Should I Donate My Wine

They closed, we closed, keys have been exchanged. All that stands in the way of us moving is time and many many bottles of red red wine.

In my selfish way, I am grateful for the distraction, because the news from New Orleans is breaking my heart. Every story makes me want to sit down and cry. I have this urge to donate the profits from our house to the relief fund. But I will be selfish and buy furniture.

It is heartbreaking to see those people lose everything they have.

It is even more heartbreaking to see the country's politicians turn their backs on the poor. Way to focus on looting instead of evacuating people or deciding when or where to rebuild.

If you believe in this sort of thing please pray for our neighbors in the south. I am pissed because my shit is all in a cardboard box, imagine have no stuff to even box.

BRILLIANT

Ok, I do not remember this in it's original run but it is fucking brilliant on Lifetime. I mean common the Golden Girls + Don Cheadle + Cheech Marin = comedy GOLD.

I mean do we need further proof that the American public is full of tasteless assholes? That show only lasted one season. Art just has NO CHANCE in this society.

Bellyaching

My pal Monica is suffering. She is have gastrointestinal issues of every size, shape, and form. And, like all of us with gastrointestinal disease, she has discovered that everything sucks when the belly isn't good.

There is no dignity when your intestines have done you wrong. You find yourself discussing bowel movements with total strangers. You discuss the acid content of everything with the produce man. You buy Pepto in bulk. You look directly into the eye of the very attractive doctor who tried to give you a colonoscopy only to discover the medications you took to empty your intestines didn't work, who then gave you NINETEEN ENEMAS and you ask this oh so attractive man, "well, did you try twenty?" You will find yourself pissing into a plastic hat someday in the hospital, and skip gleefully to inform the hot male nurse that you have hit the
line and CAN YOU GO HOME NOW?

You will avoid your favorite foods because you know they are not worth it. You will eat some of them anyway because they are. You will stop being embarrassed to crap at work. You will stop being SO embarrassed to fart at work. You will become your mother musing aloud, "God I feel sorry for whoever is walking behind ME."

You will drink eighty-four thousand glasses of water a day because the alternative means constipation and that is the END OF THE WORLD. You will eat an apple every day because GOD KNOWS YOU NEED THE FIBER. You will know where the bathroom is everywhere you go, you might even choose to commute by train because THEY HAVE A BATHROOM.
But this side of gastrointestinal disease is sort of liberating. You don't worry about embarrassing yourself as much because you know you are going to, you just worry about doing it in more humiliating ways. At least you know how it will happen, you will have to poo or puke somewhere you really do not want to. You learn to cope, by having pants for every stage of the bloat, foods that always work, pillows that prop up your abdomen just right. You have hot water bottles and cold packs and sleeping pills when nothing else works.

Her set of problems is different than mine. Maybe it is more painful. Maybe it will turn out to be less. But it isn't as serious as we worried about. She isn't Gladys, and I wondered if she might be.

So welcome to the dark side, Monica. I am so glad to see you.

HAAAAAATE

We are totally and completely fucked.

Our phone has been turned off, the movers are scheduled to be here tomorrow morning, I have used my vacation time. We have to move tomorrow.

But the fuckers buying our house have fucked up something with their loan. Which means ours can't close. Which means I am fucking wasting my time.

My dad is giving me a pep talk via cell phone about DON'T CRY GET PISSED AND RIP SOME ONE A NEW ASSHOLE, ARE YOU MY DAUGHTER OR NOT?

What he does not realize is that these are tears of rage. I am so PISSED that this is happening. PISSED that I am burning my vacation and my money and god knows what else waiting around for these fuckers to get their shit together.

And our agent, bless his little heart, is NOT HELPFUL. In fact, at this moment I hate him. Because he is like well you guys are lucky because they did give you three days after closing. WELL GREAT. That is probably true, how awful to have this date float around a bit when you have to move the day it closes. But here I am burning vacation time and GOD KNOWS what else trying to get shit together for this goddamn move and we have nothing.

TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY FUCKED.

AND. Not phone. No cable as of midnight tonight. And no fucking hope of anything good happening any time soon.

I hate everyone.

Big Yellow Monster

My dad called this morning to tell me that their dog Rocky had two seizures yesterday. He seems to be fine now, even demanded his cookie this morning, and they couldn't get him into the vet until later this afternoon.

My parents got Rocky when I was a senior in high school. When our dog, Sarge, was dying. When my dad was out of work and things were very different. Rocky has been a difficult dog almost from the beginning. He wasn't socialized well, we didn't know that you had to do that. Our other dogs had been puppies when there were kids around all the time, our friends, my parents' friends, a lot more activity. But my dad and the two dogs were alone all day long, two old men and a puppy.

He is the most neurotic dog to ever walk the earth. He is over 100 pounds but is afraid of everything. And he reacts to his fear with barking and aggression. He loves his routine, he loves my dad, he loves to play soccer, he loves for their other dog Maddie to follow him around. When Sargie died my dad would have had to face an awfully lonely world without his best friend if it wasn't for Rocky. Even though Rocky was difficult and still is, it was really fortunate he was there.

We don't talk about the years that my dad didn't work a lot in my family. Those years aged my parents, who even in their late forties looked thirty, faster than anything could have. Their skin turned grey, the got wrinkles, my father sank into a depression that we thought he would never come out of. And the dog was his company.

A lot has changed since then. My father works now. They are more financially secure. They don't look a hundred years old anymore. In some ways my father is a better person now, he is less defined by his job, he is more accepting, he seems to enjoy everything just a little more than he might have before. When I was a kid my dad cared a lot about what other people thought, he cared a lot about money and becoming successful. Now he cares about the fruits of those successes. It is easier to love my father now.

Rocky has changed too. He still lives his entire life as fast as he can but that isn't quite as fast as it used to be. Nine years old is pretty ancient for an animal of that size. And it shows. He is grey. He hobbles a bit. Sometimes Maddie wins when they have an argument. My dad will call and tell me stories about how the two of them get stuck in the door both trying to go first. He isn't the alpha dog anymore.

We know the end is coming. We have been lucky to make it this long. I doubt the vet will want to put him down today, it is much more likely that they will not have any idea why he had seizures or whether he will have more. I just believe we are one step closer.

My father says that he thinks every true dog person has that one special dog, their one true love. His was Sarge, the dog that my family had my entire childhood. When Sargie died my daddy changed. Even now, eight plus years later he can still mist up if he sees a dog who looks like him. Or if we tell a good Sarge story.

When Rocky goes it will be different. He is not the true love. But in some ways it will be harder. The friend who never replaced Sarge will leave a pretty damn big hole. All hundred pounds of him.

I have work to do today, cleaning mostly, some last second packing. But I just keep looking at my Buster and Darla. Telling them that they better live ten more years. That I cannot imagine a world without those faces. That I cannot sleep without the doggy snores. That it is not a bowl of popcorn without their stinky breath in my face begging.

I'm just thinking about my dad. About my mom. About how dogs help make you a family. And wondering how the hell we can be a family without that big yellow monster.

RIP Maverick

I was watching Top Gun tonight, and completely mourning the loss of hot Tom Cruise. I mean, the eye candy in this movie is still excellent. Cruise was never the main attraction of that volleyball scene anyway. I mean even Goose has that sort of goofball stud thing that is always good. Cruise used to really round out the ensemble, looking sort of like a good bad boy. Now he just seems sad. I mean Katie Holmes was eight years old when that movie came out.

And for a guy who speaks out against psychology, don't you think his character could have really used some anti-depressants? I mean his little come back would have been a less dramatic one but maybe he wouldn't have to blow up a plane from an unspecified but oh-so-menacing country.

Now I can't even find him sexually attractive. Way to totally fucking RUIN a classic movie TOM CRUISE.

Asshole.

Countdown

My parents came over today to help with packing. And my mother is a packing MACHINE. Seriously, I went upstairs to finish packing all of our clothes (we have to move Tuesday because I only have enough underwear to get me until there) and went down to check on her (she can't tape boxes, the tape gun is a bit of mystifying technology to her--it is like trying to teach a dachshund to knit) and she had done almost the entire kitchen. Seriously, she even packed our used up seasoning salt.

We are pretty much packed. The boys took even more of our junk to the dump and it is starting to feel like we don't live here anymore. Long conversations have been had with the dogs about how we are moving and quit whining or we are leaving your ungrateful asses here. Try those pitiful faces on new owners.

Also, I am hungry but we have no dishes, food and I can't make popcorn because we junked the microwave.

I think Darla and I need a nap.

Four Days To Normal

We are at the ugliest stage of the home purchase. Where you are not worrying about the money or packing (you are beyond caring) and have stopped even reading things before you sign them (if you don't sign we have to start over--death is better than starting over!) and have starting having arguments that involve stomping and flinging papers in the driveway. And that is just J's share, mine is to start to cry, "I'M NOT STUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPID I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND" and sniveling like a goon.

I don't care anymore. I don't care about any of it, I just want to move and get into my new house and take a bath in my new tub and probably fucking flash the neighbors and make out with my new dining room floors. Yes, I want the money thing to work out. And I want everything to be tidy and legal. And I sure would like to be married at the end of all of this. Everything else is negotiable at this point y'all.

I am not going back to work until we are in the new place. I have eighty-four thousand boxes to pack, eighty-four thousand fights to have in a high shrill voice with my husband and eighty-four thousand things to freak the fuck out about. But in a few days we will be in the new place, cursing the blinds we are trying to put up to hide our naked asses from the neighbors and life can go back to normal.

And we can fight about the Yankees/Red Sox again.

Color Commentary

A few weeks ago, in a Yankee deprived rage, J subscribed to MLB Audio because he couldn't watch a game on TV, even with our expanded baseball cable package.

Since he got the whole season I like to log in at work and listen to the day games. We have had the cable package for two years now and I have a had a few weeks with the radio and I have laughed so hard at the hometown coverage of teams around the league.

Now I expect that teams will promote the positives about their own players. This is natural and expected--teams have to pay the bills somehow and tricking their fans into paying attention is one way to pull that off. There is a reason that my dad still believes that Jamie Moyer is a decent player.

But some teams, especially on the radio, just take that up a notch. Teams emphasize how important mediocre players are to their "chemistry." They talk up prospects that will probably never even be called up.

But it is the random remarks and conversations that pop up during a game that are great entertainment--enough to even listen to a Tampa Bay game. My Cubs' announcers are incredibly detailed when describing the uniforms of both teams--using color names like burnt sienna and aubergine--as though the people listening have never seen a game.

Today the Yankee announcer went into a fifteen minute anecdote about how his daughter because obsessed with Beauty and the Beast and said her first words in Lumiere's accent.

That way actually way better than the game.

Now everyone run over to Keepin It Real, my pal is sick and needs your comments STAT.

Right Now

We went and signed our lives away today. It is alarming how much easier it is to commit to paying back all that money the second time around.

The escrow people scared us into moving on Tuesday instead of Monday. We were just scared that we would end up closing late and be stuck paying for extra time for the movies and the truck and God everything would go wrong. As a result everything will go perfectly and we will feel stupid for putting ourselves through rescheduling everything. But at least this way it should be easier.

Of course, am now freaking out about the bathroom. It has a pedestal sink, which I love, except now I realize that there is nowhere to stash my hair supplies and other girlie accoutrements. People of the internet who have pedestal sinks please tell me what you do with all your junk! Holes in the wall? Just throw it on the floor? Make the dogs carry it around in little backpacks?

So things are moving along. We are still here. My hair is still shiny.

For now.

Everything Is Better When Your Hair Is Straight

I hit refresh ninety thousand times on the UPS site this morning until it finally flashed DELIVERED on my screen.

The heavens sang, the sun shone and all was good with the world.

My flat iron is here!

No woman has ever been more excited about a small appliance that doesn't vibrate.

My hair is straight and shiny and I no longer look like a homeless person! I look alarmingly like my wedding photo from almost five years ago but we are going to skip that part! And abuse punctuation! Because I am so happy to not look like utter shit!

The euphoria of good hair is the only thing that could have produced me packing boxes of books in our spare bedroom singing MAKE NEW FRIENDS BUT KEEP THE OOOOOOOOLD . . .from my Campfire Girls days.

Actually, I am not so old that it was still Campfire Girls, it was Campfire Kids. With an interesting co-ed twist that sadly I did not get to experience at the right age--somehow my parents were not hip to the co-ed cabins in seventh grade. Perhaps my first sexual experience could have involved summer camp which is sadly less cliched than the truth.

ONE IS SILVER AND THE OTHER GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD!

Packing with shiny hair is FUN!

Under Pressure

When we bought our first house we moved the week after Christmas. Actually three days after Christmas. And I was hospitalized with an infection that would cause some renal failure and liver damage two days before Christmas Eve. That move was a blur for me, I couldn't do anything, I just had enough strength to rip through the horrible bank officers that made our lives hell.

Hopefully I will not have any major organ failure in the next week but I am already feeling like hammered shit in preparation for our move. I wake up in the middle of the night crazed with worry about where we will put the cat box in the new house, I am too tired to get enough packing done, I have thrown up every morning for three days and my skin is covered in festering acne.

Don't you envy my husband?

I am just doing what I have to do to get through the week, anxious for it all to be over. The good news is that one way or another next week we will be in our new house and I will not have to do this again for a long time.

The bad news is that it is still a week away.

The greater Seattle area should just cower in fear because the following is just a sample of things that have made me seethe with rage or burst into tears in just the past twelve hours:

1. Missing the train.

2. Throwing up in the parking lot of the train station (rage and tears, both justified I think).

3. My hair.

4. My flat iron still being in the hands of UPS.

5. The dining room table we are going to buy--the measurements tell me it will fit, but my horribly fucking cliched sense of special relations makes me wonder if I will like how it fits. My mother keeps asking. I keep pulling my hair.

6. The mosquito bites on my legs which look like the rash I got after I was stung by bees last month--am I allergic to all formally safe-for-me insects?

7. The Cubs.

8. The Cubs again.

9. The sign outside the Dairy Queen which suggested I CHILLABRATE with an ice cream cake? DQ I delight in your delicious treats, do not make me bomb your store.

10. ESPN Insider--take my fucking password cocksucker--it is VALID.

Clearly I am a woman of steel under pressure.

Is There A Little League Nation?

I love the Little League World Series.

I get sucked into almost every game. I become fascinated by the kids from Saudi Arabia who all seem to be from Montana. I cheer for both teams in a game. I get so excited when the shortest kid on the team comes up with a big hit.

Little League can be the best of what being a kid should be about. I am sure that there are assholes who are mean to the kids or who are too competitive. But all I see is the kids that are thrilled to be there. Who can hardly believe they are going to be on TV and Sportscenter. I see the parents who are so wired they can barely sit down to watch the game.

J hates the Little League World Series. He thinks ESPN is exploiting the kids and that it is mean to put it on TV. I would think that if you took a poll of the kids playing that you would see about 90% of them happy that it is on TV but I could be wrong. Maybe it is wrong to put kid's games on cable. But how else is Grandma going to watch?

I just cannot help be happy for everyone. Even if you lose you are still on one of the sixteen best teams in the world. What the hell is wrong with that?

Perhaps Old McDonald Is Not a He?

We went to the neighborhood block party for about fifteen minutes. Enough for me to get SEVEN quarter-sized mosquito bites/horrifying WELTS OF DEATH and to hear the neighbor's three year old sing "Old McDonald has a PUSSY" into the microphone.

And they didn't even have good seven layer dip.

E-I-E-I-O indeed.

Target Is A Goddamn Laxative

I was strolling around Target today when that beautiful red store had it's normal diuretic effect on me. I ditched my cart and sprinted to the bathroom with all the dignity that a grown woman with a clenched ass can muster. I saw on the pot and had a lovely time when something I have feared most of my adult life happened.

There was no toilet paper.

This sounds like less of a problem then it really was. I could no rely on the kindness of strangers because there was no one in the bathroom. There wasn't anything I could fashion into white trash TP. So I did something a little sad--I pulled up my pants, carefully letting them bag out a bit as to not get shit on them, flushed the toilet and shuffled my way into the next stall. Unfortunately, just as I was getting into the stall a woman walked into the bathroom.

I am sure she was less than delighted to see a disheveled woman with her pants unbuttoned walking around in the bathroom. I was, however, not so happy to see her.

I did a very adult thing, rushed into the stall, cleaned myself up and waited a long time to make sure she left. Not the bathroom. The store.

No point in taking any chances.

So now I have lived to tell the tale of one of my personal humiliation fears. If I ever vomit on a bus driver I am never coming out of my house though.

Not a Baby Hater

Today Monica and I got into a rather heated debate about No Kids events. Since she has a baby and I do not this is one of the few topics where we are not in 100% agreement.

I do understand her side. Even though she used my most hated phrase in the world, “You don’t know, you don’t have kids,” (she apologized because she knows I hate that, but dude that phrase is ridiculous—I do not have kids but I have been to enough parties, dinners and weddings where they attended when it was just fucking stupid to have an opinion) I see her point. She works full time, her husband travels, there are only so many hours a day that she spends with her family and she wants to stretch those as much as she can.

I do not blame her. I would too! Which is why, when the invitation says No Kids she should stay home. Not stay home pissed off, but be glad that the host was kind enough to warn her in advance that Baby E probably would not have a good time. For the record, Miss Monica would never ever take E some place where she was asked not to, or anywhere else it is not appropriate. She just resents the hell out of people who don’t want kids around.

This is the part I cannot understand because I do not have kids. Because she takes the No Kids thing very personally whereas I see it as the host thinking ahead and seeing that the event is not child-friendly and is warning her guests ahead of time. I know very few people who would not welcome a child in their home or at a family get together. I know many who didn’t want toddlers at their wedding.

What I resent is this idea that the entire world must be child friendly. I believe that there are and should be places that are for adults. And places that become appropriate as the child ages (this varies wildly from child to child—some kids are excellent in restaurants from birth and some should still not be allowed at sixteen). People who bring small children (or any babies) to movies that are not Nemo or something similar just piss me off. If you took your four year old to Revenge of the Sith than you deserve to be awakened every night for a week with that child having nightmares. The parents of the six year old we saw during the Punisher who cried the entire movie should have had to refund every person in the theatre’s admission. Those are not children’s movies. And I should not have to listen to an understandably freaked-out little boy’s screams of terror through the entire fucking movie.

Most public places are great for kids. If you are at Olive Garden at six on a Thursday night and your kid cries, anyone who glares at you deserves to get a spitter in their spaghetti. If you bring a toddler who is going to run around and scream to a four star restaurant on a Saturday night you deserve to get your car keyed.

I suspect Monica and I are closer on this issue than you might think. I like babies, my husband likes babies and even though we know very few people with them we have always welcomed them into our home. We just think it is weird that our neighbors asked if they could bring their kids to my husband’s Kegger Birthday a couple of years ago.

Besides, anyone who
wouldn't want to hang out with this little one is
just no friend of mine.

Yes, I Am A Hair Appliance Whore, WHY?

I told J that I couldn't live like this. I feel frazzled. Nothing is straight. I am going to need medication if we can't sort it out soon. I have to order a flat iron STAT.

I tell him that I will use my birthday morning, that this is the Master of the Universe's way of telling me that I should not buy an IPOD. But I cannot have this poofy not even straight hair.

He says honey no, don't use your birthday money. This is a need.

Anyone who wonders why he is the pick of the litter just re-read that. A fancy pants flat iron is a NEED.

Just when I think I couldn't love him more.

Let Me Run Off For My Reading Glasses

I should never have looked at the Jude Law nude photos. I always thought he was so dreamy. A real fucking asshole but DREAMY.

But man. Dick is soooooo tiny.

No wonder Sienna Miller is like "I got humiliated for that?"

Yes, it is true that size isn't everything. But it's not nothing either. And in my experience guys that gorgeous are lazy as all get out. Guys with big dicks are lazy too but well hell. They can be.

And with that half my readers clicked away because I am trash.

I Need A Hat Collection

Did you hear a loud wail at approximately 5:25 am Pacific Standard Time this morning? Did it make your ears bleed? Because what you heard was the wailing of the damned. The wailing of a big haired girl doomed to life without her flat iron.

It tumbled out of my hands in slow motion this morning. And hit the ground with a sickening thwack. It was the sound of a dead bird hitting your windshield, an eggshell on a freshly mopped floor, a baby's head smacking into the side of her crib.

This is my beloved Chi. The plate has split loose on one side, something I am fairly certain is not covered by the warranty. I have big horrible wavy hair which I am attempting to grow to shoulder length. If I cannot straighten my hair I will be cutting it off--possibly with a safety razor at 5 in the morning while in tears of frustration after trying to get it to look . . .HUMAN.

The heating element still works. Which is good. But the plate clap clap claps and it is hard to work with. MY GOD WHAT AM I GOING TO DO.

Besides drink lots and lots of whine and think about calling into work with bad hair that is.

Happy Birthday To The Socially Inept

So today is my birthday.

Do you hear angels singing?

WELL THEY ARE. Because I am one year older and y'all are still stuck with me.

My adorable husband got up early and made me cinnamon raisin toast and then he sent me flowers at work. Now I happen to know that he got up and made me toast because he had too much to drink the night before and wasn't sleeping well and hell he was up making himself some sandwiches anyway. And I know he sent me flowers because he forgot to buy me a card and he isn't buying me a gift because HI we just bought a house.

But y'all, it totally fucking counts. As breakfast and FLOWERS! I have low standards so he is a fucking PRINCE.

My new co-workers forgot my birthday. Which is fine, actually better because I am socially awkward and when people say, "Are you doing something special?" I am totally honest and say, "Nope, just eating KFC and watching Sportscenter!" And people look at me with pity in their eyes. Even though this is totally fine and J and I will go have a dinner this weekend and then my mom will make me something fancy--and buy me a cake!

The bad part is that my co-workers forgot my birthday (we have a list, they circulate a card--really not a big deal at all) but then some one came in my cube and saw my flowers and hauled ass back to her cube whispering loud enough to alert the authorities, "OH MY GOD WE FORGOT AB'S BIRTHDAY!" Dude, I CAN HEAR YOU. So instead of doing what normal people would do, just slip the fucking card under some papers while I was in the bathroom so you could pretend that it was there all along, they had like a convention over there. All the while I have the little invite in my email for everyone to celebrate all nine thousand summer birthdays this Friday with cake. Who needs a card when you have cake?

Besides, I mentioned I am socially awkward. What the hell do you do with that sort of card? I mean in my old department we would all go around and do the chick squeal, "Oh you guys are SO SWEET!!!" But man, in this place do you just say nothing? Thanks. UH . . .

I don't know either.

Signs that I have the only mother-in-law in the world that is nice and not plotting her daughter-in-law's death:

1. She never criticizes me
2. She tells J that she cannot believe I haven't divorced him
3. She sends me more money than J for my birthday, and he is her older child

So I have a quite a little birthday money haul with everyone sending me a couple of bucks. And I feel selfish. So.

New handbag? Shoes? An IPOD?

Way more fun mentally spending that money than actually buying anything.

Not Well Enough

Like Ms. Chanandaler I took a health survey at work today (actually I told her to, sorry about that man). Unlike her, I was not inspired because I want to be healthy. I was inspired by the discounted premiums that we were promised if we took said survey.

And unlike her I was pissed by the results.

I was put into the 45 risk group. Because I have one parent with high blood pressure and one with high cholesterol and my BMI is .5 higher than "normal." Nevermind that my blood pressure I LOW (which is a risk factor for other things but whatever) and my cholesterol is freaking low. And even my doctor says BMI is bullshit. He told me that BMI holds people to a weight standard that is not healthy or obtainable for a lot of people and that my weight is fine. That I am fine.

So why does this survey bother me?

Well it is hard to say. Because I have enough health problems without some screen telling me I should lose fives pounds for no real reason. Because the survey didn't ask questions that might ferret out the real shit that is wrong with me. Because I am a normal girl who has issues with her body.

Am I fat?

I don't actually know. My mother spent my entire childhood obsessed with her weight. She is an excellent dieter and has lost large amounts of weight. And it takes her decades to gain it back. But we are German and we have asses and thighs and hips. And we eat starch. A lot of starch. With salt and gravy and more salt.

When I was in high school I got very ill my senior year. I dropped quite a bit of weight for me. It took me into the range that I had always wanted to be in. Funny thing was I still had an ass, I still had thighs, I just had sunken in eyes and grey skin to go with them.

I am a little obsessive about things and it would be so very easy for my weight to be one of them. I don't know how much I weigh. So I guess the BMI thing I filled out today could be total bullshit--it could be higher or lower I really do not know. When I get my physical I ask them not to tell me the number. I ask if I am up or down and if I am in normal range. For the last couple of years I have been down and in the normal range so I think that is fine.

But I am not thin. I have never really been thin. I can't imagine a time when I will ever be thin. And I work in fashion. With girls who have never seen this side of a size eight. Who would rather die than be the size I am.

It is hard not to wonder. It is not like my husband is going to turn to me and call me a fat ass. The man is not stupid. Besides, he likes a little junk in the trunk so it is going to have to come from somewhere else.

It is sad I have no perspective. I feel like a normal person, some one who looks good. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I am thinner than I imagine. More often I look in the mirror and am stunned that I am so large. Sick in the head I guess.

That is the danger with a BMI index. A one size fits all set of standards--especially a set that doctors say ask for very low body weights--just doesn't work for me. I can't really imagine they work for anyone.

Like Chanandaler I want to be healthy. Not for a baby, since I do not have one, not for my husband (though there is that). But for me. I think about our friend all the time, how she died for no reason. How she died for a problem she didn't even know she had.

Of course taking care of herself wouldn't have saved her. She was healthy. She just had a time bomb ticking in her chest that no one knew about it. But I want to be healthy. And for me, healthy means not listening to that health survey. Not taking their advice and start obsessing about food and exercise and freaking out about it. I am sure there are people who can do those things in moderation and live fuller lives for it.

I am just not well enough to do that.

Don't Pull That Trigger

Last night I went from stressed out obsessive wacko to hysterical pain-ridden maniac within a couple of hours.

I got a migraine. The kind of migraine that forces me to consider what I would do if the pain never stopped. The kind of migraine that made my whole body ache and my rib-cage make a popping sound when I tried to take a deep breath. I was a sobbing, weeping, buck-naked heap on the floor begging my husband to help me, kill me, either one would do. I took enough Tylenol PM's to kill a buffalo and they did not touch this headache, I just had vaguely stoner thoughts about how Darla looks like a muppet and maybe Jim Henson is controlling her from the grave.

Today I realize she just needs a fucking haircut.

I feel a bit hungover today. Which blows because it is not like I got to shots and dance on a bar and make out with strange boys in the bathroom. I mean I watched the History Channel, and then ended up in the fetal position begging for mercy.

The only thing moving me forward is that we only have two weeks to go. In two weeks this house thing will definitely have happened or it is just not going to fucking happen. Well that isn't the only thing. The other thing is that I have no choice. I cannot just sit on the floor and stare at the wall for the next fourteen days. I am fairly certain I would get fired for that--I at least have to go to the office and stare at the computer.

I ate a quart of strawberries today. I am going to be so pissed if all of the sudden strawberries are a migraine trigger food.

The Hamster In My Head Needs a Vacation

My brain just is not working right now. I just feel tired and foggy and hot and just sort of numb. I am not sure if it is stress or being a big baby or just I really am a dumb ass but my brain just feels like a pile of mashed potatoes.

We are closing on our house in two weeks. TWO WEEKS. I do not know what to do about that. Actually, there is a long list of things to do about that and I have not a single one of them. I keep spinning things around and around in my head. What furniture do I just want to get rid of? Am I just going to hate any blinds I get, even the fancy plantations ones (yes, but I am getting them anyway since whoever put the windows in the new house was obviously drunk and they are about eighty-seven thousand different sizes)? How can I convince J that he really wants the mission bed that I found instead of the sleigh bed that we saw a few weeks ago? Do I have to commit to doing something naked or can I just pitch a fit? Would pitching a fit naked work?

Our neighbors that sold their house a few weeks before us had the sale fall through. After the inspection I was starting to feel better, now I am braced for some new and even more horrible thing to happen. Like I will leave my flat iron on and burn the whole damn place down. Things are just going too well I guess.

My brain just keeps turning and turning. I try to occupy my time. I shop online for vacuum cleaners. I am obsessed with vacuum cleaners. Overstock.com has Dysons for unbelievable deals. Does anyone else covet a Dyson? Even though my daddy told me that all of his carpet manufacturers refuse to honor warranties if you use a Dyson I still kind of want one. Why is it that I feel much more comfortable telling the internet about my zits and menstrual problems than admitting my wifey lust for vacuum cleaners?

I am scouring the internet looking for vintage light fixtures. I want this but am completely unwilling to spend that much money on light fixtures. I have spent much too much time looking for braided rugs that look like the ones my grandmother has but you know, not too much like the ones she has.

I am obsessing about details. I threw up this afternoon and I cannot decide if I am actually sick or if my stomach was just rebelling at the idea of looking at even ONE MORE Craftsman fireplace screen.

My house is sitting across town, empty, waiting for me. The tub needs me to soak in it. The breakfast nook is just begging for me to sit and stare out it's window. The Brazilian Cherry floors just are made to be rolled naked on, licking them with excitement. Oh please, like you wouldn't do it. The way people react to those floors I believe that there is a whole fetish involving hardwoods. Brazilian Cherry porn is out there folks, I haven't looked but I believe it is there.

Well, when I can't sleep later I guess I can look then. Any other requests?

Not that I need anything else to obsess over. I mean how can I sleep when this light fixture is still burning somewhere?

No Place Like Home (I Mean Look At My CLOSET)

I am going to miss this house y'all. J and I bought this place, probably before we could afford it. But we were twenty-two and damn it we wanted a house. And it is a great house. I feel like we came in as kids and are leaving it, as . . . slightly older kids.

Things that I will miss about this house:

1. My closet, which is larger than my first apartment. The closet which made it possible for me to go three and a half years without throwing out anything.

2. The grocery store, which I love (and I believe I have told y'all how much I hate grocery shopping), with its excellent produce section and cheap cheap everything else.

3. Our neighbors. Make that a few of our neighbors. I love the people who live behind us (when they are not having noisy sex with the windows open) and the people across the street. And I know that we are unlikely to have such a trustworthy neighborhood again. We are going to have to start locking the doors and not letting the neighbor kids have the run of the place. Everywhere is Hell's Kitchen compared to here.

4. Our garage. There isn't one at the new place. I have a lifetime of scraping my windows when it frosts ahead of me.

5. Three bathrooms. More bathrooms than people is a serious luxury. It is conspicuous consumption territory that.

6. Carpets that are cheap and thrashed. The new place has such nice flooring. I weep when I think of what my husband and animals are going to do to it. But we have carpet that is disgusting and vinyl that didn't look that great brand new--no pressure.

7. Driving home with the mountains in view.

8. Telling people to "keep going past the buffalo herd" when I give directions.

The new place has big shoes to fill (or foundations? whatever). But I am pretty sure it can handle it.

Maybe Next Year

My birthday is next week. I am going to turn twenty-seven which is . . .odd.

Odd because I always think of my sister as being twenty-seven which means I am twenty-three and if I am twenty-seven then are we twins? Obviously math is hard. I am not crazy about turning twenty-seven. Not because I think it is old, because I don't and it isn't. But because my birthday is six months to the day from when Gladys died. That I am turning a year older and she never will again just feels wrong. There is just a lot of emotion tied up in that day and none of it has to do with my birthday.

My friend isn't coming back. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not ever. I cannot talk to her, I cannot ask her advice, I cannot make her come back. The past six months have brought new jobs, new houses, good news and bad news. My life is moving forward and hers is not. I can accept this, I have accepted it.

But I think I can be forgiven for wanting to skip the anniversary of her death. Even if that means that my birthday gets lost in the process.

Phew, Still Not Ripped

Have walked down a hallway and had people behind you and become convinced that your pants are split in the back?

And practically SPRINT to the bathroom to check?

Uh, twice in a day.

Me either.

The Sausage Likes Corndogs

I am not too proud to admit that one of the big reasons I am eagerly anticipating our move (besides the highly lickable floors) are these steps right here.

As much as J and I try to pretend that it isn't happening and isn't true our old girl is getting . .well. . .old. And dachshunds are not renowned for their amazing durability. Stairs are the sworn enemy of Darla (well stairs, squirrels and phantom burglars) and our current house has a staircase she runs up and down a dozen times a day.

We have been fortunate, she has never had a major injury to her back. But I think that is more luck than stunning conditioning on her part. There are times when I think she is so tough and might be hurt and there are times I think she is a big drama queen and is faking pain for attention. That is the hard things about dogs, it is very difficult to know if they are pulling a Ferris Bueller on you so they can have a day of being carried around and fed pieces of corndogs. I love my little sausage and she needs to be with me, taking up the entire goddamn bed for years and years to come.

Because a new house isn't a home without this face.

Vodka Martini Please

I have not been sleeping well.

Last night I had an intense and rather confusing dream that I was commuting to work on the train when a man jumped up and shot me in the rib (yes, specifically the rib). It wasn't bleeding or painful and I could just look down and see the bullet lodged in the bone. I went to the hospital and was talking to the nurse, for whatever reason I didn't want to be admitted and so she decided she could removed it herself using pliers. Which the bullet came loose it started bleeding and it hurt so badly I couldn't move. And I woke up with the spot on my rib killing me.

When I tell J this dream he tells me that my subconscious is asking me to make room in my heart for Jesus, the way the God made me from Adam's rib.

I had a second dream where I mysteriously had twin two year old boys (terrifying enough) who had locked themselves in the bathroom. They couldn't unlock the door and I couldn't get the drill to work properly so I could get the door off the hinges. And they were crying and I was crying and I woke up just so freaked out by the whole thing.

It was actually way more upsetting than the first dream.

Possibly because I had twin two year old boys, being shot would be much easier.

J told me that my subconscious was upset because I had locked Jesus out of my heart and my inner child was just crying and begging to be let out.

I hate fucking J.

I suppose this means I am going to have to stop telling him he is superior to me in every way in order to get some goddamn sympathy.

Maybe tonight I will dream about booze and cigarettes. I totally deserve them after last night.

I Wonder If Brazilian Cherry Actually Tastes Like Cherries

We took my parents to see the new house today. Since I know my mother and all of her quirks I had carefully prepared her for the house. I told her it was tiny, not because it is so very tiny, but because it is not large and my mother thinks any house smaller than hers (which is 3500 square feet) is TINY. The house is a hair larger than the one we have now but is organized differently. I made it sound like a shoe box. A shoe box with lovely floors.

My mother reacted perfectly. I heard her tell my dad (I was photographing the bathroom), " . . . she said it was small and it is, but it is so nice. So much nicer than I imagined, I can see why it feels like home to her. . ."

I admit that I am relieved that she liked it. It shouldn't matter but I want her to like it. I would actually prefer that she learn to love it and maybe she will someday.

The best part was that in my campaign to lower her expectations I lowered my own. I remembered the rooms as being smaller and darker than they really were. I could clearly picture every flaw in the house but forgot the high ceilings and bright natural light.

And it was all I could do not to get on the hands and knees licking those gorgeous floors.

God I hope I never get a Google hit for "woman licking floors." I am sure that is a fetish but I do not want to know.

Thank You For Making Me Spray Coke in My Cube and Making My New Neighbor Think I Am a Crackhead Psycho

My sister is just under four years older than me. And like most little sisters I had a severe case of heroine worship (I totally typed that heroin whoreship first--am brilliant!). I wanted to be just like her and play with her toys and eat the things that she ate (except broccoli because what self respecting child eats broccoli?) and generally follow her around irritating the fuck out of her. There is a proud tradition amongst little sisters of being just a fucking nuisance without even meaning to and let me assure you I did not let my fellow brats down.

We had a brief honeymoon friendship period in our teens. It was cut short by her going off to college and never coming back. Nothing wrong with growing up of course, it just sort of cramps the whole hanging out routine. I lost the ideals of her and got a friend in return.

And I got very used to the distance between us. She lives a whole country away and after a while she became almost a cartoon of herself to me--it is hard to know a whole person through a couple of phone calls and a visit every three or four years. So I didn't have my friend and I didn't have my heroine and I had something called a sister, something I didn't really know what to do with.

But every once in a while she does something that reminds me why she is incredibly awesome and I am lucky to have her. My whole family is evil and dry and horrible (when I say evil I mean this in the best possible sense--my lovely sister is a Christian and I am fairly certain she spends most of the winter feeding the homeless and nursing orphaned kittens to health) but she can just catch you off guard with great stories or excellent advice.

Long ago I wrote a bitchy little love note to my skin, which was peppered with zits that really looked more like lesions and were swollen and pussy enough to make me look diseased. And she sent me an email advising Benadryl cream. Let me tell you, that shit WORKS. The lesson here is that beauty tips from my sister are often useless as the bitch got the good legs in the family and does not have my scary bushy hair. She has nice skin and never bitches about the hair on her toes so I can only assume that she doesn't have any. But apparently the hormonally evil skin gene hits her too and instead of bitching to the internet she actually found help. In a tube!

I would like to point out that I was brilliant enough to bitch to the internet and so she was compelled to help me. I am a brilliant whiner--not the same as brilliant problem solver but you have to take what you can get in life.

But even better is the lovely (if emotionally scarring email she sent me this week). She had taken her many cats to the vet where they racked up an impressive bill. And our very adorable grandfather (who believes that we all support ourselves on allowances of twenty-five cents a week I think) sent her a check (she didn't ask him for the check but my grandparents cannot be stopped and quite possibly will get into a bidding war over who can pay for her vet bill as Grandma and Grandpa keep separate checking accounts). The best part of this is the letter that he sent with it describing how he believes he had a stroke (this is not surprising, not happy and not the best part) because of the VIAGRA he was taking. My mother swears that he is talking about Vioxx but I fear she is just trying to help shield us from the truth. The thing is that my sister come from overly-sexed stock. I have the unfortunate knowledge that my parents still have sex much more often than I want to know about (which is to say any--as far as I am concerned they had sex twice, one to conceive my sister and once for me) and judging by the knocking on their bedroom wall when I have visited so do my grandparents. In fact, I was once startled awake by a loud squeak of their bed, a loud sigh and a groan coming from their room. I choose to believe that one of them banged their head on the wall, groaned with pain and then sighed as they passed out into oblivion.

That my sister would send me an email at my place of employment to share this lovely letter with me proves that she is awesomely evil.

I cannot tell you how grateful I am for this.

Now! With! Claws!

Am watching a special on the History Channel on circus freaks and sideshows and I am completely alarmed by how many of these performers look like my husband's relatives. Perhaps having a baby isn't a great idea.

Unless we were able to have a Lobster Boy! Think of the shadow puppets that a Lobster Boy could do! Providing of course he doesn't follow tradition and shoot his future daughter's boyfriend.

It is simply unacceptable to me to spawn a murderer, even if he has CLAWS.

Look! I Found A Quarter!

The house sold!

We close in three and a half weeks!

We are living off of change from our couch cushions until then!

Excuse me while I go hyperventilate and hallucinate waiting for something to go wrong.

Superior

J takes pride in his ability to be irritating. I suppose that is not ill-placed confidence since he has to be one of the most annoying men to have ever walked the earth. He has the potent combination of tenacity and the inability to pick up non-verbal cues. He will push and push and not let something go even after your face has turned purple with rage and started spinning off your neck.

I do try to take my mother’s advice, “just ignore him, it will go away.” That is such a waste of time because that advice is total bullshit (however, her other sage advise, “he is only bothering you because he likes you is 100% true—it is the guys that are nice to you that you have to watch out for, they will be attentive and put up with your stupid teenage melodrama and then you find out he has been fucking his best friend at wild homosexual orgies—Not That This Ever Happened and certainly there is no bitterness that he is still the Hottest Man to Date Your Sorry Ass).

Ignoring J does not work. It just encourages him. He knows that he can outlast me. While we are both stubborn it is much easier to be stubborn about maintaining your annoying ways than to be stubborn in ignoring a grown man poking you in the stomach.

Tonight he was singing his most familiar routing. Telling me that I should get “in the kitchen and make him some pie” and “remember my place.” But tonight, for the first and probably the last time, I got the best of him.

My response? A humble, “Of course you are right, you are superior to me in every way.”

“AB, just stop talking.”

“Honey, how I wish I had your self control and could keep my mouth shut, but you are just so superior to me that I cannot possibly live up to your expectations.”

“Why are you so frustrating?”

“My love, I am sure with your superior intellect you will be able to solve this puzzle.”

Oh, how the mighty make a big fucking thump when they fall.

He was so annoyed with me he stopped talking to me for a moment, his nostrils flared and I could see him mentally counting inside his head.

It will never happen again, but the sweetness will live on.

Of course he has a black belt in being a tool, so I expect to start a whole new losing streak first thing tomorrow. He is so very superior after all.

Better Late Than Never

Since people Just! Keep! Coming! through the house (offers, but nothing great yet) we keep having to leave. So instead of eating a Frosty in bed while watching the History Channel after my shower tonight we ended up over at the neighbors, spying on the people walking through our house.

I will miss our neighbors. They are a really nice couple, with a nice dog and a positively EDIBLE baby.

I covet their baby. He is rather tall for a four month old baby, has big blue eyes and hardly ever cries. J played with him and GOD I am becoming one of those women because it just broke my heart. He should be a dad. Me, I probably would be a shit mom but J would be a kick ass dad. But things are what they are.

We watched yet another couple go through our house--did they like it? Did they notice the crumbs on the counter from my toast this morning? And spent another day in a holding pattern.

I did get to eat my Frosty in bed watching the History Channel, it just was two hours later than I wanted.