used to it.

i think my grandma might be losing it. she showed up at our family fish fry with a pair of purple medical gloves in her purse that she wore while washing dishes. that's not so weird...but the fact that she kept them on while she ate, and then after the dishes were done was pretty weird. and then when she made to leave, my mom told her, "be careful." she turned around and replied completely without brevity, "don't tell me what to do." i'm not exactly sure where to file all that.

i'm working on an unbelievable project at work, since uniforms is one of my gigs. i'm trying to come up with a cocktail outfit that "looks like something you'd see in vegas, but classier." and yet they'd like the outfit to include fishnet stockings. how do you translate fishnets from hooker into high class call girl? this is my assignment...kill me. i think i'd like to go back to negotiating toilet paper contracts.

whoever said there's no such thing as a stupid question was dead wrong. there are lots of stupid questions, and i find myself forced to answer an assload of them politely every day. is there a professional way to express that i'm pretty sure you might be a moron? what if i end it with "sir"? would that work?

my cousin is now engaged, and i graciously volunteered to play the spoons at his reception. or the harmonica...i'm torn really, because i'm also great at washboard and hambone.

peace out.

top 10 worst kids shows

2009-04-03T15:03:00.018-05:00

the tv is always on in my house - typically in two rooms, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's anybody watching either one. and god forbid you turn it off or change the channel. they're also always on at the loudest possible volume ever. and then they stand right in front of it. i really don't understand.

at any rate, as a result of the above stated facts, i have become far more familiar with some of their favorite shows than i care to be. i won't lie to you - i've been known to enjoy a spongebob episode here or a blue's clues there...but there are some that make me absolutely homicidal. so of course, below is that list.

10. the naked brothers band. for a starter, these kids are punks. they're little wanna be tween idols, and the younger one isn't even 10 yet. there's something more than a little disturbing about that. no 7-year-old should ever be thought of as "sexy". also, their music is bad...worse than jonas brothers bad. and lastly - get a haircut.

9. dora the explorer. wait before you get all pissed off - just hear me out. in theory, i really like this show. it teaches kids spanish, and that's really cool. plus she has a monkey, which is every kid's dream. the problem i have with dora is her voice. she shouts everything - why? it makes me tense to listen to her. and when you combine that shouting with the volume turned up too high, listening to her becomes excruciating. lo siento, dora. no me gusta.

8. max & ruby. ruby is bossy and annoying, and max is kind of a dick. sometimes i think he deserves to get bossed around all the time. also, horrible clothes.

7. oobi. what kind of low-budget shit is this? what kind of craft show moron came up with this idea? i'd like to find out and give them a piece of my mind. thankfully, my kids even hate this show so i don't have to endure it on a regular basis.

6. lazy town. this show kinda freaks me out. the girl is cute in that innocent, pre-pubescent way, but probably a little too old to be hanging out with this 40something hero dude in a really tight jumpsuit without arousing suspicion. something about this whole scenario just isn't quite right. what exactly is he saving her from, in reality? her virginity? the whole thing is highly suspect.

5. pokemon. i'm suffering through this on a regular basis because henry's obsessed with all things pokemon. so i decided to give it a try and see what all the fuss is about. mistake. it's beyond annoying. the characters' eyes don't move at all, and some of them aren't even open. really? the sounds of these pokemon things battling is enough to make you wish you were deaf. it's all very japanese...so of course i blame the japanese for my pain.

4. yo gabba gabba. do i even have to go into why this is annoying? and i saw on an ad that jack black is going to guest star in an episode...dude, what are you thinking?

3. zach & cody. where do i start on this one? this is another i have to endure 19 times a day, and i've seen (or heard) every episode at least 3 times. it's horrible. the kids are horrible, the plots are horrible, the canned laugh lines are horrible, the show is just HORRIBLE. charlie hates it, so henry loves it even more. i like to call it, among other things, zach and crappy, or crap and crappy, or TURN THE CHANNEL.

2. fairly oddparents. i loathe this show with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. the premise is stupid, the characters are ugly, and their voices hurt me physically. seriously. they sound like primeval screeching animals. and what gives with the fairy husband? everybody knows he's gay...why pretend? seems to me it's only natural for a fairy to be gay, so what's the big d?

1. the wiggles. no list of sucky things would be complete without these douchebags. henry liked this show, so i endured quite a lot of it back in the day. after charlie was born, i made it my life's mission to make sure he never learned of their existence...to date, i've been successful. if you can make it through an entire episode of this crap, there may be something seriously wrong with you. i'm not kidding - see a doctor immediately. and the worst part of it is that if you're forced to watch any of it, their idiotic songs run through your mind all day. you'll find yourself humming "fruit salad, yummy yummy" or "big red car" and then of course contemplate suicide as the only solution. i'm not for sure, but i think one or more of them may be the antichrist.

so to all parents of young kids out there...i feel your pain. maybe we should form a coalition to ban this sort of programming from the airwaves. anybody with me?

if only it worked in real life...

2009-04-02T13:24:00.005-05:00

i guess i'm sort of a dimwit about some things, because i learned something today that a) i already should've known or at least b) suspected was possible so that i could c) find out how to do it.

it's such a simple thing, and i did it. and i've never been happier or more free. i'm talking on the phone with my cousin today about the really annoying fb friends who are chronic status updaters and it's never interesting, or it's not quite weird enough to enjoy making fun of. this is when he made the comment that changed everything...

"i had to start getting rid of some of those people," he said nonchalantly.

"WHAT? you can do that?"

"sure," he said. "you just go to your friend list and delete them and it doesn't even notify them that you're doing it."

how great is that? bye bye weird high school guy that i don't remember. bye bye other weird high school guy who sends me emails. bye bye strange person from elementary school that i barely remember and who wants everyone to pray for her pets. ('cause i gotta tell you...i might pray for a dying baby or even you if it's serious enough...but in all honesty, i don't have it in me to pray for your dog. i'm sorry. i'm just not that big of a person. and shame on you for thinking that i might be. see, now look how much energy i expended on this and i barely even know her! thankfully she's out of my life now.)

and it was so easy...one click and they're gone. no confrontation, no announcement, no argument or hurt feelings. just like that - poof! you don't have to think about them ever again. if anybody ever develops the real life version of this feature, i'm SO buying it. and if they do, please remember not to piss me off if you ever want to see me again!

get bent

2009-03-30T15:34:00.005-05:00

i've decided that it's not enough to bore the shit out of you on facebook with the story of my fender-bender. i have to bore the shit out of you on my blog as well. it's my version of the circle of life, so deal with it. and it bears noting that i blurred out my license plate number for this posting - i'm talking to you, facebook stalker!

so there it is. the mom-mobile suffers yet another indignity. as if the milk vomit, cheerios, red fruit punch, happy meal trash and broken magazine holders aren't enough. oh no. let's jack up the outside as well, so that not just the people who ride in the car will know i'm white trash...now everybody i pass in traffic can share in that knowledge.

and on a monday morning too. seriously, god? really? wow...

every attorney i know is emailing me and telling me to go straight to a doctor, but i'm just not that person. i will probably have a stiff neck tomorrow, but i'm pretty sure the 10 mph impact didn't leave me with any internal injuries, bleeding or otherwise. and the poor kid who hit me was a mess. "i'm SO sorry...i feel terrible...i can't believe i did this.., etc" i just didn't have the heart to whip out the neck brace and throw myself dramatically to the pavement. i think he might've wet himself on the spot, and that's just another problem i don't need. i'm counting on karma to get my back on this one. well...karma and farmer's insurance.

hey, it could've been worse. the kids could've been in the car (and screaming and flailing), which they weren't. i could've been hurt, which i wasn't (to date). the other driver could've been in the u.s. illegally and driving without a valid license or proof of insurance, which he wasn't. little white bread was all current on his insurance. so look - it's a pain in the ass and a major annoyance, but all in all, it's not the worst thing that could've happened to me. in fact, taking the kids to wal-mart over the weekend was probably much more stress inducing and only slightly less pleasant.

don't look where i'm pointing

2009-03-24T11:00:00.004-05:00

if you haven't seen the simpson's movie, this blog post title may forever be a mystery to you. i can tell you that it's related to the graphic, and sadly that this particular graphic has new meaning to me.

it started out innocently enough. henry and i were throwing the football in the backyard, and henry decided it would improve his game if he removed his shirt (evidently this phenomenon starts very early in males). so of course charlie had to take his shirt off as well. then charlie managed to get the outdoor spigot opened up enough to soak his pants, which he found distasteful (i wet) and so off they went as well. so now he's wandering around in a diaper. no big deal - he's hanging in the backyard and in the house, so no worries.

i call timeout to go inside and load some dirty dishes into the dishwasher when i hear the front door open and close, and i realize that charlie's outside in the front wearing only a diaper, and he's got a healthy head start on me. so i tear through the house and out the front with henry on my heels, already laughing because his brother is outside and almost naked. i can tell he's prepared to encourage this scene, so i pick up my speed.

right about the time i round the corner and head down the sidewalk, i remember that i'm wearing these old everlast gym shorts with a drawstring waist that's always too loose...and i remember this fact because they're dangerously close to falling down around my ankles as i run. so i have to stop every few steps to hike up my shorts so i don't end up without my pants as well. this is a problem for me because it seriously impedes my pursuit.

suddenly he stops in the neighbors' front yard, and i stop. i hold my breath, trying to figure out how to get on top of him before he spooks and makes to flee. henry's caught up to him at this point, but he's not helping. he's laughing...hysterically. and this makes charlie proud, of course, that he's amused his brother and annoyed his mother. i can see the wheels turning in his head now, contemplating a grand finale before he's caught and dragged back into the house.

then i see his hands drop down to his diaper. "no!" i shout with outstretched arms, and it's like one of those weird slow motion things where time slows down and you realize with horror exactly what's going to happen the moment before it happens, and yet you're powerless to stop it. in my head i'm repeating over and over again, "not the diaper, not the diaper, not the diaper..." and then whoosh...there it goes.

i think i might've blacked out for a second or something because everything went suddenly silent, and then gradually started coming back. henry's bent over double in hysterics, and i remember wondering if he was going to wet himself. i become aware that a car has turned onto our street and is heading toward us...the naked kid, the laughing lunatic and the woman who's furiously yanking up her shorts while running and screaming. evidently those people didn't have cps on speed dial because we're all still here and nobody's been placed into foster care at this point.

i assume someday this will be funny. i HAVE to assume that in order to maintain my sanity. in the meantime, i'm plotting my revenge. i haven't nailed down the specifics yet, but in general, the plan involves streaking through my nursing home on mother's day when they're there to visit me with their families. yeah...that oughtta do it.

the deep end of the aquarium

2009-03-18T15:46:00.007-05:00

henry's on spring break this week and my parents (either graciously or foolishly...the jury's still out) offered to take the boys for a week at their house. so i was thinking...woohoo! spring break!

how many times a day am i wishing for a little peace and quiet...yearning to have a telephone conversation without being interrupted 17 times...wishing that just once, i could go to the bathroom without an entourage. i could go out for drinks. i could go to the movies. i could entertain. i could go to the grocery store with no fear of hearing my name paged over the intercom. it was a tantalizing prospect, this aloneness.

turns out it's awful quiet being alone. there was nobody to talk to. granted, i did far less yelling and threatening, but it starts getting weird after a while. i thought it might make me feel better if i made a little noise, so i cranked up my ipod and experimented with singing along at the top of my lungs. i'm sure it was bad, but there was nobody to tell me to shut up because i'm clearly tone-deaf. and though i'm sure i looked like a raving lunatic with my singing (bad) and dancing (worse), there was no one to see it (or tape it as evidence in a commitment hearing).

then i had an epiphany - there WAS someone i could talk to. well maybe not someONE, but certainly someTHING. a living thing, in fact. so i headed straight for henry's room and likely scared the living shit out of his red betta fish named swimmy. "hiiiii swiiiimmyyyyy...how are you today?" no reply, but he did head as far away from my face as possible in a 2 gallon bowl. maybe i shouldn't have pressed my nose up against it like that.

"are you hungry, swimmy?" still no reply. swimmy clearly wasn't a great conversationalist. in fact, he only feigned interest in my presence long enough to get me to feed his fat ass (do fish have asses?), then he turned his back on me (do fish have backs?) and pretended i wasn't there. but i showed him - i pointed my finger at the bowl and said, "well screw you too, mister. i'm outta here!" and i stormed right out of the room, leaving him alone to think about his transgressions.

thankfully, my kids are coming home today. i wonder how long it'll take for me to get on their nerves with the talking and the hugging and the following them around...? i'm sure swimmy will be relieved to fade away into the background din to be ignored for days on end once more. i, on the other hand, can't wait to fling myself back into the fray and try to tickle my way out. up with kids, down with fish.

this, that and what have you

2009-03-16T13:57:00.005-05:00

several things occur to me of late, as follows:

there's nothing like a funeral to bring out all the kooks in your family. good LORD. it's sobering as hell to have to face some of the things that are evidently swimming around in your own gene pool. and the ones related by marriage are better only in that you can take some small comfort in the knowledge that you're not related to them by blood.

i'm pretty sure one of my relatives by marriage is a serial killer. i could go on, but i'm a little too afraid.

i don't think you should use the word "suck" in a pop song, particularly in the title. besides being low brow, it really undermines your angst. yeah, i'm talkin' to you, kelly clarkson.

i don't think white people should use the word "shawty". can we not let black people have anything? and who do you think you're fooling anyway? at some point, we'll see you dancing and it'll be obvious that you're very white. wow, jesse mccartney...dude, you're from the disney channel. really? that's all i can say.

last week i got a fortune cookie that read, "flies don't enter a closed mouth". i thought about being offended, but then realized i must've gotten someone else's cookie by mistake.

after the funeral, i talked to my cousins about the potluck dinner ahead of us. i told them i wasn't a fan of the potluck in general, and one of my cousins asked me why. i explained that i'm not totally comfortable eating food when i don't know the cook and haven't seen the state of the kitchen it came out of. he nodded in agreement and added three simple words - cat hair salad. there's nothing i can say to make that any clearer. at least there's one genius in my family.

fb phenomena explored

2009-03-03T14:02:00.007-06:00

i'm willing to admit i need to get out more - okay, there. i said it. case in point: my last two blogs are about facebook. it promotes itself as a social utility to connect people, but in reality it's just me sitting alone in front of my computer (or iPhone) and my friends (both real and fb only) sitting alone in front of their computers in different parts of the world spying on one another.

it's sort of like cyber-peeping, except that the people you're spying on can control what you see, and vice versa. birthday? yes. birth year? NO. photos? maybe...but only flattering ones. and then what's to stop you from completely fabricating the rest in order to appear smarter or more interesting? favorite books? war and peace, advanced post-doctorate quantum physics, anything by kafka. really? 'cause i'm willing to bet the last thing you read cover to cover was last week's people magazine. we'll call this "fb phenom #1 - i am what i say i am."

i've also noticed that some people hardly ever (if ever) have a status update, while other people update their status every time they go to the bathroom. you know the type...

6:15 a.m. emily is hitting snooze
6:29 a.m. emily is hitting snooze again
7:00 a.m. emily just let out the cat
7:02 a.m. emily doesn't have a cat and wonders why there was one in her house.
7:15 a.m. emily is having starbucks coffee
(7:16 a.m. emily became a fan of starbucks coffee)
8:00 a.m. emily is reading last week's people magazine. jennifer aniston's hair is SO much cuter than kafka's!!!!
(8:01 a.m. emily became a fan of people magazine)
(8:02 a.m. emily became a fan of jennifer aniston's hair)

if you have fb friends, then you have at LEAST one of these people scrolling across your "news updates" paragraph at least 7 times a day. try this out - pick your most flagrant offender of what we'll call "fb phenom #2 - everyone is riveted by the minutiae of my day", and compile their status updates for a few days. then, share this information with other friends (who don't know the friend in question)...it's highly entertaining.

not to beat a dead horse, but what about the people you don't know who want to befriend (stalk) you? YES, I HAVE READ MY OWN POST BELOW, but that's different because mr. bromstad is a t.v. star and therefore has brought this phenomenon upon himself. and as mentioned in an earlier post, friends of friends are okay in my book, as long as i've heard of you. (i can justify anything, in case you were wondering...) friend requesting is one thing, but sending me fb emails or attempting to fb chat with me is entirely another. granted, i've only had a couple of instances of this, but it kinda freaks me out. if i don't remember EVER having a convo with you in high school, chances are we never did have one, ergo...why now? is it because you suffer from "fb phenom #3 - i'm kind of a loser and am desperate to hook up with anyone who will talk to me"?

these are my observations to date, but i'm sure there are many others that i've overlooked. please feel free to share your own by clicking on comments below, which i find to be a method of conversing that is far superior to the superpoke.

zero degrees of separation

2009-02-25T11:14:00.007-06:00

i have taken dork to a whole new level. as you know from previous posts, i am obsessed with david bromstad and his show on hgtv called color splash. if it's possible, i think i might be his biggest hag, i mean fan.

on a lark, i searched for him on facebook, and he has a page. i sort of expected it to be a fan page or something, but it's just a personal page. he has over 4,000 friends, so i figured why not and added him. i confessed this to betsy last night on the phone and we both laughed at me - hard.

well go ahead and laugh people, because he accepted my friend request. that's right - david and i are now very close personal friends. i expect a phone call anytime now. he'll probably want to dash right down to texas to redo my home, courtesy of hgtv, of course. it's a miracle he accepted, since i followed up the friend request with a little note swearing i was not a stalker, just a huge fan. mwa ha ha ha ha...he'll find out the truth soon enough.

i guess that week on the yacht really did improve my social status in the world, now that i have tv stars as my facebook friends. so hate on people, but please run all your poison pen letters through my agent.

p.s. look at his fb profile pic - holla!

i don't feel tardy

2009-02-19T14:27:00.003-06:00

when i was growing up, i wasn't late. i wasn't allowed. i was either out to the car before it pulled out, or ELSE. so clearly this frees me up to blame my dad for the fact that i'm uptight about punctuality.

my eldest is a dawdler - in the extreme. he gets up and turns on the tv, putzes around, irritates his brother, has a little breakfast, irritates his brother some more, gets half dressed, makes his brother scream, gets another sock on, messes with his hair and makes faces in the mirror, etc. etc. he could be up two hours before it's time to leave for school and he still wouldn't have his teeth brushed. it makes me INSANE. and when i say "insane", i mean full-on, head spinning around, rosemary's baby NUTSO.

i had to laugh about this morning's episode (after my blood pressure had returned to the land of normal) because i really did let it get all over me. it's one of those moments that you look back on thanking god there was no hidden camera in the car, because that shit would be embarrassing. i think i channeled my mother...or her mother...or every mother in my collective genealogy.

he couldn't find his shoes, okay? it was time to go, the very last minute to get out the door in order to get him to school on time, and the child has no shoes. i'd been telling him for an hour to get dressed and asking if he had his shoes on...and still i got nothin'.

he finally found and put on an old pair while i was out in the driveway revving the car. the two block commute was probably, for him, the longest car ride in the history of the automobile. the entire way there, i was giving him the business. i don't even think i stopped to take a breath, and my voice was all high and pitchy.

are you happy now because you're going to be late and it's YOUR fault, and when you get to school and the teacher hands you your tardy slip you need to write down that you were late because you were disobedient and disrespectful to your mother and she told you to get ready and you didn't do it because you didn't have your crap together and that's why you're late because you were just screwing around instead of doing what you were TOLD to do which was to get ready and you didn't so now you're late! you write exactly THAT on the tardy slip, do you understand me?

his reply?

we don't have to write anything on the tardy slip. she just gives it to us and that's all.

i guess i got my point across.

virgin gorda and the nudie man

2009-02-18T09:15:00.011-06:00

my favorite day started late. i crawled out of bed at the crack of noon to find that all the other passengers had tendered over to the bitter end, and i was alone on the boat with the crew. aces! don't get me wrong - i love the other passengers to death, but i was in a bad mood (don't ask) and wasn't feeling very social. jill was making daiquiris with fresh mango, which was just what the doctor ordered. breakfast IS the most important meal of the day, after all. my mood improved rapidly, as did my sociability.

after lunch, we pulled anchor and started toward virgin gorda for a visit to the baths. the seas were pretty rough, so we had to jump off the side of the tender and swim for it. we're very athletic.

so we looked like wet dogs when we washed ashore. no extra charge for this shot of francisco's finger in the shot.

it was beautiful. we wandered through the trails, over the rocks and into the baths, stopping only for dips in the pools and photo ops.

like the posey leg? bruises are sexy - i don't care what you say! what's that? nudie man? i'm getting to it, okay!

i think this was the corner we rounded when we first encountered nudie man. note the shameless showcasing of the yacht in the distance.

this wasn't our first nudie encounter - we'd seen some nudies in the distance at little magen's bay, which is where the nudies hang out. but we were up close and personal with this one. we rounded the corner and there he was...in all his glory (?). okay, look - i get it. american's are very uptight about nudity, and i'm willing to roll with it - really i am. but he seemed startled and positively dismayed that we'd stumbled up on him. really? this isn't exactly a private beach, dude. if you're gonna hang it out there (literally and figuratively), then at least have the decency to act cool about it. be proud or put your pants on - that's all i'm trying to say.

we finally reached the beach and took a breather.

bradley took this opportunity to look contemplative.

francisco, who swims like a dolphin, took this opportunity to show off by jumping off a high rock and swimming around to the beach. we were all duly impressed. it's hard to see in his photo, but he's in mid-air on his way down.

on our way back, we ran into nudie man again. again, he was both startled and disconcerted. it was bad enough the first time (as previously discussed). i was almost indignant the second time. did he think we wouldn't have to go back from whence we came?

thankfully, there are no photos of us getting back up into the tender. i'm not gonna lie to you - it wasn't pretty. francisco had to swim out and help us all crawl in because the surf was so rough. in my minds eye, i keep seeing the sea lion act at seaworld when i picture hauling myself up the ladder. if not for the daiquiris (and margaritas and bloody marys), i would've been in a blind panic for sure. the important lesson i took away from this day is that fruity drinks aren't just pretty and fun to drink - they can also save your life. who knew?

ivan's (the terrible)

2009-02-10T10:55:00.011-06:00

after yesterday's overwhelming positive response to my inappropriateness, i have the perfect story for today. it's chock full o' bad ideas, bad words and BAD pictures. it is, in essence, the trifecta of BAD. enjoy, my friends...

so the first night out we scrapped the idea of the soggy dollar bar because reports came back that it was lame that night. instead, we went to a local bar on the beach called ivan's on jost van dyke (yet another place we visited that i forgot about). things went downhill fast as i turned around to see my mom dancing with some random rasta dude...

being an equal opportunity gal, she eventually changed partners and moved on to chef bradley. and if you're wondering...no, she was not wearing pants. when i say ivan's was casual, i'm truly understating the dress code.

i guess mom's pants-free stylin' got everybody inspired, because then the real tomfoolery began. seen below is bain rockin' the hizzy with hannah and jill, aka MY GIRLS. look at those moves...where IS your other hand, sir?

not to be outdone, orval shook his groove thang as well, both solo with hannah, and then two-on-one. orval, you DOG.

since dancing is such hard work, and acting a fool is even more tiring, bain, mom and orval headed back to the boat after an hour or so. and then it got stupider.

i was sitting with my girls, chef bradley and captain john, minding my own business, when i turned to see that the seat directly to my left had become occupied, so much so that this guy was half in my lap. my girls thought it was funny and ran over to visit but were immediately rebuffed by the stranger (and have you SEEN my girls...???) so he could concentrate his efforts solely on winning my affections.

he asked my name and i told him. i asked his name and he replied, "L.E."

"L.E.?" i asked? "what's that stand for?"

"love emily." i shit you not. and it went south from there. it went so far south, in fact, that i think it circled the earth and came back up the other side. i was counting on chef and captain to bail me out of what rapidly became a REAL uncomfortable situation, but their heroism was seriously impeded by the fact that they couldn't even breathe because they were laughing so hard.

i was hoping that between all of us, we could commit to memory the unbelievable crap this guy was shoveling, because it was hilarious. he rapped at me, people. that's right - RAPPED. every come-on line rhymed, and i WISH i had some way of recording it for posterity. alas, all we could piece together the next day were the following tidbits:

1. i'm built like a black girl

2. i could make a grilled cheese sandwich between my thighs

3. i may not have my cherry, but i still have the box it came in.

so i got all that goin' for me. and to make matters worse, the guy wasn't even hot. in fact, he was wearing a t-shirt that said "put your whole mouth over da hole". evidently he's the son of this island guy named foxy that owns a famous bar there, but somehow that and his charm just weren't enough to get the job done. (does that ever really work? and on whom? these are the things that keep me up at night.) here's our engagement photo:

jealous? uh huh...yeah. also featured prominently in this photo is my raccoon sunburn. is it really any WONDER he was so attracted to me? i mean, besides the thighs...? thank god i wore pants.

i blog, therefore i am

2009-02-09T12:54:00.003-06:00

i promise to try to make this post a forum for discussion rather than the rant that i'm hearing in my head. wish me luck.

i was asked not long ago to "be aware" of what i'm blogging because someone who read it thought it was inappropriate. the person who read it is not someone who i would consider to be my audience, and i never shared the blog address with them - how they came across it i may never know. having said that, i fully realize a blog is a public thing and i understand that people i've never met will read what i write.

the blog in question was a true story, and one from my life about my experiences. this particular post didn't criticize anyone, and was basically just me storytelling something i found to be funny...something about me that happened to me. so...i understand that all my content may not be considered "appropriate" by everyone, but that's okay by me. if you don't like it, then don't read it. if it offends you, then by all means don't tune in. i am often not "appropriate" in person, so if my blog is an expression of ME, i would expect it to follow suit.

here's the thing - if what i'm saying is not inflammatory, then why do i need to censor myself in an effort to please everybody? i'm not going to please everybody - i never have, and i'm not trying to. if i have to do that, then i'm not interested in blogging at all - what's the point? any story with a subject that has to be tap-danced around isn't worth telling - or hearing, for that matter.

so here's my disclaimer to all who have been, are being or might at some point in the future ever be offended by my words: this blog is intended for entertainment purposes only, and taking it to heart as anything beyond its intended purpose is not advised. please see a doctor before reading this blog if you have thin skin or are easily offended. if you have irritation that lasts more than four hours after reading this blog, please see your doctor. though protected by the first amendment, this blog may not be for everyone - only you can decide if this blog is right for you.

so much for avoiding the rant.

highlights

2009-02-06T10:00:00.013-06:00

Item 1: the sunburn. too bad i couldn't find this photo featuring a female raccoon face sunburn, but here it is. did this to myself day one, mostly because i'm a total genius. i also rocked this facial expression more than once, and will eventually come forward with photographic proof.

Item 2: the vessel. no, this is not the punchline to a dirty joke. the alexa c2 is 104 feet long and is pristine, thanks to the crew. top to bottom - bridge and bridge lounge, sun deck which is the home to two giant waverunners and 2 kayaks (and a hoist to lower them into the water). next level, outside in - cowl deck with large granite top dining table, salon, dining room and galley. below the salon are three staterooms and the engine room. the nose below the galley is the crew mess. i could go on for about a day and bore the crap out of everyone describing the interior, but rather i'll post some photos so you can see for yourself. suffice it to say that it's nicer than anyplace i've ever lived in, or stayed in, with the possible exception of the ritz carlton.

Item 3: photos. okay, i suck. i promise a really really boring amount of photos once they are emailed to me...for now, i only have these. to make it up to everyone, i promise to post some highly embarrassing photos of our first night out at ivan's, complete with story.

the bridge
dining room
galley (bradley's domain - keep out!)

salon starboard side

salon port side (site of multiple naps)

large tender boat
Item 4: the crew. there were six of us and six of them, and i grew to love that ratio. crew consisted of captain john, engineer gareth, chef bradley, deckhand francisco and stewardesses hannah and jill. LOVE these people, even though they wouldn't let me help them do ANYTHING. you know, you think you'll enjoy being waited on hand and foot (and don't get me wrong, i did), but eventually you start to feel like you ought to be pitching in. good luck with that. they didn't even laugh when i fell off the swim deck trying to get on the waverunner - well, not to my face at least, and that's really all you can ask for because i'm sure it was funny as hell.

Item 5: itinerary. if you think i can put this in order, you're fooling yourself because you totally lose track of the days. but we went to (in clearly no particular order) tortola, st. john, st. thomas (coki beach and magen's bay), virgin gorda, marina cay and the bitter end. it sound like we were busier than we actually were. the weather was perfect and the water and beaches were unbelievable.

i can't give you any more info today or i'll spoil my future blogs. trust me when i say that i plan to drag this crap out as long as i can, particularly since it's so much more interesting and glamorous than my normal life.

i came away with more than a sunburn and multiple unexplainable bruises though. i also came away with a hangover. (just kidding - although it's true...) i thoroughly enjoyed myself with my fellow passengers and the crew, and consider myself so fortunate to have been included in this opportunity. thank you from the bottom of my heart from all who made it possible. i'll stop now before i start to thank the academy. peace out!

meditations

2009-01-26T09:38:00.008-06:00

that horrible song by the 80s hair band europe keeps running through my mind since it IS "the final countdown" to my trip. i think i know most of the words to that song - why? and why couldn't there be a cool song with those lyrics?

i discovered secondhand this weekend that scotch followed by wine and then capped off with a rusty nail (the drink, not an actual rusty nail) does not agree with digestion and is generally a bad idea. ingesting an actual rusty nail might've been a better choice.

i added another phrase to the list of things i never thought i'd say to my son charlie..."sweetie, leave your purse in the car." it's a cute clutch, but it didn't really coordinate with his transformers sneakers. at least he's figured out what to do with it. his early experiments were not so well-informed. see below.

he took it to school today filled with power ranger toys. does that make it more masculine?

i share karen carpenter's sentiment that rainy days and mondays always get me down. it's both here today. and yes, i have noticed that every thought and emotion i have can be expressed in song. i'm like a human jukebox full of really bad music that keeps running even after it's unplugged. to date there is no cure.

and finally, let me share some advice i got from a friend when i told him i'd officially be a cougar soon. i told him another friend had offered to put all the area high schools on notice, which i thought was pretty funny. his advice was to start at the local tech schools and junior colleges. "you'll have more opportunity because of the lowered self-esteem that comes with not being able to get into a real college. plus, they'll really like that you can buy them beer." in all seriousness, that is fairly sage advice. it's good to have people looking out for me like that.

sell crazy somewhere else. we're all full up here.

2009-01-20T16:17:00.003-06:00

i'm sure going door to door at night in a strange neighborhood is a trying job. i wouldn't do it. okay, that's all the empathy i can muster.

about 7:30 last night (full dark, mind you), the doorbell rings. in my house, that sound activates the boys to full insanity, a la pavlov and his beloved pet. things were loud already. i could barely hear the doorbell over the sound of the drake and josh rerun that was turned up to a decibel level that surely made it audible across the street. but they heard it. doorbell = an audience, and what could be better?

i have to sprint to the door while swatting with both arms to keep them behind me in the event that there's a serial killer at the door. no such luck.

i open the door with a huge fake smile pasted across my face while the woman tries to make jokes in order to loosen me up for whatever she's eventually going to try to hawk. she can barely get a word in edgewise, which is sad for all of us, because it means she's going to be standing there that much longer.

both kids point (while she's talking) and yell, "who is that lady?" i said, "i have no idea, but if you'll shut up, maybe she can tell us." evidently they're convinced they're being duped in some conspiracy because they're not buying it. henry plants himself in front of me with his arms crossed and demands of the poor woman (who, god love her, is not yet daunted), "why are you at our house?" she's still politely laughing in that "oh, you know kids" sort of way and tries to explain...

and then they both bolt from the front door and out into the driveway toward the street. they're yelling and running and i'm yelling...the saleslady says casually, "oh don't worry, i'll get them back for you." i look at her totally deadpan and she turns around nervously to see if there's any sign of them and realizes her mistake (well, one of them). "hey," she calls out, turning toward the street. "y'all don't need to go in the street." and then i can see the panic start to set in.

by the time we reach them, charlie's got one foot in the street and henry's around the corner toward the neighbor's house. why? i don't understand... and so i'm full-on irritated by this time. the poor woman has managed to pant out part of her cockamamie story about helping battered wives by buying magazine subscriptions by the time we get the animals back inside, but she's breathing pretty heavy toward the end and it becomes obvious to all of us that she's rung the wrong doorbell.

so what's my point? a) please don't ring my doorbell and try to sell me anything - ever; b) if anyone out there can discern the connection between battered wives and a 5 year subscription to jet magazine, please let me know; c) and in closing, children do make an effective deterrent to strangers in much the same way a dog does, only they're harder to train.

lifestyles of the rich and famous

2009-01-14T10:33:00.006-06:00

don't hate, but i'm about to spend a week aboard this thing.

aw screw it - you can hate on me. i would hate me if i were you. i mean, it's a private yacht, for the love of pete. it would be wrong NOT to hate. not exactly sure what the itinerary is, but we're starting the voyage from the island of tortola, and we'll be sailing through the british and u.s. virgin islands for a week. (warning: click on the link above ONLY if you are prepared to hate me even more.)

there are a grand total of 6 passengers scheduled on this week-long cruise, including the woman who gave birth to me and then invited me to spend a week with her in paradise. there was some other stuff in between those two events, but they're not relevant to this story.

we're going to snorkel, swim, drink, nap, shop, drink, eat, read, drink and also drink. additionally, there will be drinking. we will be enjoying 3 chef prepared meals per day on board from a menu that we have already been sent for approval. (warning: you will really really hate me if you read the menu, so click at your own risk.)

on land, we're going to do our very best to avoid rubbing elbows with any of the regular people since we'll coming off a private yacht and will therefore be just a little too good for that kind of contact. i mean, i guess if we run into oprah or something, it would be all right to hang with her, but i don't plan to mix with the other tourists.

i have a big floppy hat and dark sunglasses in the event we have any run-ins with the paparazzi. it would be awful for my kids to see me on the cover of people magazine canoodling with the likes of cher while they're stuck at home. one can't be too careful about these things.

there are rumblings from SOME in our party (but i promised my mom i wouldn't use her name) about visiting a nude beach. count me out, okay? if i want to see a naked, overweight, hirsute european man, i'll pop out to blockbuster and rent a foreign film. there isn't enough booze in the islands to unremember something like that.

14 days and counting until lift off. until then, i'll be involved in far less glamorous pursuits like taking out the trash and scraping chewing gum out of the carpet. if that's not champagne dreams and caviar wishes, then i don't know what is!

i.p. freely

2009-01-12T09:31:00.003-06:00

question - if you had a bag full of water and wanted to drain out every drop, where would you poke the hole in said bag? if you said "the bottom", then you're not a complete idiot. anatomically speaking, this is the way the male bladder drains - from a hole in the bottom.

but for some reason we may never understand, god thought it would be funny to drain a woman's bladder from a hole in the side. hilarious! end result - it never gets really empty. it feels like it's empty...but it's not really.

reason i bring this up is that after two babies and back surgery, cold season is not my favorite time of year. as most women know who have had babies, coughing is one of the ways to find out all too well that your bladder is most definitely not empty. other ways include sneezing, laughing, jumping, running and throwing up.

i turn 40 later this year, and i can't tell you how graphically i am reminded of this fact by my bladder. what other indignities are ahead for me? is my butt going to fall? is it fair to have zits and wrinkles at the same time? and what about the gray hair i found last month (on my head, mom, but thanks SO much for asking...) ?

there are all sorts of flattering similes about getting older, like the one about fine wine. but i'm not sure i'm fully on board with that. not everything gets better with age...for instance milk, which as we all know ends up looking more like the substance on my thighs and smelling much worse than the ancient lady who taught me piano lessons as a child.

somebody needs to remind me of all the good things about getting older, and fast. either that, or i need to just give up and buy stock in depends and esoterica. and please - if you don't know what esoterica is, please don't ask - it'll just make me feel older.

the rumors of my demise are (possibly) not true

2009-01-06T15:22:00.004-06:00

insert appropriate apologies for my absence here...you know...the holidays were so crazy blah blah blah, i'm so backed up at work from taking time off dah dah dee, my computer was damaged when the meth lab in my basement exploded - you know, same old stuff.

yes, the holidays are over and that's the last time i'm using the "h" word in this blog. let's all be done with it, for crying out loud. it was decidedly different this year, but not at all unpleasant. i know people are supposed to be full of good will during this time of year, but "not at all unpleasant" is as good as it's going to get. no homicides were committed during candy feeding frenzies, which is a plus, and none of santa's bounty has been found whole or in pieces in any of my plumbing to date.

highlights of the season include discussing the possibility of including elements of festivus in our celebrations going forward, most specifically "the airing of grievances." we mulled over the "feats of strength" part, but decided we were all too full.

the past few weeks led me to understand fully that i hate legos and transformers, as does my vacuum cleaner. in all fairness, it made a lot more noise about this topic than i did.

i also came to realize that my desire for the large barbie head whose hair you style has not abated after all these years, and that buying one for my niece did nothing to diminish these feelings. (i'm still waiting for her to turn her back for five minutes and then BAM! you will be mine, giant barbie head.)

my mother put disposable razors in my stocking this year, claiming it was a practical gift. so listen, i KNOW i've been lax about it lately but there's no need to be rude. maybe i'm thinking about moving to germany - did you ever think about that?

and in closing, i threw my back out mopping the floor on the ONE night that i could've gone out for cocktails with a friend. i ended up spending the evening wearing gym shorts and a back brace watching bad movies alone on the sofa. and thank god i was alone, because you can really see the hair on my legs in those gym shorts.

here's to '09, people.

i feel pretty and witty and GAY

2008-12-18T09:42:00.003-06:00

holiday parties are funny things. almost everybody has a couple of drinks more than they should, particularly those who don't know everybody and are nervous.

i had a conversation last night with one such reveler. she's the wife of an executive here at my office, and she'd been left standing alone too long while her husband hobnobbed. she was feeling a little lonely and tipsy and left out, and she wandered over to visit with me for a while. i like this lady a lot - i see her at company functions and she's truly a great person. and it turns out that after she's been drinking, she's hilarious! not sure it's always intentional, but it's funny anyway.

thinking back on the conversation, i clearly see where i went wrong, but i still didn't see it coming.

"is your husband here?"

"no, i came with my girlfriend over there. she's my date tonight." (see, this is where it all started going downhill...)

"oh." (confused look that prompts me to explain...second mistake)

"i'm actually in the process of a divorce right now"

(huge light bulb appears over her head) "oh my god, are you a lesbian now?"

(now i'm confused...how did we get here?) "no, not a lesbian...just getting a divorce."

(she's excited now...) "are you sure, 'cause it's okay! we love you just the way you are!"

(at this point it starts to be funny because i'm not sure she's listening to me...) "no, i'm sure i'm not gay. camille is just a friend who is a girl that i brought with me to the party. i'm not gay, she's not gay. we're not gay."

(she's up and hugging me now) "you can tell me, you know, if you are."

(i'm actually disappointed now, that i'm not a lesbian, because she clearly wants this to be true so she can accept me. i feel almost apologetic...) "no, sorry. i'm not a lesbian."

i'm not sure exactly who overheard this conversation, but i did see her husband this morning and he either had the good sense to pretend it never happened or is hoping like hell that i don't remember. either way, i'm totally willing to give her a pass. who hasn't had one glass too many and said something they're mortified to remember the next day? besides, it's a great story that i've enjoyed telling at least 12 times this morning.

let's just hope the story circulates accurately so that when the time comes where i'm actually interested in having a date, it's with the opposite sex. i'm sorry - it's not a choice! i was born this way! deal with it!

the ice age

2008-12-17T09:37:00.009-06:00

yesterday, december 16, 2008. these are actual events, and no names have been changed to protect the innocent, or guilty, as the case may be.

6:30 a.m. - everybody's up

7:30 a.m. - i salt the driveway that is covered in ice and load the boys up and drive very slowly to henry's school, which is deserted.

7:35 a.m. - i call a friend who confirms that school is indeed delayed due to weather for 2 hours. we head back home.

8:00 a.m. - everybody's cheerful. i make breakfast, run the dishwasher, get two loads of laundry done.

9:45 a.m. - load back up in the car and drive back to school, which is still deserted. not willing to give up hope, i send henry to the door where he is told school is closed for the day. something inside me dies.

9:50 a.m. - in anticipation of the hell to come, i risk life and limb to drive to 7-11 under the pretense of buying donuts for the boys, when actually the goal is to pick up a large bottle of wine.

10:15 a.m. - arrive at home and steel myself for the chaos that ensues almost immediately as boredom sets in.

12:00 p.m. - the water experiment begins, as shown below. not sure what the scientific value of this exercise is, but i have to assume we are fascinated by freezing objects in my good rubbermaid bowls. during this foray outdoors, the icicle fights begin, resulting in my threatening bodily harm at the top of my lungs.

2:00 p.m. - snack time. i make popcorn, which they add to the other debris in the middle of my living room floor. see below. i think longingly of the wine in the refrigerator but eventually convince myself it's too early for happy hour.

3:30 p.m. - i interrupt another smackdown that results in both boys screaming about their injuries and take charlie into my bed with me in the hopes of getting a catnap.

4:00 p.m. - nap aborted by the wwf style attack of my prone person by both boys. after more yelling and threatening, i realize that it is 5:00 on the east coast, and happy hour begins at last.

5:00 p.m. - new experiment takes place in my bathroom that includes the items shown and resulting in the bowl of muck in my sink. again, there is no scientific merit to this experiment, but they did stir it with my toothbrush, so there's that...

5:30 p.m. - i start making phone calls to friends to discuss my grass roots movement for the legalization of tranquilizer darts for use on your children. i get several commitments for support.

6:00 p.m. - henry does charlie's hair using the items below, not all of which are actual hair care products.

6:15 p.m. - i consider changing charlie's name to guido and buying him a gold pinky ring and necklace with a medallion. this idea strikes me as funny, which proves that the wine is kicking in.

7:00 p.m. - i hide my wallet as shown below in order to avoid being cleaned out by henry, who announces that he deserves to be paid for doing stuff around the house. the fact that he has done nothing in the way of chores does not dampen his conviction that he "gots to get paid", ergo, wallet under the sink.

7:30 p.m. - i all but lock the children in the bedroom and search for something to tie them down with. by the time i find a suitable restraint, i return to find they are finally asleep.

7:40 p.m. - on bended knee, i say a silent but heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving. and then i vacuum with my right hand while drinking wine with my left hand.

8:30 p.m. - i go to bed in my clothes and make-up without brushing my teeth...and promptly pass out.

i'm dreaming of a white (trash) christmas

2008-12-11T08:52:00.002-06:00

i used to be embarrassed about my roots, but as i grow older, i've learned to embrace them. why the hell not anyway? can't do anything about it, and let's face it - your formative years are a big part of creating who you become as a person. i like myself just fine, so i've decided to celebrate all the strange birds that are a part of my history.

in that spirit, please allow me to share some fond memories and unique tidbits about the family with whom i will proudly be sharing my holiday season.

in the 70s, we used to open our presents in the living room of my grandmother's house under the watchful eye of two large bullfighters painted on black velvet. i loved these pieces and secretly always wondered why my grandmother had all the classy art.
one of my cousins once told my brother that i was pretty hot for a cousin.
i had a great aunt who had suffered a bout of scarlet fever as a child that left her without her faculties fully intact. one christmas, she called my dad "rudy" all day, which would have been fine had that been any part of his name.
i have two cousins that my brother and i still refer to as "stud todd" and "gay troy". one of the brothers made up those names - guess which one?
i have an uncle who has become a virtual hermit over the years and these days closely resembles the unabomber. he sits in the house all day watching really bad t.v. and we suspect smoking copious amounts of pot. whenever we get together, he likes to discuss conspiracy theories (as though they're true) and also makes world predictions regarding war, death and the end of days. it's super fun!
we never have a holiday meal without at least ONE congealed salad, usually the green one with pecans and pineapple and cottage cheese. it's not christmas without jello!
i once heard one of my aunts tell someone that they didn't have to take their dog to the vet to be neutered. she then explained that if you get a rubber band and tie it around their testicles "real tight", they will dry up and fall off after a few days.
there has been more than one quilt in my family that was made out of scraps of polyester doubleknit. why? and now you can't destroy it.
both sets of my grandparents had floor to ceiling brown wood paneling in their homes...and miles of linoleum. it was a nice backdrop for the velvet bullfighters though...

so there you go. and you know what? i love them all anyway and hope they can extend that courtesy to me as well. after all, my hair isn't exactly the height of fashion these days.

addendum #2

2008-12-03T15:26:00.001-06:00

went back to my yearbook and found the mystery girl. oh my. oh....oh my.

not that i'm a snob or anything, but...okay forget it - i'm a snob.

so great to hear from you?

2008-12-03T10:22:00.002-06:00

confession time. as of today, i have officially accepted two facebook friends that are complete mysteries to me. i don't recognize the names at all, and the photos did nothing to clear up the mystery.

who are these people, and why do they think they know me? the first one is a guy i allegedly went to high school with, though i couldn't find him in my yearbook. we have several mutual friends that i DO know, and i've thought of emailing them and asking who in the hell this joker is. i clicked "ignore" the first time he requested, and then when he requested again, i felt too guilty to do it again, so i just accepted.

the second one was today. i thought her name sounded familiar and maybe i'd figure it out after i saw her pictures. um...no. but since i'd already done it once, i did it again. it's true what they say about the second time being so much easier.

i've had a couple requests from total strangers who admit to being total strangers, and somehow that seems less weird to me. friends of friends are in - people who are also fans of "so you think you can dance" are out (true story, sadly).

i guess the most important thing to remember is that everything's a competition, and even if i don't know these people, it still gets me two closer to catching up with betsy. everyone knows that true friendship is about quantity, not quality.

but where's the beak?

2008-12-01T11:00:00.006-06:00

i should start this story with a health warning regarding the use of albuterol inhalers as it appears they can cause almost instantaneous brain damage. (not really...but still...)

i caught charlie under the dining room table yesterday pumping himself full of henry's albuterol inhaler. i have no idea how many doses he'd administered himself by the time he got busted, but he was awfully glassy-eyed and extremely happy.

after his binge, he relocated to my bedroom on shaky legs to watch blue's clues. i wandered through as steve was explaining that a star is really a large glowing ball of gas. he made the statement and then gave the viewers the opportunity to repeat back their new found fact.

a star is really a large glowing ball of... (pause and expectant look at the camera)

chicken!

i looked over at charlie who was beaming with pride. i said, "a star is a large glowing ball of chicken?"

yes!

huh...well that's interesting, son. i'm not willing at this point to sign him up for the short bus or buy him a helmet for everyday wear, but i will begin looking into alternative treatments for asthma right away.

addendum

2008-11-26T12:30:00.002-06:00

turns out this hair color is a plus in east texas. i got cruised today by some dimwit teenager in a pickup truck as i was unloading the kids at a restaurant. maybe i reminded him of tammy wynette, because we all know she's hot. of course he did shout out, "hey mama!" which leaves me hoping he was hooting at me because i remind him of a country western singer and not his mother. you never know 'round these parts...

curl up and dye

2008-11-24T09:22:00.005-06:00

this is what i get for trying to save a buck. my roots were bad on sunday, and that's really my only defense. i didn't have any hair color on hand, but i did have a frost & glow kit that my mil gave me when she decided to give up frosting and go au natural...in other words, gray. i figured, well, hair color is hair color, right? it's blonde. instead of pulling it through the cap and doing highlights (and who does that anymore anyway???), i'd just mix it up and do my roots with it.

i really should've suspected that this wasn't my greatest idea when i mixed it up and it was lavender. i kept thinking it would turn as it developed...into something more recognizable, or natural. but being a person of faith, i pressed on.

it went on like a cream but set up like a paste, which would've sent up another red flag to a normal person. i got it on and waited like 5 minutes before checking it, which evidently was just enough time for the product to turn my hair platinum. i broke the sound barrier getting to the shower to get this stuff off my head. as i rinsed it out, i noticed that my hair felt like a squirrel tail and my scalp was throbbing and stinging. it was at this point that several hundred of my hairs decided that they no longer wanted any part of me and made a break for the shower drain.

i asked david if he noticed what i'd done to my hair, and he replied, "um, it doesn't look that good." do you think? i look like a hooker from the hairline up. and i'm afraid to put another color on top of it to tone it down lest my remaining hair give up the ghost and i end up looking like britney right before a drug test.

so i'm stuck with doll hair until my roots grow out, at which point they will look black in contrast to the anna nicole smith thing i have working now. i'm not smart, and now i have the hair to prove it.

oh yeah, prove it!

2008-11-20T14:30:00.003-06:00

it's amazing to watch your child develop and learn, but it's disturbing when you figure out the order in which they're learning things. charlie's 3 - he can't read, he doesn't know all his colors, he can't count to 10, and he's still willing to eat things off the floor.

but he's become very skilled of late at the blame game. granted, he has an excellent teacher in his older brother, but i really can't recall henry doing this as much as charlie does. maybe it's as simple as having had no one else to blame.

"hine did it" became his mantra for several weeks in the face of any crisis. (he can't even say henry's name right, but he can certainly blame him for crap.) hine made a mess with the legos, hine spilled the water out of the bathtub, hine dropped charlie's plate on the floor...and the most amazing thing was that even if i was watching charlie do these things, and he knew i could see him, he'd still claim that hine did it.

don't pick your nose - it's gross

i din' do it. hine did it.

sadly, the concept of plausible deniability is much harder to learn than blame, which brings me to my favorite denial - the denial of the week, if you will. it was last weekend, and charlie introduced a brand new blamee - trevor - his friend from preschool.

i smell a poop. did you poop?

i din' do it. trebor did it.

trevor pooped in your pants? is that what you're telling me?

yes (fervent nod). trebor did it.

i'm not sure exactly who this trevor character is, but he better stay out of my kid's pants if he knows what's good for him. and what in the hell are his parents feeding him? good GOD!

word to your mother

2008-11-18T09:28:00.002-06:00

there was NOTHING on tv last night after the kids went down, so i started cruising the movie channels and stumbled upon a true classic (that i forced david to watch with me in its entirety, being the eve of my birthday and all...). i don't know how i missed this one back in the day, but i have to say it's still as funky fresh as ever.

there's nothing at ALL dated about this film, proving that the great films really stand the test of time. it goes without saying that the acting was top notch and the music was...well, it was indescribable. the silence of the lambs won best picture in 1991, but you know those things are totally rigged. the academy never understood vanilla ice. like he said in the movie's most famous quote, "you don't know me at ALL." that one still gives me chills.

it's hard to pinpoint what my favorite part in the movie was, but i enjoyed the posing quite a lot. he posed on his bike in several different positions...lying down on it, sitting on it backwards, leaning on it...and then the female lead did the same. and the director instinctively knew not to muddy up those scenes with any dialogue. it was magical. i was moved.

after vanilla and his crew saved the kidnapped boy and brought the bad guys down, the movie ended with mr. ice in concert singing a song that included the lyrics, "this one's for my motha," followed by a huge air ass-pump, and the words, "putcha weight on that, yeah." i don't know how vanilla's mom reacted when she first heard this song, but i can only guess she was crying through her tears with pride. i, for one, openly wept.

alter-egomaniac

2008-11-12T11:41:00.002-06:00

i understand beyonce has a new alter ego. she's put on a robot glove and is asking to be called sasha fierce, which may quite possibly be the most absurd thing i've ever heard. a robot glove does not an alter ego make...it's an accessory, not an identity. it's a very BAD accessory, but it's still not a defining quality.

this isn't an original idea, however. if you'll recall, mariah carey insisted on being called "mimi" for a while, and garth brooks became "chris gaines" and (mistakenly) considered himself cool while assuming this identity.

what gives? do normal people have the power to make themselves over, give themselves a new moniker and expect people to roll with it? and what does one hope to achieve by this process? is it like cloning without any of that silly science stuff that requires political debate? baffling!

in reality i fully realize that it's a publicity ploy and hence i refuse to buy in. who's with me? of course if i ever become famous, i'm sure i will immediately lose all of my values and force all my people to call me wonder woman or tinkerbell. i'll wear bullet-deflecting bracelets or tiny wings so the whole thing really comes together. and if they don't comply, i'll just throw my crystal encrusted blackberry at their head, fire their asses, and hire somebody who will humor me. okay, so now i see the appeal.

oh bloody hell

2008-11-10T11:16:00.003-06:00

clearly my ability to suspend reality is fully intact and operational. since i don't have the absurd storylines of lost to discuss around the water cooler, i've discovered an even MORE far fetched series to become obsessed with. the weirder it gets, the more i love it. why am i not a scientologist????? oh yeah...tom cruise.

anywho, have you checked out true blood on hbo? if not, please don't jump right in and start reading the synopses because you will be confused...or disturbed...or amused...or motivated to call cps on me.

the premise is that the japanese developed a synthetic blood that vampires can drink in order to sustain their life without having to kill humans, so vampires are being mainstreamed into ordinary society. see, now that i've explained it you can see how it's perfectly viable. it could TOTALLY happen in real life, right? of course, the "ordinary society" in this series resides in louisiana, so it's not like the vamps are always the weirdest thing floating around.

bottom line is that i'm addicted to yet another hbo series that will fully yank me around for a year and a half before season 2 comes out. there are only two episodes left and i'm already mourning the loss. and i don't even know when the next installment of big love is coming out, so you know my kids will be in high school before i see the second season of this show. i'm about to be without vampires and polygamy for an undetermined period of time, which has to be bad for my health. i'm gonna go pop a warm bottle of o-neg and try to chillax.

increase your word power

2008-11-07T09:07:00.003-06:00

there's nothing quite like a kid trying out a new word, particularly if he doesn't know what it means and thinks it might be a bad word. for henry, the thought that it might be a bad word is of course the basis of its appeal. we've learned over the years that the reaction to the first attempt is key. if we freak out, then he has his confirmation that it is indeed a bad word and it's going to be used daily and in public....or if he's feeling particularly saucy, in front of his grandparents.

david and i have developed a very covert and sophisticated system of knowing looks and sidelong glances as we navigate through this process, and i think we're getting pretty good at it. the first order of business is to determine if he understands the meaning of the word, because that's part of what he's fishing for when he throws it out there the first time. more likely than not, he's clueless (thank god). part 2 of the process is deliberate underreaction and dismissal by change of subject.

i should've seen this new word coming, because i heard it as i was stumbling through the living room one morning this week while they were watching the transformers movie. i paused and considered turning it off, but that of course would only make him more fully aware that there was something there that i didn't want him to hear. as my father learned the hard way, forbidding a child something makes it that much more desirable.

nevertheless, i was still unprepared. he strode into the kitchen two nights ago and took it for a test drive.
********************************************************************
i masturbate

you what?

i masturbate.

(casual glance in david's direction - signal received and confirmed to proceed) really? do you now? well what does that mean?

(he's looking nervous now, clearly unsure - knowing imperceptible nod in david's direction). like when i take a bath and i bathe...like i masterbathe. i do that, right?

OH, masterbathe. well, yes, in that case...i suppose you do. would you like to have some chocolate milk? how was p.e. today?
***************************************************************
stupid transformers movie. i thought about emailing his teacher in the event that he decides to try it out at school, but wasn't really sure how to say that while my 7-year old son does indeed love his junk and has his hands down there quite a lot, he doesn't really masturbate or even understand what the word means. in my mind, that sounded guiltier than leaving it be and hoping for the best. wish me luck on that one. in any event, i'm not sure i'll ever look at the bathtub the same way. i wouldn't want to get caught masterbathing.

hair to the chief

2008-11-05T09:07:00.010-06:00

while i am certainly peripherally aware that this is an important day for americans, i'm not gonna discuss any of that today, okay? i can't focus on that with the state of my hair.

yes, i admit it - i need a haircut. yes, i did trim my own bangs again this morning and no, it doesn't look good. i'm not gonna lie to you. i didn't wash it this morning - it's up in a clip (not a banana clip, if you're wondering...i'm not a complete dolt).

after 20 minutes of mutilating and spraying it without much success, i had convinced myself that it was passable...and then henry comes in.

"how'd you do that to your hair?"

shrug.

"was it easy?"

yeah.

"is it crazy hair day at your work today?"

one love, one heart

2008-11-04T09:10:00.009-06:00

just like matlock, i love solving a good mystery. on my halloween trannie post, i had a very interesting comment from a complete stranger mentioning that he found me through a link on a blog about the law and china. i was completely befuddled because my blog is neither serious nor relevant and is typically ill-informed in general, consisting primarily of petty drivel and rude observations. so...what's the link (no pun intended)?

i went to the blog which in contrast to mine is indeed well-informed, serious and relevant. turns out one of the contributors shares my feelings about billy joel. being the shy and withdrawn person that i am, i followed the link in his profile and sent him a note asking him how he came across my blog. he's an attorney practicing international law, and his name is dan. below is the transcript of our conversation.

*************************************************************************************
Dan,
In looking at your profile with regard to your occupation, I have to assume you're a very busy man so I promise not to occupy too much of your time today. But I must know...how in the world did you come across my little blog? I had a comment on my most recent post from a complete stranger hailing from Scotland who reads your China law blog and directed me to the link.

I appreciate that you share my loathing of Billy Joel, certainly, and that, if nothing else is a real bond. And quite frankly I never cease to be amazed (and flattered) that anyone outside my circle of friends actually reads my blather. So if you have a moment to jot me a note, I'd love to know how my insignificant opinions became a part of something as serious as the topic of the emergence of China.

Sincerely yours,
Emily Hart
*************************************************************************************
Emily,

I ran a Google Blog search for "Billy Joel" and hate and there was your post. A lawyer in Beijing wrote me to ask what's so bad about Billy Joel. My reply was that if he had to ask he would never understand.

The reason Billy Joel came up in the first place was because the blog post I was citing quoted BJ as though he were a philosopher or something and that doesn't fly. Springsteen, Dylan, or even Marvin Gaye, can be quoted. BJ should never be quoted, but you already knew that.

Dan
*************************************************************************************
Too few people truly appreciate my dislike of Mr. J, so it goes without saying that I enjoy your support. I assume you're on board with my feelings on Celine Dion as well.

I second your nominations of Dylan, Springsteen and Gaye and offer up Bob Marley as another example of how music should be done.

Thanks for clearing up the mystery.

Emily
*************************************************************************************
We agree on Dion (who is not worth loathing, however, because nobody really thinks she is anything other than what she is and so far as I know, nobody has ever even though to quote her, whereas people do think Joel is a serious artist) and Marley. See: http://www.chinalawblog.com/2007/03/china_no_woman_no_cry.html and http://www.chinalawblog.com/2008/10/shenzhen_no_manufacturing_jobs.html.
*************************************************************************************
Good point. It appears we were separated at birth...
*********************************************************************************
Not sure I'd go that far...

My brother lives in Houston though.
*************************************************************************************
There are worse things than being related to me though my brother would probably disagree. Have a good week.
*************************************************************************************
Maybe we were separated at birth because I know my Houston brother would say the same thing.
*************************************************************************************

so i guess if i ever need legal advice about my business in china, i have a new friend who can help me out. the world really is a small place after all. let's get together and feel alright.

kryptonite

2008-11-03T10:05:00.002-06:00

i loathe halloween. there is no worse combination in my world than sugar and my sons...so halloween ends up being a celebration of chaos and lunacy at my house. fill them up with sugar and they're like little meth fiends running around wildly and without purpose...arms flailing, fists flying, shouting and destroying.

invariably they get up early the next morning to climb and search until they find the confiscated candy and cram as much of it as they can down their little pie holes before we wake up and hide it again. the scene is horrifying when we get up...they've already peaked and they're coming down off the high. they look like hungover drunks, sitting glassy-eyed and stupefied in piles of empty candy wrappers and half-eaten and abandoned hunks of something that must have once been candy.

charlie was superman this year, and i believe we have officially determined exactly what his kryptonite is...ironically, it appears to be candy. for the second year running, he's ended his candy binges with the vomit of the century. last year he puked on the street while trick-or-treating. he paused, puked and then kept on truckin'. this year, he erupted after the early morning mission impossible. he emptied the entire contents of his stomach (which was considerable...and colorful) all over my bed. twice.

the damndest thing is that i have no idea how to prevent this going forward unless we all leave the country during halloween next year. you can't tell a 4 year old he can't trick-or-treat - it's cruel and unusual. so i guess all i can do is take preventative measures next year. any idea how to make a trash bag look like a cool superhero costume?

nothing says halloween like a trannie

2008-10-30T15:46:00.002-05:00

in the spirit of halloween and all things drag, please check out my new best friend shane putting beyonce to shame. happy halloween and keep on dancin'!

if you can't stand the heat...

2008-10-28T14:06:00.006-05:00

every industry has its own unique jargon that means little to the world at large, and the restaurant biz is no different. it's only when you use one of these terms in the presence of someone outside your vocation that you realize how it really sounds.

with that in mind, following is a list of items that i buy that take on a whole new meaning when taken out of context.

1. hot box

2. meat cage

3. rimmer

4. cleanout rod

5. 5-hole drop-in hot well

6. strip heater

7. manual spinner

8. 9" flexible boner

9. french whip

10. box pump

11. grinder attachment

12. end loader box

who knew kitchen supplies were so hot? if anyone out there is interested in experimenting with any of these items, i'm happy to assist in sourcing them. i don't have firsthand experience with all of the items listed above, but i have used a french whip vigorously on more than one occasion and have also heard good things about the flexible boner.

jesus christ superstar

2008-10-27T12:47:00.005-05:00

david and i met up with kevin(a) and his fabulous wife kellie for drinks and dinner on saturday night. we had planned on staying in since david was feeling so rotten, but we eventually decided that going out had to be less painful than listening to the boys annoy one another for even one more second. completely by coincidence, we ran into another couple that david and i love - erik and kim sabadie. we were all standing around the bar chatting it up when i noticed that jesus was sitting at the other end of the bar. i pointed him out to kellie, and she replied "oh my god!" and i said "yes, exactly!"

we all had a good look, and observed the following:

1. jesus likes heineken

2. jesus is a college football fan
3. jesus flat-irons his hair

4. jesus enjoys prime steak

5. jesus is more comfortable eating at the bar

6. jesus is extremely gregarious and enjoys meeting new people

after a few minutes, i was really wishing i had a picture of jesus so i could share it with everyone. of course, i had no idea how i was going to do it and certainly didn't have the stones to just walk up and start snapping. my friend erik is clearly cut from a different cloth. he grabbed david's blackberry and grabbed me by the arm and off we headed to the end of the bar.

he then proceeded to tell jesus some cockamamie story and introduce me as his wife. i extended my hand and said, "hello, i'm kim sabadie" (like he would know it was a lie if i used my real name...???). below is the resulting photo. i apologize for the quality, but it was dark in the steakhouse.

in parting, jesus complimented me on my top, which i thought was very nice. it was a tunic, which i guess makes sense since it was the type of garment they were wearing on his first visit to earth.

props to erik for thinking on the fly to provide me with blog material. and HUGE shout out to kim who gave me the best laugh of the night when i introduced her to kevin(a). before he could even tell her his name, she goes, "oh my god it's kevin! i recognize you from the blog!" i wish you coulda seen the look of intense irritation that he gave me, which of course makes all my hard work totally worth it. between that and a compliment from jesus, i truly felt doubly blessed. peace be with you all.

and all i got was this stupid t-shirt

2008-10-24T13:40:00.006-05:00

despite the blog title, i am genuinely happy that david and henry got to go to disney world last week. it was the trip of a lifetime, i'm sure, and a great opportunity for some father/son bonding. david finally emailed me some pics to share.

as i understand it, the excitement started before they even deplaned. henry took a detour and darted right into the cockpit while david was retrieving his hanging bag. evidently henry does not look like any sort of terrorist this pilot had ever seen, and he graciously allowed him to sit in the pilot's seat and have his picture taken. never a dull moment when traveling with henry hart.

i have no funny story for this picture, but it bears noting that david is beginning to look pained at this point. i have no idea at what point in their day at the park this photo was snapped, but i'd be willing to bet it was closer to the end than to the beginning. despite dad's waning enthusiasm, it's apparent that henry is still going strong.

this one is my favorite - they had a chance to spend an afternoon at vero beach, and believe it or not, this is a self-pic. somebody's got some mad camera skillz, if you axe me.

and that's really the long and short of it. i find when two males are in charge of capturing precious moments on film, the offerings are always sparse. and quite honestly, given henry's photographic history, i'm just grateful i didn't have to scroll through and delete a dozen pictures he took of his own penis. it's good to celebrate all of life's little victories.

greetings from south of the border

2008-10-23T12:29:00.003-05:00

hello. my name is emily hart and currently i am NOT in mexico. nor was i in mexico today at 11:34 a.m. when my debit card was used in a grocery store in mexicali to purchase $3.91 worth of something. this does not amaze me half as much as the fact that i already had a phone call from my bank who had been contacted by card protective services within a half hour of this occurrence. AND they had already temporarily deactivated my card. how's that for efficiency? i'm impressed.

i've never realistically feared identity theft because i can't imagine who would want to even PRETEND to be me. but there you have it - some dishonest soul in another country just bought a sixer on me. (can you get a sixer for $3.91? if so, it most certainly wasn't the good stuff.)

between the time i got the call from my bank and got back to the office to call card protective services, i began to wonder what exactly would constitute a "suspicious transaction"...junk food for dinner last night and breakfast again this morning? while we can all agree it's not a great decision, it's probably not suspicious. what about spending $18 at cvs pharmacy on wine, ice cream and chocolate milk? again, that most likely falls into the "bad habits" category and though it's admittedly sketchy, it's not really suspicious. i was almost relieved when i found out that a charge from outside the u.s. was the red flag - now i'll spend less time worrying that i'll get a call from the bank about charges to places like new fine arts or condom sense. not that i would EVER darken the door of either of those establishments...eh em...is it warm in here?

returning to the scene of the crime

2008-10-16T09:08:00.004-05:00

i started off the morning with a ritual that charlie and i observe several times a week, which is a breakfast stop at 7-11. i bribe him with the promise of a donut in exchange for the opportunity to tank up on caffeine for the morning commute. if you'll recall, this establishment is the scene of my low pants, high shirt and thong debacle, so they gotta see me coming. however i think i may've outdone even myself today.

people with kids know what an ordeal it is getting in and out of a vehicle. i have to get in the back seat in order to buckle charlie in, and then i have to get him all set up with his drink and snack before i can get in to drive, and this is a process that takes a few minutes. reasonable people understand this - the jackass who HAD to pull into the spot adjacent to mine during this process was not one of these people. in order to accommodate his admission to his "reserved" parking space, i had to wedge myself completely into the back seat and close the door behind me.

it was only when i finished and made to exit that i remembered the child safety lock that i had engaged to prevent charlie from opening the car door on the freeway which he in fact HAS done on two occasions. as the back seat door can only be opened from the outside, i'm forced to go another route - which of course is over the center console.

i'm wearing a skirt today, and heels of course, so the first thing i do is step on my skirt as i try to get one leg up over the console. having corrected that, i make my second and more successful attempt, which is to say that i get one leg over. cars and people are everywhere, and i try to think invisible thoughts as i gracelessly maneuver the rest of my body into the front seat, facing backwards. i'm thinking the worst is behind me, and then realize quite literally that it is as i inadvertently honk the horn with my ass while turning around in the seat, thereby attracting the attention of everyone in the parking lot and inside the store.

to make matters worse, at this point i can't even shove the car into reverse and squeal out of the parking lot on two wheels. the final degradation is that i now have to get back out of the car in order to fully close the back door, so everybody in attendance can get a good look at the moron who's been crawling around in her car and honking the horn with her backside.

in case you're interested in seeing this show live and in person, i'm doing advance bookings for the 7-11 in your area. please direct all inquiries to my agent, bobo the clown. it may be pricey, but i do promise one helluva show and CLEARLY i deliver.

saying goodbye

2008-10-13T11:36:00.006-05:00

i'm sorry to be such a buzzkill on a monday, but i think i'll feel better if i blog about it. i found an old college friend on facebook whose brother i dated in college. of course i asked after him, and he emailed me this morning that daniel died 3 years ago of cancer, at age 35. there's a part of my heart that is breaking over this news.

it doesn't seem to matter that i haven't talked to daniel in almost 20 years because i always carried around warm feelings in my heart about him. we only dated briefly over the period of a year or so, but i have a million memories of him. he was so happy and full of life, and he always knew how to make me laugh. remember answering machines? he used to call mine when he knew i wasn't home and run the tape to the end saying absolutely nothing just to irritate me. he'd call me in the middle of the night when he knew i was out cold and then say nonsensical things to confuse me - and then call again the next day to laugh and make fun of whatever weirdo things i'd said in my half-sleep.

i broke up with my high school boyfriend when i realized i was crazy about him. in fact, some of my most INSANE college stories involve him, but they're nothing that a middle-aged mother has any business posting. i don't think he ever felt about me the way i felt about him, but we did have some great times while it lasted. and in that spirit, i submit the photos below in a tribute to the person that he was, and in his memory. this is the way i will always remember him.

membership has its rewards

2008-10-10T10:58:00.005-05:00

so one of the perks of working in the restaurant industry is getting to know the liquor reps. talk about the hook-up...think about every concert, show or sporting event you've ever been to. can you recall the sponsor names splattered all over every wall? chances are - it's some kind of alcoholic beverage.

on to my point - my wonderful friend from budweiser brought my sytycd tickets today, along with club passes and a suite & club parking pass - holla! to fully illustrate the hook up, let's take a looksee at where denise and i will be seated.

see section 205 on the floor there right next to the middle? we'll be there...in row c...seats 1 and 2. it's quite possible that sweat could be flung in our direction at this proximity. what more could i ask? let me pause briefly to shamelessly plug anheuser-busch as a sign of my deepest gratitude.

"budweiser - the king of beers"

okay, now that we've got that out of the way, let's move on to the guidelines for tonight's event. according to the website, we must adhere to the following policies:

Guests will enjoy every event free from disruptive behavior, including foul or abusive language or obscene gestures. Translation: We can't curse at Jessica or give Mia the finger.

Guests will consume alcoholic beverages in a responsible manner. Translation: We probably should not fall down in full view of any staff member.

Guests will sit only in their ticketed seats and show their tickets when requested. Translation: We can't bully the tweens out of their seats in order to move closer to the stage.

Guests who engage in fighting, throwing objects or attempting to enter the stage will be immediately ejected from the venue. Translation: If challenged, we can't fight the tweens or the queens for their seats and there will clearly be no mosh pit. Furthermore, we cannot throw our panties onto the stage when Will comes out. (This is almost a deal-breaker)

There will not be any obscene or indecent messages on signs or clothing. Translation: Denise and I will both have to go home and change clothes before the show.

Guests who violate the Code of Conduct may be subject to ejection without refund and, to the extent their conduct constitutes a violation of law, may be subject to arrest. Translation: If you should receive a collect call from either Denise or myself tonight, please accept the charges and be ready with bail money.

performance critique and analysis to follow on monday, along with a full report on our night in the drunk tank. tah-tah!

4real

2008-10-07T11:58:00.003-05:00

after a day spent entirely in the company of a 3-year old (and his pediatrician...and the pharmacist, briefly), i returned to work today to receive the BEST news ever - before the week is out, i will be the proud owner of two tickets to the sytycd show this friday night.

yeah, that's right - i'm a huge geek. i'll be there in the crowd with every screaming teenager and squealing queen in the tri-county area just waiting with bated breath for joshua and/or will and/or twitch to remove their shirts. oh yeah - and i'll watch them dance as well. i will even try to refrain from booing jessica - injury my ass.

of course, as the big D is joshua's hometown, i will be expecting nothing less than perfection from this season's winner. if all goes right, he will give a shout-out to his homies and i will certainly answer the call, on accounta i'm so street, yo. i'm hoping my seats are up close so the dancers can watch me doing the robot. or the tootsie roll. or the cabbage patch maybe. they will be dazzled by my middle-aged suburban whiteness and the requisite skillz that accompany it. i'm thinking about wearing leg warmers and maybe a headband - too much? of course not!

now all i gotta do is figure out who my date will be. the party of five (no relation to the show) that were overwhelmed with sweat to accompany me have now dwindled down to just two - possibly just one. whatever people. i'm postponing the mil's birthday celebration to attend, so somebody better pull it together.

anycrap - that's my big news of the day. i promise photos of the show and then also probably shots of the dancers fleeing for the safety of their bus as i chase them across the parking lot. there's nothing like raw fear to bring out a dancer's true talent.

cougar season

2008-10-03T15:01:00.008-05:00

i can't even begin to tell you about the female buzz in the office today. it became apparent to all of us that there is absolutely no eye candy here, mostly because we had some visitors today that put the entire female population of this office in heat.

we have a potential franchisee who has three sons, all of whom graced us today with a visit from the u.k. they are 21, 22 and 23, which makes almost all of the women here just filthy for the thoughts we had as they passed through (rosebud is exempted because she is not yet 30).

i had passed the conference room earlier and gotten a good eyeful after my boss ran into my office giggling in a very undignified manner to report on their hotness. so when they came around to meet our department, i was going to stop at nothing to gaze at them, i mean meet them. i was on the phone with david at the time, and i almost screamed "i'll call you back" and practically threw the phone on the floor so i could scramble around my desk and shake their hands. i'm subtle like that. they're lucky i decided against humping their legs...

all i could think about as i was talking to them and listening to their charming accents is how can i get their photos so i can blog this. because i have to say - you would have to SEE this to believe it. as luck would have it, they're on facebook.

get a good load of THAT, if you will. and there were 3 of him. (sadly, the other two pics weren't bloggable because they were group shots and hard to see.) needless to say, the women in this office were like a pack of starving alligators who'd been thrown a hunk of raw meat. you could probably walk into the lobby and smell the estrogen. i'm pretty sure i dropped at least one egg.

this was undoubtedly the highlight of what was proving to be a fairly shitty week. thank you thank you thank you, pretty boys. i'm going now to put in a transfer to the training department so i will be forced to spend a month in london helping them get their restaurant open. i've never been so willing to take one for the team.

dis dis dis

2008-10-01T12:29:00.009-05:00

you'll be shocked to know that i have some strong opinions. and since this week has sort of sucked, i feel like ranting about hate build-ups. feel free to shout out if you disagree, but don't expect to change my mind.

let's start off with possibly the most controversial hate - i hate billy joel. i'm sure this statement will cause a shitstorm of hating on ME, but i don't care. there are some who will automatically say, "but what about 'piano man'?" and to that i must reply - but what about 'uptown girl'? what about 'we didn't start the fire'? huh? don't even try to pretend you like those songs, and if you do, don't admit it publicly.

if you don't watch project runway, then skip this part. i hate kenley collins! she is a back-stabbing, self-important, whiny bitch who couldn't design her way out of a paper bag. hell, she can't even design herself out of the 50s. the most ironic thing about this photo is that she's all dolled up like a pop star (a design by a fellow contestant), and this "costume" is the most modern she's looked all season. GO AWAY!

back to music, i hate chris martin, though i don't think it matters one iota because he loves himself enough for everybody. he's his own biggest fan and isn't shy about expressing his self-love. that's loathsome, i think. i'm all for ego strength, but his opinion of himself borders on narcissism - and that's just BORING.

do i even have to list the reasons i hate celine dion? i feel offended that i should even have to defend it, so i'm not going to. but i will share that i enjoy referring to her as "the chicken lady" for reasons that should be apparent in the above photo.

okay, i feel better now. i have purged my system of hate for the day and will try to refocus my attention on work. maybe some music would be soothing...let's see here...aw hell - it's billy joel doing a cover of 'my heart will go on' accompanied by coldplay. kill me!

splash me!

2008-09-29T10:00:00.004-05:00

i realize this post is totally predictable, but i need to come forward publicly and announce that i've fallen deeply in love with yet another gay man. meet david bromstad from hgtv's color splash.

i have come to understand that i'm about two seasons behind in discovering and loving him, but that doesn't make our love any less real. the foundation of my attraction is as follows: he's adorable, he's very talented, he's gay AND he's smokin' hot (in a nelly way that i find irresistible). if that isn't the definition of true love, i'm not sure what is.

i will always love george michael, but i think it's time for me to move on to a more stable relationship. i've stood by him through all the hooker and drug drama, and i'll always be there for him if he should need me - but i've come to realize that i have needs too. specifically, i need someone to redecorate my house. and preferably, i'll need someone who looks excellent in a tank top to do said renovation. between you and me, i think george's sleeveless days are behind him.

so now all i have to do is make mr. bromstad aware of my existence and convince him that living in dallas in a messy home with two loud children (not his) is really his dream come true as well as mine. i'm sure over time he will grow to love me - or he'll press kidnapping charges. it could go either way.

the opposite of news

2008-09-24T13:08:00.003-05:00

i will promise to try NOT to belabor this point...but the "revelation" that clay aiken is gay is not a revelation. it's not shocking or surprising, nor is it news to anybody who has a functioning head on their body.

if you didn't know clay aiken is gay, then it's time to seriously assess your powers of perception. to quote from the birdcage, he's practically a breast.

i'm not sure exactly what the point of trying to keep this all under wraps was, but i guess he had his reasons. at any rate, i'm sure he'll be a wonderful mother. plus the framed cover of people magazine hanging on the nursery wall will be a nice segue into the discussion regarding why the aiken household has two dads. congratulations, you big ole queen! and as always, i say that with a love in my heart that only a fag-hag can possess.

mensa for dummies

2008-09-22T13:34:00.005-05:00

i consider myself a bright person in general, but have come to doubt my automotive skills for good reason this week.

for a starter, i locked my keys in my trunk at my folks' house yesterday and had to call a locksmith out to get me in my own damn car. it took him all of 1 minute to do it, but he wasn't shy about charging me 50 bones for it. and since i did it to myself, i have no choice but to accept it as a dimwit fee.

this morning, my low tire pressure light was back on (no, david, i haven't had that tire plugged yet) so i stopped to fill it with air. i don't have a tire gauge in my car (no, dad, i don't) so i just sorta guesstimated. i checked after a while and and the stupid light was still on. so i put more air in. still the light is on, so i assume that maybe that air pump isn't working right and i should try another one. with the benefit of hindsight, i now realize this was a very FEMALE assumption. so now it's 20 minutes later and two air pumps and the freakin' light is still on. screw it, i think...i'm outta here.

as i maneuver down the highway, i notice that my car seems to be riding awfully high in the area of the front passenger tire...and that combined with that nagging light finally pushes me over the brink. i break down and call david - men have to be good for something, right? he agrees to meet me at the gas station where he immediately produces his tire gauge...and this is where the trouble starts.

"you have 70 lbs of pressure in this tire!" he says. is that bad? i think it's bad. so now i sit and wait while he lets out all the air that i just spent 20 minutes putting in at two separate gas stations. turns out the rear driver side tire was low, which apparently didn't cross my mind as a possibility. but it certainly goes a long way to explaining the tilting sensation i felt after i grossly overinflated the opposite tire.

what's interesting is that instead of being shamefaced for being such a moron, i had the nerve to be outraged that i should even have to worry about anything automotive in the first place. i think if i continue on with my righteous indignation, i may just figure out a way to blame this on david yet.

social stupidity

2008-09-19T13:11:00.006-05:00

"Some days, we don't let the line move at all. We call those 'weekdays'.

- Patty and Selma Bouvier

***********************************************************
i know it's trite to complain about governmental offices and the mental cattle that they employ. everybody's got their dmv story or their tax office tale of woe, and they're all strikingly similar in most regards. it's bad enough when you can fill out and submit the copious amount of paperwork required for any given request via the internet. but it's decidedly worse if you have to deal with one of the geniuses who landed himself a go'ment job.

i have a point, don't worry. i'm trying to secure a social security number for charlie. i went online and filled out the forms, printed them and mailed them to the local ssa office along with his original birth certificate as required for purposes of verifying identification.

like clockwork approximately one week later, the forms and birth certificate were returned to me along with a form letter (of course) explaining why my request was denied. you'll love this - they'd like to see two forms of identification, like a driver's license, for example.

so i gotta call. i'm dreading the ordeal, but a small part of me can't wait to ask exactly what form of identification the typical 3-year old is carrying around in his wallet these days. i started trying yesterday at 4:00, which i should've known was a mistake. they're all in shutdown mode that close to quittin' time. i try calling over and over again for 30 minutes and get a busy signal each time. i start again today and actually eventually get a ring which is answered by...a recording and a prompt menu. i press "0" for an actual living person and get another ring - i'm so encouraged at this point - which is answered by another recording apologizing that all available agents are currently assisting other customers, which i translate to mean that betty jo is in the middle of trimming her toenails and can't be disturbed and rhonda is down at the snack machine for another bag of barbecue pork rinds.

i put my phone on speaker and hang up the receiver to work while i'm waiting, settling in for the inevitable long haul. every 30 seconds, my thoughts are interrupted by the apology recording. after about 45 minutes, i start to think that maybe the office is actually closed, and that the people who work there keep the standard recording on even during non-business hours just to mess with people's minds.

just when i'm on the verge of (so many things) hanging up, rhonda sucks down the last crumbs of her pork rinds and picks up the phone. i was so stunned i almost forgot why i had called - oh yeah...i.d. for a 3-year old. turns out i'm going to have to provide multiple original identification documents for both myself and charlie, none of which i'm prepared to turn over to the united states post office (a governmental entity that makes even the ssa look good), which means i'm going to have to schlep over there and stand in a roped-off line for well over an hour carrying everything from my passport to my kroger plus card so that i can enroll my son in a program that will be bankrupt before he's even old enough to contribute.

the end result will be the loss of HOURS of my life and perhaps and aneurysm. of course if i die now before i have a chance to collect on my social security, then the government will have won, and you know how i hate it when the man keeps me down. so wish me luck next week as i face what became of all our tax dollars. i'll let you know if the line moves at all.

hometown pride

2008-09-16T12:52:00.009-05:00

i should be working - i'm so far behind i don't even know where to start, which makes me loathe to start at all...which makes me do things like waste time on facebook.

so as a lark, i clicked on my hometown just to see what kind of freaks are cruising the net, and for what. here are a couple of my favorites with the names omitted just in case one of these butt-knobs is feeling litigious.

talk about sending the wrong messages...from what i can deduce from the uniform patch, this guy works at a public school. just the kind of guy you want hanging around your kids, right? secondly, i have to assume this is his school photo. really? is that what you want people to see on facebook - you in your uniform with a PATCH on it? he's single (shocker) and his profile says he's interested in women, but i'm wondering if perhaps his tastes are running on the younger side.

hey baby, LOVE the glamour shot. is that lip gloss...? this gentleman has three friends, all of whom are women. he also has a photo album entitled "itz tyme to give me mine" that includes a graphic of a magazine entitled "bling". don't hate. holla!

this may be my favorite. this gentleman lists his interests as men (clearly) and then also says his religion is baptist. last time i checked, the baptists weren't too keen on you guys, honey. but good for you for posting on facebook in your pink speedo. we shall overcome!

um, is that a plastic sword? huh...okay then. however the photo isn't even the best part of this profile, which has to be her description of her political views, which reads "are political". yes, she are political for sure. maybe there's more than one of her. sadly, she (they) has no friends. perhaps the sword pic wasn't the best move after all...

so that's what's breeding (or desperately TRYING to breed) in my hometown. i'm willing to bet that i'm suddenly appearing much more normal.

swing low sweet chariot

2008-09-14T07:51:00.003-05:00

yeah that's right - negro spirituals. i don't know what else to do but pray for death. i'm sick. it's probably a sinus infection and upper respiratory infection, but there's a fair chance it could be the black death. or tuberculosis. wait - are those the same things? googling...nope, two different things. and it's possible that i have one or both of them.

my sinuses feel like they've taken a load of buckshot via each nostril, and i can totally feel the powder burn all over and inside my nose. my face hurts so bad that my teeth ache. my cough sounds like a seal barking - not a cute baby seal either. an old fat seal with tb...or black death. there's also some unidentified organism bomb-diving from somewhere inside my ribs down into my lower intestine. maybe i should eat, but i think i'd prefer to taste my last meal.

can't sleep either. i wake up with snot running down my face, a la aqualung. so i blow, and then i can't breathe. i suppose you have surmised by now that i look really hot - red, crusty nose, big black circles under both eyes, bed head, no make-up and sweats. i look like rosie o'donnell.

okay, i'm done complaining (on the computer, not to my family). i think i'll venture out later today and see if i can find someone to bleed me with leeches, which i believe was the treatment of choice for the black death crowd. if that doesn't work, i'll put all my affairs in order and prepare for the final journey. peace be with you all.

move over bacon

2008-09-12T09:47:00.007-05:00

i only THOUGHT i had nothing to blog about today (silly girl). i was chatting it up with my friend shara at work today and our talk turned to the cast of footloose being on the today show this morning. i loved this movie and should've added it to my play it again, sam blog. i fully admit the movie is painful to watch today, particularly considering how much i LOVED it when it came out in 1984, but i'm not too proud to admit that i will watch it anytime it's on tv.

in my opinion, the quintessential moment of the film is kevin bacon's angry dance, which i found on youtube by googling "kevin bacon angry dance", which i find beyond hilarious. there it is, in all its glory.

if you love teen angst like i do, you can't deny this is pure cinematic gold. it's hard to decide what part of it is the best part, but my votes are on the run/dance/punch moves and the gymnastic flips. the credits read that the gymnastics were performed by a double, but i don't believe a word of it. of course he did his own gymnastics because he was JUST THAT ANGRY. you can tell he's angry right away because he's smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer.

and if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the fine gentlemen from flight of the conchords are also a huge fan of this scene. bret's angry dance is a must see, and if you're not a fan of the show yet, you may get hooked from this clip.

i think what we can all take away from this scene is that the appropriate response to feelings of anger is to dance it out. screw hugging it out - let's bring back the angry dance. i gotta go stretch now because i just got an email that really pissed me off. where are my smokes...?

divine design

2008-09-11T14:47:00.007-05:00

charlie may be a budding interior designer. i suppose he has a certain aesthetic and feels compelled to make some spaces his own. on more than one occasion, he's spruced up the hallway with original art in crayon, marker and pen. he's also decorated his own clothing and body with markers, which is nice. there's nothing quite like digging around in a toddler's bellybutton with a washcloth trying to get green marker out of every crevice.

he's also fond of rearranging things. for example - clearly he prefers that all toys with wheels be placed carefully around the refrigerator, dishwasher and next to the bed so they can easily be found in the dark when navigating to the restroom. also, he feels more comfortable when pantry items such as popcorn, chips and chewing gum are embedded into the carpet as a design element rather than kept in their wrappings. his experiments with liquids are legendary, but generally speaking he prefers them on the tile floors so that the end result is a performance art piece featuring one ore more family members lying bruised and bleeding on it. it's all very avant garde.

yesterday, i ran across this piece in the kid's play area - we'll call it a sculpture for argument's sake.

so i'm interpreting this piece as both an insight as to where the vast majority of his meals are coming from and also a statement that he's not gonna take it anymore. clearly he's a genius. either that or his bellybutton was already full.

where did you hear that??? oh...

2008-09-10T10:22:00.003-05:00

the following story falls squarely under the category of "i deserve it", and i know i DO, but never cease to be amazed at what my kids pick up and repeat (too often in public).

last saturday night david and i dressed to go out with friends and were getting the new babysitter all filled in on how best to cope with what she had in store for her. david had on a tee with a long-sleeved shirt open over it...new purchases from his (incredible) wife. if you don't know david, you may not know his modus operandi with regard to donning new duds - he has to have approval from all parties present. ALL PARTIES must provide reassuring input.

i told him he looked great. the babysitter agreed - yes, you look nice. no, there isn't anything wrong with your shirts. no, you shouldn't tuck them in. no, you don't have to snap the overshirt but yes, you can if you want to. yes, you should wear the cross necklace and no, you don't need a watch. no on the sandals, yes on the shoes. this can sometimes be a process that lasts up to 20 minutes, and it eventually becomes extremely exasperating.

still not convinced, david made the mistake of begging henry's appraisal. i'm sure henry thought his dad looked fine and was also WAY past caring, but he saw an opportunity to bust out his coolest 7 year old vocabulary to impress the new sitter. he glanced over his shoulder and said, "i don't know, dad...you look kinda ghetto to me."

at that point, i'm sure the sitter had a pretty good idea about what she was up against. i opened my mouth to ask where he got that kind of talk and then immediately realized it was straight out of my own repertoire, specifically from the multiple times i have forbade him from wearing his old holey and/or stained crap because it looks "totally ghetto".

the only bright spot here is that this time, instead of my words coming back to bite ME in the ass, they bit david in the ass (which, by the way, looked just fine in those jeans).

elephantitis

2008-09-08T09:26:00.004-05:00

i found out this weekend that my husband has developed a terrible case of elephantitis - that's right folks, he's planning to vote republican.

he had nothing to say about the election before this weekend, and then suddenly he was quite opinionated. it appears that he watched ONE evening of the republican national convention and got a load of sarah palin, and that's all it took. (and let the record show that he watched NOT ONE iota of the democratic national convention, and was also foolhardy enough to mention to me that he thought she was hot, knowing full well i have a blog - hello!) so clearly his rationale is very clearly thought out.

i've noticed this phenomenon in my office as well. people had nothing to say about mccain, but now that he's picked palin, they all have something to talk about. i'll give her this much - she's spunky. she's a typical (if there is such a thing) american woman with the same trials facing many other american women today, and she's been quite forthcoming about it all. outside of the fact that she's a republican, i really got no beef with her.

here's my problem - i'm not voting for a vice president. i'm voting for a PRESIDENT. and despite the fact that mccain has made a cool choice in running mate, a republican presidential vote is STILL a vote for another old white man. and i don't care what it sounds like - i'll be damned if i'm voting for another old white man - to say nothing of my feelings for his platform. besides, if it took a running mate to stir up enthusiasm for this man, you gotta admit the guy is pretty weak.

to add insult to injury, THIS was brought home by david and placed in my yard. in MY yard!

okay so technically it's OUR yard. but come ON. he put it up and i took it down. he put it BACK up and i took it down again. this last time, i took it apart and threw it in two pieces in the garage behind some stuff so it would require effort to retrieve and replant it.

i told him he could put it back up once i've gotten my obama sign and then we can plant them side by side. that's a fair compromise, i think. i don't yet know what to do with the bumper sticker he's put on his back windshield - kill me.

all in all, it appears that our votes will cancel out each other's vote this november, unless i can manage to sway his opinions. he's as stubborn as i am, though, so it may take more drastic measures to change his mind. so if anybody out there can email me a picture of sarah palin without her make-up, hair a mess, and perhaps even with a booger on her face, i think we'll be in business.

ponyboy

2008-09-05T15:00:00.003-05:00

it's been fascinating this week watching charlie enter a whole new world. fascinating...and yet somewhat disconcerting. i think my experience watching henry in this environment has colored my expectations, because i fully anticipated that charlie would establish himself well in the middle of the mix immediately. instead, i've observed him hanging around the fringe of the group.

i began wondering if maybe it was too soon for this transition, but i knew in my heart it was time. it made my chest ache watching him from the classroom window playing by himself instead of hanging with the other kids. at first, i thought he was unhappy or insecure because he's typically quite outgoing. but when i picked him up, he was happy and normal - he wasn't fretful and happily went back every day this week.

so it's me then, right? i guess i'm coming to terms with the fact that my boys are indeed two separate creatures. in my mind, i lump them together as "the boys", and though i know they are different, it's harder to see that when they're together. and then of course in the back of my mind is always their age differences and the fact that henry came first and charlie is the baby...there are so many factors.

but if i look at them separately, as individuals, placed in the same situation - they really are radically different, based on what i've seen this week. henry is a superstar, a superfreak, super smart (in brain and in mouth), leader, alpha male, cult of personality, trouble-maker extraordinaire. everybody knows henry - he's both famous and infamous. if we speak in terms of the novel the outsiders (if you haven't read this, i'm not sure you can be my friend), henry is a soc. he's a popular, (probably) spoiled kid. i hope as he grows he will have the compassion and strength of character to be kind to kids who aren't so cool, but it will likely be a struggle.

and following the same analogy...charlie would be a greaser. he's tough because he's had to fight for every ounce of space and attention he's ever gotten. he's not out to start any trouble (typically), but he's willing to defend himself fiercely. he's sensitive and also much more circumspect. of the two boys, he's the one less likely to jump first and ask questions later. he seems unaffected by the pressures to be part of any group, and he's happy doing his own thing with or without the approval of everybody else. he doesn't seek to lead, and is often not inclined to follow. he's my ponyboy. he's not the center of attention, nor does he beg to be. he's not upset NOT to be.

maybe this is the real root of why my heart hurts watching him on the sidelines. the notion of not needing or seeking attention is (clearly) totally foreign to me. it bothers me more than it bothers him...ergo, it shouldn't bother me at all. it's not like he's antisocial...he's very open and friendly. he just doesn't need to be the sun around which all of the planets revolve.

WOW. i wonder what that's like....

what's a girl to do?

2008-09-04T09:38:00.004-05:00

in the heat of all the political fervor surrounding the 2008 presidential election, i wanted to take the time and focus on a really important and pertinent issue facing americans this fall. you know i try to stay involved in the issues that really matter and affect people's lives. so in keeping with that sentiment, let's talk about a very special contestant on this season's america's next top model. i'd like to introduce you to isis.

i won't apologize for watching trash t.v., if that's what you're hoping, so you might as well just join me in the gutter to hash this all out.

so back to isis...she's pretty, no? as it turns out, the pronoun is the important part of the last sentence, because she is a he. you know how i love the gays and have always embraced the drag queens. rupaul is one of my heroes. got no issues with transgender, transsexual or transvestite - got no hate for trannies of any variety.

so what's my point? they're referring to isis as "pre-op transgender", which i assume means she's still got all her man parts, no female parts, and has been living as a woman. so technically...doesn't that make her a transvestite? which brings me to my point (finally) - she's not a girl and they've made her a finalist in a girl's modeling contest...picking her over actual physical females who tried out (up to and including my gorgeous friend danica who is hot).

granted, it makes for great t.v., but it does give me pause. i applaud her bravery and honesty without a doubt, and i can certainly empathize with what her life must have always been like. but i feel totally guilty for wondering, what about girl power? she was born a man, and as unfair as it may be...i kinda feel sorry for the girls with actual vajayjays who were bested by a member of the house of penis. i'm torn between love for the empowering of women and acceptance of the trannies. seems that at the root of every quandary there's a penis to blame.

does my ass make these jeans look fat?

2008-09-02T12:02:00.006-05:00

see this photo? this is what popped up when i googled "fat butt". and i got one. but honestly, it's not so much the oakland booty that's getting me down...it's all the other areas surrounding said booty that are similar in size and proportion.

so...i joined weight watchers online today and will be attending my first meeting tonight. this is the only plan that's ever worked for me in a healthy way, and knowing that you have to face THE SCALE every week is enough to put some fear in your heart before you put the french fries in your mouth.

i have always said that if a genie popped out of a bottle and gave me three wishes, the first one would be to be thin and never have to worry about dieting or gaining weight again. then of course world peace and all that crap - humanitarian, i'm not - VAIN, i am. and truth be told, i'm not exactly getting any younger. if i'm going to live long enough to be a burden to my children, then i need to get healthy. it's good to set goals in specific terms, i think.

so this is my goal butt. it's not heidi klum's butt, and it could use some toning, but it is (or was, i should say) my OWN butt. the key is...it's smaller than the one i got now. true, the jeans aren't doing anything for it, but those went in the garage sale years ago with the girbaud jeans and colored socks. (wow, i digress a lot - i have officially bored myself.)

WISH ME LUCK. i have some really cool skinny jeans that i'm dying to wedge myself back into before the holidays. if i do, i swear i'll photograph and post it...then when people comment, "what an ass", i can assume it's a compliment on my derriere rather than a commentary with regard to my personality.

you can't handle the truth

2008-08-28T15:35:00.006-05:00

well, the little monster is entering pre-school on tuesday. he's outgrown home care and some poor soul will be meeting him for the first time next week.

as i was filling out the paperwork, i realized how many times i've answered the same sort of questions in the past while enrolling henry in school. and i'm still telling the same lies.

honestly, what do they expect? if i answered these questions truthfully, the poor kid would have to be home schooled (by his father 'cause i ain't down with that). for example...

how would you describe your child's personality? let's see...rowdy, argumentative, loud, messy, accident prone, demanding, fearless, manipulative...i need a second sheet. of course on the application i replied "outgoing, stubborn and loving". so i gave them stubborn - the rest will become self-evident.

does your child have any eating problems? no, not at all. he eats everything, sometimes including food.

what method of discipline do you use at home? ha! this is a good one. let's see...flogging, threatening, yelling, cajoling, denial, bargaining, acceptance - wait, those are the stages of grief. oh well - same thing.

what other information can you give that will be helpful in getting to know your child? well, i'd start by reinforcing all the door hinges. next, remove all sharp objects in a 3 mile radius of the classroom, then double bolt all the locks. nail all the furniture to the floor. whip and chair optional.

my hat is off to anybody who will nurture and (attempt to) teach 3 year olds. it's hard enough dealing with one - imagine being in a room with as many as 15. it's the stuff nightmares are made of. so if you are a person of any particular faith, please add charlie's new teacher to your prayer or blessing or karma or whatever list. she's going to need all the help she can get.

dating the gays

2008-08-28T09:35:00.007-05:00

i hope you didn't think i was kidding about having a gay prom date. i know i blogged about my prom hair, but i was so super cool that i went to more than one prom. gay prom date has a name - stephen. he went to another school, and i went with stephen to HIS prom. only a gay guy would keep old pictures like i do...thank GOD. check THIS out! i had totally forgotten about my shimmery stockings...tres chic!

i don't know about stephen, but i, for one, had no idea he was (in his words) "a big ole queen" at the time. he dated a girlfriend of mine pictured below - you can thank me later, stephen.

stephen and i worked together part time in the glamorous broadway square mall in tyler, texas at the county seat. do you remember that place? we sold scads of levi's jeans, as well as other super awesome 80s brands like bongo, guess and ocean pacific. goes a long way toward explaining my acid wash fetish, doesn't it? but i digress...

stephen and i were big buddies and continued to hang out after the tragic end of his relationship with amie (pictured above). he was kind enough to come over to my house and keep me company while i was grounded, which covers pretty much most of my senior year. here we are showcasing some fabulous 80s decor in addition to our fashion.

for the record, stephen's shirt reads "keepin' cool", which clearly he was just by wearing it! can you believe i have the unmitigated gall to mock his shirt when my yellow socks match my top? well...i do.

here we are getting ready for another dance - the aforementioned sadie hawkins dance which bears the proud tradition of dressing alike. how many dances did we HAVE? good LORD - you'd think i could sit one out or something. and stephen went to almost as many as i did and he didn't even go to my school!

as stated above, i didn't know stephen was gay until i ran into him at a gay bar in college. i was chatting it up and he sat in my lap - fabulous reunion! we've kept in close touch ever since. clearly even before i was aware of my gaydar powers, i was already attracting all the best gays. so here's to you, my friend - fully admitting our fashion disasters and poor relationship choices of the past, and moving foward toward all the mistakes to come. at least we have each other!

kevin's korner

2008-08-26T16:08:00.008-05:00

if you're a fan of the office, then you must understand i enjoy needling kevin in much the same way that jim enjoys tormenting dwight. too bad we don't work in the same office, so i have to annoy him in the virtual world. i have to say though...it's still pretty satisfying. join me on our photographic exploration of all things kevina (pronounced keh-vee-nah).

it's a documented fact that when anyone points a camera at kevin, his tongue comes out. i don't think he can help it - it's a reflex.

this photo was taken the night i met kevina in new orleans, and contrary to appearances, there was no hook-up involved or even attempted - this is just kevin's way of saying hello, in much the same way a labrador retriever would greet a new friend. he's one guy who knows how to make a first impression - you can tell from the look on my face that i'm clearly impressed. black-and-white really captures the moment, doesn't it?

here's kevina's tongue again...and as this photo was a guest submission (to this very worthy cause), i'm not sure where he was going with this pose. maybe he dropped some food on his shirt?

this one is nice - not so much tongue (thank you), but note that the mouth is still wide open. thanks again to my guest contributor who will remain unnamed for security purposes.

and in closing, it must be said that i love kevin like a brother - in fact, he and my brother are both members of the nerd-cult known as aggie alumni. i also enjoy giving my brother excessive grief, and he lives for giving it back. so it could be said that kevina is the extra brother i never had. my brother would be proud to know that there is someone here local filling in for him in making me miserable every chance he gets. however at this time...i think i'm ahead. say cheese!

love thy neighbor (not)

2008-08-25T15:59:00.005-05:00

we have a neighbor that we affectionately refer to as "the douche". actually, we don't feel a whole lot of affection for this guy, so let's just say he IS a douche and has fully earned this moniker.

he's the worst sort of sterotype, but in more than one genre - so he's repulsive on so many levels.

for a starter, he works at a car dealership in one capacity or another, and i strongly suspect he's in sales. there's nothing wrong with selling cars - it's honest work and somebody has to do it. however, we've all met the stereotypical car salesman, and this guy is IT. he races through the neighborhood in new cars with dealer plates with his radio blaring (usually 80s hair metal) at all hours...because he's so cool, right?

secondly, he's a meathead - he's single and is one of those guys who spends all his free time in the gym. he's got a fat neck and a large ego and a short-man's strut. you know the type - he's clearly in his 40s but you can tell he'd love to start a fight. so not only is he a douche - he's also a dick.

but the most annoying thing about this man is his motorcycle. david could tell you what kind it is - i don't know and i don't care. all i know is that it's LOUD. it's excessively loud. he likes to crank it up in the driveway and just rev it for about 30 minutes. BAH DUH BAH DUH BAH DUH bahduhbahduhbahduh. the neighborhood is full of young kids who have bedtimes and school, but it seems the best time for him to do this is after 9:30 p.m. as soon as it starts, david and i look at each other and say, "ah, the douche..." of course we can't hear each other over the roar, but we've learned to read lips.

i walked by his house one day and saw him in the driveway wiping it down lovingly with a diaper. the sight of it gave me the most unholy desire to desecrate it in some way...carve my name in the paint with a key or fill the gas tank with sugar. of course i won't, but every time i hear that engine start up, i get new ideas. if anybody out there has any experience with running off neighbors, please give a shout out - literally. i won't hear you otherwise.

all done now

2008-08-22T10:19:00.003-05:00

i'm sure i will take some heat for this post...but i am officially finished watching the olympics. i don't have any hate in my heart and i feel all the appropriate pride in our accomplishments and disappointments at our near misses - really i do. but to be completely honest, my attention span isn't all that long.

i'm tired of running, diving, swimming and even gymnastics. i won't even pretend i watched any other events because i didn't (except trampoline just because it was so cool). i'm REALLY tired of watching all the recaps on the news and the multiple interviews with the athletes in which they're forced to answer the same question 19 times from different reporters. i think by this time, they're pretty tired of themselves, to be quite honest.

i never thought i'd be ready for banal plotlines and canned laughter, but i am. i've resorted to watching family guy reruns and true hollywood stories in an effort to escape the seemingly ubiquitous olympic coverage. my apologies to all athletic supporters who are offended, but can i please have my fall season premiere week soon?

restaurant weak

2008-08-21T09:26:00.004-05:00

okay, let me start by saying that it was WONDERFUL to get out last night. the company was great and the restaurant was very cool - we went to abacus...if you're a fan of top chef, you'll recall this is where (the very hot) tre wilcox came from.

however...didn't realize dallas restaurant week was still going on. they do this once a year to encourage people to try cool restaurants they've never been to before - they do a price fixe menu and evidently they pare down the servings. so last night we had our choice of one appetizer and one entree...dessert sampling followed.

let me get to the point here. i chose scallops as an appetizer and prawns as my entree. actually, the word scallops is incorrect. i should say SCALLOP - my appetizer was one small scallop. my entree was THREE medium shrimp. boy was i stuffed!

let it be known that this is NOT a complaint about my host - he was kind enough to buy for everyone and clearly paid WAY too much for what we actually consumed, which was extremely gracious. but i'm left thinking...WTF? that wasn't a meal...that was a snack. it was a warm-up for a real meal. and the place was packed...did everyone leave there and swing by taco bell on the way home? my breakfast this morning from chick-fil-a was larger than my meal last night.

so let it be known...henceforth i am offically out on restaurant week. cheapskate that i am, if i'm going to pay $30 for a meal, i require at the VERY least to leave without a growling stomach. i'm getting off my soapbox now and going back to facebook...i mean work.

extra special olympics

2008-08-20T09:24:00.008-05:00

david and i were having one of our more academic and insightful discussions last night with regard to the olympics. i started thinking about all of the different competitions, many of which i didn't even know existed, like trampoline. granted, it was cool to watch...but really? and of course if table tennis is an olympic sport, seems to me we could begin expanding into even more varied areas of athletic (?) prowess.

so naturally, as we were watching the diving last night, david began to expound on his particular water talents. so please allow me to submit for your approval our ideas for the summer olympic games of 2012.

it goes without saying that you have to start with the cannonball. it's a classic.

but let's not forget the lesser known splash events, like the can opener. while it typically doesn't equal the cannonball in splash volume, it does require more skill and form. this would be a level 2 in degree of difficulty.

and finally, no splash dive event would be complete without the bellyflop. note the form above, and the cape is an excellent touch, i think. high marks for artistic interpretation.

and while we're on the topic of artistic interpretation, let me share another thought i had - the winter olympics has ice skating, so why shouldn't the summer olympics have roller skating? here are two ideas that i'm sure will be picked up by the olympic committee as soon as i've had a chance to write.

who doesn't enjoy the artistry and magic of roller disco? with a few months training, i feel pretty confident that i could medal in this event. and think of the costume possibilities. they'd put the ice skating costumes to shame.

and lastly, for the more athletic practitioners of all things roller...what about roller derby? if ever there was a sport that offered up more positive role models for young american girls, i certainly can't imagine what it would be.

i'm starting my petition today, so if there are any other (pure genius) ideas you have to offer, please send them my way. i figure it's better if we hit the committee with all these ideas at once, don't you?

calling dr. freud

2008-08-14T09:56:00.007-05:00

i am notorious for having the most WHACK dreams, and they're often really amusing when examined by the light of day.

my favorite of all times (always a crowd pleaser) is the one in which i got a call from an anonymous federal employee letting me know as a courtesy that my governmental status was offically being downgraded to "white trash".

couple nights back, i dreamed i was one of three wives of tony soprano, so it's obvious there's a little hbo swimming around in the gray matter. (i was the number one wife, in case there was any doubt.)

last night, however, stretches the imagination in so many ways i don't really know where to start. the adolescent to the right is joe jonas from the jonas brothers - i had to ask henry which one of them has straight hair so i could tell you his name accurately. this was my boyfriend in last night's drama. WOW. really? i'm not sure this kid has hit puberty yet, plus he looks more like a girl than a boy AND he definitely wears more make-up and uses more hair product than i do. so that's how it starts...

then cheerleader shows up wearing this bridesmaid dress...

and we get on an elevator together on our way up to my boyfriend joe jonas' room. (she better keep her grubby hands off my asexual man-boy...i guess...) unfortunately, the elevators in my dreams ALWAYS act like the elevator in willy wonka.

they never just go up. they almost always go sideways or diagonally and sometimes upside down, like last night. they NEVER go where they're supposed to. so when i awoke, cheerleader and i were upside down in an elevator on the lawn of the hotel. 'SPLAIN THAT! should i just go ahead and check myself in somewhere for long-term inpatient mental evaluation? never mind, don't answer.

the church of denise, part 2

2008-08-12T09:19:00.004-05:00

okay okay okay, denise. you WIN. i drank the kool-aid and i really like it. in honor of my new addiction to facebook, i posted a couple of blasts from the past over to the right featuring an old (well, you know what i mean) and dear friend from WAAAAYY back. i haven't talked to her in years, and it was so great to catch back up. we have a lot of history together, and it was all all fun. here's what she looks like today...

gorgeous then, gorgeous now - sickening, really. do you not AGE, tiffany? she is married with kids and living in my hometown, and we're totally going to hook up next time i visit the 'rents.

just for grins (and possibly threats of violence from tiffany), here's a FABULOUS shot of us back in the day with our mullets. god, we were so HOT.

tiffany, if it's any consolation, your hair is way cooler than my room. seriously? it looks like holly hobbie and laura ingalls wilder got together and started an interior design firm. wow - you don't get a lot of shadow boxes these days...what can i say?