Is this thing on?

I wonder if I even remember how to work this thing. Can you guys hear me? Is this thing on? .... Yes? Oh, okay, hi!

Guess what... I'm not dead! I seem to have taken a tumble head first out of the blogosphere, but all is well in my real life world.

I knew at the beginning of this year that something new was on my horizon, I just didn't quite know what it was yet. I felt like I was at a turning point and I had to figure out which way was I was going to turn. As it happens, my life directed me straight into a new thing called coaching. I've never seen myself as a coach. Maybe a cheerleader, but never the one in charge.

However, as I lost so much weight last year, without having surgery or using any fancy pills or fad diets, more and more people started asking me how I did it. I didn't realize how many people were watching the changes in my life until it became clear that whatever I was doing was working and it was working extremely well.

Blah, blah, blah. Fast forward, I was asked to become a coach for Beachbody. That's the parent company of P90X, Hip Hop Abs, and Insanity and a whole bunch of other fitness programs and healthy supplements. It's stuff I believe in and products that I've already seen work. I can work from home on my computer or any time I'm out and about. I chose to become a cheerleader for people who need some help or motivation on their own fitness journey. I was doing it already, but now sometimes I get paid if people decide to try out one of the products that this company sells.

I basically have a semi-job that requires me to workout, be dedicated to fitness and a healthy lifestyle, and play on Facebook. Umm... it sounds like what I was doing already, so it's a perfect fit!

I'm also training for a 10K obstacle/mud run. I'm doing it with my mom, sister, cousin, and a friend. We're all going to wear matching Wonder Woman costumes that include tutus, because everyone needs a great costume for racing and slithering through mud! That's next month, so I've spent the past 3 months trying to learn now to run. I've always been one of those spastic, hand-flapping, lurchy sort of runners on the rare occasions when I found myself attempting to go faster than a slowish walk. I'm not much better now, but I can go further distances and I break for walking segments less often. I expect I'll be ready when the big race comes and I'm really excited about being able to do it with my family. I expect it to be one of the more memorable highlights of my life up to this point. I also expect it won't be the last race I run.

Because a lot of what I do now involves posting in groups online that revolve around weight loss and fitness, I like to be creative with my postings. I take a lot of pictures and I thought I'd share a few of them. I'm still doing yoga weekly and sometimes I even branch out and do my yoga in places outside of the house or studio. Those can be fun moments when I suddenly drop to the ground and pop up into a wheel in a random place while my family rolls their eyes and gets out the camera. Or maybe it's only fun for me. Aw, who cares, I'm having a good time!

Royal Dancer pose

Wheeling with friends is wheely fun.

Angry Bird of Paradise

Once in a while Brooke will join me for some yoga.

We have a weekly Flex Friday pic fest.

These used to be my skinny jeans.

"Mom, don't kick the fan!"

I like to call it Moga.

Pushups while balancing on 4 balls.

Ridiculous costume for the race.

Just discovered I can do a full split again!

My mom and I crack ourselves up.

Flex Friday with legs.

I have no idea what this is.

Stacked plank. Also known as kick Mom in the head.

Cartwheels are fun again.

Ready for a run!

Crane/crow pose

I don't know what this is called, but it felt great on my back.

I'm learning how to do headstands this weekend.

It was my 15th wedding anniversary this week. I love this guy!

I hope you're all doing well! I'd love to catch up with everyone and hear how your lives are going. I'm going to try to make the blog rounds to tell everyone hi. Miss you guys!

photo collage of awkwardness

you know how sometimes a photographer will do a collage of photos of a baby or little kid where they focus on individual body parts rather than the whole? those are so cute. the sweet little toes. the darling round cheeks.

brooke likes to take photos like that too; but they're not of sweet, plump babies, they're of me. she likes to stare at me, or more accurately, pieces of me. her eyebrows furrow as she stares intently at some portion of my body, and when i ask her what she's looking at, she runs for the camera to photograph exactly what she's looking at so i too can see why it's so interesting.

here are some of those photos.

let's start at the bottom and work our way up, shall we?

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i'm lovely, aren't i?

in case you're wondering just what parts of me were chosen for inspection and photography, in case you couldn't tell, they are as follows.

1. the top of my toes.

2. the sole of my foot.

3. the back of my calf.

4. my hip.

5. my hip while doing a side crunch. it looks sort of like bread rolls at subway.

6. obviously my stretch marks on my hip. 

7. my sewer rat peeking at her over the edge of my pants.

8. lower case "i" in the middle of my stomach. clearly there's an infatuation with my stretch marks. she keeps telling me that she wants to chew on my skin now that i've lost weight and it's looser than before. awkward.

9. my collarbone.

10. the side of my neck and chin.

11. smile line beside my nose and above my lip.

12. furrowed brows.

13. the side of my eye when squinting.

14. my forehead while making a shocked face.

here is a picture she drew of me today. it's really the icing on the cake.

i decided to return the favor a bit and take some lovely shots of her, but this post is already too long, so i think i'll save those for next time.

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."

the pink nightie

sometimes it's said of a kid that "they're in a hurry to grow up." i think i was kind of like that, except i wanted to skip the journey and zing straight to adulthood. i wanted to zoom from 7 to 20 in no time flat. i longed to hang out with the adults and listen to the things they said. i wanted to hear the gossip and absorb all the information that i thought i was old enough to understand.

when i was about twelve, i started being allowed to shop around the mall with a trustworthy friend while one of our parents wandered around the mall apart from us. i thought that was about the coolest thing ever. i had a little bit of money because i always babysat, pet sat, raked yards, cleaned the house, washed the car. anything to get some moolah into my pink, pleather wallet.

i liked to buy my own clothes when i was with my friends because then i didn't have to listen to my parents' opinions about them. of course i thought i was a mature woman with my own income, so surely i was old enough to pick out my own attire. however, my parents, being conservative, had other ideas. they didn't mind if i bought my own stuff, but they didn't hesitate to shuttle me right back to the mall to return my purchases if they didn't fall in line with the standards that had been set for me.

it didn't take me long to learn how to get things that were acceptable to both my parents and myself so as to avoid the embarrassment of having to return things. it was awful to be asked by the associate doing the return, "reason you're returning this today?" and having to answer with my eyes averted, "my dad said it looked slutty."

there was one time though, where i decided that i didn't care what they thought. i was going to buy any old thing i pleased that was within my budget. i loved silky, lacy things, and underwear in particular. i was browsing through a department store's lingerie department. i meandered out of the bras and through the girdle region. before i knew it, i found myself in the land of sexy teddies. the things surrounding me were so beautiful and elegant. they were pleasing to the eyes and the fingertips and i longed to own one of my very own. i wanted to put it on and wear it under my clothes. i wasn't entirely sure what the intended purpose of such clothing items was, but i knew i had to have one.

i couldn't afford most of the lacy pretties, but i found a sale rack with some lovely little things. there was one pale pink, fake silk number with a scalloped lace neckline and skinny little straps. i held it there in the j.c. penny's and debated with myself. what would i ever do with this? did i really want to spend all the money i had allotted for clothes on something that i could never show to anyone? i put it back and started to walk away, but it called out to me in a gentle, whispery voice. it promised that i'd feel beautiful when i wore it. it assured me that no child had ever owned an item of such elegance.

i hesitated for only a moment longer before i snatched it up, hugged it to myself and rushed to the counter to pay. an elderly saleswoman waited at the desk to ring up the next customer. i tried to control the trembling in my hands as i set it down. she raised an eyebrow in clear disapproval. her look plainly stated that in her book, i wasn't even old enough to wear makeup, let alone buy a sexy nightie that would no doubt be put to shameful and unladylike uses.

in response to her disdain, i determined to be as womanly as possible. i puffed out my chest to show off my new breasts. i raised an eyebrow of my own and looked her right in the eye, just daring her to question my morals or maturity. i knew of no laws forbidding twelve year olds to purchase underwear and i was ready to state that for all to hear if she dared to so much as cluck her tongue in criticism.

when the transaction was complete, i walked sedately away, shoulders back, head held high, not letting on that my heart was pounding in terror and excitement. my friend was giggling and elbowing me in the ribs, but i held onto my mature facade until we were out of sight of the store.

we immediately raced into a bathroom where i threw away the bag and receipt and stuffed the beautiful silk treasure into the bottom of my purse. i couldn't risk getting spotted by my parent while carrying a bag that i wasn't willing to explain.

when i got home with my negligee, i held it up and twirled around in front of my mirror. i imagined wearing it to sleep or to church under my conservative dress. but somehow, i could never get up the nerve to put it on. i held it and petted it, i even ripped off the tags, but after each time that i admired it, i tucked it away in the bottom of my toy box full of stuffed animals to prevent it from being discovered.

after a few months of keeping the nightie in hiding, my guilt was becoming unbearable. i had figured out the reason that women bought such things and i knew i wasn't ready for sex. it no longer pleased me to look at it and now i sort of understood that the snap-crotch wasn't there to make going to the bathroom easier. i couldn't even think of it without feeling a twist in my gut, knowing that i shouldn't own it. i thought about throwing it away, but couldn't bear the idea of letting something so pretty go in the garbage. i had no friends who were old enough or slutty enough to be wearing such a thing for a boy or man, so i couldn't give it to any of them.

that left me with only one option that i could think of. i had to give it to my mom. i knew that if she'd caught me with it, she would immediately think that i was trashier than i was. at that point, i hadn't even kissed a boy, so i didn't want her to think that i was that kind of girl.

mother's day was approaching, so i decided to give it to my mom as a gift. i would act like it was a recent purchase and always intended for her.

i called her into my room that afternoon and handed her a plastic bag containing the slinky garment. i told her that i didn't give it to her in front of the rest of the family because i didn't want to embarrass her. i tried to play it cool. woman to woman. as if it was the most natural thing in the world for a child to give her mother a piece of sexy lingerie for mother's day.

she looked at the nightie. she looked at me. she narrowed her eyes, but i maintained what i perceived to be my air of mature innocence.

i suspect it was badly wrinkled from being crammed into my toy box for months and maybe even a little dirty or frayed from being petted by my childish fingers so many times.

i told this story to my mom the other day, hoping to hear her end of it. she didn't really remember at first, but then she ran up to her room and dug around in the bottom drawer of her dresser. she pulled an old plastic bag out and slipped the very negligee in question out of the bag and into my hand.

my eyes widened. i couldn't believe it still existed. i petted the cheap silk for a moment and then dropped it like i'd been shocked. i looked at her with a horrified expression and asked if she'd ever worn it for its intended purpose. she laughed and assured me that it had never been worn and she gave it back to me.

that night, i took it home. i told my husband of 14 years the story and pulled the little nightie out of my purse...

let's just say that even after 25 years, this little number is still hot. 

a cautionary tattoo tale

i've been thinking lately about the many, many foolish choices i made in my early twenties. there was an abundance and i made them all with the reckless abandon that only the young fool does. i had been fairly careful about my choices up to that point in time with only a slight swerve into the fast-moving naughty lane before my twentieth birthday.

i look pretty normal here, don't i?
but underneath that calm exterior lay the makings of a party girl.

but when i turned twenty, i decided that i was done with the good and i was headed as quick as i could find it, into the bad. i boycotted church and started swearing excessively. i dated men who weren't future husband material and cut and dyed my hair into unacceptable colors and styles.

one of the things i decided i needed to try was body art. i got my belly button pierced and then passed out when i stood up. fortunately, the 18 year old guy who'd clamped and stabbed my navel knew enough to slide me gently down the counter where i'd flopped like a boneless jellyfish and then give me a coke when i woke up.

i got my tongue pierced a few months later, which wasn't particularly smart since it was only a few days before thanksgiving. my tongue swelled up and left me with a lisp that was hard to hide when speaking with people, like my grandma. and i couldn't indulge in anything but cranberry sauce because chewing was pretty much out of the question. i decided to take that piercing out after one night when i was making out with a guy who suddenly pulled away from my face, reached into his mouth and pulled the ball from the top of my tongue barbell off his tongue and handed it to me.

piercings though, are just beginner stuff. they're removable and can be denied once you get tired of them. tattoos though, hold a whole different realm of stupid possibilities. don't get me wrong, i like tattoos a lot. i like the artistic aspect and the way they can mark a significant event in your life.

however, the way i went about getting tattoos wasn't artistic or significant. i decided all of a sudden, to find the name of a tattoo shop in the yellow pages and then go there. i went alone and didn't give any prior thought to what was going to be put permanently on my skin. i picked some flowers out of a book. they were boring and poorly done, but they live on my ankle for anyone to see when the weather is warm.

having a tattoo made me feel like a tough guy. like i was part of the cool kids' club, even though my ink was meaningless and tacky. i decided about a year later to get another one. i was determined to do better on my second round in the tattoo chair and i chose to put it in a location where it wouldn't be visible so often. i picked my lower stomach.

obviously, for a woman, that's a bad choice of body real estate, even if you're young and thin and can't imagine ever having kids. twenty year olds know nothing.

you see that smiling face and belly shirt? yeah, that was me, happy and stupid and about to show off my sneaky stomach tattoo. please disregard the huge beeper in my pocket.

i did my best to clean up these pics so you can make out what that ridiculous mousey looked like when it was fresh and new. you can see how perfectly it fit under my bikini bottom so that it always stayed hidden.

that was fine and dandy for a while, but a few years later, i got pregnant. and once i was pregnant, all hell broke lose with that tattoo. it ceased to be a cute little mousey and instead stretched out into something alarming and grotesque.

i actually got brave enough to take a picture of it tonight. a few months ago, i never would have considered it, but i've lost 48 lbs to date and i can see it now, so i am once again aware of its existence regularly. being thinner though, hasn't helped it to become any less ugly.

as i was taking the pictures, i kept thinking they were blurry. then i realized that the photo was perfectly clear, it's just that now it looks like an underwater sewer rat. or a jacked up elephant.

so let this be a cautionary tale for anyone considering a tattoo. be very careful about the location of your potential ink. if you don't have a good reason and location for it, then forget it and go get something pierced instead.

hottie? or nottie...

we've all had embarrassing moments. times when we tooted in a quiet room or had a boob pop out at the water park. everyone does it.

and we've all had times when we felt good about ourselves. a great hair day or a thoughtful compliment from someone.

but have we all had a day that included both? maybe. let me tell you about mine.

many years ago, in the land before husband, i went to a friend's house to hang out. my friend was a couple years younger than me, so she was still in high school, but i was finished by then. her family was all there, including an uncle who i'd never met before. he wasn't so much older than me - maybe ten years - and i thought he was rather cute.

we decided to watch a movie. i was sort of flirting with the uncle who was returning to favor and i was feeling rather pleased with myself that a guy that much older was paying a little bit of attention to me. at the end of the movie, as the credits rolled, a really great song came on. i stood up off the floor where i'd been lounging and proceeded to bust a move. no one else in the room was dancing. just me.

i was pretty sure that i was getting checked out from the rear view, so i made sure to shake my butt extra frisky-like to be sure that it was adequately appreciated by the uncle.

suddenly i was grabbed by the arm and dragged out of the room by my friend. she hauled me to the bathroom without a word, pushed me in and closed the door. i hesitated for a moment, not sure what the heck was going on or why she'd interrupted my fabulously sexy dance solo.

she was only gone for about 30 seconds, but when she returned, she handed me a pair of jeans. i was perplexed. then she turned me around and had me look at my rear in the mirror. there, all over the butt of my jeans was the biggest, most obvious period stain i've ever had. not a dainty little dime-sized spot, but more like i'd been shot in the rump with a bazooka.

i cleaned up, put on my friend's pants and then tried to find a way to escape out of the house without being seen. i didn't want to even open the door because i knew i'd have to walk past the people who'd seen my period dance. my face was purple from the mortification. my pants were wadded in my armpit. my ego was damaged beyond repair.

eventually i had to slink out and face the people. they were very nice and no one said anything about my mishap. the uncle even walked me to my car. he stood in the road and smooched me under the street light.

my ego was slightly patched up after the kiss, but i never heard from him again. it was probably a pity kiss, but i was grateful for it.

my heart still pounds and my cheeks still burn when i remember that bloody night.

colons gone wild x2

tonight we went out for mexican food at our favorite little place in town. this gives me mixed feelings because i love the food there and i like the unpretentious environment, but usually, it doesn't take long for that bean burrito and queso dip to work their magic on my colon. my honey likes to go walking after we eat so that the food doesn't just settle straight down into our butts and thighs. however, this prospect fills me with fear and trepidation all because of that one time.

that one fateful night... at walmart.

knowing that after a big meal, i often need to make a rapid run to the ladies room, i usually prefer for our post-dinner walks to be in places with convenient facilities and on this particular night, we were at walmart. it wasn't so much a shopping trip as an exercise in loitering. since chris and i don't care to loiter in the same regions of walmart, i was in the hosiery area and he was off looking at electronics or movies or something more manly than knee highs and toe socks.

suddenly, i felt the gurgle of doom. i had a spike of adrenaline, knowing what was coming. i speedily dialed chris' cell number and in a panicked voice, asked where he was because i needed to get brooke to him as quickly as possible. i hate it when i have to take her with me into a public bathroom stall, especially when it's not going to be just a quick pee. and this - good lord, i could HEAR the rumbles - was not going to be a quick pee. i was starting to run in chris' direction. i was pushing brooke in the shopping cart at breakneck speed, dodging racks and unsuspecting citizens and hoping that i could avoid any collisions because i was pretty sure that if i ran into anyone, i would then have the dubious honor of dying from a butt explosion amongst the cheap outer wear and rain ponchos.

i caught sight of him heading my way and with hardly a thought, i shoved the cart containing my child -who was holding onto the rungs in a white knuckled grip- in daddy's direction, did a rapid course correction and made a bee line for the bathroom. i'm not much of a runner, so it wasn't smooth or fluid, certainly not like anything you'd see in a nikes commercial.  i was holding a boob in each hand to keep them from flapping willy nilly between my neck and my navel as i gallumped between racks of flip flops and magazines. i had a look of sheer terror on my face and i knew that i looked insane, but i figured that was a preferable alternative to crapping my underpants as i ran between customers in the self check out aisles.

i thought i was going to make it. i was on the home stretch, racing past customer service, shimmying through tiny cracks between meandering rednecks all the while, my eyes were glued to the door of the ladies room. there was no cleaning cart parked out front. good sign. there wasn't a long line hanging out the door. great. but then, i felt it. that hot, horrifying liquid on my backside telling me that i was too slow. that my thigh churning, heart pounding rampage through the store wasn't enough to save my dignity. or my underwear.

i skidded through the doorway and nearly crashed straight into a woman who was the second in a line of two women. oh shit. i couldn't wait. i was about ready to belly flop to the floor and slither under a stall to join the unsuspecting piddler on the other side of the wall in hopes that i could wrestle the funky toilet from her butt's grasp. but then i saw that the woman directly in front of me was doing a pee pee dance. and she was very obviously pregnant. i understood that a full-bladdered pregnant woman always trumps others in line in a bathroom, so i couldn't just bash past her for the next available commode. i had to wait my turn.

thankfully, the first lady in line saw the distress of lil miss preggers and she let her go first. then she was standing beside me while i struggled unsuccessfully to contain the need to twitch like a junkie in need of a fix while clenching my anus like it's only ever been clenched that one time at bible study.

i'm sure my aroma was filling the small space all too well and since i probably looked and was acting completely nuts, the woman at the front of the line was gracious enough to also give up her space to me. most likely she thought from the stink of me that i was a homeless wackjob and she didn't want to witness me losing my head and flinging dung like a monkey in the wally world bathroom. whatever the case, i didn't look the gift toilet in the mouth so i raced into the middle stall, dropped my dirty pants and planted my ass firmly on the seat without even checking it visually or covering it in paper first. i figured that what i was bringing to the table was probably worse that whatever had been there before i arrived.

if i had tried to cover the seat in paper, i'd have realized that there was no paper. of course there wasn't. because on the day of my most shame-filled pooping experience, what would serve to make the event more memorable than to poop out 12 lbs of sludge only to have no paper with which to wipe my rump. i knocked politely on the stall beside me and asked if she might have a square or two of paper that could be spared for a poor, needy neighbor. no response. maybe she was trying to ignore me in hopes that what probably sounded and smelled like dysentery wouldn't travel into her corner of the bathroom. i tried the other side and was told that she was fresh out too.

i dug through my purse and found a lonesome, linty tissue hiding under a tampon and a cracked lollipop in the bottom of my purse. i used it to the best of my ability, but it was sorely lacking. after some thought, i pulled off my pants that were blessedly cleanish, peeled off my undies and then redressed myself. i was never more thankful than at that moment that i'd made the switch from team thong to team granny panty. at least that gave me a buffer in my moment of leaking distress and they also provided me with more surface area to use as toilet paper.

then the problem of what to do with the soiled skivvies. there was no pad disposal box. i debated flushing them, but if they plugged the toilet and caused an overflow, i would feel guilty as well as mortified. there was no toilet paper in which to wrap them, so i settled for grasping them tightly in my fist with the cleanest bits i could find turned toward the outside. i steeled myself for the walk past the ladies in waiting and straight to the trash can. i knew i smelled like a walking dirty diaper, but there was nothing to be done but get through it as quickly as possible. into the trash they went and then i covered them with a layer of paper towels before i went and scoured my hands and arms with the hottest water on tap, as well as large quantities of soap.

i didn't make eye contact with any of the women who were unfortunate enough to be in there at the same time as me. i just kept my face aimed at the ground and marched out of the bathroom. i coated myself in anti-bacterial gel while i wound my way back to the company of my loved ones. we left the store right after that and it wasn't spoken of again. because things like this should really be kept to yourself and never ever shared with anyone.

the poopy tent

for the first nine years of our marriage, chris and i had only one bathroom. we lived in several different houses, but always with just one bathroom. when we were newlyweds, it initially seemed like no big deal. i'd never lived with any man to whom i wasn't related and they certainly weren't going to invade my privacy in the bathroom. in my growing up house, doors were kept closed and knocking was strictly enforced.

this was not the case once i was married. suddenly there was an open door policy for the most part unless pooping was underway. but there came a time when eventually, even the poops had to be interrupted by the other partner. if i was down to the wire on time before i had to leave for work and the man was in the bathroom dropping a man-sized load, i had no choice but to brave the stench-o-rama that was my bathroom in order to get myself ready to go.

it was very difficult to stand in front of the sink slapping my makeup onto my face as fast as i could (there was no other acceptable mirror/lighting place in the house) while fanning the door with one foot to keep the air circulating and the stink to a minimum. meanwhile my new husband was sitting 17 inches to my left with his pants around his ankles and a magazine on his lap as he pooped just as care-freely as if he were completely alone. he'd sometimes turn and smile serenely at me and tell me he loved me.

even worse than chris pooping next to me, was when i needed to go, but he was in the bathroom shaving or brushing his hairs or whatever men do in the bathroom. i was mortified. i couldn't bear the thought of my beloved seeing my delicate self taking a dump, particularly while he was close enough to reach out and pat me while i did so. i would turn my face and scowl toward the shower so that he couldn't see me. i'd close my eyes and imagine i was alone or stare at the shower curtain, blushing at the shame of my predicament.

one day while staring at the curtain and trying unsuccessfully to rush the man out, i was contemplating how to go about wiping in a sneaky fashion. and let me tell you, it can't be done. you just can't hide the necessary motions from a person who is that close to your body, especially when they're amused by your discomfort. then the thought popped into my head that i could pull the shower curtain around my body and form a sort of shelter to block myself from the nearby viewer's prying eyes.

surely, it looked very silly to see a toilet with a big flowery shower curtain-covered lump perched on it, but it provided the much needed illusion of privacy. from that moment on, the poopy tent became the standard for any time one of us needed to go while the other was occupying that space. and the cat loved to join us in there for our stinky camping adventures.

sometimes i miss our early days of being married, with fewer responsibilities and the freedom to sleep in, but i never, ever miss having only one bathroom. 

first impression fail

do you give any thought to first impressions? i hardly ever do. i've been told that i come across as "short and snappy" and then latter had it clarified that she wasn't referring to my lack of height, but my big mouth. and i've been told in more recent years that i seem really conservative, but that turns out to be a pretty big surprise after you dig a little deeper and hear some of the stories of my life.

but there's one story of first impressions that stands out to me. it pains me to remember it.

when chris and i first got married, we lived in a little duplex in a little college town in east armpit tennessee. he was in school during the day and at work every evening, so i didn't see very much of him. i was lonely and bored because i couldn't find a full time job, i had no friends and we didn't have internet.

some guys moved in next door and they were just a little bit younger than us. it seemed like we would probably get along and we all smoked outside together a couple times over the weekend when they were moving in.

a few days later, chris was at work and i'd rented a movie that only had a one night rental time, so i would need to watch it without him. i didn't feel like spending yet another night alone on the couch, so i went and banged on the door of the new neighbors. i had the movie in hand and said i was wondering if they might like to watch it.  the guy, daniel, said yes and tried to take it out of my hand and close the door, but i held on and said that i was asking if they'd like to watch it with me.

this seemed to be surprising to them, but not necessarily unpleasant, so it was decided that we'd watch it in their place since smoking in the house was allowed over there and was outlawed in my house.

it was a little bit awkward since we really didn't know each other, plus i was a married woman approaching two single guys to hang out while my big husband was at work. but we all settled in to watch the movie and i was feeling pretty good about maybe making some new friends.

the problem started about halfway through the movie when there was suddenly a pretty raunchy scene. there was definitely some boobage and some awkward noises which caused my face to flash hot and red. i was afraid to look away. afraid to look at either of the guys. i felt sick to my stomach, but frozen to my seat.

no one spoke through the rest of the movie. when it was finished, daniel said, "i think we all need a cigarette after that."

thankfully we were all able to laugh about it later and i assured them that i normally don't take soft porn to strange guys' houses and ask to watch it with them.

i'm pretty sure that was one of the worst first impressions i ever made.

tipsy chickens x2

15 years ago, when chris and i were dating, i was living at my parents' house and i was working in a little office. one weekend, my parents and little sisters were out of town and chris was driving a limo, so he was out pretty much all night, which meant that i was left to my own devices that friday night.

after work was over for the day, a couple co-workers and i decided that we were going to go to tgifridays, across the parking lot for dinner and perhaps a drink or two. the tables were all full, so we sat at the bar. somehow i think i forgot to eat dinner that night and accidentally had about 5 drinks instead. i was drinking royal flushes, which i'd never had before (or after, for that matter) and they were just so fruity and delicious that i kept guzzling them and ordering more. eventually, my co-workers needed to go back to their lives, so they left me there because of course i assured them that i was absolutely fine and didn't need anyone to babysit me.

when i was finally ready to go, i tipped the bartender excessively, stumbled out of the bar, and back across the parking lot toward my office where my car was parked. on the way there, two men who were sitting in a parked car stopped me and asked if i had any tattoos. i did and showed them my body art. then they asked if i wanted a cigar, which i did, so i climbed into the back seat of that car with those two strange men and smoked a fat stogie. when i was finished, i got back out and kept heading toward my car. once i got there i realized that i really shouldn't be driving, so i managed to unlock my office door and bumble my way inside. i wasn't sure what i was going to do while i was in there, probably drunk page chris a few times or take a lil nap till i thought i was sober enough to drive my stupid ass home. i had only just tripped through the door when my boss returned to the office to check on me. i guess it had occurred to him that i probably wasn't in any state to be taking myself anywhere and he was kind enough to come back in order to taxi me home in his crappy chevette.

i got back to my parents' house; i went inside and collapsed into bed. it wasn't even dark yet, but i just couldn't stay awake. i took the phone to bed with me because i was hoping chris would eventually have time to call me back since i'd paged him repeatedly for no good reason.

around midnight i woke up sick and ran outside (it was closer than the bathroom) and puked by the back door, all over the ground and then crawled straight back into bed, still in my work clothes. around 3am i woke up again and by then i was approaching sober and noticed that the back door was wide open. i got a little bit nervous that i'd been sleeping with the house open and there was no one else home to protect my foolish self, so i snatched the phone out of my bed to try calling chris, but the phone had no dial tone. i ran upstairs and checked the kitchen phone. that one was dead too! i was suddenly positive that someone had cut the phone lines, snuck into the house, and i was in imminent danger of being raped and killed.

i ran straight out of the house to my parents' next door neighbor where i proceeded to bang and ring until the kind, little man came down in his pajamas to see what the heck was going on. (maybe i wasn't quite as sober as i thought) he came back to my house and went room by room with me, poking through every nook and cranny looking for the boogieman. we made it to my room last and that's when he discovered that my cordless phone had been left turned on in my bed, so the lines weren't cut, it was just off the hook. hence the lack of a dial tone. i felt rather stupid after that and walked him politely to the door and thanked him for saving me from my imagination.

i was able to reach chris after that, which was good because he'd been concerned that i'd paged him multiple times but when he called me back, he could only get a busy signal on the house phone.

the next morning i was feeling pretty stupid about my escapades of the previous night and i went out back to find a hose so i could clean off the patio where i'd hurled my royal flushes so indelicately, but the patio was practically spotless. where had the barf gone? that's when one of my sisters chickens came waddling over, pecking around the edges of the patio. finishing off the last scraps of my stupid evening till there was nothing left to show for it... but tipsy chickens.

the silly chair

when you're a kid and you have siblings close to your age, you find things to do to keep yourselves amused. you make up games and songs and stupid stuff to do when you're on long trips or when your toys get old or you're grounded at the same time.

my brother and i are only 17 months apart and we did a lot of that while we were growing up. he was kind of my hero when i was really little and there were also moments when he seemed like my nemesis. we got along better than most kids our age by the time we made it to high school & we shared a lot of the same friends.

at some point, a couple years after my family adopted our sisters, chris (my brother. and yes, also my husband's name) started playing a goofy little game with the little sisters. he'd pick them up and swing them around a little bit and call it the silly chair. it was called the silly chair because they were facing away from him and his hands were under their knees so that when they were scooped up in the air, they were sort of in an awkward sitting position. the little girls thought this was great fun & would beg for turns doing the silly chair. he'd swoop them around, making swooshing, flying sounds to make them giggle.

one day he decided to see if he could put me in the silly chair and swirl me around like the little kids. i was about 14 at the time & certainly not a little girl to be easily scooped or swung about. but he was pretty strong and he did manage to get me up in the air, though he swung me around less vigorously than he did the 3 year old.

he thought it was funny to do that every once in a while, probably because i yelled a lot, but couldn't really do anything to escape that wouldn't also hurt me in the process. so one day his girlfriend and my boyfriend were over at the house and he decided that it would be entertaining to scoop me up into a silly chair & give me a great shake around the room. i was screaming & flailing my arms. i couldn't really move my legs much other than some stupid little kicks which hurt me more than chris, so i just started laughing.

i drew a picture, in case you couldn't picture it.
take special note of his mullet and my perm.

our friends were watching and laughing which only encouraged him even more & served to embarrass me to no end. that made me laugh even harder, causing pressure on my bladder, which of course, ended with me wetting my pants. but chris didn't know i had wet my pants. i was incapable of coherent speech by that point and our friends were laughing hysterically and pointing at the spreading wet stain on my light gray stretch pants. chris thought they were thoroughly enjoying his great show of strength and comedy, not having any idea that whole thing had just gone to a whole new level of mortification for me.


eventually i got too heavy & squirmy for him so he plunked me down on the floor, from where i scrambled up like a scalded cat & hauled it out of the room as fast as my wet legs could carry me.

to this day, i can't see gray stretch pants or think of that boy without my face turning a little bit red & splotchy. and we never played silly chair again.

bible study gas x2

several years ago we moved to chattanooga because we felt like God was leading us there to start a post modern church. it seemed a bit odd since there are already so many churches in that town, but we clearly believed that we were following God's leading by going there. very shortly after we arrived, we found a few other people who shared our vision & they were already meeting at some one's house on a regular basis for a bible study & some worship time.

we were finally able to work out the details for us to be able to attend one of the meetings (we needed child care because brooke was only 1 at the time & it wasn't convenient for her to be there) where we met the group, mostly for the first time. it was pretty exciting for us to be meeting these people since we really felt like this was the beginning of a big new life change for us & these people were likely to be a part of it. we wanted to make a good impression so that they'd want us to be a part of their group.

we arrived at this big, fancy house & found about 10 or so people there already hanging out & eating. there was a big spread of food & they were kind enough to have some veggie dishes since they knew i was a vegetarian. i was touched that they'd do that since most of the time when i go to a dinner like that i end up eating chips & dip as my meal because it's the only thing without meat. i happily piled 2 spicy black bean burgers onto my plate & proceeded to chow down.

after the meal, the lights were turned down & we all sat in chairs in a circle in their fancy living room. we had some nice music & a short bible study about foot washing. then someone busted out a big bowl & some soap & water & we were instructed that we'd each be washing the feet of the person to the right of us. chris & i were not sitting next to each other. i was between 2 other men, both close to my dad's age & virtual strangers to me. i started to feel really nervous. this was WAY outside my comfort zone! the only feet i'd ever washed besides my own were my sweet little baby's feet & i imagined they were a far cry from the feet of the man beside me!

now, to increase my discomfort, my stomach started churning, a little at first & then more & more until i could audibly hear it rumbling. i swear, i felt like it was echoing off the dimly lit walls & surely everyone could tell it was coming from me. the washing started a couple people away from me & went in the opposite direction, so i had a little bit of free time while everyone sat quietly & respectfully & waited their turn to have clean feet. i whispered to someone next to me for directions to the bathroom & was pointed to a door directly behind us. i went in there & realized that there was no way in the world i could release the massive build up of gas that was smashing around in my guts without everyone in the next room hearing me. i nearly cried! i couldn't figure out how to fart silently (as i'd learned once before when i tried to plug it with my finger & only managed to fart a very loud, high pitched whistle. but that's another story) and i dared not to even drop my pants out of fear of the coming explosion. so i waited a moment, did the obligatory hand washing & walked back to my chair, doing my own personal rendition of "dead woman walking."

slowly, timed dragged past. i think these people must have been enjoying the process because they certainly took their time about it! inside my head i was screaming, "come on folks, this isn't the time for a full on pedicure & massage, let's move it along!" but outwardly i sat silently with everyone else & prayed that they couldn't hear my painfully gut wrenching gurgles.

finally, the man next to me kneeled down & started washing my feet. in the best of circumstances i wouldn't have liked this. the symbolism of it went completely over my head and all i could think about was how desperately i didn't want to blow a blast of gas at this strange man as he rubbed between my toes. don't think about the tickle! don't think about the awkwardness! focus solely on anal clenching!

ok, i got through my washing, but i still had to manage to wash the dude on the other side of me! so in a rush, i got down on the floor & plunked his feet into the bowl. i wanted to go at turbo speed, but i quickly realized that being in a squatting position, putting pressure onto my stomach & leaning forward required a whole new level of sphincter control. oh my gosh! i felt sure that a noxious cloud of greenish-black smoke & foul stench was going to torpedo out of my backside at any second if i didn't hurry up & get this job done! it had to have been the least thorough washing to have ever occurred. i didn't care. let them think i wasn't a thorough bather or had a phobia of feet. whatever they wanted to think, so long as they didn't know that more than anything in the world i wanted to fart out the 96 million pounds of pressure that had built up in my guts.

when the washing was finished, i attempted to say my goodbyes as quickly as i possibly could without being totally rude. i still wanted these people to like me. i used the "baby at home w/ a sitter" excuse & ran for the door w/ chris right behind me. i did the clench & waddle out the door at the fastest speed i could manage till i got to the car. chris pulled away from the curb & we both started rolling down our windows simultaneously. we looked at each other & started laughing hysterically as we farted ourselves silly in the car, because all the while i was suffering in there, i didn't realize that he was suffering from the same affliction! he'd had the bean burgers too!

ever since then, we've dubbed that feeling "bible study gas" & we both know it's time to clear the room or roll down the windows when one of us catches a case of it.

beers and tears - a warning tale of imbibery

when i was 20, i was dating a guy (let's call him mike) who was in the army & he was living on a base about 5 hours from my house. we visited each other when we were able to and it was both exciting and tedious, due to the geographic distance between us. i would drive down to the base once or twice a month to visit him & that was always a very strange thing for naive little me because i  usually couldn't afford a hotel, so i stayed in the barracks with him when i was there.


before i started dating him, i'd pictured barracks to be like the ones you see in movies where there's one big, open room broken up by rows of bunk beds. these barracks were nothing like that. it was more like a college dorm and in each room there would be two or three guys sharing a bedroom and a filthy bathroom. mike only had one roommate, but he had one of the only vcr's in the building, so it was a hot spot for the other guys to hang out, watch movies and drink beer.

one friday, after working all day, i'd driven the 5 hrs to go see mike. i pulled off a couple exits before his stop to fix myself up a little bit, excited to see my man and wanting to look and smell good when i got there. i arrived on base, parked, and carried my overnight bag up the three flights of concrete steps to his room and knocked on his door. my heart was pounding, partly due to running up the steps and partly in anticipation of seeing the guy i'd been missing so much.

there was no answer. i knocked louder. nothing. it was about 10 at night and i was starting to feel anxious because i didn't know what to do. i was in a place where i only barely knew a few guys, i had no cell phone because they weren't invented yet, and i didn't know how to get in touch with my boyfriend. then i started to get mad. i'd driven 5 hours to see him, i was tired and hungry and he didn't even care enough to be there when i arrived. he was expecting me, but he'd just gone somewhere else.

i stood there in that outdoor hallway for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do. i was close to tears and at a loss for what to do next when 2 soldiers walked through and saw me standing there. they were friends of mike who i'd met a couple times before and they stopped to talk to me. when i told them what was going on, they invited me to their room where i could wait for mike to return. i was tremendously relieved, so i followed them back down a set of stairs and into their room.

i had never drank alcohol before, but when one of them offered me a beer, i was just mad enough to take it gladly & chug it right down. mike knew i didn't drink and he liked that about me, so i thought it would serve him right when he got back if he found me a little bit tipsy & hanging out with his friends. one drink turned into 4 and somewhere in that process, i lost my memory and all sense of things that might trouble me. i remember that we were sitting on their couch watching animal planet and there was lots of laughing. beyond that, i remember nothing until there was a loud, sudden pounding on their door.

i recognized mike's voice yelling through the door to open up because he knew i was in there. it was as if i woke up then and i was thrilled that he was there & couldn't really remember where i was or what was going on, only that i was glad that my man had come for me. i sprung clumsily up off the couch and was about to open the door to greet him when i heard the two guys i'd been sitting with hissing for me to button up my shirt and not to tell him anything. i couldn't tell him anything because i didn't remember anything, but i was happy to button up my shirt because, huh, how did that get open?

i flung open the door and greeted mike with open arms and a great big, beery kiss. then i noticed that he was wearing an eye patch and he didn't seem happy to see me at all. he glared at his friends, then he scooped up me and my bag and carried me up the stairs to his room. he plunked me down on his bed & asked me what happened and why i was in that room with those guys.

that's when i remembered to be mad. i was in there cuz he hadn't been around when i'd arrived a couple hours before and i'd had to go somewhere. i didn't want to just sit on the hallway floor waiting for him all night. and by the way, why was he wearing an eye patch?

he pulled the patch off, un-taped a bandage and showed me his eye. it was swollen and purple and there was a zig zag of stitching through the eyelid. he'd been in a car accident and not wearing his seat belt, so his face he gone through the windshield, cutting his eyelid in two in the process. he was in the emergency room getting his face stitched up when i'd arrived and there was no way for him to contact me.

then, he got back to the barracks and found me drunk and apparently fooling around with his friends. he started crying then and i watched in horror, not just because i'd never seen my soldier man cry, but because he was crying tears of blood that streamed down his face and into his shirt.

it was a very traumatic night for me and it was a long time before i tried to drink again, but i've never been able to drink beer since because it immediately brings to my mind those terrible tears of blood.

hair bonanaza - the bald years x2

i don't know if you tuned in yesterday for the maiden episode of hair bonanza, but if you didn't, you might like to go there first to see how the ground work was set for today's edition where the hair seems to spiral out of control. and unfortunately, i don't mean that in a curly, voluminous sort of way.

when we left off, i was in a dorm bathroom with julie, sporting a juicy mohawk. julie and i spent a lot of time together & after college, we even managed to both get live-in nanny jobs nearby each other so that we could spend our days tanning by the country club pool & taking kids to the mall. our nights were spent in a variety of ... other pursuits. here's a shot of me, probably at the tannest i've ever been & certainly at the thinnest i'd ever been up to that point. i was attempting to show my serious & yet sexy side.

oh collar bones, how i miss you!

i wore my hair like that for a year or so & then i got a stupid hair cut that required too much effort. i hated it because while i enjoy hair games, the reality of actually fixing hair for more than 5 minutes in any given day is out of the question for me. that same day of the yuck hair cut, i watched oprah. that changed my life. demi moore was on the show that day & she had just shaved her head to play g.i. jane & on the show she barely had any hair at all, just a bit of a buzz & damn but she was looking sexy! she had great makeup & long dangly earrings & some little voice in my head said, "you can look like her too. you just have to shave off your hair! and just think, then you won't have to fix it at all!"

so i got julie & out we went to walmart to buy some clippers. we got back to julie's nanny room & i sat down on the toilet lid in her bathroom & she grabbed up chunks of my hair & started hacking it off, right down to my scalp. while we were laughing hysterically and chopping off my locks, the clippers were charging close at hand. we didn't wait quite long enough for them to finish charging because we were in a hurry to get the job done, so as julie would run them through my hair, after only a few swipes, the battery would run out & they would start to yank rather than cut the scraps of hair that remained on my head. over & over we had to put them back on the base to charge, all the while we laughed & laughed & laughed in nearly feverish hysteria. it took so long for the job to be done that i started wondering if i'd made a horrible mistake. maybe being 21 & bald wasn't such a hot idea after all. but it was too late. i might get fired from my cushy nanny job for becoming a freak. i might never find another man. i might get really cold since it was november & i wasn't a fan of stocking caps.

eventually, the job was done. i went home & spent a prickly night in bed, waking up repeatedly, wondering if it was all a dream. no such luck; my pillow case sticking to the 1/8 inch long spikes covering my head was a clear indication that it was entirely too real. i wore a baseball hat the next morning to face my boss. she wasn't happy & clearly hadn't ever dealt with such a scenario with any of her former nannies. there's apparently no rule about what to say or do when the caretaker of your children goes from a normalish person to a bald-headed freak overnight. to her credit, she didn't fire me, just asked me to please not shave it again.

a couple of days later, the weekend arrived. julie & i generally went to this one club on the weekends where we knew a lot of people & could get in for free. it was our spot. our stomping grounds. the scene of our crimes. so we got decked out in our sexy little mini dresses, did our makeup & nails & she did her hair. we drove over there like we always did & suddenly, when we were just about to arrive, my heart started pounding really hard. i felt like i couldn't breathe. i thought i'd throw up. how could i possibly go into this place where i'd always felt so cool & let everyone see me with a bald head? i nearly turned the car around & took my panicked self home, but julie helped me up & out into the night for my first public display of insanity. everyone stared. people pointed. mouths dropped open and it was pretty clear they weren't staring because i was looking super fly.

a few drinks later, i overcame my panic & started having fun with it. i had a few strangers ask me if i was going through chemo. they told me to be strong & fight the good fight. i had some men whisper in my ear that it was surprisingly sexy. one dude rubbed my head & told me he wanted to put his toes in it because it felt like a carpet.

it wasn't long before i realized the benefits of being bald - no need for shampoo. no need for hair products of any kind, for that matter. i didn't waste time blowing or fixing it. i never had a bad hair day. but the downside was that i felt like i always had to keep a full face of makeup painted on if i was leaving the house. i couldn't forget my earrings & i always had to have my acrylic nails fresh & fabulous in order to keep myself looking healthy & not sickly. no cancer patient action for this girl. i also went to a modeling agency & started taking some classes & had a portfolio made. here are some of the pictures that i still have from those days of traipsing about a gorgeous set with a photographer in tow.

i had to face my family eventually & my darling sister sarah, who was 10 at the time, told me that my head felt like a little animal. my mom didn't want to look at me and they weren't exactly rushing to take pictures of me to send to their friends. i did dig up a couple pics taken by my mom as it started growing back out a smidge.

you'll notice in this one, the doilied monstrosity made another appearance. i believe we were headed out to the nutcracker that sarah was dancing in & it was the only non-flowery dress i owned that would be appropriate for wearing in classy company. i love the contradictions here where i'm in this old, tacky dress with a buzz cut & smiling like it was the most normal thing in the world. and snuggled up tight beside me is my sister erica who doesn't exactly look like a relative & she's wearing a bead factory on her body. this picture makes me smile every time i see it.

here's another gem of a picture, this one taken with julie while i was bald. i'm not sure where we were since i've got on going out eye makeup, but she's wearing a flannel & i'm wearing a corduroy shirt, so clearly we weren't headed out on the town. it's like a mystery from my past.

i think there will need to be a third edition in this series since i've still got a bunch more pics to share & no time left for blogging today. ahh, more hair fun to which you can look forward.