hooty munchables

as most of you know, i've been dieting for the past 8 months. i've lost 65 lbs so far and i'm down 5 pants sizes. these are good things and i'm very proud of how hard i've worked to make the shrinkage happen.

however, there are some very non-glamorous aspects of weight loss that i hadn't anticipated when i got started.

first of all, people talk about my body all the time now. whether it's family members, friends, or people i barely even know, they all seem to feel free to discuss the size of my bits. generally it's flattering and nice things are said, but sometimes it ruins my mental image of myself pre-diet where i thought i carried my weight well and still looked presentable.

people haven't talked about my body this much since i was twenty-one and working in night clubs on the weekends. back then it was mostly comments like, "girl, yo booty's so fine i wanna bounce up outta here and git witchoo in my truck outside." or, "oh my gah, your knockers are so huge! are they real? can i touch them? i've been thinking about getting mine done, but my fiance thinks i'll leave him for another guy if he buys boobs for me." (this last one most often happened in the bathroom at a club whilst reapplying lipstick and straightening out our cleavage after doing 8 shots of goldschlager off the ice block.

one of the things i've discovered at this stage of the weight loss game is that my skin is not bouncing back. it's getting a little bit of a crepe papery consistency in certain places. think streamers for skin along certain body parts. i cut myself while shaving all the time now. what once was all padded, rounded tree trunks is now angular, knobby knees just asking to be sliced and diced as i drag that razor around my legs.

my poor butt has shrunk to the point that it's almost flat. there's some nice gluteus maximus action happening in there, but the curves are gone. as a result, the skin doesn't fit properly anymore, causing there to be folds at times when i sit. i can't sit comfortably in a hard chair for any length of time and i've resorted to sitting on an exercise ball instead of a desk chair when i'm at my computer. the worst part is when a chunk of my formerly round butt folds over on itself as i'm sitting my down onto something, causing me to gasp, wince and reach down to adjust things, just like an old dude who's accidentally sat on a testicle. very unglamorous.

my plump, lush breasticles are shriveling up at an alarming rate. when i take off my bra to release my after dinner boobs, there's a drop of several inches and then a sway that keeps going like ripples on the water. most of my bras are baggy now and sometimes, when i look down my shirt to admire what was once a luscious garden of ladydom, i see instead wrinkly meat bags hanging in my shirt, looking very sad and used up.

in the past when i lost weight, i managed to keep the hoots looking fresh and roundish, though slightly long in the tooth due to the great weight they maintained. i got thin, but still had two nice, full D cups perched upon my chest. in hindsight, i had nothing to do with that, it was just a lovely side effect of being busty and youthful.

apparently, 37 no longer qualifies as youthful and at the rate i'm going, i won't qualify as busty anymore by the time christmas rolls around.

too often now i discover what i've termed "yoga boob" on my chest. it's when you're wearing a sports bra and doing something active, like leaning forward and reaching out your arms. when you next stand upright, the girls are up, out the top of your bra, but not in a pretty boobie sort of way, but there they are, folded, twisted and stuck, looking defective.

i'm afraid i might find myself wadding up rags or clumps of dismantled stuffed animal fluff to fill out the gaping space in my non-sporty bras. at this point, i could fit a ham and cheese sandwich into each cup, so maybe i could utilize that possibility and make my bras into mobile snack storage units. maybe some sliced apples on one side and some low-fat yogurt in a ziploc baggy in the other.

we'll be at walmart for an overdue shopping trip and brooke will complain that she's hungry. i've stopped carrying my massive suitcase sized purses lately in favor of my cute little hand bags, so i no longer have a lunch box quantity of food and beverages hanging from my arm.

instead, i'll have the food hanging on my chest. i'll bring out a couple slices of cheese, warm and slightly melty, but probably still edible. i'll dig a bit deeper into the neckline of my shirt and find that roll of smarties that somehow found its way under my left lady lump. most of the candy is still in the wrapper and the ones that got away just look like extra nipples now.

on the right side i'll find some crackers that are partially intact and a couple pieces of pepperoni stuck together and oozing grease.

i'll plunk the mess onto a linty tissue i find in my dinky purse and hand this gourmet meal to my starving child. "there ya go. munchables, straight from my heart."

making the most of my assets

we all have things about us that we know others appreciate, right? if you've got great eyes, you play them up with makeup and flutter your eyelashes to get out of trouble. or if you've got a phenomenal ass, you swing it as you walk away if you know someone's likely to be watching. we like to be appreciated and noticed and if we can get our body to work for us, that's an added bonus.

for myself, i realized that my boobs were going to be one of my hottest assets when i was still pretty young. i believe i was 13 when i was walking down a city street with my mom; a group of teenage boys was walking toward us. as they got right up to us, they were staring at me and snickering amongst themselves when one of them said loudly, "hot damn! nice tits!" we were both dumbfounded and i'm sure i broke out in hives to have my in-coming lady lumps mentioned so brashly right in front of my mother. it was scandalous and empowering all at the same time.

as i got older, i used to occasionally cross my arms below my bust to make the most of my cleavage when i wanted something from a male who looked like he might be susceptible to my "charms." i got out of speeding tickets and i often got free services like oil changes on my car or food in restaurants.

but i haven't always treated my twins very well. for example, when i was, well, let's just say i was still young enough to be playing with markers. i really wanted a bikini, but i wasn't allowed to buy one because my parents were really conservative. so i drew one on my skin with my markers. and they weren't washable. the first two colors i used ran out partway through coloring my bikini, so there were stupid areas where the color was thin and then abruptly changed to a different color. it wasn't pretty. it didn't look like a bikini. but it sure lasted for a long time. good thing it was winter and i'd made it strapless so that i didn't get caught with my marker bikini peeking around the edges of my clothing.

and then there was my wedding dress. it looked good, but not a feasible choice for wearing with a supportive bra. there's never been a time when i've found a strapless bra that actually held the girls up without squeezing things far too tightly. so what's a girl to do when she needs her boobs to look sexy but can't wear a bra? she buys one of those sticker sets. you ladies know what i'm talking about. they're supposed to stick firmly to your skin on the under side of the hoot and pull up on the sides so that it's stuck in place until such time as you peel that wonder sticker off. i got them in place and realized that it wasn't quite working as planned, but since it was nearly wedding time, i had to figure something out.  i ripped open the spare pack that i'd purchased and positioned the second set of stickers on top of the first, attempting to wrangle the boobs into an acceptable non-tubeish shape while keeping them elevated. i had to trim off some of the sticker bits that were showing out around my arm pit and cleavage regions, but it was a "make it work" moment.

it did work and i made it through the ceremony with my tits in proper position. only later that night when i got to the honeymoon suite did i realize just how unattractive they looked in my double sticker bra. there was no way i was going to let the man see them wrapped, taped and mangled, so i pulled one of those, "i'm going into the bathroom to change into something more comfortable" lines and went slinking off to unwrap my chest in private. unfortunately, when i peeled off the stickers, the adhesive disagreed with my skin and left me with bunches of juicy blisters all across my boobies. i didn't realize just how bad it was until shortly thereafter when the brand spanking new husband ran his hand across one and jerked it back with a look of disgust because a blister had popped and squirted juicy juice onto him.

since then i've managed to take better care of my assets most of the time. and now and then i still imagine that i might be able to use the girls to my advantage if i needed to get out of a scrape.

flat as a pancake

we all have moments in our past that we'll remember distinctly forever. moments where we heard or saw something unforgettable. or got news that we can never un-know.

i had one of those moments when i was 23 and was working retail; i was helping to open a new store. there were about 30 people all in one room working in little clumps here and there, getting everything arranged and set up and we were freely chatting about whatever we wanted since there were no customers about us to help us regulate our conversations. i was having a good time talking with a couple ladies who i didn't really know and we were discussing that i was a newlywed and having to adjust to living with a man for the first time. one lady said, "you know what i hate about living with my husband? i hate sleeping with him. not the sex part, the sleeping part because he always rolls over on my titties and smashes them while i'm sleeping."

it was like on a tv show where you hear the screeching record and everything comes to a dead and silent stop. i stared at her in awe. i didn't know that such a thing could happen and it sounded downright awful! i was still young and perky and all my pertinent bits tended to stay close to home and fairly self contained even when they weren't wrapped up in strict undergarments. i was pretty busty, but i couldn't imagine one of the girls rolling far enough across the bed to be smashed by my bed buddy.

as the years have gone by, i've discovered the truth in that older lady's wise "protect your lady lumps in bed" advice. it hasn't been much of a problem so far, but i've definitely seen things stretching out and loosening up in the chesticle region, so the potential is clearly there.

last night, i was lying on the floor with brooke, reading her books and just talking before tucking her into bed. i rolled onto my side so i could look at her while we talked. i'm not exactly sure how it happened, but brooke apparently wanted to get something and she was using her elbow to leverage herself up off the floor. unfortunately for me, her elbow landed squarely on my left nip and dug in. i let out a blood curdling scream that reverberated around the house like a thousand gongs. i tried to pull away, but alas, i only managed to stretch out my still pinned nipple. brooke looked at me in horror, but didn't remove her offending elbow, only dug in a bit harder as she shifted to look at me.

it probably only lasted 3 seconds, but i felt like it went on for an eternity. it was long enough for me to picture myself spending the rest of my days with a gaping hole in my chest where the nip, areola and all, had been ripped right off.  long enough for me to imagine that i was going to look like a monkey with one of those floppy, drooping nipple sacks from years of having a clingy infant dangling from her breast. long enough for me to wonder if it would look the way it had when i was a nursing mom and i had to pump out the breast milk and that crazy pump machine would pull my nipples so far down into the tube that i swear they looked like thumbs.

i'm still in a little pain today, but there appears to be no lingering damage. except, of course to my pride as i adjust to the fact that i'm now droopy enough that i can be rolled on and wounded inadvertently by someone close enough for a snuggle. sigh. and so it begins.

tacky babies

 would you put these on your baby? i found them in a store & couldn't resist taking a picture.

i might be frequently tacky, but even i have to draw the line here.

something about this just screams teen pregnancy.

after dinner dumplings

i've been wearing bras for 27 years now and i've got to be honest - i'm really sick of them. they were super exciting 27 years ago when i started out with the white, stretchy variety. then during my teenage years, they were something that was fun to shop for because of the cute patterns and styling options. in my early twenties, i still could wear the semi-cute ones, but since my guava growth continued into my late twenties, i was soon fighting a losing battle against the bras. i went from having thingamaJIGS to thingamaJUGS. if i got the kind that looked good to my guy then either a strap would be slipping or i'd be sliding out the front every time i bent forward. and once you slide out, either you're stuck with that tacky muffin top ta-ta or you have to reach in there and jiggle them back into the proper position.

sports bras are no good for me for a couple reasons. 1 - it's hard to find one that stretches far enough to accommodate them without overspillage or intense back-fat squeezing problems. and 2 - they give major uniboob which looks odd in my shirt and causes excessive sweating. it's like the coconut canal flowing through there.

the bra options aren't great once your boobs grow to the size of mine. you can walk through a bra store, admiring all the pretty options, but none of them are available in my size. the ones that come in my size? they're mostly what you'd picture your grandma wearing if you ever pictured your grandma in a brassiere. or once in a while i can find a cute one, but when i try it on, it doesn't fit right. too tight or too stabby. too low or too pinchy. so back i go to the standard blah choice where the most exciting option is a color. oh yes please, i'll take that ugly cotton one in blue, tan, white, black, gray and one with little periwinkle flowers all over.

for the past few years, i've spent most of the time that i'm home in the free swinging zinger zone. people might show up to my house to visit, but if i didn't have advance notice, i wasn't going to be wrangling myself into a flopper-stopper before i could answer the door. since we've moved in with my in-laws, i've felt rather weird about that. i've come to the conclusion that while i can't maintain my braless state all day every day when i'm living here, i can only be expected to keep the sweater meat tamped down for so many hours per day. therefore, i've implemented the "after-dinner-boobs" standard for myself.

that means i have to wear a bra all day even if i never walk out the door until dinner is over. then i'm permitted to shuck it off like the irksome irritant that it is. from that time forward, i can release them like free range chickens to wander where they will until morning.

bugaboo

when i was single and about 20, i had a guy friend who was cute. actually, i had a lot of guy friends who were cute, but this story is only about one of them. we didn't know each other well, but we had several mutual friends and often hung out in the same group of people. he was nicer than most of the guys i knew and never seemed like he was trying to be cool or impress anyone with his "game".

we kind of checked each other out for a while and eventually he asked me out. i was glad that he did and happily said yes. i think we went out for dinner or a movie and then afterwards, we went to a little ice cream shop. we were having fun, but i wasn't feeling like there was a romantic connection between us. it felt like going out with a friend or maybe my cousin.

while we were eating ice cream and laughing, i noticed that he was looking at my boobs. then he wasn't laughing or smiling anymore. he was staring very intently at my deep cleavage and didn't seem to be listening to what i was saying. i stopped talking & just stared at him, wondering what was going on.

then he reached out his hand & started slowly reaching toward me. and not just reaching toward me, but reaching toward my chest. this was completely out of character for him, especially since we were on a first date & sitting in a public shop surrounded by families. i just watched him, almost mesmerized by the oddity of it.

then he suddenly SLAPPED me, right on the top of my left boob! my jaw dropped, my eyes popped and i was speechless. that's when he looked up at my face & noticed the shock and he started stammering. he finally managed to explain that there had been a bug crawling down my shirt from my collarbone, heading into the crack of my boobs and he'd managed to slap it away before it made contact with skin.

he turned red in the face and i burst out laughing because of how crazy it had all been for a minute there. we didn't have a second date, but stayed friends, and i still like to tell his wife that story sometimes.

hoots ahoy

we're living back in the city where we lived when brooke was born, nearly 9 years ago now & we've been wandering around, seeing the sites & reacquainting ourselves with the lay of the land. today as we drove up to a huge outlet mall, i had a flashback to a trip we made there when brooke was only a couple weeks old and we were taking her to the mall for the first time.

it was a weekend and the mall was crowded, like it always is. i was on a mission to find a couple more nursing bras because i only had two & neither of them fit well.

*note to my male readers: i realize you are of the wiener persuasion, so i ran this story past my husband first to see if it was too gross or TMI (who am i kidding, i still would have posted it, but i just wanted to see if the mens would likely be distressed by it.) and he told me it was okay & not too icky or sexy for my manly readers. let's carry on now, shall we?

i tried to wake my sleepy little dumpling head baby up so that she'd chow down on my feed bags before i went bra shopping. for any of you who haven't nursed kids, you might not realize that nursing boobs are similar to water balloons and when the baby eats, they deflate somewhat & get softer. when some time has passed since a feeding, they get very full & hard and often painful because they're containing a few ounces of milk that's just waiting for a hungry baby to gobble it up.

i knew that brooke should eat before we went into the mall so that i'd be able to shrink the breasticles down a bit before i started trying on bras. alas, brooke had other ideas. she was a hardcore fan of napping back then & there wasn't much i could do to wake her up when she was in one of her serious comas of slumber. i stripped her down to her diaper and held her in front of the A/C vents, but still no luck. no amount of jiggling, tickling or noise could rouse her, not even when i aimed my teat & shot her in the face with a stream of milk like a dairy bazooka.

i didn't have all day to mess with the babe, so i tucked my milk balloon back into my crappy nursing bra & headed into the mall. i hunted around for a while before locating the little boutique where they sold a decent selection of bras, including those of the nursing flap variety. i selected a couple different styles in a couple different sizes, left brooke in the stroller with her daddy & headed into the dressing room in hopes of finding something that would fit.

it wasn't until i got into the fitting room and stripped off my shirt that i realized just how full my jugs were. this did not bode well for trying on bras since the lady lumps were already in pain. but i had a task to be completed & not being one to shirk my responsibilities, i proceeded as planned.

i quickly peeled off my uncomfortable bra, but no sooner did i get it off than my cans exploded like a double headed sprinkler. liquid was shooting in all directions, coating the mirror, walls and carpet with hot milk. nips are tricky little buggers because they don't have just one exit hole for all that dairy delight, they have lots of holes coming from the various milk ducts within the breast, so it was completely out of control for a couple seconds before i figured out what i could use to clamp them down and absorb that excess milk.

i was still an inexperienced first time mommy, so i didn't have enough supplies with me in my purse and i'd left the diaper bag with chris & brooke who had left the store. once i'd filled up the little breast pads i was wearing & the couple stray tissues i dredged up from the depths of my purse, i was at a loss for what to do next. i stood there with my hands clamped over my boobs, milk running down my stomach almost in a panic trying to figure out what my next move should be.

i'm embarrassed to admit that i decided the best course of action at that juncture was for me to just lean forward and let them spray until the pressure decreased enough that they weren't free flowing any more. so there they hung, like 2 punching bags with multiple little jets leaving warm milky puddles in the carpet. i was sick with the shame of my act and at the same time tremendously relieved to get some of that irritating liquid out of there. i was bent at the waste, hair hanging down, my cheeks flushed red, but a little smile on my face at the relief i felt to have the pressure in my chest relieved.

i didn't know how to apologize to the sales staff or explain what had happened in that dressing room. i also didn't know how to get out of the store without potential leakage all over my shirt even after i thought my nips were mostly done leaking. so i stuffed my old, wet bra into my purse & then put on 2 of the bras that i'd brought in to try on. i ripped off the tags and took them to the counter to pay for them and didn't provide the woman with any information as to why i was at the register with 2 tags, but no bras in sight.

after that, i hightailed it out of the store, collected my little family & went home. i never told that whole story to anybody before today, but sometimes it's good to come clean. and if you were one of the employees of that store, i'm very, very sorry for my actions that day. and i hope you were able to get the smell out of that rug eventually.

bras

i've been thinking about bras. not about colors and styling options, but rather about why we wear them. and why we don't wear them sometimes and how it somehow seems to have way more significance than it should. like, no one really thinks about if the people around them are wearing underpants. on occasion we catch a glimpse of someone's drawers, but otherwise, i think most of us give little thought to the panties of the people in our midst.

but bras - bras are something we're way too aware of to ignore. if you see a woman with her bra straps showing out the edges of her tank top, you're now aware of the color she's wearing & that she doesn't care if you see it.







some women like to wear strapless or backless tops & yet still wear a normal bra. everyone who sees her stares & makes a stink face at her tacky, tawdry lack of common sense or general trashiness.

i will admit that i get a little judgey when i see a woman strolling through a public place with her boobs clearly long & swingy with no bra in evidence.



though, if i'm being honest, i must admit that i never wear one when i'm home. they are misery and discomfort. the only problem is that when i walk in the door, rip if off & yell "Boobies Free!" i then tend to toss or hang it any old place. this isn't so much a problem for me, but my husband isn't crazy about my bras lying on the kitchen floor. i can't imagine why, but whatever. so i try to remember to at least hang it from the computer desk drawer handle so it's off the floor, but then i usually forget that i've put it there.

today my landlord came over for something & of course, since i wasn't expecting company, i was in the "free zone." i've kind of gotten over the awkwardness of that since it's happened so many times in the past few years that we've lived here. but tonight he came into the kitchen to get some paper work taken care of in preparation for us moving & was leaning over the end of the computer desk writing something when i noticed that he was right up next to my bra. actually, it was brushing his knee. i willed my face not to turn red. i hoped he hadn't noticed it. or maybe he'd seen it, but didn't recognize it in that size & from that angle. a girl can dream, can't she?

the same thing happened last month, but it was with the cable guy. he was squatting down, waiting for the modem under the desk to kick back in & i saw that his face was actually only about a foot away from the bra that i'd discarded there the day before. i couldn't bear to just stand there, having a conversation with this nice, young guy while his face & arm were so close to my hooter holder, so i slowly inched closer & closer to him, then reached out & slowly pulled it off the handle and then backed away, whipped it behind my back and scampered over to brooke's toy box where i promptly stuffed it down in. i'm sure that wasn't obvious or anything.

and now i'll leave you with a lil joke - what did one saggy boob say to the other saggy boob?   "if we don't get some support soon, people will think we're nuts!"

what kind of bees make milk?

i like to have a little fun when i'm writing sometimes, by recounting the moments when stupid or embarrassing things happen to me. most of you have probably figured that out by now. i also love hearing the stupid or embarrassing stories that have happened to others. especially when those stories come from people who normally don't share or volunteer such things because they have dignity & class and generally don't stoop to the level of revealing their shamefully hilarious events. what, for most people, would be something to tuck away & try to forget, i relish every awful detail & try to remember it clearly so i can tell or write the story later.

one of the funny, embarrassing things that has happened to me many times in the course of my adult life is that i tend to drop things into my cleavage. i know, i know, if i wore shirts with higher necklines, that wouldn't be such an issue, but sometimes, a girl's got to show off her assets a little bit, especially when out on a date with the husband. and turtlenecks just aren't very sexy.

i dropped a big blob of ice cream down there in a restaurant once & had to try to wipe it out without flashing anyone. and i drop pieces of popcorn down there all the time when we go to the movies. i've had bits of chips fall while at social gatherings or queso drips when we're dining on mexican fare.

but my favorite story on that topic happened one day when i was taking communion in church & managed to drop almost a whole wafer straight down between the girls. at first i thought i'd just leave it there & fish it out later, but alas, it must have broken on its journey into the abyss because suddenly i felt the scratching & irritating from a nasty little broken edge & i knew it had to come out. for some reason it didn't occurr to me to go into the bathroom to deal with this. looking back that seems pretty obvious, but at the time, all i could think was "should i go in from the top or the bottom?" i attempted a discreet dig from above, but by that point, it was too low down. so then i tried to slowly maneuvre my hand up my shirt all the while singing along with the congregation & trying to keep a neutral face so i wouldn't give away that i was getting to second base with myself. i did finally manage to free myself from that scratchy lil morsel, but then what to do with it? i didn't want to eat it after it had been hanging with the meat balloons, but they don't serve napkins w/ communion. so i settled for putting it into my pocket, only to be reminded of the incident when i found the remants in the laundry a few days later.

i got an email from a friend today, telling me that she dropped a slice of cheese down between the ta-tas while fixing dinner today & that was my inspiration for this post. i'd love to hear from any of you who've had one of these hilariously unfortunate events. share with me, if you will, a time when your boobs ate the keys to the car you just finished test driving. or your girls were unwilling food storage containers. or you lost your cell phone & then found it under your left hooter. whatever your story, i'd love to hear it!

equal trade in mammogram town

this was written last april, but i'm re-posting it for your reading pleasure.

last year i went for my first mammogram. i had a minor issue & a family history of breast cancer, so it was time to get it done. i arrived for my appointment and the nurse delivered me to a dressing room & told me to disrobe, put my clothes into a locker, put on a gown & go sit in a waiting room until my name was called. ok. once she was out of my cubby, i realized that it seemed strange to have to strip down all the way when i was only getting a tittie exam, but i decided to err on the side of extra nudity. once, when i was pregnant, i thought i was just getting a belly check & didn't take off my pants. my obgyn told me i needed to remove them &  then stood there while i peeled them off, which was rather awkward. it's one thing that he looks up the hole, it's quite another thing to be expected to do a strip tease for him before the getting into the stirrups.

after having a child, i'd gotten over my aversion to getting caught with my pants down in doctor's offices, so i thought this time i'd just take it all off. i walked carefully out to the waiting room so as to not expose my girlie goodies. i was concerned that if i crossed my legs, the lady sitting across from would notice that i hadn't groomed up my bikini region recently. i also noticed the other women in the room were wearing shoes while i was barefooted because it seemed silly to wear shoes with my hospital gown. but i figured we were all probably beginners and i'd most likely be one up on them when i breezed through expediently, bare and prepared, while they were stopped and asked to remove their shoes and socks. 

eventually i was called across the hall for my boob crushing appointment. the technician proceeded to help me jam my left tittie into the vice & in order to do so i need to take that arm out of my fancy gown. causing the majority of my body to be left, exposed to the elements. i'm pretty sure my entire armpit was also pulled into that thing at one stage, but that's beside the point. the tech lady stepped away & looked down at me (i could only barely see her out of the corner of my eye as i tried to crane my neck around to make sure she was moving at an acceptably speedy clip) and i saw her eyes bug out of her head for a split second as she caught a glimpse of my pasty white rear. she tried to fix her face quickly, but the look of shock was definitely there. i heard her gulp before she stammered, "uh, um, most people, uh well, you really only needed to take off your top." seriously?!! you'd think the nurse lady would have told me that before i stripped my ass bare! as if having my entire chest and armpit area crammed into a garbage disposal type mechanism while standing on tip toe & trying not to move or scream wasn't bad enough, now i was also worried about my apparently inappropriate nudity that was clearly making this lady uncomfortable! way to make a good impression!

at some point in the way-too-long-and-torturous process, i started to find the humor. like me exposing my pubies to her was making her uncomfortable (especially since she had to be leaned in close and snuggly) & her wrangling my monstrous tit into her torture machine was making me uncomfortable, so it was like an equal trade. tit for twat.

june freakin cleaver

2010 has been my year for adventurous cooking. i'm horribly bored of all the food i've been eating since i gave up meat 12 years ago & it was time for me to learn now to do some things that are outside of my comfort zone. i got a wok and a food processor for christmas last year & i've been putting them to good use, even making things i've never heard of.

today, we got home from church & i set to work making a nice lunchish meal. i chopped up all kinds of veggies (including parsnips which i've never even seen before yesterday) and made vegetable tarts. it was when i was forming up the edges of the little dough bowls that i looked down at myself - i was making TARTS, for God's sake, wearing a lacy tank camisole, a cardigan and a string of my deceased grandma's pearls and looking for all the world like june freakin cleaver!

it's a good thing i wasn't wearing a bra because at least i was able to tell us apart since i'm sure june never would have been caught around the kitchen without her fancy pantsy bra & girdle & i can assure you, no girdle lives here. this is the belly and booby free zone.

this one's a bit closer to my own personal mantra.

kicked in the boob

nothing tops off a day of homeschooling hell like getting kicked in the boob at the dinner table by a spastic, scowling child with ice cold feet & then having that same child proceed to vomit out the dinner you just worked on for over an hour. and then, she has the nerve to ask for a cookie.

some days should get a do-over.

hooters x 2

i was looking at my post from yesterday & noticing how often my boobs were mentioned. and then i decided to add "boobs" as a label on here since they seem to have a personality of their own & need to be mentioned regularly. that got me to thinking about some of my older posts & which of those needed the boob tag applied to them & that led me to one of my earliest posts, written in february of this year. it was my first favorite blog thing i wrote & since i think there were only about 4 people who read my stuff then, i've decided to repost it.

Sunday, February 14, 2010
HOOTERS


ya know, boobs are a part of most women that aren't spoken of often, at least not in public. and that's probably for the breast, i mean best, since men might get a bit too happy about that. but there's a seriously unsexy side to these things. i was reminded of that tonight when brooke asked me to tell her the story of the night she came home from the hospital.

well, that first night, chris & i were all psyched up to have a go at this thing called parenting all by ourselves, right off the bat. my mom, who lived nearby had offered very kindly to come stay that first week, but we thought, nah, chris has the week off from work, i'm no stranger to babies, we'll be fine! so we bring our sweet lil bundle of joy home from the hospital to much fanfare from the family members, but a while later they all vacated & there we were, just the three of us.

it seemed like it was going well until brooke decided to bite & chew my left nipple & scream loudly the whole time, every time i put her on that boob. she did okay on the right one, but that left one, boy, she was determined to mangle it every time she was presented with it. it was like there was a secret grudge she was holding for it. maybe it was the fact that it was three times the size of her itty bitty head. but then, no, the right one was too & that didn't seem to put her off. i don't know what her problem was(she apologized for that tonight, by the way, and said she doesn't remember why she didn't like it), but i found very quickly that me screaming or jerking violently around didn't help matters at all. just made her bite harder. who knew that those cute little pink gums could be turned into viscous weapons!
after a long night of a nasty cycle of screaming, falling asleep, pooping in her sleep & then being awakened by the diaper change that repeated itself 11 times that night, i was ready to put her outside & hope a stray dog would feel motherly toward her. maybe mama dog would have nipples she liked better since she clearly didn't appreciate mine! i almost called my mom around 3am, but then felt compassion toward her & was able to hold off that call til about 6. i think she was secretly laughing at me as i cried about my screaming, nipple biting, excessively pooping monster baby.

so yes, the hooters have in turn been something to be embarrassed about when they first showed up & then once i was married they became fun bags & once brooke was born they once again changed roles & became food bags. now, at the rate they're dropping they'll soon be reassigned a new role of saddle bags! they're also really good at catching food. i was at a baby shower yesterday & had some good laughs w/ a few other busty ladies about how exciting it is to get through a whole meal w/ no food landing on your rack! you almost want to do a little happy dance to celebrate. but only if you're wearing a sports bra ... or two. you wouldn't want a back injury or a black eye!

today i think i embarrassed chris in a restaurant when i dropped some ice cream onto my cleavage & it rolled straight down into the abyss where i had to then follow w/ a napkin for cleanup duty. i frequently find popcorn in my bra when i get home from seeing a movie, but i think the worst one was when i was taking communion in church & managed to drop the whole wafer straight down between the girls. at first i thought i'd just leave it there & fish it out later, but alas, it must have broken on its journey in because suddenly i felt the scratching & irritating from a nasty little broken edge & i knew it had to come out. for some reason it didn't occur to me to go into the bathroom to deal with this. looking back that seems pretty obvious, but at the time, all i could think was "should i go in from the top or the bottom?" i attempted a discreet dig from above, but by that point, it was too low down, so then i tried to slowly maneuver my hand up my shirt all the while singing along w/ the congregation & trying to keep a neutral face so i wouldn't give away that i was getting to second base with myself. i did finally manage to free myself from that scratchy lil morsel, but then what to do with it? i didn't want to eat it after it had been hanging with the meatbags, but they don't serve napkins w/ communion, so i settled for putting it into my pocket, only to be reminded of the incident when i found the remnants in the laundry a few days later.

so yes, boobs can be a beautiful thing, but for me, i think i'd trade them, or at least a portion of them, for something more useful to me. like a steak.

my boob is not an arm rest

sometimes i think about the stupid crap that my family & i say on a regular basis that seems perfectly normal to us. and once in a while we say it in front of other people who look at us oddly as if we've got some loose screws. to me it seems completely commonplace to call my 8 yr old over to me on a playground & tell her to stop barking & growling so ferociously at the small children because she's scaring them. i remind her to use her proper doggy manners that she learned at obedience school while she's in public.

there are quite a few admonitions that are spoken around here on a regular basis, such as -

"you can come over here, but you better not buffalo kick me again!"

"you just smashed my boob flat AGAIN! my boobs aren't the first step in your ladder!"

"my boob is not an arm rest." the following & inevitable retort, "my arm is not a boob rest."

"sorry, you can't wear your standing up ears out today. not your lying down ones either.... because you howl too much when you wear them!"

"get your freakin butt out of my face! great, now i've got hair stuck to my lipgloss!"

"leave her alone while she poops! hey, don't slap her when she's in the bathroom, it's just plain rude!"

"that suet is for the wildlife. stop eating it. and since when did you decide you like to eat bird seed?"
"get your pile of bowling pin/water bottles out of here!"

"get your bra out of the kitchen! do you want me to start dropping my underwear on the kitchen floor when i walk in the house?"

"you can not come in, i'm on the toilet! no, not even for a second! not even to show me something. go away!"

"why do you sneak in here to poop while i'm the shower?! you ruin my perfectly nice, clean relaxing spa-ish time by funking it up with your big dirty dump. there's a toilet downstairs, have some dignity for God's sake!"

"get away from my boobs. i don't care if you came out of my body & used me as a feed bag. the jugs don't belong to you."

what are some of the wacky things spouted routinely at your house?

secretly, i wish i could...

tonight, the house is quiet. on the days when i clean a big, exhausting house, chris has been kind enough lately to take brooke out for a couple hours after dinner when he's not working so that i can have some peace & quiet to recuperate. usually i like to lie on the couch or read a book or play a stupid computer game, but tonight, i got the urge to have some rum for dinner. i'm not a drinker, let alone a solitary drinker, but i just remembered that we had a bottle of rum that has been in the laundry closet for a couple years, so i thought i'd get it out & indulge a wee bit. and then i thought i'd write a post about the things that i secretly want to do. well, after this i guess it won't be a secret anymore, but previously it was a secret, so we'll just go with it.

I WISH - that i could play the drums. and not just fiddle around on them when no one's watching, but seriously pound out a huge drum solo in the middle of a large group of people & just shock the hell out of everyone. i have no rhythm & can't even clap on beat, so this isn't likely to ever happen, but that's not really the point here, now is it?

I WISH - i was a respected photographer. i wish that i could have a gallery show of my gorgeous, controversial photos that made people think and wonder and discuss amongst themselves while i watched from behind a 2 way mirror (doesn't every gallery have one of those?) so i could observe their honest reactions. and i don't want to photograph scenery so much, mostly human subjects. i'd like to be able to find that hidden thing that's a few layers below the surface & catch it on film.

I WISH - i was the kind of woman who wore heels all the time, even when i'm alone. i would even like to wear those fluffy bunny slippers with little kitten heels. i have a fascination with shoes, but my body fights against me when i try to wear the ones that look all cute.

I WISH - i could flip the bird at any person who annoyed me. whether it be at the grocery store or in traffic or to my own family members, i just wish that i could silently fly that finger at the first sign of piss-off-y-ness while giving that offending person the hairy eyeball. i wish i didn't feel like i should be so freakin polite anymore.

I WISH - that i could write a book. i don't have a selected topic or theme, just something that would be gritty & funny & make people say that i was spicy and amusing.

I WISH - that i had the nerve or the body type to be able to go bra-less all the time. i truly envy those friends of mine who can wear strapless tops and not have to agonize over how to get a strapless bra that does the job it was meant to do without cutting off any circulation, but they can just say "to heck with it" and go boobies free. alas...

I WISH - i lived in a clean house. i wish that i had the motivation to clean it myself or the money to hire someone. i wish that i didn't live amongst a heap of clutter all the time & yet constantly feel the need to justify or explain or apologize if someone sees the pit we live in.

I WISH - i was young enough and thin enough to go on america's next top model and show those hootchies how it's done. i actually took modeling and acting classes back in the days before i met chris because i wanted to be a runway model.

I WISH - that i could go to a rain forest in borneo and save orangutans. i love their silky red hair & want to be a surrogate monkey mother & carry multiple babies around on my body while going about my tasks like washing my laundry on rocks in the river & hoping i don't get chomped by crocodiles.

I WISH - i could make a massive graffiti masterpiece on the side of a building with lots of bright colors and wacky letters that can hardly be read by the average person. i also like writing on tables, benches and walls, but i gave that up after my days at summer camp where i wrote my name on every surface i could find.

I WISH - i could go sky diving. or at least bungee jumping off something that was really, really high. i love the feeling of sheer terror right before doing something really scary & right after it's done, knowing that you did something that was almost too much to handle. the adrenaline high is fantastic! i'm too responsible for such things at this stage, but i wish i'd done it before i was a mom while i could still be free to push myself into calculated, but dangerous places.

I WISH - i had a harley. i have an inner biker babe that's just dying to come out. bring on the leather chaps & helmet hair!

I WISH- that one day, i could be driving along a highway, minding my own business & as i approached a runaway truck ramp, i could put the pedal to the medal & bash my way straight up that crazy ramp & see how far i could make it. i wish that i could do it while i had other people in the car & not ever say a word. just smash my way into it & then calmly, back out & proceed on my merry way like nothing had happened.

where did my sexy go?

there used to be a time when i felt like i was a foxy lil number. when i drove down the highway & truckers honked & made rude gestures. men at gas stations harassed me and i had a fake name & number readily available in my brain to give out to the losers i didn't actually want calling me. i really felt like i was hot stuff.

this was before brooke came along. i gained a bunch of weight before & during pregnancy & afterwards, i never managed to lose it again. it never seemed like it mattered at the beginning because people expect new moms to be chubby. they choose to appreciate those voluptuous nursing boobs & ignore the jiggly belly below. well, i stopped nursing 7 years ago, but that jiggly belly is still hanging around & i can't very well blame it on the baby anymore. i realized that even my rack leaves something to be desired when brooke went through a brief phase where she wanted to draw naked women to make other people laugh & she drew long droopy tits with the nipples waaaaaay down low on the boobs. oh dear. she might be surprised when her own grow in & they look very different than what she's seen up to this point.

if i'm driving down the road now & a trucker honks nearby, i involuntarily swerve & look around, trying to figure out what i just did wrong that pissed him off. it doesn't even occur to me that he might be checking me out.

yesterday at walmart, brooke was hip hopping around the aisle as i tried to find just the right bottle of toilet bowl cleaner & a man near me started a conversation about how kids brooke's age are fun but eventually they turn 16 & it's all downhill from there. he recommended that i go ahead & get a gun now & use her naughty future boyfriends for target practice. when i managed to move on, brooke asked, "why was that guy talking to you?" um... once upon a time, i would have said it was cuz he thought i was cute, but now my first instinct doesn't take me there. now i figure it's because brooke's cute.

today i went to a little local beach with brooke & i was walking around with her, in and out of the water. a couple times i walked past a man who grinned at me. the first time i just felt confused as to why anyone would even look at me in a bathing suit rather than rapidly turn away like i do if i catch a glimpse of myself wearing a bathing suit as i pass a mirror. but the second time when he did the same thing i started getting paranoid. i checked to make sure that i hadn't inadvertently flopped out a nipple. nope, nips are in. so... oh crap, better check to be sure the tampon string isn't blowing in the breeze. hmmm, how to go about that discreetly on a public beach. i managed to drape myself w/ a towel & check things out & i think i was in the clear, but i was still oddly disconcerted that the guy smiled at me.

my whole mindset has changed as i've plumped and aged. it doesn't even cross my mind that a man might smile at me for complimentary reasons anymore. i mean, i know it happens occasionally because once in a while a guy is really blatant about it like about a year ago when i was at a karaoke bar with friends & i got an uninvited lap dance from some guy while he sang badly. but for the most part, if a man smiles at me, i think the chances are greater that i've got a dangling booger than that he'd like to get my number. i have an awesome husband who always makes me feel really good about myself.... but,once in a while, i kind of miss the old days.

pregnancy dreams

just to start off here, i want to state for the record that i am NOT pregnant.
now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

tonight while i was hanging out with brooke during her bath, she was washing her mammary area & said, "someday when i'm a woman, if i ever find starving kittens with no mother to feed them, i will let them nurse from me. and even if it hurts me, better hurting on my body than starving kittens."

that made me think of a dream i had when i was pregnant. i dreamed that i had to nurse about 8 kittens and they had pointy teeth & they knew how to use them! i remember grimacing in pain & crying because of how they kept biting me, but still i kept it up. i couldn't very well thump them on the heads or yank them from my breasts because they might dig those teeth in harder like mini pit bulls. and the next night i dreamed that i was nursing snakes! i was in a pit of vipers and i was nursing them and their fangs! talk about a draining situation to find yourself in as a new mom!

there was another night when i dreamed that i was about to give birth and i was walking down a country road alone, trying to find just the right spot to keel over & heave ho when i came upon a large animal vet clinic. i thought it looked pretty good, certainly better than a murky ditch, so i stumble-ran in there & the first thing the vet did was put me up on a big cattle scale. apparently it mattered to him how much i weighed, and i must have looked at though i weighed as much as a cow. then he helped me into what i thought would be a room with a table so i could give birth hospital style, but instead, it was more like a stall, with a half door, top open, and all over the ground was a bunch of dirty hay. i paced around like a proper animal for a few minutes and eventually i squatted over the hay & PUSHED, and PUSHED and PUSHED some more. i finally managed to get it out and breathing deeply and painfully, i reached down to scoop up my new baby in my hands. i pulled it close & saw that it was a small bag. i realized that since i was in an animal environment, i would have to do it animal style, so i gnawed through that nasty, slimy bag to free my baby and allow it it's first breath. that's when i realized that all the bag contained was a pile of eyeballs. unattached, wet, staring eyeballs. i was pretty ticked off that i'd done all that work and had placenta breath, all for some disembodied peepers. i put my pants back on, put the eyeballs in my pocket and walked out of the vet's office & kept on going down the road, never looking back.

i would love to hear if anyone else had bizarre dreams while they were pregnant too. or am i the only freak around?

art therapy

do you ever have one of those super duper, totally unfabulous days? you know, the kind where you look down at some point & realize you're sitting out front in a really old shirt, worn inside out & partially unbuttoned, wearing thick, gooey whitening strips on your teeth that look like a football mouth guard and cause a lisp & with cheap hair dye on your roots that makes your hair stand up straight for about 2 inches all the way around your head? and there's a kitten inside your shirt, squirming downward toward your boob because it's got the urge to burrow and you can't get it back out without exposing yourself and you're waving to the garbage man...   and maybe later in the day after you've had a shower & put on clean clothes, but no makeup & gone back outside to try to coerce your kid into doing some school work, and you find yourself meeting the new neighbor from across the street. you're feeling a bit self conscious about the lack of makeup, but try not to be insecure, so you carry on a conversation for several minutes & thinking you've made a nice connection and maybe a new friend, maybe she invites your kid over to see her dog. maybe you run inside to put on a bra because it's one thing to be in your own driveway without a bra, but quite another to be strutting about the neighborhood with the girls flopping free. and it's when you walk past a mirror that you realize there are multiple sweat drops showing up like neon right under your boobs because you were too lazy to put your bra on after your shower because you didn't think you were going to see anyone and you didn't realize how freakin hot it was outside and therefor how sweaty you were going to get in that region. and so maybe you spasmodically splashed some water around the rest of your shirt in an attempt to.... well.... uh...camouflage your.... situation. except then it was just weird and you thought about changing shirts, but that would be weird too to change shirts just to walk across the street, so off you go in hopes that your new neighbor might possibly be blind.

no, you never had a day like that? oh, ummm..... me either.

if brooke had a day like that, her crisis might be that her brain had gone dry, her ideas all shrivelled up. she might think her life was over due to that loss and she might be crying. i might go with something that's worked well at points in the past and that might be to suggest a lil art therapy for the both of us.

and it might go something like this. please note the brain with nothing in it but those boring squiggly lines.

and here we have the spider and cobwebs in the brain. not even so much as those pesky squiggles.

and maybe she might then feel like she needed to write big & bold on the kitchen floor. it might be a giant potato shaped head with... unique features and a very sad mouth.

so maybe we might decide to sit back to back & draw some pictures that might possibly evoke an emotion in each other that would be better than sad or mortified. and if we did, brooke's might look like this.

and maybe puppy 1 eye didn't exactly cheer me up right off the bat, but maybe it could have evoked an emotion eventually. but maybe i drew one for her that's excessively stupid and lame, but colorful. it might have had a redneck rabbit and a lollipop tree and a fusa in a tree and the ugliest monkey you ever saw.

 and maybe then brooke would have added her dog to the sky so that it was even more charlie and the chocolate factory on shrooms.

and then there might have been a fish...

and maybe by the end, you're both giggling and wishing you had a lollipop tree in your yard. and maybe then you get a picture of your sweet kid's red rimmed eyes smiling back at you while lying on your therapy.

and maybe life is good again and the art therapy worked.

but if you've never had one of those days, please disregard.

round two of the self exposure

here we go again. once i got the first list done last week, my brain started delivering a plethora of fresh ideas just begging to get into another blog, so i might as well get them out here. i think i have too many for one post though, so i think i'll give this one a theme & it will be "body related incidents." unfortunately i seem to have a lot of those.

~ last easter i got myself a new dress to wear to church. i had a heck of a time finding something flattering, comfortable & affordable all in one garment, but i finally succeeded. i put it on to wear that sunday & put on the new shoes that weren't my first choice but i had run out of shopping time, so they'd have to do. i knew really quickly that the shoes were bad. too big, i couldn't walk without clomping like a kid playing in mommy's shoes. i stuffed a couple tissues into the toes to try to alleviate the problem, but it didn't help much. i got into the car to go with brooke & chris was going to be right behind us a few minutes later. when i looked down as i was sitting in the car i realized that the dress had slid so low in the chest that my nipples were almost showing! i kept frantically trying to adjust things, but it wasn't working. the boobs were out to play. i called chris, feeling panicky & asked him to rifle through my closet for any skinny tanky thing he could find that preferably might not clash w/ my dress. and even if it did, at least i wouldn't look like a ho. i still went in to church & tried to just hold something in front of my chest area because i didn't want to be late. when chris got there a few minutes later, i changed & it was fine & then i only had to deal with the tissues that kept sliding up & showing around the edges of my shoes. sigh. this is why it doesn't pay to dress up. thank God for a church where i can wear shorts & flip flops whenever i want to w/o raising an eyebrow!

~ when i was about 21 i had a membership to a gym that also had tanning beds. i'm a ridiculously pasty girl, so i took full advantage of the chance for a tan. i'd seen girls in bathing suits w/ that little space between the top of the thigh & the bottom of the butt where there was a white strip from lying in a tanning bed. i was determined to be smarter than them & avoid the white stripe, so i adjusted my cheeks in such a way that i was pretty sure i could tan that spot just fine. it wasn't until later that night that i realized that i had completely fried my butt crack. for several days, i couldn't walk, sit or use the facilities without wincing in pain.

~ my brother had a half pipe when we were in high school; it was 8 feet high on both ends. once when i was about 13 i had several friends over for a party. we were running around on the ramp, trying to climb up onto the platforms & acting silly. well, somehow in the course of my running up once, i slipped & ended up sliding down feet first w/ my belly pressed against the plywood. when i stopped moving i discovered that i'd taken a piece of the plywood with me, embedded in my pelvic region. i waddled into the bathroom & came very close to fainting while trying to pull this chunk of wood out of my shorts, but it was like my jean shorts & undies had been stapled to my body. once it was out i found that there were barbs sticking out of that thing that were holding it securely in place until i yanked really hard & managed to dislodge it. it wasn't like i could ask anyone for help! i still have it, stored away in a secure location so i can always remember my incident w/ the "cliver."

~ last year i went for my first mammogram. i had a minor issue & a family history of breast cancer, so it was time to get it done. the nurse delivered me to a dressing room & told me to undress, put on a gown & go wait in a room till i was called. ok. once she was out of my cubby, i realized that it seemed strange to have to strip down all the way when i was only getting an up-top exam, but i decided to err on the side of extra nudity. once, when i was preg, i thought i was just getting a belly check & didn't take off my pants. my dr told me i needed to take them off & then stood there while i climbed out of them, which was really embarrassing. so i thought this time i'd just take it all off. i walked carefully out to the waiting room so as to not expose my girlie goodies & eventually i was called across the hall for my boob crushing appointment. the tech proceeds to show me how to jam my left tittie into the vice & in order to do so i need to take one shoulder of my fancy gown off. i'm pretty sure my entire armpit was also pulled into that thing at some point, but that's beside the point. the tech lady stepped away & looked down at me (i could only barely see her out of the corner of my eye as i tried to crane my neck around to make sure she was moving quickly ) and i saw her eyes bug out of her head for a split second as she caught a glimpse of my bare ass. she tried to fix her face quickly, but the look of shock was definitely there. i heard her gulp as she stammered, "uh, um, most people, uh well, you really only needed to take off your top." seriously?!! you'd think the nurse lady would have told me that before i stripped bare! as if having your entire chest and armpit area crammed into a garbage disposal type mechanism while standing on tip toe & trying not to move or scream is bad enough, now i'm also worried about my apparently inappropriate nudity that's clearly making this lady uncomfortable! way to make a good impression! at some point in the way-too-long-and-torturous process i started to find the humor. like me exposing my pubies to her was making her uncomfortable, (especially since she had to be leaned in close & wrangling my tit into the monstrous machine) and that was making me uncomfortable, so it was like an equal trade. tit for twat.

exposing myself

there are a lot of things that we all do or have done in our lives that no one knows about. silly things, embarrassing things, things that seemed so insignificant we never even remembered we did it, whatever. well lately, i've had a lot of these stupid things rolling around in my brain, begging to be set free. a lot of them are about things in my childhood & i apologize to my mother in advance if i disturb you in any way.  i don't want to make it into a "25 things about me" kind of list, but it could possibly resemble that in a very random, possibly warped kind of way.

so in no particular order, here we go.

~ when i was about 5, i remember lying under our basement steps w/ our sheltie (why we were under the stairs, i have no idea. maybe it was our fort), cuddled up to him whispering into his ear that someday i was going to grow up & marry him. and as i whispered into his ear, i got the sudden urge to bite that ear & i did. until he jerked away from me and growled. and then the engagement was off.

~ when i had been married for a few years, i decided that i wanted to know what it would be like to be a more granola kind of woman. so i grew out my pit hair. it only lasted for a couple months & it was in the winter, so no one ever saw it. turns out, i'm not very crunchy.

~ when i was a teenager, i had a cat named twinkle. she was a big fatty who made the house shake when she ran, so we should have called her thunder. anyway, she used to bring in huge nightcrawler worms during the night & would often deposit them in the hallway between our bedrooms & the bathroom. i think they were strategically placed so that we'd step on them with our bare feet in the dark for optimum scream effect.

~ when i was 20, i was a nanny & i didn't have health insurance. i got an ingrown toenail. i didn't have it treated for several months because i thought i couldn't afford to see a doctor, but it got so bad that i was seriously limping. when i finally caved in & went to see a podiatrist, he told me that he'd interned in inner-city chicago & the homeless people's feet weren't as disgusting as mine. and for the record, he only charged me $50. i should have gone sooner & saved that scrap of my dignity.

~ when i was in early elementary school my mom taught piano lessons after school & she would send my brother & i upstairs to his room to watch tv or play quietly. i would sneak american cheese slices in with me & then hide the wrappers under my brother's pillow so that i wouldn't get in trouble.

~ when brooke was a baby, she & i were making the short trip home from my parents' house at night. she finally gave up & fell asleep after about an hour in the car & that's when i suddenly needed to pee. bad! i tried to wait, thinking i could hold out till we got home. then i got the bright idea to just use a diaper & pee right in my seat while driving. i mean, she was wearing about a sz 3 diaper by then, so i thought maybe it could hold an adult's bladder worth of pee. i crammed that diaper down in between my legs while trying to keep the car between the lines. i tried & tried to pee in that diaper, but for the life of me, i could not release. i don't know if it was the fact that i've never peed while driving down a road before or if i couldn't let loose because i've never been strapped to my seat while peeing before, but in any case, i just could not do it. i finally pulled the car into a rinky dinky gas station & ran full speed, while carrying brooke's seat, into the filthiest bathroom i've ever been in & proceeded to wet myself, right in front of the toilet.

~ when i was growing up, i had dreams of being a fabulous singer. if american idol had existed back then i'd have gone to every audition i could get to. i sang in church every chance i got, even in the youth choir singing tenor w/ the boys. i tried singing publicly a few times as an adult & i realized that i no longer have dreams of being a singer because i kinda suck & because just thinking about it makes my nerves want to puke. i even walked off a karaoke stage once while singing an alanis song. i just sucked so bad that i couldn't even stay up there.

~ my daughter has named many of her body parts & my own. her tongue is named whimley wormtongue. her hands are fizz & fido. my right hand is soda. my feet are mr & mrs. and my breasts are doug & kevin.

~ when i was in elementary school, i went to a private christian school & every so often we'd have a school wide skate night. i always made sure that my nails were painted, just in case a boy asked me to skate. as if a little 8 yr old kid would notice in the dim lighting that my nails were decked out in "shimmering strawberry."

~ at a house we lived in when i was in jr high & high school, we ripped a hole through the back of my brother's closet. it went into an unused attic space above the garage & we turned it into a kind of clubhouse complete w/ ugly pink chair that i have no recollection of how it got in there. we had to crawl through a very small hole & that somehow made it seem sort of magical. we named that space "ompisenathimbderland."

~ i used to intentionally keep all of my money in an upside down & backwards kind of order. i would make sure that no 2 bills were going the same way. i did this purely to drive my dad nuts.

~ when i was about 8 or 9 a friend & i decided that we needed boobs. we were in the same class at school & we decided to go about getting breasts together. we each stuffed one cotton ball  per side into our tight undershirts & wore it for a few days. then we added another and another progressively to make it seem like a natural development. because it's totally natural for 8 year olds to grow a cotton balls worth of boob tissue approximately every 4 days.

~ i like to refer to myself as "sheera, queen of power" on a regular basis.

~ i remember that after church on sundays we would sometimes get to stop at mcdonalds to eat. it was a rare treat & one we really looked forward to. my dad once said we didn't get to go very often because it was just ridiculous to charge 7 whole dollars to feed lunch to a family of 4.

~ when i was about 20 i was at a friend's house, hanging out with her & some other people, including her super cute uncle who wasn't much older than me. we watched a movie together & then when it was over, the credits rolled & there was a fun song on. i stood up & did a lil dance, having some fun & feeling groovy. that's when my friend jumped up, grabbed my arm & dragged me to the bathroom. she told me that during the movie i'd leaked my period through the back of my pants & when i'd been in there dancing, my bloody butt was on display for everyone to see. i still feel a little bit sick to think of it.

~ a few years ago i found my diary from when i was about 10 in my parents' attic. i opened it & found a page where in all capitals i'd written, "I HATE CHRIS!!!! HE IS SUCH A BITCH!!!! I WANT TO PUNCH THAT BITCH!!!" i didn't know bitch was primarily reserved for girls. (and for the record, chris is my brother's name & my husband's. this one, of course, referred to my obviously annoying brother.)

~ i have moles. i hate my moles. i had one removed by a doctor when i was about 10 & i was mesmerized to look at it floating in that jar of clear liquid with its roots hanging down. gross! when i was a teenager, i attempted a more down home form of mole removal. i tied a piece of string around it & kept it on there for a few days. it shriveled up & died & then i snipped if off w/ nail clippers. nasty, but it worked & it was free!

~ i went to college in a really tiny town way up north. i got sick & seemed to stay that way for a very long time & eventually, the school nurse sent me by van to the doctor at the tiny neighboring town called chestertown. i had a really bad sinus infection, but he made me strip down & get in a gown that opened in the front. he took my pulse in my groin. this happened on more than one occassion & he always spent a bit too much time listening to my heart from the front. i didn't really get it at the time just how inappropriate that was. later, talking to my room mates about it, we dubbed him the "chester molester."

~ i was homeschooled from grades 5-12. somewhere in there i decided i didn't want to do math anymore, so i cheated. my mom trusted me enough to let me do the work & correct it myself & just give her my grades each week. i went several months without even opening my math book and i could hardly take communion at church because i felt so guilty. my brother finally busted me. i still get hives just thinking about math!

~ when i was about 13, a friend & i walked to friendly's for dinner & ice cream. we devised a plan while walking the mile to the restaurant that we would pretend to be professional models while we were there & try to make the waitress believe that we really were. we even had fake names. one of us was cricket & i can't remember the other one. we talked about our trips to paris & milan and all of our abundant wealth. i'm sure that the waitress really believed that 2 little girls who walked there & came in sweaty & disheveled were really international models.

~ my brother's gerbil died while being gerbil-sat by a friend when we were on a month long trip. the friend didn't want to bury our rodent in case it was special to us, so she stuck it in a butter tub & froze it. by the time we got home, the ground was too frozen to dig a proper grave. it stayed in the freezer until the next summer when my brother had his high school graduation party. we made a head stone & dug a grave & even had pall bearers. there was mourning & people said nice things about herm. (it was named herm because we never knew if it was a her or a him) doesn't everyone do that at their graduation parties?


okay, that's all i've got & i'm sure it's more than enough. i apologize if i've offended your sensibilities or made you see me in a whole new light. but i'm sure you've got your deep, dark, stupid secrets too. you're probably just smart enough to keep them hidden.