might be time for a fanny pack

i've been pondering a question for quite a while now. it perplexes me daily and annoys me often. it makes me furrow my brow and snark into the air at the stupidity of this situation.

what are women's clothing designers thinking when they don't give women pockets?! so many of my clothes (and brooke's) have either no pockets or tiny little snips of pockets that aren't big enough to hold anything but a stick of gum and an earring.

i realize that it probably appears smoother when looking at a woman's silhouette with no pockets, but honestly, i don't give a rip about that. i want to be able to stuff my phone and keys into my pocket rather than always having to carry a purse which i have to zip and unzip constantly to get things that i use often. if i feel the need for smooth lines, i can chose to keep my pockets empty, but i'd really like to be able to make that decision for myself.

i've also discovered that all workout clothes are pocketless. wait, let me take that back and revise it slightly. ALMOST all workout clothes are pocket-free except for the few that have an itty bitty credit card sized slice of a pocket with no form of closure. i wouldn't even trust a single key to stay put in that pocket and my phone certainly won't fit.

how are we supposed to go safely out into the world to exercise when we have no keys, phone, or ID on our bodies? or is it our jobs, as female exercisers, to creatively solve this dilemma ourselves? i've been stuffing my phone and key into my bra, but when i get up any speed jogging, the phone slides around and is at risk of getting sloshy in the sweatiness that is a sports bra. i usually stuff it between two of my bras to keep it from direct skin contact, but that just makes it slide more.

a couple days ago i found a little mesh necklace bag, so i put my key and phone into that and tied the strings into the drawstring of my stretchy pocketless pants. i was rather pleased with myself for my clever solution, but i caught a glimpse of myself walking past a glass door and and it looked like i had a sparkly loin cloth dangling from my groin. not exactly the look i was going for.

i tucked the whole shebang down inside my pants and then felt like a dude with a package. when i jogged i was distracted by it and i felt like i needed a cigarette afterwards. when i slowed to a walk, i almost expected to hear a throaty chuckle coming from my pants, followed by the never-classy "wham, bam, thank you, ma'am."

as much as i resist it, i think the time has come for a fanny pack. dang it.

the oddities delight me

i love taking pictures. i'd never dare to call myself a photographer, but i like to keep my camera handy in order to catch as many interesting or funny moments as possible. i've been collecting some for a few months now that i haven't posted until today. there are no dead animals in this set. you're welcome.

 this made me laugh every time i saw the box of dog treats.

one of these things is not like the other...

the sign in the window says, "volume discount." i think the pimps bring all their girls in to get them spruced up.

mmm... pizza...

sign in a bookstore.

Bubba the bear is so hungry!

she wants to participate in everything i do and then bite me if my feet touch her. she was messing up my form.

this is our pet window spider. we named him spike and we love to watch him eat bees.

somebody likes noodles.

is she an angel? she's got a halo.

holy guacamole- look at those nails on the chick in the bright yellow!

not funny or interesting, but since i eat some variation of this every day and it's always so pretty and colorful, i thought i'd take a picture.

lol!

i think this belongs to a drag queen.

Brooke was very amused by the shirts in this store.

probably worn by the guy driving the eyelash car.

yeah, what the shirt says.

this would be a funny gift for an obnoxious guy.

there are so many funny lines in this sign that's beside the fountain at our local park. my favorite rule is the one about diarrhea.

Tony Horton - superman or banana?

so much tired and back achiness. must relieve with ball.

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."

behold the power of balls

while out walking with my honey last night, we stumbled into an amusing conversation. it was about power, or more accurately, the feeling of being powerful.

the first time i remember ever feeling that i was powerful was when i was about seven years old. i was out running around the neighborhood with my posse of elementary hooligans. i'm not sure what game we were playing, but one of the boys caught me from behind. he had his arms wrapped tightly around me, pinning my arms to my sides as i struggled to find a way to free myself. no amount of squirming could break me loose, so i started kicking. one grand kick straight up and backwards bought me instant freedom. the boy released me and i scampered away, giggling and squealing, but not entirely sure why he'd let me go.

when i got a few paces away, i looked back and saw him laying on his back, moaning and holding his crotch. i stopped running and cautiously walked back toward him to see what was wrong or if he was just trying to trick me. several of the other boys in the group ran over and stood around him in a circle with looks of horror and sympathy on their faces. they placed gentle cupping hands of protection over their own crotches and then turned to look at me. they looked afraid.

i wasn't entirely sure what had happened with my kick, but suddenly i had the begrudging respect of all the boys on my block and there was murmured talk of balls. i didn't see any balls around, but whatever they were talking about, i knew i'd found a source of power in myself. an unexpected chink in the armor of the more physically power males of the species.

and with that knowledge, i skipped off, arm and arm with my best girl friend, singing a silly ditty and pondering those mysterious balls.

what about you? when do you feel powerful?

i posed that same question to my husband and he said, jokingly, that it was when he knocked me up. i'm sensing a testicular theme here... is there power in the world that isn't linked to balls?!

standing room only clothes

i've had to give entirely too much thought to clothing lately. and i'm finding that i'm not really a fan of clothes. i mean, i don't prefer nudity, but i like to not think about clothes almost at all. if i could wear stretchy pants and a baggy t-shirt and no bra all the time, i'd be quite satisfied with that.

alas, dressing like that looks like crap and makes your body look even blobbier than it already is. as i've been losing weight (36 lbs so far) i've been shrinking out of all my clothes. for a while i could wear belts to compensate, but i'm down two sizes now and i just need new clothes. i've not become any wealthier as i've become skinnier though, so new clothes aren't really in the budget. what's a girl to do? she heads to goodwill. and thankfully there's one fairly close to my house that's filled with the beautiful castoffs of our rich neighbors.

i'm having to remember as i shop that there are different types of clothing. there are standing pants and sitting pants. standing shirts and sitting shirts. there are even standing/sitting bras. the standing pants are the ones that look fine when you're standing up. they feel acceptable, but God forbid you wear them on a day when you're going to spend most of your day seated. those things work like a tourniquet for your waistline and will just about cut you in half, especially if you've eaten recently. they're great though for a day at the mall or a park where you'll be mainly in an upright position and shunning food. these are the pants you want to be photographed wearing.

standing shirts are close fitting and show the outline of your body which emphasizes how you actually do have a waist that dips in between your bust and hips. however, you don't want to be caught sitting down in one of these shirts because, well, because it shows the outline of your body. and when sitting down, everything in your middle condenses, causing things to bulge about in a very unflattering way. it hugs lumps and dispels any possible question as to whether or not you might be pregnant. because pregnant bellies don't have multiple rolls like you do. these shirts are best worn while standing up and with your hands on your hips. sitting shirts are more forgiving and can even be paired with standing pants as long as proper care is taken when seated to make sure that the shirt is flowing outward adequately so as not to get caught in any fat cracks.

bras are another one of those dumb clothing items that have standing/sitting preferences. underwires are better while standing, while something without a wire is better when you'll be seated for most of the hours that you're wearing it. those pesky wires can be quite disagreeable when they're poking you in the ribs or armpit, but they sure do make the girls look young and perky if you're standing up.

i hope there aren't any cameras in the dressing rooms that i frequent because it probably looks like i'm engaged in a game of musical chairs with myself as i try things on. for every item that i slip into, i position myself in front of the mirror and then do a stand up - sit down routine while watching each garment closely to see how it behaves. this is truly a challenge when there's no seat in the changing room. i have to do an imitation sit-down and try to hold myself in that squatty position for long enough to get a good look at how the clothing is hugging my bits. i've got to be careful not to purchase too many of those standing room only garments or i'll never be able to sit down again. or at least not until i lose some more weight and they get re-purposed from standing to sitting clothes.

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. 

these are a few of my least favorite things

i suddenly got the urge to write my own version of the song "these are a few of my favorite things" from the sound of music today. but i couldn't just write about my favorite things because that's too sweet and nice. so i wrote it about my least favorite things.

here are the lyrics in case you didn't catch them.


hobos and hairballs and elephant seals
unflying kites and potato peels
having to listen as yo gabba sings
these are a few of my least favorite things


meatloaf and hot dogs and slow draining sinks
cleaning the litter pan, oh how it stinks
butt juicing cat that makes my nose sting
these are a few of my least favorite things


greasy hair, pit stink, and hot dumpster juice
stepping in slime that's pooped out by a goose
plunging the toilet, the sights that it brings
these are a few of my least favorite things


when the zit pops,
when the kids cry,
when i'm feeling sad.
i simply remember my least favorite things
and then i keep feeling bad.

and i think brooke did a great job as my backup dancer through the video.

nail clipper medical plan

do you ever notice something about yourself that you don't especially like and wish you could do something about it? like maybe you want to slice off a blob of belly fat, but you're afraid of bleeding to death in your bathroom, so you don't. or maybe you wish your toes weren't webbed and sometimes you imagine yourself using a scalpel and just slicing the pesky webbing away so your feet look like all the other kids.

i suspect that we all have those moments. or maybe it's just me. and my people.

i know a man who had a toothache and instead of going to the dentist like a normal person, he got out his pliers and ripped that sore tooth straight out of his head.

ouch!

i have a family member who would periodically cut off a mole on his neck with nail clippers. just snip, then blood pouring out, then bye bye neck mole. until it grew back. then it was time for another round of snip. bleed. bye bye neck mole.

i've tied string around moles til they got shrivelly and then cut them off with nail clippers. but it doesn't work on all types of moles. i learned this the hard way. if it throbs for several days and starts to swell rather than shrink, it's probably the wrong kind. and then it's hard to cut the string back off. let this be a warning to you adventurous types out there. don't try this technique unless you have a backup plan for how to remove the string should it start throbbing, making you feel like that part of your body is going to explode.

i cut a plantar's wart out of the sole of my foot with nail clippers. i tell ya, those nail clippers are a surgeon's best friend! never sterile, but always handy and maneuverable.  and easy to rinse off when they get bloody.

one day, i decided that i didn't like it that one of my two front teeth was a little bit longer than the other one. it had been bothering me since those front teeth grew in during second grade. i decided it was time to do something about it, so i got out a metal nail file and started filing away. a little at a time because it was hard to stand the way it was radiating through my whole body for very long. but over the course of a couple hours, i got that one longish tooth evened up perfectly with the other and i even rounded off the edges a little so they'd match perfectly.

the moral of the story is, if you have string, pliers and a good manicure kit, you can take care of most of what ails you.

please share any of your home solutions because you never know when i might have a need for a new treatment plan.

napoleon the funky

my husband is gone for the night. it's work related and only for a day, but i woke up this morning and thought, "i'm going to be a slob and not take a shower today because my man isn't here to notice."

i've felt like i was being rather slovenly, but then i remembered something i read a while ago. supposedly, when napoleon was off at war, he sent his lady josephine a message telling her not to bathe for two weeks prior to his return. thinking about that today led me to do a little internet research and there's speculation if he actually said two weeks or three days, but most sources i found said two weeks.

this troubles me. i had to talk myself into NOT showering for one day and i will certainly be clean and pristine before i see my fella tomorrow, even if there's no hanky panky on our agenda.

i'm assuming that napoleon was coming home from his warring, feeling powerful and frisky. and maybe powerfully frisky, depending on how long he'd been gone and how many whores he'd visited while he was away. i can't imagine wanting to get up close and personal to anyone when i was dirty and.... ripe. because i don't care who you are, you will be smelling all kinds of funky by the time 2 weeks of non-bathing has gone past.

we recently read in a book on american history that people used to think that bathing was dangerous and avoided it most of the time. they typically took only a couple baths a year. did you catch that? two a YEAR, people! can you imagine how bad they smelled? they didn't have air conditioning or sanitary toileting facilities either, so their rears had to have been smellable from across the room. or the field for that matter!

and these people often slept several to a room. they didn't have the space or money to have large, spread out houses, so oftentimes, kids slept in their parents' bedroom. and it wasn't unusual for a family to have ten kids.

it makes my eyes bug out a little bit to think about going for 6 months without a bath and sleeping in a bed with a man who's been working the fields day in and day out and who's also been many months without getting intimate with a bar of soap.

now imagine that you are part of that couple, that dirty, odoriferous couple. it's summer and you're lying in bed after a long day of sewing garments by hand for your 9 kids. you've cooked several meals over a big open pot on a fire and you've killed and plucked a couple chickens. you've been inside a house with no electricity or water or even a door or screens to keep the bugs out all day.

you've been nursing infants for nearly 12 years straight. your boobs no longer resemble the breasts that we currently think of in america, but more closely mimic the ones we see in national geographic where they hang straight down with the long, uninspiring nipple distended and pointing at your feet when you stand up. when you lie down, your teets slide off into your sticky, hairy armpits. there's a pungent scent of old yeast and sour milk wafting up from the breasty region.

you're lying in your bed of grass. it's been covered with a sheet that you air out every week or so, but it's filled none-the-less with old hay. if you lay your ear directly on the mattress, you can hear the bugs crawling around under your bodies inside the hay. you can hear your children breathing in various locations around the room. one's in your dresser drawer bedded down on your grandma's old shawl. two are on a blanket on the floor beside you within arm's reach.

neither of you owns a tooth brush. you pick and scrape at your teeth from time to time with a stick that you've widdled to a point, but toothpaste isn't something you even know about.

can you picture the scene? are you with me?

okay, now close your eyes and tell me how you feel..... is the answer HORNY? i know that scientifically there would be a large build up of pheromones that are supposedly a turn on, but i suspect the other factors would counter the alleged attraction. i'm positive that the very last thing in the world that i can think of when i'm putting myself mentally in that situation is wanting to bump uglies when both myself and my husband are both big sweating stench bags. there would have to be a line of demarcation down the center of that buggy grass bed until such time as a bath could be procured for the both of us.

it's amazing to me that families were so large at that time. clearly, current american standards for cleanliness have affected my mindset on this matter, but it seems that even if that weren't present, surely my nose would protest close contact on a hot summer's night.

much like my appreciation of toilet paper from a couple posts ago, i am now voicing my appreciation of soap. and running water. and razors to scrape off all that armpit and leg hair. thank you, Jesus that i live in the year 2012 in the current conditions and standards for bathing.

sheri-licious

my good buddy Karen over at Ow, My Angst did a fun post a few days ago where she gave herself a makeover, jersey-style to show her love of the tv show Jerseylicious. it's a show about some jersey girls who do hair and makeup ~ and when i say they do them, i mean they do it all excessively. tons of makeup crammed onto their faces and big, big hair.

i thought it would be fun to do one of these myself, so i asked her to make it into a meme in order to make it seem like i wasn't just being a lame copycat, even though i am. you'll see her linky and note at the bottom of this post if you want to participate too. men, that includes you. please, feel free to indulge your inner diva and take pics to show us your creative process.

that means i'm the first to jump onto the karenlicious bandwagon with a makeover of my own.

with no further adieu . . .

i filled my bathroom counter filled with various and sundry hair and makeup items.

then I started with a blank canvas. scary, I know.

then i painted my face with waaayy too much concealer, foundation and powder.

next comes the choice of what color to put on my eyes. those are always the most fun to create.

 this was done with brow liner, 6 different eyeshadow colors, plus black liquid eyeliner out the wazoo.

i guess it's time to do something with my stupid hair. hmmm.... i don't have a bump it to lift it up. or any extensions. or a flat iron. dang it, i'm just stuck with my hair dryer and standard curling iron. well, it's not big enough to look like a proper jersey girl, but it's bigger than usual. let's just overlook it, shall we? look at my lipliner instead, okay? niiiccee!

smile pretty for the camera!

okay, i'm starting to feel weird about taking my picture all alone in my bathroom with a face caked in goop. maybe if i make some faces, that'll help.

i've got some great stink-face going on here.

it's feeling less and less like jerseylicious and more and more like glamor shots gone horribly wrong. in my bathroom.

 okay, that was fun. now it's time to go cook dinner and toss in another load of laundry. i'm so glamorous i make those licious girls jealous.

brooke decided to let me make up her face and floof up her hair today too and she wrote about it and included pictures on her own blog. to see and read about it, check out hers here. it's funny.

if you want to join in the face painting fun, here's karen's blurb and info.

The "Karenlicious Meme"

Make yourself delicious!  

Karen is a blah, boringly natural housewife and mom most of the time.  But she made herself DELICIOUS. 

 

Here's what you do:  throw a shovel-full of makeup onto your grill.  Take as many before and after photos as you want of your transformation. Post these insane photos for all the world to see, with the "karen-licious" banner.

Invite your friends to pass it on and be ridiculous too! 

Then go wash your face.  You're fine just the way you are.  But not today!  Today you are

KARENLICIOUS!

never take for granted...

i bet from the title, you were thinking i was going to go deep on this post. talk about never taking our loved ones or our health for granted. you thought wrong, my friend. my last post had some depth, so i couldn't go there again so soon.

no, what i'm talking about today is toilet paper. i got a book out of the kids science section about the history and workings of toilets (i love the library and the gems i find there).

here's a picture i took of a page in the book that left me with my mouth in a cringe and my eyebrows in a pinch.

in case you can't read it clearly, let me point out a few pertinent bits. "Ancient Romans used a sponge on the end of a stick to clean up after using the toilet." this seemed all right to me initially. a sponge is soft and wet. okay, the romans had a good idea there other than the fact that they had a room filled with toilet holes all in a U shape so several people could go at once while looking at each other.

but the next line stopped me in my sponge-happy tracks. "When finished, they put the sponge in a pail full of water so that the next person could use it."

great googly moogly..... this is NOT okay! they shared a poop sponge?!! not so bad if you're the first guy with a fresh sponge, but something tells me it didn't get changed too often. and i know how gross a kitchen sponge gets after a few days, so i can only imagine how vile a community hiney sponge would be after a few days on booty duty!

the next line that had me making faces was, "Some used stones, sand, or seashells to scrape themselves clean."

a rock? did they hunt about for the perfect butt scraping rock and then keep it for using over and over? or did they just grab up any ole rock they could reach while squatting and just jam it back there and try to knock off the big bits? would a rounded or jagged rock work more effectively?

and i don't know about you, but when i'm at the beach and get sand in my suit, i pretty much just rip my suit to the side and try to shake, swipe or rinse it out with little regard for who's about because i cannot STAND how it feels! imagine using sand as a wipe! i've heard of using sand to wash dishes in a pinch, but never your crack. Ick!

the worst part in that sentence might be the seashell. i was just at the beach a couple months ago and i collected and examined a lot of different types of shells, so when i read this, i did a mental inventory of the shapes, sizes and textures of various shells, trying to figure out which seemed the most wipe-like for bum scrape-age.
this one seems somewhat manageable, i guess. you could use one side for scooping and the other side for buffing after the scrape was completed.

and i would definitely avoid this next shell, even if it was the only thing readily at hand. because, wowie zowie, i don't think anyone's rump could handle that.

this book made me very grateful for the lovely and delicate luxury that i've always taken for granted. oh blessed, glorious toilet paper, you are so precious to me. and your cousin, the moist, flushable wipe, is a gift to the behinds of this century. i will never take either of you for granted again. amen.

spirit week at the office

we were just watching a show where there was an office scene. in the background was a woman holding a teapot and wearing a belly shirt. chris shook his head and said, "she's the one who ruined casual friday for everyone."

that sent my brain off onto a rabbit trail where i was thinking about myself working in an office. it's been a very long time since such a thing was true, but if it were, i'd like casual friday. in fact, i'd love it if each day had a theme.

wouldn't it be fun if every week was like spirit week in school? mondays would become monster monday. we'd wear things of a monstery nature or maybe just a giant eyeball and a green suit and go for a mike wazowski look.

i'm thinking we go for hootchie tuesday which will allow the women to indulge their urge to dress like a skank on a day other than just halloween. or for those who are more conservative, maybe just some subtle fishnets and hooker pumps. for the mens, maybe they could unbutton their shirts a bit and splash on too much cologne, like they're headed for a club.

wednesday definitely needs to have a wig theme. it doesn't matter if it's something long and platinum that looks like it came straight from dolly parton's dressing room or if you want to go to with a rainbow affro. this would be a great opportunity for men with male pattern balding to test drive that toupee that they bought but haven't yet had the balls to wear in public.

we'll have throw-back thursday which leaves plenty of room for interpretation. anything retro will do. maybe this is the chance to raid your dad's closet and repeat some of the outfits you tried out in highschool. or maybe you've got some leg warmers you're just itching to wear. guys, if you still fit that miami vice pastel jacket with the rolled up sleeves, i suggest you break it out and take it for a spin. i'm sure the ladies will love it.

casual friday sounds mighty boring after that lively line up, doesn't it? so i think we should change it to furry friday. there are a lot of people out there with the urge to wear fur and this will be exactly the chance they've been looking for. be subtle with just a tail and ears or go whole hog with that mascot suit you've been storing in your attic since college.

it just about makes me wish i could go back to work again. i've got a great little wig i've been dying to wear again.

recycled food

you know what i hate? i hate it when i eat something and realize that it's slimy or too crunchy or in some fashion unacceptable to my mouth, so i discreetly spit it out and put it over onto the edge of my plate or bowl because i forgot a napkin. then a few minutes go by and i accidently eat it again. then, not only is it still too slimy/crunchy/unacceptable it's also now wet and cold and has that major yuck factor guaranteed to poof out my cheeks, tighten my stomach, and hunch my shoulders forward into that pre-puking position. that's when i get off my lazy rump and go get a napkin. and maybe an airline sick bag. because it's only considered good form to vomit in an upright position in the presense of others if you do it into an airline barf bag.

i'm the one on the left.

you guys really want to invite me over for thanksgiving now, don't you?

if you need anything...

you know how people like to say, "if you need anything, let me know"? and they always say it with a gentle smile, perhaps with a compassionate nod of the head. they sound like they mean it, but do you think they really do? and does anyone ever take someone up on one of those open ended offers of help?

i would like to propose that we start making specific requests whenever someone is kind enough to make one of those statements. we should make our needs known to our kind hearted well wishers.

next time you're at church and a polite lady with a southern accent asks how you're doing, tell the truth. tell her that you've been feeling pretty crummy lately and more tired than you usually admit. tell her that the bags under your eyes look like football makeup, but thank the kind Lord for some concealer so you can show your face in public. she'll likely pat your hand and say something like, "if there's anything i can do to help, you just let me know." generally we'd thank her and go on our cranky way, but not this time. the truth has started flowing and we're on a new path now.

this time you need to say, "well, since you asked.... i sure could use some help with the kids. is there a time next week when you might be able to keep them? what days are good for you?" or perhaps you don't have kids. so instead you might say, "i sure do hate grocery shopping and since you offered, would you mind picking some things up for me? here's my list and i don't like generics."

next time you walk into a store and an artificially perky sales associate greets you and asks if she can help you with anything, the answer is yes. you should pick out an armload of stuff that looks like it might be good, preferably in at least 2 sizes each because you need to be prepared. she'll help you carry it. she offered, right? then i think you should invite her into the dressing room with you. it's always great to get a second opinion, plus since she's available, you should have her hang up all your rejects and return them to the proper racks.



when you're at the bank, making a deposit or withdrawal, the teller always ends it with, "is there anything else i can do for you today?" i think that's the right time to turn your back to him and point to that pesky spot between your shoulder blades and tell him about the itch you just can't seem to reach. you might clumsily demonstrate with the chained down counter pen how you can't ever seem to contort your arms enough to get it really well. ask him to please scratch it for you. if he doesn't make a solid effort the first time, you should lift up the back of your shirt and ask him to please not be shy because this itchy mamajama's been bugging you all day.

when next you go out to eat at one of those restaurants where they leave you with a little treat at the end, like a little cookie or a mint, watch closely. you want to be paying attention when your server pulls it out of her apron pocket and places it on the table or check. right before she walks away, she'll always ask, "is there anything else i can get for you?" that's your cue to say, "actually, i'd like a mint that you haven't been carrying around for a few hours in your apron. because (and here is where you pick it up and mush it flat between your fingers) i have an issue with eating snacks that have been melted by your pubic heat."


and with that my friends, i leave you with the hope that you'll make your needs known. don't be shy, don't hold back. they offer, you accept. the world will be a better place for us all.

there comes a time in everyone's life

sometimes when i write my facebook status, i like to put some thought into it. figure out a way to use words for the optimum punch. other times i go through a dry spell where the best i can come up with is, "went to the library" or "cheese is my friend."

last night i was feeling the need to status update and i was wracking my brain for a good one. i kept hearing the line "there comes a time in every woman's life when she..." but i couldn't come up with a good ending. so i decided to throw it out there like bait and just see if anyone else could come up with a great suggestion or wisdom or humor. of course it didn't take long before i got a bite. and then a couple of my girl friends copied it to their own status and got some great bites of their own.

here are some of the gems that i've peeled off the statuses i've seen where people contributed their wit and wisdom. there comes a time in every woman's life when she...

"realizes her body composition is literally 42% sharp cheddar cheese. Oh, wait, that's just me....."

hmm, that slicer looks disturbingly like that thing i used to slice up my feet.

"takes off her bra, lets the boobs drop, and has a little 'o' right there, standing in the living room."

"Realizes she should have used wrinkle cream BEFORE the wrinkles appeared."

"Prefers pants with an elastic waist."

"renounces perfection in favor of joy"

"wishes she was a man"

"looks at the guy next to her and says, "I married that!?" (this from our very own al penwasser)

and my very favorite of the night was actually the first one that arrived on the scene. my fantabulous friend rachel who never fails to make me laugh said, "throws away her crotchless panties."



in following with a couple of the other posts i've written that stemmed from something on facebook, like "if we woke up in jail" or "how did we meet, but make it a lie" i'd love to see what delightful suggestions my lovely and unerringly funny blog friends can come up with.

"there comes a time in every woman(or man)'s life when s/he..."