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.

i make me look bad

lately, when i've been thinking about possible post topics, i've noticed that a lot of the stuff i typically post paints me in a really bad light. i think i like to write stories that show humanity with all it's flaws & failings because we all have them, but most people like to hide those failings or cover them up. and i think it's refreshing and funny when i read stories that people have written about themselves where they aren't afraid or ashamed to admit to their ugly bits. i love when they're not trying to put their pretty face on to attempt to convince the world that they're as close to perfect as they can get. and i suppose i like to emulate that in my own writing since that's what i like to read.

but with that being said, i think perhaps i have a tendency to write too many stories that make me seem like a really gross person. like maybe you guys who don't know me in real life, come over here to read my stories and laugh at me, but you think in the back of your mind that you wouldn't want to actually hang out with me. and you certainly wouldn't want to be related to me. because, from the sound of it, i'm a person with horrible gas, pizza face & a problem with incontinence. i wear pads on my head and take really embarrassing pictures. i speak without thinking & have bouts of really bad pms. all i need now is to develop some rank halitosis and i could be the poster child for thoroughly disgusting humanity.

i guess i'm trying to say that even though i tell you guys lots of stories and many of them are gross, i'm not like that all the time. i shower daily, use deodorant & don't fart in restaurants (usually). i rarely make off-color jokes in church (unless i'm talking to rachel, then all bets are off) and i don't swear around children. i hope some day i might get to meet some of my blogosphere buddies & i'll try to be on my best behavior. at least for the first few minutes.

it's not a balloon - friday confessional

this is one of those stories that i've thought of writing for a while because it's a good one, if by good i mean horrible, but i've debated with myself because i try to only embarrass myself here. but today i'm inspired by reading this post by helene & it was a long time ago & no one remembers it but me, so here goes. oh, and i'm going to apply the kitty rule now.

when my daughter was 3, we became friends with a single mom & her little daughter who was close to brooke's age. the girls had lots of fun together & we moms got to talk and laugh & compare mothering tales. we spent tons of time together since chris was at work almost every night & our girls were too young for school so there was no schedule to worry about.

one night, it was getting late, so we decided to give the girls a bath in order to prolong our visit a bit and give the kids something to keep them busy. their house was very small & when i was sitting in the living room, i could clearly see straight into the bathtub, not more than ten or fifteen feet away.

so once the girls were washed up, we left them in the tub, splashing around & having a good time. my friend and i were chatting in the living room. then i noticed that brooke was holding something i didn't recognize. it didn't look like any bath toy i'd ever seen before. she put it up to her sweet, clean, little mouth & started to blow it up like a balloon.



i walked into the bathroom & took it away from her & went back into the living room to ask my friend what it was. she kind of giggled and told me that it was her d0uchebag & why was i asking. i told her that brooke had been blowing into it. she turned red and i turned green.

i pulled brooke out of that tub, got her dried and dressed in record time & then zoomed home to wash & scrub out her mouth in an effort to purify the nastiness. she wasn't pleased at having her teeth brushed repeatedly, but i didn't know what else to do. if i'd thought she could manage some listerine, i would have pried her lips open & poured it in with a funnel.

and that is my friday confessional

pickaholic

i have a little confession to make. i'm just going to whisper it though because i'm a little bit embarrassed about it. did you lean in close? okay, deep breath... i'm a little bit obsessed with my face.

i'm hanging my head now in the awkwardness of that statement. when i say that i'm obsessed, i don't mean it in the look-at-my-face-it's-really-gorgeous-and-should-be-photographed-for-the-glossy-pages-of-a-magazine kind of way. i mean it more in the i-can't-walk-past-a-mirror-without-leaning-in-for-a-close-look-at-my-current-zit/peeling/hair-growth-situation kind of way.

i never had terrible skin as a teenager. it wasn't great, but no big deal. but when i turned 30, it was like my face decided to try out this acne business and it went for it with gusto. and apparently, it really liked it & was good at it, so it decided to keep the acne around for a while. brooke was three then & she used to stare and point at my spots & once she told me that she'd pray for Jesus to fix me. another time she offered to take me to the vet to get my face owies away.

i managed to get it under control with Proactive for a few years, but recently it's come back and it's making me miserable. i feel like since i'm chubby, and i can't afford to dress my chubby self in particularly fashionable clothes, the least i can do is make my head look good. my hair can go either way - sometimes it's friendly to me & other times it's crap. but my face is usually the only thing left that i can control because even when you're poor, you can still buy makeup & skillfully apply it in such a way that you play up whatever assets you've got.

but my face has betrayed me. and it must be punished. i feel compelled to stuff my face into mirrors several times a day with my nose practically pressed against the glass so that i can pick, dig & squeeze my skin into submission. that doesn't really work though. it just makes it uglier. and i can't keep my fingers from exploring my bad skin, even when i'm out of the house. i'll peel or pick at myself even while walking through a store, never mind that i leave little bloody, flaming red spots oozing on my face. i wish i could blame my compulsion on an illness, much the same way a drinker blames alcoholism. in theory, you can just choose not to take that drink, but the alcoholic can't seem to resist the urge. in much the same way, i can't seem to keep my hands off my face even though i know the results are detrimental to my health and beauty.

i feel like the quality of my day is directly related to the state of my face. i know that's shallow. i wish i could i could say that i was a better person than that, but until i figure out how to work through my pickaholism, please, try not to stare when i come out of a bathroom with bright red blotches on my face. and a TP tail.

lovely, with a twist

today was a beautiful day in my neck of the woods. and to top it off, both myself & my honey were off work, which is a lovely change of pace, so we decided to take full advantage of the day. after church, we had lunch out & then spent the rest of it outside, wandering around downtown and going through the aquarium.

we've had a membership at the aquarium for years, so i've mostly stopped taking pics of the wildlife there because one tends to look much like the last. instead, i took mostly flower pictures today. it's hardcore spring in the american south right now, so there are tons of flowering trees and bushes wherever you look and today, i used those flowers as my photo inspiration, with a few thrown in of my beloveds as the icing on my cake.

today brooke acted and talked older than her usual self. and having her hair pulled back, which is rare, made me see how much she's growing up. the days of the quirky dog girl appear to be on the way out.

i love all the carnivorous plants around the aquarium.

even the simplest flowers are beautiful.

if you look at this one close up, the jelly that's sideways in the middle toward the left, doesn't it look kinda like a condom? a very mean, pranky condom for someone you hate.

and lest you think my day was all beauty and happiness, let me share one last little tidbit with you all. i went into a public bathroom (one of 9 that i visited today. stupid SBS) and chatted up a lady who came in and was changing 2 babies' diapers behind me while i washed my hands. i frequently make friends in public restrooms. i'm not sure why i feel the need to bond in the bathroom, but whatever, i've got to make friends wherever i find them. then i wandered back outside to rejoin chris & brooke. as i walked out the door, i realized that i was standing right behind some people who were getting their picture taken. i stepped aside a bit so that even though i'd still probably be in the shot, i'd be far enough away that they could crop me out easily. chris was sitting over to one side and he started waving for me to come over to him. i shook my head no, and kept standing where i was so that i could let the folks get their shot. they took their sweet time about it and all the while, chris kept waving more & more adamantly at me and he was starting to look kinda mad. i finally mosied over to him & asked what all the fuss was about and he said, "you've got toilet paper hanging out of your ass!"

frickety frack! i was standing there, for all the world to see, including getting into some stranger's family pictures with my TP tail flapping in the gentle breeze. i asked chris how long it was & he said, "about three sheets." and that leaves me to wonder about my new bathroom friend - what kind of woman lets another woman walk out of a bathroom with three sheets in the wind?

betcha can't guess what i wore on my head

tonight i stumbled across the show "say yes to the dress" which, in case you don't know, is a reality show where they film women coming into a bridal shop with their family and friends & trying to find the perfect wedding gown. there's lots of drama and a whole lot of white fluff.

it made me think back to 13 years ago when i was planning my wedding. chris was in school and working as many hours as he could, so we didn't see very much of each other. i'd moved back home to save money, so i was spending a lot of time with my mom as we worked through all the arrangements. i never wanted to have a big wedding. i wasn't a girl who dreamed of it all her life. i'd always sort of thought that i'd run off & elope one day, but i was talked into having a wedding after all.

i did NOT want a big, fluffy dress. i didn't want beads, sequins, sparkles or glitz. i didn't want to go totally hillbilly & get married in denim either. i wanted something simple and smallish that i could afford to pay for myself. my parents paid for the wedding stuff, but i wanted to pay for anything i wore on my body, so it needed to be reasonably priced.

it was hard to find just the right dress in any of the bridal shops because they were all too fancy for me, but i finally found one in a department store. actually, it was in the prom section, but whatever. it was long & white & had a small train, so i can't imagine anyone wearing it for a prom.

once the dress was decided upon, i needed to figure out what to do on my head. hair up or down? veil? tiara? nothing? these are important decisions when you'll be looking at the pictures of that moment for the rest of your life. we looked at a lot of different veils and headpieces, but i wasn't really sure i even wanted one and they cost between $60 and $200 bucks. my mom is very crafty and has done a lot of sewing, so she convinced me that we should consider making our own veil.

we found a portion of veily material at michaels craft store. it was longer than i'd thought i would like, but seemed pretty enough. however, it still needed to be attached to something. we bought a string of fake pearls & took our goodies home to play with them & see if we could make something good enough to wear down the aisle.

we cut a piece of cardboard into a sort of long, ovalish shape, figuring we could hook the veil onto the bottom of it. we cut a piece of lining out of one of my little sisters' dress-up dresses that was white & silky to cover the cardboard. we thought we'd string the little pearls around the outer edge to make it look prettier, but it still needed something to make the cardboard piece thicker & look less like a silk covered slice of cardboard.

we thought about it & tried a few things & then suddenly, there was a light bulb moment. that piece of cardboard was exactly the same size and shape as a maxi-pad! mom ran for the nearest box of pads & while the 2 of us laughed ourselves into pants-piddling hysteria, we wrapped that hunk of cardboard with a couple of pads. it was totally convenient, they were already sticky on the one side, ready to stick right down and stay in place. flexible, with wings! we wrapped them in the strip of chopped out and ironed dress-up silk and then hot glued it all in place. we sewed the pearls around the edge and when it was done, no one would have ever known that i was walking down the aisle to marry my beloved with a couple of maxi-pads stuck on my head.

and i've got to be honest, this is one of the best memories i have of my wedding. i can't even think of it without getting a fresh giggle. 

if we woke up in jail...

remember when we had so much fun doing the "how did we meet" post? you guys were awesome participants and made it such fun, at least for me. well, i've got another silly facebook game that i want to play with you guys because i know you're way more creative than most of my facebook friends.

here's the deal, i want you to tell me, in 5 words or less, what you would say to me tomorrow morning if we woke up in a jail cell together. be elaborately simple or bizarre and outlandish. feel free to feed me as many lines as you can think up, my friends, i'm ready.