This morning, I had very serious thoughts about wearing my new Magnum PI t-shirt (with detachable faux fur mustache) to work under a pinstripe blazer. The official reason I will give for not wearing my new Magnum PI t-shirt (with detachable faux fur mustache) to work under a pinstripe blazer is that at 7:40 AM it was already 87 degrees outside, and that’s a whole lot of clothing to be wearing on such a ferociously hot day. But because we’re close, I’m going to level with you. It’s cold in my office. Damn cold. But even sucking in, I couldn’t get that blazer to button.
Baby needs to do some sit ups. So, what’s new?
If I thought turning thirty was going to flip some cosmic switch and alter my life in some enchanted, mystical way, this weekend’s remarkable and not-so-remarkable moments set me straight. My brother and sister-in-law (the givers of such a fine piece of mustachioed clothing) were in town for a few days, and as part of our hangings out, we saw the new Batman flick. It was long. Really long. Turns out, at thirty years old, I am still as impatient and cinematically-ADD as I was at twenty-nine. Go figure.
Waking up on Sunday morning, eyes swollen and sore from the previous night’s cry, I also realized that turning thirty did not magically toughen me up. I won’t go into what happened (give it three months, eh?) because I believe if you tell someone you forgive them, you should make every effort not to rub their noses in the incident which caused them to need forgiving in the first place. I do wonder, though, when it is I’ll finally throw on an idiot-proof vest and stop melting into a snotty heap every time someone hurts my feelings. Probably never. Actually, probably around the same time that I start caring enough about sit-ups to fit back into my pinstripe blazer.
I want to tell you the story of how Facebook is evil. But thereis no time to do it justice at present. So without proper segue orentertaining transition (which also require more time than I’ve gotright now), let me say, I’ve been getting a lot of junk mail from myalma mater recently. Like, three letters a week. They want my money.This simultaneously annoys and amuses me. Obviously, there is adisconnect between the fundraising folks and the rest of theuniversity, because somewhere there has to be a record of the fact thatI graduated from their fine institution with a liberal artsdegree. I was a Spanish major, for pete’s sake. What kind of financialsuccess do they think I could have possibly attained with thatextremely useful degree tucked under my belt? Unless we’re reaching forthe stars and I became say, a United Nations translator, the most theycould be really be hoping for is high school Spanish teacher. And weknow there’s no money there. Grossly underpaid teachers say, Heeeey.
Ithas just occurred to me that perhaps good old Brigham Young Universitycounted on me staying Mormon all these years and they weren’tanticipating that I’d blow my legacy on booze, coffee, and birthcontrol. But, golly, aren’t we glad I did?
That’s rhetorical, by the way. And now we’ll break for an important public service announcement.
Public Service Announcement: If you’re not watching Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog,you’re doing yourself a giant disservice. Like getting all your majorcrevices nice and clean, following the adventures of Neil PatrickHarris Evil Genius is just part of being a functioning, likable memberof society. Throw in a little booze, coffee and birth control and youjust might get to sit at the cool kids’ table. I mean, no guarantees,but think about it.
Yesterday was not exactly the best day I’ve ever had. Among actual real people problems, my thighs were touching a little too much for my happiness, I hadn’t gotten enough sleep, my apartment was dirty, and someone in particular was rising so fast to the top of my shit list that I was having fantasies about voodoo practices. Or murder-for-hire. I mean, by now I’ve watched enough hours of Law & Order to know how not to do it. Surely I’d be able to pull it off. But since I wasn’t feeling creative enough for doll-making, and hiring a hit man turned out to way, way unrealistic in terms of my budget this month, I opted for a little friend therapy.
Lucky, lucky Ari got the full whinery tour.
“… and I really freaking hate So-and-So.”
“I feel the same, except I hate everyone always.”
“Wow. I only hate specific people on some days. But that’s just because I have a recessive Mary Tyler Moore gene.”
“Well put. So what do you anticipate the highlight of your day being?”
“I got nothin’.”
“OK – let’s do this together, because I have nothing either. Want to seethe boys that broke my heart and then you can mock my hideous taste inutterly unworthy men? There are some gut-busting laughs to be had.”
She wasn’t kidding. My own list of unworthy men just makes me cringe, but hers – complete with photos of the subjects in what appeared to be the 2008 Mark Paul Gosselar Sportswear Collection – was truly hilarious. And god love her, just what I needed. Is it schadenfreude when you’re laughing with love? I hope not. Because knowing that someone else has had it worse than you – man, that’s the kind of gift that keeps on giving.
The ice cream cone I scarfed after lunch didn’t hurt either. Except, obviously, with the thigh thing.
Tomorrow, this blog turns six years old. I think we should celebrate.
When I turned six, I got a new bike – a pink Huffy with a big, squishy seat and a kickstand that was not very reliable. I loved it (until, of course, it became clear that to blossom into a sleek, sophisticated woman I would require a ten speed with impractically slim tires and a seat that looked like a potential gynecological hazard). Come to think of it, the year of six was pretty fantastic, in general. I got a new sister, had Mrs. Clark for a first grade teacher (we made Stone Soup and were encouraged to color outside the lines, if we very well pleased) and a pair of purple and white Roos. The livin’, it was easy.
Let us celebrate this Year of Six by playing my favorite party game*, Truth or Dare. I choose truth. Like always, I’ll answer any question that isn’t rude or obnoxious. Sometimes that answer may be, “None of your business, perv!” but hey, an answer is an answer.
Fire when ready.
*Fine, my actual favorite party game is Spin the Bottle, but you see the logistical nightmare involved in trying to play that with the Internet.
(P.S. I’m not answering/publishing them in order as some take more consideration. Also, I am feeling a little ADD. So, if your question hasn’t shown up, keep checking!)
I need a body double. A body, brain and heart double, actually. Or three of them. One to sit in for me and go clickety-clack on the keyboard and produce useful workish material, another to go clickety-clack and produce useful bloggish material, and one (preferably with a valid driver’s license) to run all nine thousand party errands left on my list, so that when Friday evening rolls around there is beer, finger food and an iTunes playlist of fun! and engaging! party tunes all wrapped up in a very tidy apartment lacking in any conspicuously unfinished shelving projects. Ahem.
If the body doubles venture were successful, I’d have time to flop down on my bed where I may privately make a mountain of a molehill and indulge in this woe-is-me feeling that’s bubbling up in my anxious tummy. That’s all I want to do. Lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling. It’s not that anything in particular is wrong, exactly. I’m just overwhelmed. I chalk it up to the fact that I’ve a lot to do in a short time and, more importantly, where matters of my heart are concerned, it doesn’t matter how much rest I get at night, the very act of being awake is something of an effort.
This afternoon when I clicked over to my gmail spam folder to make surethat no legitimate messages were trapped within, one message caught myeye. Not for promising the ever-sought-after “mighty wang.” I mean,either I am not so picky about, um, wangs, or have never beenpresented with a less-than-mighty specimen, because this issue ranks onmy List of Concerns somewhere near the personal minutia of The Hillscast members and maybe, car stereo equipment. Which is to say oh, god,don’t care. But! The subject line of the email gave me a few giggles.
From: Laurent <Spammer@Spamalamadingdong.org>
To: Heather <thisfish@thegmail.com>
Subject: Sperms of Endearment
Spermsof Endearment? Oh, spammer, your sense of humor is showing! That amusedme so much, I briefly considered replying, to thank Laurent forbrightening my day.
Something else wang-related thatamuses me: how much pride men take in their erections. You know, as ifthey did anything more than possess a properly-functioning circulatorysystem to achieve them. I mean, judging by the look of satisfaction asimple blood rush can produce, you’d think it had involved trigonometry– or at the very least some complicated long division. Ah, yeeeeah, baby. Check it out. Remainder of four.
When I was twelve years old, my dad told me that if I wasn’t careful, I was going to turn out like my mom. We were driving down Main Street in Spanish Fork, just past the public library, when Dad dropped the b-word. Total bitch, he said. At twelve, I’d probably heard the word a total of three times, and I was embarrassed by it. Clearly, he and my mom had fought about something (money, more than likely); he was blowing off steam. Once after they’d argued, he punched the deep freeze in the garage, leaving a shallow dent. This time he told me that I was going to have a string of unsuccessful marriages and nasty divorces, because I didn’t know how to treat people. I don’t really remember my dad spanking me as a kid. But I remember this.
I remember, too, coming home from a church activity that evening, frazzled and upset, and telling my mother that one of the girls on my kickball team called me a bitch. I went to bed while the sun was still up. And, while the sun was still up, I was dragged back out of bed and into the living room where an innocent thirteen year old girl was waiting to apologize for hurting my feelings. I confessed, bawled, and went back to my room.
Later, my mom came in, sat down next to me on the daybed and asked me why I’d lied. I told her I didn’t know; let her assign it to general preteen angst. But I knew. All I’d wanted was for her to be sorry that someone had called me such an awful thing – without telling her it was my dad who’d said it. If I told her, they would fight again. Dad would punch something or hold onto the banister and yell until Mom left to drive around the neighborhood while it got dark. Later, when she came home, Dad would have written, “I’m sorry” in his slanting scrawl in dry erase marker on the garage freezer door. And I would have had another nightmare about thick, brown barrels tumbling from the sky – a dream I’d associate for the rest of my life with the barrel-shaped rootbeer candies – and woken up with my pillowcase soaked in sweat. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be the reason they yelled.
Mostly, though, I didn’t snitch, because I didn’t want him to be right.
If we work together, stop reading right now. Or, more importantly, if under any circumstances we have seen each other naked (or, you know, might in the future), stop reading right now. I beg you. But for you non-coworker/non-nookie folks, I present the following, because I love you.
As originally told to Sarah Brown, who has kindly agreed to still be friends with me:
An afterthought to my outfit this morning, I put on a pair of Spanx. See, I was already fully dressed, but I figured a little extra nip in the waist would do my little black dress up in the manner it deserved. So, I grabbed a pair, wiggled into them (these babies go from mid-thigh to underboob and getting into them is really a workout), and headed to the office. Then, just a few minutes ago, nature called. On autopilot, I went to the ladies’ room, sat down on the toilet, and did my thing.
Now, for those of you who aren’t aware, Spanx are gusseted. As in, they come with built-in split-crotch panties. Only, you know, in a black spandex girdle form, so as to undoany sexiness associated with a split crotch. Going commando (hot) in a girdle (not hot). You see what I mean – it’s barely breaking even.
Anyway, so there I was, doing my thing… only, itsounded wrong. Muffled. It took me a moment to realize this was BECAUSE I WAS WEARING UNDERWEAR – a detail I had completely overlooked. In a whirlwind of adrenaline and mortification, I stripped in the bathroom stall, took off the soaked undies(god, I wanted death), wiggled back into the Spanx (an awkward, unsightly dance not unlike mating rituals I’ve seen on the Discovery Channel), rinsed and wrapped said undies in paper towels, washed my hands six times, and skedaddled out of thereas fast as I could.
Then I immediately emailed Sarah and Ari, who graciously put the whole thing into perspective.
“If you were in kindergarten, you’d have a cubby with an extra pair. I think adults underestimate the clean panty need.”
When I was a kid, I would talk to anybody. About anything. Endlessly. You’re all shocked, right?
I have a vivid recollection of sitting on a bench at Curly Slide Park (if you want to be accurate, it’s called Canyon View Park, which in my opinion grossly understates the park’s glorious attractions) going on and on to a complete stranger about Ramona Quimby. She was eight, I was eight – this was very important and deeply meaningful. She, meaning Ramona. The woman was probably in her 30s or 40s and god bless her, patient as the day is long. I talked to her so long that my mom was compelled to apologize for my chattiness (I remember this being the first time I ever heard the phrase “talk your ear off”; I was a very literal kid and it bothered me. A lot).
Anyway, not much has changed in twenty something years. I’m a talker. A texter, and emailer, an IMer (not much of a phoner, but that has more to do with total and complete inability to focus while on the line. What was that you were saying? I’m sorry, I got caught up de-linting my sofa cushions) and a blogger. I’ll tell most anyone my business as long as it serves some sort of entertainment or therapeutic purpose. Though, more and more often, I go with the sanitized version. See, I’m slowly learning what some folks are naturally programmed with: discretion.
It’s been a hard lesson learned. And publicly, too. Remember when I said too much in the New York Times? Someone at a big fancy paper asked me to write a story and I was thrilled. The backlash was instant and intense. I was young and so terribly naive and I took the criticism very hard. My inbox flooded with shame-on-you emails. The comment box filled up with much the same. Someone even went so far as to create a blog, pink and filled with my reworded and re-punctuated (so!! many! exclamation points!!) entries to make me look even more naive and foolish. Why? Because over-sharing was just about the most pathetic thing the mock-blog’s creator could fathom. I cried myself to sleep for a week. Incidentally, this person seems to have spent the last couple years unlearning the lesson that her adventures in html taught me; evidence of it recently graced the cover of the New York Times Magazine.
Life, it is funny. Mean, sometimes, but funny.
The above is all a very lengthy preamble to say, I promised you a story. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized that for the sake of discretion, I just can’t deliver on that promise. Except to say: I now know the most fun you can have in a swimming pool has absolutely nothing to do with chicken fights. Rowrr.
This morning, I’m operating on about thirty-five minutes of sleep. That comes with a good story. But right now, I’m waiting for the coffee to replace the water in my blood stream, so in the meantime…
I don’t know if it’s the exhaustion-induced delirium, but I think I kind of love this a lot.
I think someone needs to explain to me how this happened. I was just clicking around Ye Olde Internets and I found this: People’s Hottest Bachelor, Mario Lopez. Really? REALLY? George Clooney is baching it up again and A.C. Slater is the hottest bachelor? Yeah, yeah, he’s all muscley and dimple cheeked but seriously? Maybe I’m being extra stubborn because I’m having a very, very hard time erasing images of Slater in his crazy acid-washed, wide-thighed, tight-ankled jeans. There was nothing hot about that. Even back then. And I know bad 80′s fashion happened to lots of folks (I had certain feelings about florescent pink t-shirts and black leggings that I wish I could forget), but have you ever seen George Clooney in a get-up like this?
No. No you haven’t. Mostly, you see George looking very accidentally, tummy twirlingly, handsome. Like, out for a bike ride or filling up his car at the gas station. I mean, I saw this photo and had to have a moment to myself.
Oh, People Magazine. It’s like hearing that Cameron Diaz is Hollywood’s highest paid actress all over again. I worry for the children.
Molecules. I’m increasingly convinced that’s what it came down to, mostly because there was no other explanation. One minute I was fine – better, than fine, really. Bright! Attentive! Able to form complete sentences with very little effort! – and then there he was. And then there I was, plop! off my barstool, slack-jawed and stupid.
It wasn’t that he was a particularly handsome man, or that he showered me with any special attention so as to make my heart go pitter-pat. He was, in fact, average. He dressed carelessly, carried around an average man’s beer belly, and on the issue of my affection, tended to run pretty hot-and-cold. On top of it all, the things we had in common made a very short list comprised of deep, meaningful items like tacos and cold beer.
Like it mattered. The first time he walked into the room, the part of my brain responsible for bad decisions regarding men, alcohol, and chocolate cake started chanting, “Take off your pants!” Obviously, way ahead of the game. I hadn’t even smelled that spot under his chin that made (well, to be fair, the idea of still makes) my stomach do cartwheels. We’d never even spoken, much less had our first argument, or watched Zoolander with his hand clamped furiously tight over my mouth because, as hard as I try, I just can’t watch it without reciting the lines like I’m Ben Stiller’s brain twin.
Again, like it mattered. It was all in the way his molecules were arranged. In the way they danced around mine in a naughty strip tease, making my brain go soft, and for the nth time in my life, filling me with gratitude that my anatomy wasn’t capable of giving away my… amorous state.
I ordered another cocktail and waited for things to get complicated. Who was I to argue with science?
The only interactions I have with Joe the Maintenance Guy are the notes he leaves behind after he’s fixed whatever’s ailing my apartment. Broken garbage disposal, washing machine that won’t spin. Usually, he simply writes the outcome of his labors – “garbage disposal working” – and signs his name. Not this time.
Hold on, let me back up a bit.
When I came home from the ranch on Sunday evening, the shower that I took Friday morning was still lingering in my bathtub. I had noticed that it was slow to drain, but there were other things on my mind that morning besides clogs, so I’d swung the shower curtain closed and hurried off to work. On Sunday, it smelled like three-day old stagnant water smells. Wretched. The sight of it tugged at my gag reflexes.
Ordinarily, the tub is Sir Hal’s domain. For a little guy with lots of fur, I imagine that part of the lure is the cold porcelain. The other part is that it drives me nuts. I have to clear cat toys out before I can shower. And while I’m showering, he’s perched on the edge, dropping them right back in or swatting my beauty products into the stream of water, looking very satisfied as he watches me put them back. He’s like a baby in a high chair. And so, during my investigation of the situation on Sunday, I noticed a sad, neat little pile of kitten toys by the tub, and an expectant looking feline staring at me from the doorway. I called maintenance and left a message.
Which brings me back to the beginning of the story – Joe the Maintenance Guy. On Monday, I got home from work, kicked off my shoes and headed to the bathroom to check on the tub status. Happily, it had been fixed, scrubbed (god, I love Joe), and as usual, there was a note left on the counter. Scrawled in black ink on the incident form was Joe’s note.
Most of you have no idea that I also write a daily newsletter for iVillage, called Conquer Your Craving. It’s about healthy stuff – like, how to avoid the free bagel trap at work, or food that is really good for you and doesn’t taste like cardboard (or look suspiciously like Soylent Green). Anyway, I just re-upped my contract, and thought I’d fill you in. Sign up, if you like! You know, in case you don’t get nearly enough of me here and feel like you just won’t be complete without my musings on such important topics as:
Don’t Cut the Cheese (why dairy is awesome) The Skinny on Your Latte And, Fiber is not the F-word
I’m sure you feel wiser and healthier already.
P.S. I’m sorry if the sign-up page seems confusing; all you have to do is click the box next to Conquer Your Craving, then go down and enter your email address. It will only sign you up for that. one. newsletter. and nothing else. Promise.
As a kid, I wasn’t allowed anywhere near a four-wheeler. But on a thousand acre ranch, with my protective mother miles and miles away, I was all over that thing. And, after some coaxing, I was also all over driving a door-less, top-less jeep through an obstacle course of steep ravines and wash-outs, whooping and hollering, while Poison and Van Halen blared from the speakers.
Did you know people grew up having this kind of fun? I did not. But I did know that when my co-worker invited some of us up to his family’s ranch for the weekend, that I had an education coming. An education in bad-assedness.
There was an incident where a poisonous snake was killed and I cried (minus five bad ass points), but I don’t think that’s something you could toughen out of me if you had a hundred weekends at the ranch and a hundred deadly snakes. I even had to have someone else take care of the scorpion in the guest house. But I jeeped, bow howdy, and we did not roll and no one died. I was proud.
By the end of the first evening, we were all sunburned and wearing a thick coat of dust and gritty grins. Seeing my normally buttoned up coworkers in ripped out jeans, dragging around chains and driving tractors and dump trucks was a lot like watching little boys play with Tonka trucks. I thought my face was going to stretch out from smiling so much. Fishing poles, shot gun shells, gas cans, horse bridles. Naps in the absolute silence. I don’t know when I’ve been so relaxed.
As dinner wound down that night, I thought about how it might feel like chaos for some people – ten bodies packed around the dinner table, three different conversations running at once, dogs winding in and out, thick tails thumping against chair legs as they hovered for a piece of brisket – but for me, it was a slice of heaven. As the kitchen filled with the clink of silverware and chatter ofkitchen clean-up, I turned to one of the boys and said, “I think this justmight be my favorite sound ever.” He looked a little confused, and his eyebrows raised for an explanation. “You know, like family.” He nodded.
Sometimes, Dove gets it right on. True, there was that time Jamie opened up her Promiseto find the message, “Chocolate will always be your Valentine” and weboth threw gigantic hissy fits about how even some random copy writerat a candy company knows we’re destined to die alone with a bunch ofcats. I mean, sheesh! A six-day official boycott followed.
Butother times, like when my dark chocolate comes with the the words, “Bemischievous. It feels good.” printed on the foil wrapper, I think,
“God, yes, it does. Dove, you don’t even know.”And then I think there’s probably only one thing that feels better thanmischief, and even that usually requires some mischief to achieve…so, yeah, Dove. Right on.
And then there’s today. When I realizethat ultimately, the random tinfoil copywriter knows me better than I knowmyself, and he’s worried about me. Not once, but twice (I have a two-a-day habit) I stripped mychocolate to find this wise sentiment:
“Don’t think about it so much.”
It’s like the calls are coming from inside the house.
Remember Handsome Brad? In short, we met on a plane in Rome, only to find that we lived across the street from each other in Dallas. The guy was so friendly and easy going, I didn’t notice at first that he was capital-H Handsome. If someone was going to build me a man, I’d strongly suggest they use him as a mold. Alas, my final destination was an intoxicating and doomed romance with an older fella, so that was that.
But! A couple of weeks ago, there he was in the produce aisle of my grocery store, manhandling some avocados. I stopped my cart and did a mental grooming check. I’d just come from work, which meant I’d bathed that day, done my hair and was wearing clothes that had not been smooshed in a backpack for the last 7 weeks. By comparison, I was looking downright glamorous. I decided to say hi.
“Hey!” Brad dropped his avocado and smiled, and I was struck with the sudden thought that there was, unbelievably, such a thing as too good-looking. I mean, lord help me. He tilted his head to one side, scrutinizing. “You look really different.”
“I showered,” I said, and then babbled something gooberish about hostel showers being more like endurance tests. Gah! Stay cool, Hunter. Stay cool.
“No… you cut your hair!”
“Marry me?”
Okay, I didn’t say that. But man, that’s one thing that gets me – when guys notice stuff like that. What can I say, I’m easy to please. Gimme a handsome, perceptive man, some fresh produce, and those pink frosted sugar cookies from the bakery and I’m satisfied.
Unfortunately, I was in a rush to be somewhere, and so after a few minutes of chitchat, I was forced to leave his handsomeness to his avocados, without having proposed marriage. But it wouldn’t have worked out anyway. He’s way too good looking and essentially, just not my type. Which, obviously, includes only inappropriate men with no long-term potential.
Over the last few weeks, there’s been some hullabaloo in our family over characteristic yet, somehow still surprising behavior that’s sent the collective stress level of the Hunter Clan skyrocketing. You know how it is. Family drama is penultimate (second only to person-you’re-sleeping-with drama) and I’m starting to get a new, permanent wrinkle right between my eyes. So, to save any further… excitement in the future, I figured I’d go ahead and get this out of the way right now.
Unless the (hypothetical) prospective groom has some really, really strong opinions to the opposite, I am not having a wedding.
There will be no announcements or invitations or seating charts or menus. No five thousand dollar dress or crazy exchanges between divorced parents. There will be me – barefoot in a sun dress on a beach – with my fella, a minister, and a legally required witness, all happy in the knowledge that no relationships were harmed during the making of this union. And I probably won’t even tell you until the day of. Because I don’t want the hassle. Or the attention. Or even the presents.
<Begin Rant>
Have I ever mentioned how fiercely opposed I am to bridal registries? I mean, not across the board, because I think if you’re young and just getting started in life, you need some help setting up house. But if the bride and groom are well into adulthood, have a fully functioning household and two incomes, I think it’s… well, repugnantly greedy to ask other folks for crap like Pyrex, Kitchen Aid mixers and – sweet baby jesus – bread makers.
Come on, ladies. You are not going to make bread. Not more than once, anyway. You think you will because you imagine getting married will morph you into someone more domestic cyclone who has time and energy and the desire to make yeasty concoctions. But in reality, you’re going to grab the same damn loaf of Mrs. Baird’s Calorie Light Honey Wheat from the grocery store the minute you’re back from the honeymoon. If you wanted a bread maker, you’d already have one. Because you are a grown-up with spending power.
<End Rant>
I didn’t really grow up with notions of a big, fancy Cinderella wedding because I was raised Mormon. And Mormon weddings are, for the most part, very modest (read: unglamorous). There’s no walking anybody down the aisle or even ceremonies that everyone can attend. Thus I’m not all that emotionally attached to the idea of getting hitched in front of a big group of people. But what I am emotionally attached to is not. having. stress. I love not having stress! I want to hold it down and give it giant purple hickeys – that’s how attracted I am to not having stress. So unless the wedding is going to be magically thrown together by a bunch of talking birds and mice with very nimble fingers and excellent sewing skills, it’s just not going to happen.
Elopement. It’s such a happy word.
(P.S. No! I am not close to getting married. I’m not even close to gettin’ tail on a regular basis, for pete’s sake.)
Maybe it’s a product of the short work week, but people, it seems like there is just NO TIME! As a chronically early arriver, I have been late to almost everything in the last few days. Work, social events. Even, and especially, to bed. And it’s turning me into a snooze button junkie. Over the course of the last week, my stanard nine minutes has turned into twenty-seven, and I find myself doing some serious short-cut showering. Shaved legs? So overrated. I’m just happy to get soap in and out of the crevices.
But my alarm clock, it appears, is smarter than I am. Or at least, more assertive. This morning, I tried to go for a record thirty-six minutes of snoozing (you know, because sleeping in nine-minute intervals is soooo restorative) and wouldn’t you know, the damn thing refused. Smack! went my hand on the snooze button, and not only did the alarm keep sounding, it started beeping louder and faster until I finally dragged ass out of bed and shut it off. Who is in charge here? My appliances. I have high hopes the microwave will follow suit and stop before I burn the kettle corn for the zillionth time.
Surely this must be a setting that I can change, but I’m not sure I want to. It’s kinda like when I was a kid, and my mom used to come in on Saturday mornings, throw open the curtains and belt selections from Singing in the Rain. Even if it didn’t serve as motivation to get up and face the day, it sure was impossible to get back to sleep with all that lava-hot irritation surging in my tween veins.
Oh, and apropos of nothing… in all my rushing, I have stopped to take the time to make one very important observation: women who apply make-up while driving are idiots. Freaking dangerous idiots. You know who you are.
I am stubborn. Sometimes, this is the very best thing about me. People make it sound like a futile act, butting your head up against the wall. But you’d be surprised how many walls tumble, if you only butt hard enough and long enough. Sometimes, it is not a good thing at all. Especially when it intersects with friends, family and love. I will bark up the wrong tree forever – or at any rate, much longer than is sane or healthy – because I cannot stand the idea that I’ve chosen unwisely. I lead myself on wild goose chases because I like the idea of relentless pursuit. Even though I love the idea of stillness more.
I am susceptible. To criticism, praise, chemistry, and odd changes in weather and clouds that make my chest feel heavy with something like sadness. To touch and kindness. To anger. In the last few years, I’ve lost any ability to disguise this, and if you upset me, you will be immediately clued in. By the hives that start in the soft hollow at the base of my neck and rush like furious chicken pox down my chest and up to my ears. To babies, men in crisp, white button down shirts, and food-borne bacteria. To small things you will never remember having said.
I am silly. Lightness, frivolity, slapstick. Ba-dump-bump ching! I know it has its place, but for some reason, I want there always to be something to laugh about. I have a hard time when that “something” is me, but I’m working on that. I tease to forge a connection. It should tell you that I care; I’ve been paying attention. How else would I know which buttons to push? Perhaps more than anything, I want your reaction. For you to tease me back. How else will I know that you’ve been paying attention?
Anna and I high-fived and made brief entries in our mental history books: Nineteenth of May, Two Thousand and Eight. Hotter than the hottest woman ALIVE.
For the record, this wasn’t some line; he meant every syllable. Sure, only because he finds pregnant women patently offensive and fiercely ugly (in his hilarious yet sick and twisted world, it’s not a “baby bump,” it’s a “people sack”), but that’s not the part I’m going to remember.
Me, I’m going to hold on to the part where a man – a warm blooded, testosterony man – told me I was hotter than Angelina Jolie. Because, let’s face it, that’s not going to come up again any time soon.
Over the last few days, I’ve had a lot of questions about hockey. What’s a power play? Is it always two minutes? Does it end if someone scores? If the goalkeeper catches the puck, but the force of it pushes him back over the goal line, does it count as a goal?
I’m pretty sure that if I were a superhero, my super power would have something to do with my ability to get really, really obsessive over really, really unimportant stuff.
Like hockey. I’m late to the game (went to my very first on Wednesday) I know, and could easily be accused of fair-weathering (Dallas is in the playoffs), but this is exactly like the time someone said, “Come on, Heather. We’re taking you to Fenway.” The hook was set, and incidentally, the Sox weren’t even having a winning season. So what I’m saying is, this was to be expected.
But here’s what I didn’t predict: hockey? Is sort of a turn-on. And by ‘sort of’ I mean ‘totally.’ Something about it is hot in the way Zidane’s oh-my-dieu sexy head butt was. Violence generally makes me pretty uncomfortable, but for some reason, when it’s on the field of play – when it’s sanctioned – it is bodice-rippingly awesome. And while this is an exciting new discovery in the wide, wide world of sports, I find myself feeling a little bit concerned. You know, about what I’m going to do with myself during the off season.
It was in January, shortly after I fell to pieces over my Richard/Monica situation* and I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do: getting right back on the horse. We met watching a college basketball game, flirted over too many cocktails and then, in true post Gen X fashion, got to know each other better in the most intimate of intimate settings. MySpace.
This URL is listed on my profile. Naturally. I’ve been writing this site for six years come July and it’s as much a part of me as where I live or my phone number. Only, more so, because unlike my zip code, it doesn’t change every few years.
As he read up on my (mis)adventures, part of me couldn’t help but cringe. What a time to meet me! I was still, in my heart of hearts, convinced that I would never be happy again, despite a very sincere determination to try. It’s worth noting that I was up front about all of that when we met; I don’t believe in false advertising. The lesson he took away from his reading, however was not exactly what I’d expected. He did express concern over his bad timing, but then he said something unexpected. He asked if I’d ever intended for any of the relationships I wrote about to work out.
Kapow!
I’m pretty certain that punching me in the chops would have achieved the same effect. First, shock, then came some form of anger (indignation, maybe?), but then I cooled off, telling myself that he couldn’t know. All he saw was a girl who put her love life (no matter how finely edited) out on the Internet for… entertainment.
“That’s a fair question,” I told him, finally. “And yes, of course I sincerely wanted them to work.”
He took me at my word. Not everyone is willing to do that.
It crosses my mind, every once in a while, to retire the blog. I worry what it says about me to people who don’t know me. I can understand how it looks reckless — crazy, even — and attention hungry. At one point, it probably was. But it stopped being any of those things many years ago. I worry that when I don’t write clearly enough, it’s hard to see that, even as a truly accomplished smart-ass, I am (with some notable exceptions) thoughtful, careful and well-intentioned. Or I try to be. Oh, the things I hold back! I don’t (intentionally) exploit the people I love for a good story. I don’t even rat out the rattiest of the rat bastards until long after their stars have faded and I can’t remember having ever dialed their numbers.
But that isn’t always how it appears. And lately, I’ve been wondering more and more if having a public life doesn’t present a very real threat to my private one.
(Don’t worry: I’m not going anywhere at the moment; just ruminating.)
*If you don’t describe all your life events in terms of Friends episodes (weirdo), this scenario is best described as a younger female, dating an older, basically perfect-for-her male, until he announces he absolutely does not ever, not ever ever, want children. So, the romance terminates in a tragic stalemate, she cries herself to sleep (and awake) and eats way too much Ben & Jerry products. The end.
What could be more calming, in times of stress, than stroking Magnum’s mustache which happens to be handily attached to your purse? Nothing, that’s what.
Every couple of nights, I call my sister for the Fetus Update. See, I learned last week that I am going to be an aunt and I’m taking this new role very seriously.
“How are you feeling?”
“Are you fat yet?”
“Are you selling pictures of your bare baby bump to perverts on the Internet? I bet there’s a lot of money in that.”
She takes it all with very good humor and sends me camera-phone images of our November baby, and promises that I’ll be the first to know when she plumps up (if you have a skinny-minny sister, you understand). She lets me name and rename the Fetus, depending on the day’s events. Gidget. Olive. Oliver. Olly Olly Oxen Free. And I ask her over and over to tell me about hearing the heartbeat. Which she does.
The lord (and the Internet) knows I’m not exactly ready to be a mother, but from what I can tell, there are much less stringent requirements to being an aunt. In fact, I think it’s kind of a prerequisite that you have intentions to coddle and at least mildly corrupt the offspring of a sibling if you’re to achieve any sort of real success at it. And me, I was born for this job.
Following in the footsteps of my own very accomplished Aunt V, I will send the coolest, most obnoxious birthday gifts. Things that make noise, need batteries, require assembly. Board games with really small pieces. I’m fully prepared to celebrate half-birthdays just to fit it all in. I will sing subversive limericks and teach him/her to twist its tongue and say “apple,” just as soon as it learns how to speak.
And when I’m not busy being a smart ass, I’ll nibble fat baby thighs, bury my nose in that warm sweet spot at the back of the neck, plant loud exaggerated kisses on its belly. Sing it songs that it will hear in pictures – sing the one about the cow in the wagon – the same as my mother did.
I will not knit, or nag, or be tolerant of back talk. I will have treats in my purse – right next to the handiwipes. I’ll bestow nicknames, pretend to like knock-knock jokes and amusement parks, and pack irresponsibly unhealthy picnics to take to the zoo. Make up wild, ridiculous stories. And I will watch my mouth, because a kid should really learn all the best swears from his grandpa.
“Will you come visit when the baby is still real small?” she asked me on the phone one night.
“Are you crazy? I’ll be in the damn hospital while it’s being born, ” I said. “Visit… when it’s small… you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“You will?!”
“Yeah…but in the waiting room where none of that nasty stuff is going on.”
