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 fiasco of '87

i posted this right after thanksgiving last year, but i think i had all of 30 followers then, so i thought i'd repost since it's the story of my most memorable childhood christmas.

all through our growing up years, my brother and i almost always knew where our parents stashed our christmas presents. they'd told us the real deal on santa when we were only 4 and 5, so it only went to reason that if there was no santa, then the gifts must be stashed somewhere nearby. it wasn't long before our parents wised up to our snooping and put a padlock on the basement cupboard where the goodies were being stored. that shut us down for a few years... until we moved into a new house that didn't come equipped with such a conveniently lockable storage space.

it didn't take us long to start up our snooping ways afresh when we moved and realized that the hiding options were limited. we figured that the most secure location in the house was probably our parents' bedroom, so we took a divide and conquer approach and it wasn't long before we hit pay dirt. we found stuff in the dresser drawers and a bonus batch of loot in the bottom of their closet.

we kept up the digging and sneaking each time my parents were expected to be out of the house for at least half an hour. it seemed like that left us enough of a buffer to check for any newly acquired goodies and still get out without being caught. we'd keep each other informed if we found gifts clearly intended for the other so that there would be no surprises come christmas morning. if we only had limited time, we'd hit the closet first because that's where mom kept the good stuff. the dresser was mostly the piddly stocking stuff like gum, cheapie toys and maybe some bags of rubber bands (we loved to shoot each other with them).

by this time we were probably 11 and 12 and we'd done the sneaky spying for at least 2 years, undiscovered. our parents had laid down the law at some point and made it perfectly clear that if they ever found out we'd been peeking at our presents, those very presents would be returned to the store and we would not get them.

we thought we were master spies. we thought we'd never get caught. we thought wrong.

i clearly remember being deep into the pile on mom's side of the closet, admiring the cute new clothes i'd be getting in just a few days. chris was digging through his own future belongings...when we heard a noise. we both froze for a moment before starting to frantically stuff things back into the spaces where we'd found them. we usually tried to be precise about putting them away, but this time it was more about speed so we wouldn't get caught with our heads tangled in mom's dresses and our fingers in the proverbial cookie jar.

we weren't fast enough. in less time than we'd have dreamed possible, mom had made it up the stairs and into her bedroom and caught us in the act of spying. there was no way to deny it. the evidence was plain as day for all of us to see. and i've got to give my mom credit for thinking on her feet because she separated us right away and gave us paper and pens and told us to write down everything we'd found. since we'd made sure to keep each other informed about every scrap we came across, we couldn't plead ignorance about anything, even if we hadn't laid eyes on it ourselves. and since we were separated and didn't know what the other would write, we had to put it all down there, on paper, to damn ourselves or risk even further punishment for trying to lie by omission. HO-LY CRAP!

she compared our lists and consulted with dad; all the while we tried to hide away where we wouldn't be seen and might possibly be forgotten about altogether rather than face the dire consequences that we knew were coming our way. i don't remember any yelling, just that eery silence that should never exist in a happy home with 4 lively kids. silence...

it seemed like it would never end. we whispered together about whether or not they'd actually go through with their threats. they were usually pretty solid about sticking to what they'd said, but in this case, surely they wouldn't take away our whole christmas! surely they loved us enough to have pity on our souls. if there was any love in the world, they would have to change their minds and let us have all those beautiful presents in their sullied stash.

a couple days later, it was christmas eve. it was a saturday. dad didn't have to go to work that day, so it was decided that it was time for the presents to all be returned. my dad and brother drove around town and took back all the gifts that we'd thought we would be getting. i stayed home and helped mom cook and bake the festive food. i wasn't mad at my parents because in my heart, i knew that i'd broken the rules. i knew that i wasn't exempt from the rules and that there were repercussions for my actions. i was sad, but i'd learned a valuable lesson that i knew would stick with me for my whole life. if mom and dad said it, i could be darn sure they meant business, even in the things that hurt them too.

the next day, the space under the tree was pretty sparse. mostly just gifts for my little sisters and the ones that chris and i were giving to the family. we didn't wake up at 3am ready to pounce on our stockings. we got some sleep for a change and we woke up calm rather than hyper. we actually remembered the true meaning of christmas for once because we weren't distracted by all the presents we hoped for or got.

as it turned out, we got a few little stocking things each. they must have been hidden somewhere else where we hadn't discovered them yet. i got the fake nails that i'd been dreaming of. i'd always had crappy nails and wanted to have long, luxurious nails to tap constantly on any hard surface, but my parents had never thought i was old enough for them. this was my lucky fingernail year. and i also got the jean jacket from the gap that i'd been coveting for so many months. it was one of the things that i'd been so excited to find in the closet and was heart sick knowing it was going back to the gap to be owned by some other girl who'd be cooler than me.

i was shocked and amazed to find this most precious item wrapped up under the tree because i was sure it went back to the mall with everything else. my brother also got his most desired item. my parents told us that even though we'd broken the rules and we didn't deserve to receive these gifts, they were having mercy on us. like Jesus had mercy on the world by dying on the cross for all of us who didn't deserve his love and forgiveness.

that's a lesson that i'll never forget.

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.

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.

hair bonanza - the final chapter x2

i met my future husband when my hair was growing out of the buzz stage & into something infinitely less attractive. my hair was approximately 1 inch long all over with no shape & going nearly straight up into the air. i have no idea why he asked me out, but i'm very glad he did & sure enough, i managed to grow my hair back and look like a normal girl before our wedding.

i changed the color of it on a regular basis in order to get my hair fix without the drastic cutting. i had about every shade of blond, brown & red imaginable & then one day i decided to make the leap to a deep, dark brown. the shade was called "midnight ruby."

if you'll notice, my natural coloring is extremely similar to the woman in this picture, so the color was destined to look awesome on me. after a little while of that, i decided to go all the way to black. i wanted to look like an asian woman right down to my roots, so i bought a box of blue/black & became a whole new woman. actually, chris decided to join me on my black hair endeavor, so we shared a bottle & both went black (can't say we never went back though). chris looked kind of like the devil when his facial hair all freshly dyed black too.

here's a picture of me with my sister sarah where, for only a brief period of time, my hair was darker than hers. i kind of liked it being black for the sake of variety, but it was hard to maintain because my roots were dreadful when they started growing in. and unlike some people, i don't use sharpie along my root line to keep it looking fresh (ahem... sarah.. cough, cough). i also looked pretty corpsey if i didn't wear a bunch of makeup to cover the pastiness & freckles.

one night while i was lying in bed with my black head, i had the overwhelming urge to purge the black & go platinum. i wanted it to be lighter than it had ever been before & i could hardly wait til morning so i could go buy some bleach. i was just sure that it was going to be great, but alas, reality threw me for a loop. it turned a hideous shade of orange that even I couldn't live with. i cut most of it off in my bathroom that day & then bought more bleach. i believe i bleached & dyed it a total of 5 times in rapid succession over the course of a week. during that week i drove with my honey to new york for his virgin voyage north of washington d.c. we stayed with my aunt & uncle & a couple cousins. my cousin drew decided to get in on the bleaching fun, so he & i would color each others' hair at night while laughing at how it kept getting progressively worse.

then i decided that since it was bordering on intolerably horrid, i'd go to sally beauty supply & pick up a bottle of blue hair dye. i had never gone way off the natural color wheel like that & i was picturing something deep & drastic, in the royal blue family for some good shock value. alas, what i got was something more closely resembling baby bird feathers. lots of it had fallen out in the process of all the bleaching & dying and for some reason, the blue didn't come out at all as i'd envisioned it. it was like i had a sad, 4-yr-old-styled "my little pony" on my head & it had crossed way over the line to intolerable. it was time for drastic measures - i would have to shave it... again. so my cousin steve & my husband both had a go at my hair with the clippers (properly charged this time) and had a bit of fun while they were at it. here's a picture of steve giving me a sneak peek at a possible future of male pattern balding. lovely, isn't it? i believe there was also a rat tail.

this time around, my shaving experience was a bit different than the first time. this time my scalp was wounded & weeping from all the chemical abuse it had suffered in the previous week. it more closely resembled a world globe than a head, complete with oozing mountainous peaks of lava & some patches of blue for the oceans. there were some darker places where the bleach hadn't fully penetrated that looked kind of like land & some nearly white patches of fuzz that from a couple feet away could have been mistaken for cloud cover from the air.

i was visiting with lots of friends & family, some of whom i hadn't seen in years & i'm guessing that it was probably a bit of a shock for them when this bald, scabby headed woman showed up at their doors with a wink & a smile. here's a shot of me visiting with my friend cristi. surprisingly she was willing to be seen with me outside of her apartment.

it wasn't more than a month or two later that my grandfather died & i drove north again to attend his funeral. my mom asked that i please wear one of my wigs in order to not give any of the old folks heart attacks. here's the best wig that i owned during my bald periods.

it came in pretty handy when i didn't feel like standing out so severely. i was working at a retail store for kids clothes at the time & i often wore my wig to work so as not to startle the small children. i would have strangers compliment me on my great cut & expertly placed highlights. there were numerous times when a customer would ask me for the name of my hair dresser & with a gleam in my eye, i'd tell them i was my own hair dresser. then my co-workers would start giving me the look, just begging me with their eyes not to do it again, but i could never resist. i would always reach up & yank that wig off my head & expose my hideous scalp to the horror of everyone around.

ahhh, fun times...

it grew back out, slowly but surely & i managed to keep it trimmed up into something more fashionable this time around. dying it a lovely shade of strawberry blond helped take the edge off too.

eventually i learned to leave it alone. for the most part anyway. it was after the second shaving that i decided to calm the heck down & let my head be normal rather than being a gross lumpy globe. so now i just play with highlights & varying lengths. but i'll always be glad for the hair adventures that i've taken in my life. it helps me remember when memorable things happened in my past... oh yeah! the last time i saw you was when my hair was about an inch long after the first time i shaved it. gosh, that's been 14 years!

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.

hair bonanza x2

i'm resurrecting one of my favorite posts since things in my brain have been too hectic to present new material. i posted it about a year ago, but i had about 150 fewer followers than i do now. i figure most of you haven't read it, so please read on & have a laugh at my expense. or be inspired to take your own trip down hair memory lane. i'd love to read yours!

ever since i was in second grade and my best friend amy got her hair cut to shoulder length & feathered, i've had a thing for hair. before that i remember having very few thoughts about hair other than that my mom pulled too hard when she was brushing & parting it to make me presentable. but ever since then, hair has been something i've been fairly creative with. i finally convinced my mom to let me get a hair cut to match amy's after months of begging. i went from this

to this.

a few years later, when i was 10, i got it cut really short in the back & got the top permed - because, well, because it was the 80's & my fabulous aunt joan had hers like that and i strove to be like her. i can't find any pictures that really showed the awesomeness of the style at the moment, but i did find one from that time period where i had some friends over & we decided to go all out punk, complete with hair, makeup & clothes. i think we were 11 here & we were channelling madonna and cindy lauper. i'm the one w/ the mirrored sunglasses & hearty socks.

along the line there were lots & lots of perms done in my grandma's kitchen because i wasn't cool enough to get the spiral perms of beauty shop lore.

i also went through many bottles of sun-in & lemon juice with peroxide applied to fried hair with a hair dryer. my parents were pretty conservative & didn't seem to understand my need to constantly cook, cut, dye, perm, and shave off my hair. they let me do some things, but had to draw the line somewhere & i guess sun-in was okay because orange & stalky was acceptable, but miss clairol was somehow over the line.

i did my time with the poofy bangs. my hair is really small & flat, but i was dedicated with the hair spray bottle and curling irons. here you see me, at 12, attempting to give the best sexy face i could manage.

i once went to camp for a week when i was 13 or 14 & came home with the back, bottom half of my head shaved totally bald. as if my hair wasn't small enough already, i had to go & decrease my volume by half. good plan there, sher! i actually found the clump of my hair a couple weeks ago when i was digging through boxes of relics in my parents attic. the guys who hacked off my hair for me were thoughtful enough to hold the end of my now-removed pony tail into some melted candle wax so i could save it as a summer memento. it also serves as a reminder of when i first went rogue w/ my hair. i'd decided i didn't need parental permission anymore for anything i wanted to do to my own head.

here's another shot of me trying to do big hair when i was about 16. it never lasted long, but the first half hour was generally ok before the flop kicked in. there wasn't enough rave hairspray in the world to keep this flat stuff in the air.

finally, straight hair came back into fashion & for a while there, i was in luck. i could stop perming it & just put some gentle curling iron coercion onto my bangs to prevent them from sticking to my greasy forehead & things went fairly well for a spell. here i was, my senior year of high school wearing a lovely ruffled denim shirt & having a pretty good hair day. that's my brother w/ the icky mustache in the back. i almost cropped him out, but i feel like it adds character to the picture. some gritty flavor, if you will.

and while we're at it, i need to add this picture of me in my golden corral uniform too. that hanky they made me wear on my head made me feel smokin hot. i liked working there because the sweet outfit helped me pick up guys. my claw-like hand, dirty keds and transparent apron look foxy here too.

then, right around the time of my 18th birthday, i had a break up that started a trend where i felt like i needed to make some physical change to myself when a relationship ended. this time, it was a big hair cut where i got my hair chopped into a very "mature" style. in other words, i had the hair of a 40 yr old woman. a couple months later, i was just about to head off to college & wasn't loving the hair, so i got a bright idea of how to fix it .... i permed it! and the next thing i knew, i was no longer a 40 yr old woman, i had become an octogenarian. i had the fluffy, short hair of my grandmother & i was only 18.

are you digging my huge, manly wool sweater? i think it offsets the granny hair. (btw, this is the same amy from my early childhood. we're still together after all these decades.)

whadaya know, the granny hair didn't prevent me from finding a boyfriend... even if he was shorter than me.

i got it trimmed a few months later to try to get rid of the granny that was lurking around my head, and i think that was probably a good thing, but as you can clearly see in this picture, my duck smile and velvet, poofy-sleeved, doilie collared monstrosity of a dress left something to be desired.

eventually that grew out. here's me in college dying it into a lovely faux-hawk w/ my newly met bestie, julie in the background. she became a regular partner in the hair crimes i committed against myself even if she wasn't going to make the same foolish hair mistakes on herself that i did.

this was when i developed the concept of "hair is intended for amusement purposes - if it's looking good, it amuses me; if it's looking bad, it amuses others." i believe that the scales don't tip in my favor by this standard.

there's a whole slew of other exciting hair follies, but this has gotten too long already. so tune in next time for the second installment of hair bonanza - the bald years.

pms roller coaster x2

due to my husband getting laid off from his new job this week after only being there for 7 weeks, i'm feeling like i'm on a roller coaster. that made me think of this post from more than a year ago & when i read it, i thought it was still funny, so i'm re-posting it for those of you who haven't read it before. beware to you mens ~ graphic mental pictures ahead.

i have pms today & i'm fluctuating between fury, tears & hysteria that could tip toward funny or mania at any moment. ever since i was 11 i've been ragging & dealing with the drama of hormonal flux at this time of the month & i think i'm ready to order up some menopause.

i wish we could make men understand what it's like to go through this. you seem like a pretty rational human most of the time, but once a month you go through a change that makes you turn into a freaky, irrational version of yourself that even you don't want to be around.

you wake up feeling pretty normal and then you kick your toe into the leg of the bed & stumble backwards into the dresser where you smash your butt into the corner of the top & then proceed to fall on the floor & laugh hysterically. you feel like you've broken 2 toe bones & there's a triangular shaped dent in your ass cheek that feels like it's spurting blood, but all you can do is laugh till tears pour down your face. you realize that it's not actually funny to hurt yourself, especially first thing in the morning, but it's still really funny because you're rolling on the floor w/ a bloody butt & broken toe bones and your eyes still crusted shut from sleep. and then you laugh some more until you can't breathe & your family is standing around you asking why you're in fetal position on the ground in the dark, rocking & making a lot of noise, but you can't answer properly, you can only sputter out things like "broke butt" and "toes... crunched" and when they look at you strangely it just seems funnier.

eventually you compose yourself & make it through an extra large breakfast, but then the cat starts meowing for her food & she keeps it up & keeps it up & keeps it up. you put food in her bowl & show it to her, but she keeps harassing you until you suddenly burst forth with a barbaric yawlp from the pit of your guts. there are no words, just an echoing bellow. the cat races off to safer havens & then you notice your kid's face & it's staring at you with concern & trepidation because apparently mom has been transformed into an unpredictable alien today & can't be trusted to act normally. you want that look to go away & for the kid not to be nervous around you, so you give her a bowl full of marshmallows & honey for breakfast so that she'll like you again.

you go into the bathroom to deal with lady things at some point in the day & you swear that when you sit down, you can hear a gurgle, gurgle, glug coming from your nether regions & then there's a flood where you think your innards are being ripped unceremoniously out through your vagina. you flush quickly because you might need the extra room in the bowl since you're pretty sure you're loosing about 16 lbs of slush as you sit there. then it takes about 5 wet wipes and half a roll of toilet paper to begin to feel reasonably fresh (if such a thing is possible at that stage) and you proceed to wash your hands with a brillo pad & boiling water just to make sure you're adequately sanitary again.

eventually you sit down for some book reading time with your kid because you're still trying to prove that you are a good mommy, in spite of the alien influence that you've been experiencing in spurts throughout the day. you're reading a book about a seeing eye dog puppy in training & suddenly you find yourself crying. tears are flowing & you can't even read aloud anymore because of the sadness that has gripped your heart over the broken hearted child in the book who has to give her puppy away after the first year of training has come to completion. how can anything be more sad in this cruel, cruel world?!

you can't proceed with the book, so you flip on the tv for something funny to brighten your spirits. you come across the "fresh prince of belaire" and feel pretty good because it's just starting and you won't miss anything. you sing along with the intro, getting your groove back & feeling a little cool because you still remember all the words. you're smiling & your heart gets lighter for a few minutes. then will's dad leaves him to go out on the road & lets him down once again and you feel the water works start back up. you sniffle & try to hold back the tears as you gaze into will smith's child-like face as he watches his dad leave. how could anyone be so mean to him? why oh why would a parent ever leave their child? you hug your kid close & snuffle into her neck a little bit & whisper that you'll never leave her, not for anything.

then a commercial comes on for charmin toilet paper & it's those chubby cartoon bears. just looking at the way the mother bear monitors & assists with her baby bears' bathroom habits & teaches them that less is more when you have good toilet tissue in hand, is like balm to your soul. your tears transform from tears of sorrow to tears of joy because you're remembering when your own little one was so small & adorable with her little chunky butt. when she smiled at you like you were the sun and the moon and thought you knew all things. and then you move back into the realm of sorrow again because you feel your kid pulling away from you as you blow snot bubbles into her hair. that kid's not a baby anymore, she's a medium sized person now who's pretty sure you don't know all and that her opinions are way more valuable than yours. and before long she won't need you and she'll leave home & get married and have sex, and that's just more than you can stomach.

you stumble clumsily back into the bathroom for some privacy & to give yourself some time to recuperate from all the chaos inside you. you have a repeat from the last bathroom trip, only this time you realize that you're out of tampons and pads. and you need one really, really badly. so you decide to stick half a roll of toilet paper into your underwear to serve as a blood buffer between yourself & the world & then walk out bow-legged. you go to the store, still with the toilet paper roll in your pants and when someone looks at you oddly because your pants are lumpy & you're walking like you've dropped a load, you start laughing hysterically. uncontrollable laughter that has you doubled up over the orange juice cooler with your legs crossed and a saliva party bubbling from your mouth.

you make it to the register but realize that you left your debit card in your pants from yesterday. you've got a little cash in the bottom of your purse, so you dig around frantically for a couple minutes while the people behind you start making huffing sounds and talking about you amongst themselves. you start crying again when you give up digging and you're still $1.04 short of your total. you ask the cashier if you can open the box & just take out a couple tampons to buy individually. he looks fearful and discombobulated as he calls over a manager on the loud speaker.

the manager is a man too. he eyeballs you nervously as he shuffles over. you ask him weepily if you can please just buy a couple tampons from the box because you don't have enough money & because you can't very well go on with your life with a roll of toilet paper in your underwear because as it turns out, it's not nearly as absorbent as that charmin commercial advertised. the people in line are mumbling more loudly & the manager and 17 yr old cashier look at you like you've gone completely mad. the mgr rips open the box himself & hands you a handful of the things and tells you it'll be no charge and tries to usher you quickly to the door. you're so relieved that you cry tears of joy. you want to hug him, but as you go in for the embrace, he quickly backs away, looking terrified like you have leprosy and aids and ebola and more than a little dose of coo-coo.

so you take your courtesy tampons & vacate the premises quickly and head back home for another round on the pms roller coaster.

at least i won the race

i wrote a story a year ago as part of a longer post & i thought i'd cut it out, re-work it & re-post for those of you who haven't been here since the beginning.

when i was 14, i had a good friend named patti who i spent a lot of time with. sometimes i'd spend the night at her house & since her parents were somewhat less vigilant than my own, we could get away with things there that i'd never have been able to pull off at my own house. for instance, we used to go outside at night.

we generally didn't do anything other than maybe go for a walk around the neighborhood. one night we went for a walk around midnight in our bathing suits and a carload of guys drove up & stopped. they inched up close to us & asked where we were going. we were trying to be cool, so we said nowhere, we were just hanging out. cue the giggles and flirty eye contact. the boys spewed testosterone and made some macho chit chat and asked why we were in our bathing suits. they wanted to know if there was a pool nearby where we could all go swimming together. i blurted out that no, there was no pool, we'd just been playing in the hose and sprinkler earlier in the evening.

it was like one of those moments in a movie where the soundtrack is playing along nicely, then someone says the wrong thing & you hear the loud screech of the record scratching & then there's silence. the boys busted out laughing & sped off into the night. oops. i guess playing in the sprinkler may have marked us as the foolish children that we were, rather than the sophisticated women we were attempting to portray.

one night we got bored of walking circles around her block and decided to spice things up. we were out in our pajamas in the backyard, sitting on her little sister's swing set & we came up with a plan to race through a few backyards in a big loop & whoever made it back first was the winner. the catch was that we were going to take off our pants before we started running. we still had on shirts & undies, so it was only a half streak, but it certainly felt sandalous at the time. we got to our "starting line," peeled off our jammie pants, and took off running. i gained the lead pretty quickly and was feeling rather pleased with myself since running's really not my thing. patti couldn't stop giggling, so she wasn't moving very fast. i was afraid that the giggling might draw the attention of the neighbors whose yards we were running through, and i certainly didn't want to get caught running in my undies, so i was silent & determined.

i had a pretty good lead going, when out of nowhere, i tripped over a dog chain that i hadn't seen in the dark. with a guttural "oomph," i fell flat onto my belly in a full sprawl that knocked the air out of me. my face banged the ground & i had grass stuck to my tooth, but i popped right back up & kept hauling ass because by then, patty wasn't just giggling, she was laughing hysterically. i was terrified of getting busted, plus, i really wanted to win and i was afraid she'd take advantage of my unanticipated tumble. i sprinted to the finish line like a champ, with plenty of time to spare. but once i was there i realized the stupid hilarity of the moment & stood there with my bruised chin & grassy tooth & i wet myself in the grass in my minnie mouse t-shirt and days of the week undies.

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.

the van potty x2

here's my re-offering of the day. for any of you who've read it, i hope you'll come back for the next post. i'll try to make it fresh & exciting. because this one is definitely not fresh.

we still carry a potty in our van. actually, we took the backseat out of the van so that we could fit some big stuff in there at christmas time & it's never gone back in, so it functions as a mobile storage unit. but brooke likes to think of that space as her own personal room, including toileting facilities. there have been many, many times when it has saved us, like when we're at a park where the bathrooms are locked or non-existent. or when we go to the grocery store in july, get everything loaded into the van to go home & then suddenly she has a desperate need to pee that didn't arrive until just that second. or when we're in a traffic jam on the highway, she needs to go & we can't get off an exit. this potty has saved us from many, many moments of peepee panic. (i wish i could use it since i'm often just as guilty as brooke about needing to go when there are no facilities available, due to my own self diagnosed SBS. i haven't tried it yet, but one day i may be desperate enough. i'll let you know if it happens & how it turns out.)

one time, i was loading some stuff into the van at toys-r-us & while i was doing so, brooke crept around to her potty & made use of the facilities. i think she secretly holds it sometimes just because she likes using the van pot more than public bathrooms. maybe it feels scandalous or exotic to pee in the car. i don't know.

anyway, she calls out, "mom, i used my potty!"

me, "okay, fine. let me come around to the back so i can dump it in the back of the parking lot. you didn't throw the tissue into the pee again did you?"

brooke, "weeeelllll.... noo.... i didn't put the tissue in."

me, "so what's the problem? what did you do?"

brooke, "uummm... i.... pooped."

i closed the door & mentally had a mini tantrum. we were just inside a store where there was a flushing toilet. and plenty of toilet paper. but did she use it? NO! she'd rather take a dump in the hot van in august & then put the soiled tissues into the little van trash can.

ok, too late to be mad. at least she didn't crap herself. now, what to do with it... normally with a pee pot i'd find a grassy spot at the edge of the parking lot or at least the far back of a parking lot where people generally don't go & pour it there. this was a different situation. i couldn't very well toss the log into the toys-r-us parking lot and i didn't relish the idea of carrying it up to the building to where there were trash cans & disposing of it in view of other customers.okay, so i can't get rid of it here. what other options do i have? we're not heading home yet where i could dispose of it properly & since it's august, i don't want to cart it around with us where it will get extra ripe while marinating in the car during our next few errands.

maybe i could smear mud over my license plate & put on dark glasses and a hat and sling it out the window while driving to our next stop. but with my luck, i'd throw it into the open window of a car next to us & then be hunted by an angry, poop smeared ex-con. or it would just slide down the outside of my van & i wouldn't know & i'd go through the drive-through at taco bell & the person working would be like, "ma'am, i think there's.... a turd stuck to your door." or i'd chicken out at the last second & hesitate in mid-throw causing it to mostly stay inside the van, sliding down the inside of the driver's door and getting caught in the little pocket, but splattering me in the process. or it would splash while sitting on the passenger seat before i found the perfect moment & then i'd have to clean the seat. or before i had the chance to pitch it, someone in a taller vehicle than mine would drive up alongside of me & look over & spot the hot pink poop filled pot & then look at me in horror & realize that they know me & actually they're one of my customers & then i lose my job. or i'd be holding the pot in my hand, waiting for the perfect moment to roll down & toss & i'd get rear ended & it would all go up in my face & i'd have some explaining to do when an officer showed up on the scene. "yes officer, that is feces on my forehead.... yes, it is pee soaking my shirt. no, i haven't been drinking. i was just planning to throw a bucket of shit out the window of my moving vehicle when there was a gap in traffic. no, it's not my own shit. no, i don't do pranks like that... it was in the back of my van... no, i already told you, i haven't been drinking!"

eventually i found what seemed like an acceptable solution to me & i pulled into the back of the target parking lot to one of those places where there's a bit of grass & a tree between parking spots and i crouched low, walking stealthily & poured out the mess into the wood chip area at the base of the tree. i know, it's gross & horrible, but i thought at least there was a possibility that whoever found it would think that it must have been a dog who left that deposit. i mean, who would have ever guessed the truth?

hello & welcome

today was pretty exciting for me because, for the first time, i got reviewed. tracy over at it's an average life wrote a little review of my blog & posted it to possibly direct some of her readers to my page. and she was so nice with the deliciously exaggerated things she said about my writing that i was all a-giggle for a bit this afternoon. each time since then that i've gotten a comment from a new reader it makes me all glowy & fresh again.

so for those of you who are new in my realm, here's a quick synopsis; i started writing this in january when things in my family life were at a really low point, but it quickly evolved into something that i use to cheer myself up. i have a wacky 8 yr old daughter who i can't resist writing about frequently & i'd forgotten how much i love being laughed at. i know, most people prefer to be laughed with, but i'm perfectly happy to show you my flaws & failings & let you laugh at them right alongside me.

i've put together a list of my favorite posts from the past 9 months, so if you've got a bit of time & you're interested, feel free to visit them. perhaps you'll be able to join me in laughing at myself & the funny things in life.

first we have the hair bonanza series that you can see linked on the right side of my blog.

how many ways can i expose myself (in a non-pornographic way)? oh, lots & lots of them as you can read in my self exposure trilogy.
exposing myself 1

self exposure, round 2

self exposure, the childhood years

then we have some of my favorite parenting tales.
the van potty

what to call THAT region

i give you permission

where do babies come from?

a few random things...
secretly i wish i could

i fed my kid my life

pms roller coaster

mother nature is a bitch

where did my sexy go?

art therapy   there's a second art therapy in the next post down if you'd care to see more of how we cheer ourselves up around here.

thanks to any of you who've come by for a visit. i hope to see you back here again soon! =)

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.