Why I am No Fun At Parties

I am not good at parties.

They require talking to strange people and eating politely and not drinking too much and SMILING and MY GOD I do none of those things well.

I am an introvert.
I am supposed to be ashamed of that. I am a little, I guess, except that I mean introverts are people too y'all.

I wasn't always this way. Actually I was, I just did, and still do sometimes, have times when I don't feel introverted. This happens daily, I feel comfortable and happy and just chat away with any old person. So really I am not an introvert I am just difficult because I only hate talking to people when I have to.

This is not making me look as good and normal and sympathetic as I might have hoped.

J and I went to a party on Saturday. Full of big scary grown ups and millions of small children. We were the youngest couple there and the only ones without kids and it seemed most of the women stayed home with their kids so we had nothing to talk about and oh my GOD I HATE TALKING TO GROUPS OF WOMEN ANYWAY. So yeah.

They were all so nice. Not one bratty comment about when were we going to have a kid or anything.

But yeah, terrifying. And also not fun. Remember when parties were fun? When you drank too many margaritas and made out with that one guy who NOW you realized looked like a rat and was like balding at 27 but damn he was a dreamy photographer then and his hairline made him seem sensitive.

At any rate adult parties are just not that rocking a time which explains why we do not have them anymore.

And then I got cornered.

This has happened before but I honestly thought this woman was going to attack me, rip the flesh off of me and then pick her teeth with my bones.

I work for a fairly well-known fashion oriented company. I do not design, sell, market or have anything to do with whatsoever apparel for teenaged girls. So PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF WHATEVER DEITY YOU WORSHIP do not corner me so you can berate me about how stores only sell "slutware" especially when the twelve year old girl in question is attending a BBQ type party on a seventy-five degree day in a turtle neck on some high-waisted pleated pants that gave her mom ass. I do not know how you made that child look older and dowdier than my fifty-nine year old mother but you managed it. So your goal of making her as modest and chaste looking as possible is successful! Please don't screech in my ear about how the platform shoes they sell for girls is going to be the downfall of civilization as we know it due to the deterioration of the skeletal system. Please notice that I am wearing high heeled shoes. And low rise jeans. You have just made it clear that you think I dress like a whore and am trying to corrupt your daughter's posture and her morals!

I think you now understand why I no longer leave my house.

Lesson learned. Or rather affirmed.

Saturday

I didn't take this picture today.

It is from last weekend at the beach near my parents' house.

But today was a crazy busy day with lots of cleaning and a party (and DAYAM another one tomorrow do people not KNOW we do not go anywhere?).

Anyway, I am spent so this photo is it.

I Swear We Are Not Stealing Identities Here

Earlier this week we received a little mystery in the mail.

J and I have been invited to a wedding. One where we know neither the bride nor the groom.

We might as well call Sherlock Holmes because honestly I don't think we even know a soul who has ever lived in the town that these two are from. Their names are distinctive and we don't anyone with them. The save the date magnet came addressed to Mr. and Mrs. J Lastname, which really isn't a very uncommon name so it is probably a case of mistaken identity.

That doesn't stop me for coming up with stories for both of them. How the groom is J's long lost pre-school classmate that he rescued from the top of the jungle gym and now J is to give a rousing toast! How I know the bride from sixth grade camp! We both kissed the same boy and then got into a cat fight and ripped each other's hair out! They are a couple we met in the line at Home Depot! Who have mysteriously moved to Texas!

Worst thing is, no return address since it is just a save the date card so we can't even alert them to their mistake.

Not that it is a mistake, I am sure he is my fifth cousin on my father's side. In which case I suppose we will attend.

Semi-Shameful Crush

I have a strong crush on Jamie from Mythbusters.

I can't help it. The beret. The rather strong looking chest. His ability to blow shit up.

He makes me go all a quiver.

Porn! On the Discovery Channel.

Sobbing

I am not made of stone people, this made me cry and cry. I have been reading Cecily for a couple of years now and I can honestly say that I was praying for today.

If you read anything of her history and her struggle to get to today and you still do not cry? Then you must have had your tear ducts removed.

Letters From Some One With Issues

Dear Fucking Annoying Ass Girl On The Bus Today,
Bitch, just because you have a backpack on GOD KNOWS what else does not mean you get another seat on the damn bus during commuter hours. And rolling your eyes and flipping me attitude just makes DAMN SURE that I am sitting in that seat. Step off the entitlement train before I smack the living shit out of you.

Dear It Department of My Workplace That I Want To Continue To Work For So Don't Dooce Me,
Getting the fucking stick out of your ass and fix the problem. If you can't manage that then replace the goddamn machine. Do not belittle the very nice and easily intimidated man that is asking for your help. I am trying to be a professional here don't make me chuck his fucking machine out the window to get a resolution here.

Dear Cubs,
Please start winning and stop torturing me and my grandpa. I know this is too much to ask but I am still begging.

Dear Week,
Please fucking move it along, you are TOO LONG.

Dear Sinus Cavity,
Stop dumping shit down my throat. It hurts, it is making me crabby and still my voice is not sexy like Kathleen Turner's. I just want to breathe DAMN IT.

Dear Pile Of Laundry,
Could you just fucking do yourself please? Just sitting there all accusing is helping no one. Learn some self direction.

Something Stronger Than Lever 2000 Might Be In Order

Last night on the bus I was sitting behind this woman with a GIANT turquoise bow in hair. Now, I cannot for the life of me imagine why a grown woman of any age would own such a bow, not unless it was a gag gift from her "Prepare for your future on the polygamy compound shower," and had a matching calico skirt.

Sadly, she sorely misunderstood the intent behind a gag gift and was wearing the bow. Wearing it in public.

And then I saw it. A huge bug crawling around and around the fucking turquoise bow. It just kept circling around and around the ribbon trim. It was too large (I think) to be a louse but my head started to itch just looking at it.

And what could I do. Flick it off? That is what I would want some one to do for me, but you know people are funny about personal space and that would also involve me TOUCHING THE GROSS BUG AND EW. I mean I know it is for the Greater Good and all but I mean.

I could tell her. And I really did think about that, but maybe she would think that I was saying HI DIRTY LADY WHY DON'T YOU DE-LOUSE YOURSELF BEFORE GETTING ON THE FUCKING BUS YOU FILTHY NASTY THING? Because I wouldn't actually mean that. While her outfit looks like a reject from the Big Love costume trailer that is no reason to believe she is a big bug factory.

Then I noticed a giant, puss-filled GROWTH on the back of her ear and I blacked out.

I don't mean that I actually passed out at the sight of such a thing, I just mean that my mind had just been through TOO MUCH for the bus ride and decided to save me from the memories.

I wonder if they sell lye shower gel.

The Best Of Everything

My best friend is in the middle of a messy divorce. I still find it hard to believe that she and I are old enough that we could be married let alone be divorcing anyone. This wasn't even a crazy short marriage--they were together three years (which I realize is not forever, but I have a cousin that didn't even make it the first year so you know, relative).

Talking with her last night, I kept wondering why they got married to begin with. Which I wondered at their wedding. I can't help but think she must have thought it was bad idea at the time. Maybe she just got to the very expensive wedding and thought she had to go through with it.

She and I met our first year in college. I have seen her make some really bad decisions (and HI, she was there when I drank a whole lot of Artillery Punch--recipe: every kind of liquor ever made--and then was getting into a trunk in search of fire wood even though they were burning a giant tree at this bonfire) and I think that is why we are friends. She is the kind of person that just doesn't make mistakes, that struggled to tell her parents her marriage was over a lot more than she struggled with deciding it was over. I'm her friend because I am not invested in her being perfect all the time. She is my friend, I like it better when she isn't so fucking perfect.

I don't know, this is one of those times that I am struggling to deal with adult problems. Things like death and divorce and illness. My friend doesn't deserve to be so unhappy. She deserves only the best of everything.

I hope that I can help her get it.

Senseless Destruction Of Lovely Craftsman Details

Last night we went to T's and watched Zethura.

It was actually pretty adorable but I think I was annoying the fuck out of the boys. Because that movie takes place in a GORGEOUS craftsman house and I was . . .well . . .a little AGHAST at the destruction of said loveliness. After twenty minutes of me fretting about the tile around the fireplace I think J and T were cheering the wreckage on. Ruthless bastards.

Then I get distracted by how much this kid looks like the kid from Big (why is there no picture there? I am sure we all remember what he looks like BUT STILL).

I can't imagine why they don't want to watch movies with me ALL THE TIME.

Want To See My Cabinets

Oh y'all. Sometimes I get in these moods. Housewifey moods. Periods of time where I research how to get mold out of shower curtains, obsess about getting a Roomba. Days like today, where faced with an empty afternoon (after scooting out of work early) I choose to bleach my bathtub and clean out my cupboards and linen cabinet (this may be how your house looks but sadly both of these were just JAMMED with shit earlier).

Man I love it when my house is like this. I was so happy that when J got home I made him admire everything. And my college self just DIED with HORROR. I mean, seriously I remember when I had better things to do than dust behind the couch but you know, I just feel so comfortable when it is like this.

Of course I did have a moment where I was an idiot and a bit of a fucking blond bimbo housewife CARTOON. I decided to vacuum--which was my first problem. And I figure out that J hadn't changed the bag like I thought and the thing was too full. I knew we didn't have more bags but I thought I would at least empty this out. WHY DIDN'T I DO THIS OUTSIDE?

Turns out, it was so full it burst. And damn. Dust and kitty litter and lint just EVERYWHERE. And I had to do the grossest thing and root around in there to get it all cleaned up. I will be sweeping up that crap pretty much forever.

But seriously y'all. LOOK AT MY CABINET ORGANIZERS.

Crown Seems More Defensible Than Cran

My family moved here when I was nine years old. Until then I never thought that anyone was different than people that I already knew. For the most part I thought everyone was middle class and white and wore baseball caps for inappropriate situations. I didn't know that there was such a thing as a midwestern accent.

Even though I totally fucking had one.

It took me a year to shake most of it. I gained a lisp but it was totally worth it to sound like everyone else.

As I have gotten older I realize that I didn't shake it 100%. It is true that I can say Washington and not WARSHington like my mother. And I know the store is Walgreen's not Walgrins. But I have issues with a sounds. Specifically a after r like if trash or crap or traffic.

And crayon.

I was reading Dooce's entry on the word crayon and was feeling very smug. Because I had battled my accent demons. And OBVIOUSLY the word is pronounced CRAY-ON. But when I was saying it to myself I realize that I do not pronounce it that way. At all. I say in CRAN as in rhymes with BRAN and OH MY GOD I AM ABUSING CAPITALS WHILE I TALK LIKE MY MOTHER.

I can't stop. I really can't. I said it over and over in my car, trying to get it right. J coached me and I can say it real slow-like. CRAY-on. But when I try to say it fast then I I go right back into CRAN.

I should have skipped college and saved my daddy a whole lot of money y'all.

Bedtime

Today was a bad day.

Nothing happened really. But I woke up to Buster trying to scratch his way back onto the bed and a massive fucking migraine.

The day progressed with flashy eyes. And inflamed neck. Now with more VOMITING.

Not so much with the happiness.

I think I am going to go to bed now.

It is a good thing they are taking such good care of me.

I Got Married So I Wouldn't Have To Sleep With Strangers Damn It

J has had a beard or a goatee the entire time I have known him. I think he grew it when he was tossed out of the Navy as sort of a "fuck you I can do what I want to" since they couldn't control his appearance anymore. I made him shave it before we got married after I watched this Oprah where this woman had been married for seventeen years and had never seen her husband's bare face.

I know this isn't a good reason.

He looked freaky. Not bad, because of course my husband is handsome and perfect and delightful in every way, but just strange and not him. He has a weak chin, but with the cleft in the chin which I adore, but the chin is just sort of wussy other than that.

He shaved it off on Friday. And it freaked me out all night. We were at the movies and it was like I was on a date with a stranger. I kept waking up during the night and it was like I was sleeping with a stranger.

Thank GOD he only does this every three years (the beard gets itchy or something I am only sort of listening to the reasoning) or I might have to hurt him.

I Am Kidding About The Bleeding Part, GODDAMN Y'all Are Prudes

What a difference 24 hours, a ten o'clock run to Wendy's, freaking the fuck out, doggie kisses and a brand new EXTREMELY goddamn expensive blow dryer make.

Feeling a little better. Still screwed. But the kind of screwed where you know your ass will stop bleeding sometime and maybe next time you won't get so drunk you know?

Perhaps that metaphor doesn't actually work.

That new blow dryer sure makes my hair soft and shiny though. I considered taking it back but J threw out my old one and now it has been in a can with a rotting lemon and raccoon manure so I guess the really expensive fucker is staying.

Can y'all tell I just love my camera? I mean that picture has nothing to do with anything at all.

Back

My day really sucked today. I am a little heartbroken. And it is not going to get better.

I think I just need to go back.

Now With More Buster

I feel a little manic posting so quickly again, but honestly this expression says exactly how I feel.

Overwhelmed*.

Tired.

Not really happy or sad.

Just waiting for something to happen.

*Somewhere Linda is cackling as that word is wont to make her.

Too Much

So much shit is just spinning in my head right now. I suppose everyone goes through times like these. When they can't figure out what they want or what they should do. Mine has just been going on for several years now. Which is frankly, exhausting.

Work is either going to get better soon or I am going to start weeping with frustration. We shall know about that here pretty soon.

The house and everything with it just feels like a weight on my back and it is dragging me down.

And apparently my father got me in trouble with my sister. I SWEAR I didn't know that you hadn't talked to them about it. Seriously. And I told them that nothing was definite. Does anyone listen to me? NO THEY DON'T. SERIOUSLY I AM SORRY.

It is a little much is what I am saying.

Why Sometimes All Of Seattle Needs to Shut It

I am not a native of the Seattle area.

My family moved here in 1989, which really should be long enough ago that I could say that I am from here. I have lived here longer than anywhere else.

Here is how I know that I am not a native yet.

I actually like Seattle.

People who are from here, who have never really lived in another area, are pretty fucking wretched about it. As some one from a flat land that is either dry and brown or covered in fucking snow I marvel at this place I live in now. We have mountains and grass that is green year round. People here do not have air conditioners and own super warm coats only for skiing. They drive by some of the most gorgeous scenery in the world and don't even notice it.

And they just kill me about the weather. It was about seventy here today. Clear skies. And I heard NOTHING but bitching about it every fucking where I went. Most were complaining because it wasn't hot (even though it is only May here people) but many were complaining that it was too hot or too humid.

These people do not know hot or humid or cold for that matter. I know that I will whine at some point about being too hot this summer but even as I do it I will know that I am full of shit. But in Seattle we are not pleased unless it is between 65 and 80 degrees. And believe me the entire town has a fucking meltdown at 81 degrees buying air conditioners and becoming convinced that they will die of heat exhaustion**.

My idea is that everyone born here should be forced to relocate for at least three years. Somewhere outside of California. Somewhere that will force them to learn about windchill and the heat index. Where they will have to buy a snowblower and an air conditioner.

At the end of three years they can come back and maybe then they will stop bitching about having to mow their lawns in January.

I just do not understand bitching about this.

**True story, my mother used to have a rule that my sister and I could not wear shorts until it was over eighty degrees. Which meant we could wear shorts exactly ONE DAY the first summer we lived here. On that day the news was reporting that parents should keep children inside because they could die (apparently BURSTING INTO FLAMES) from the heat.

What I Did On My Spring Vacation

We're home now. Which I actually feel good about. Four days of unscheduled time was just what I needed.

I got a lot out of the four days. Rest. Some kick ass pictures. Sunburned shoulders. But in the end here is what I got:

1. A weekend away is the cure for a lot of shit.

2. If you don't drink anymore then four cocktails plus a huge and beery serving of bangers and mash (even served by a rather hot Irish waitress) plus a case of Crohn's means that you probably will make friends with the hotel bathroom.

4. Even if I tan ahead of time, my pale skin will be a beacon for old ladies in the outfield bleachers who will offer sunscreen STAT. Which thank GOD because seriously I still burned.

5. I need to go more places with hot tubs.

6. Hopefully those places will be minus the creepy man and his ODD son who were leering at me FREAK.

7. If I leave tampons in the garbage then the dogs will manage to get them out so the dogsitter has to clean them up (sorry Travis).

8. I love my new camera.

9. It is possible for me to pack EXACTLY the right amount of stuff (first time EVER that I wore everything that I took but didn't think if only I had taken X. . .).

10. Yankee fans are freaking everywhere and if you find a sportsbar to watch the game in there will always be some one obnoxious for J to whine about their vulpine with.

11. Trips away are damn near perfect if you manage to take them with a man who will pose with a Jewish sheep (yes, that actually is J).

God the Cliche Of I Left My Heart . . . Is Just True

We have to go home tomorrow.

This weekend was amazing. We needed it. Sunshine and baseball, too much booze, an art museum, carnival junk food and sea lions.

And then tonight we saw a girl fight at McDonald's. I think it is possible the city is telling us to get the hell out.

I didn't sleep at all this weekend. I think I just went too long wound up too tight. Or it could be that I knew I was only a few sleeps from having to go home.

Gorgeous

So Barry didn't hit number 714 today. Other than that (and the fact that my Cubs just laid a giant log in the middle of the field) our day was just about perfect.

We burned ourselves to a crisp, mainly because it was supposed to be a cloudy day and turned out to be warm and sunny and fucking fabulous.

This lovely old couple was behind us at the game, the wife made me put on sunscreen after forty minutes because she was certain I was going to burst into FLAMES, chatted us about the best places to play golf and tried to sell our friend Chris some pre-season 49ers tickets.

The ballpark was just full of people playing hooky from work, people who pulled their kids out of school--I am sure in anticipation of Barry passing Babe Ruth. There is something really fabulous about guys still in their dress shirts at the ballpark. Something irresistible about babies out for their first ball game. Something amazing about families at the game on a Thursday afternoon.

But. Who can resist this?

Vacation All I Ever Wanted

It took us longer to get to the hotel last night than the flight to Oakland did (for reasons involving a few bucks and a voodoo doll I think we flew to Oakland instead of San Francisco). J and I wandered around SF for a while with our little pully cases, being greeted by overaged drunken frat boys screaming WHOO. Apparently there is some sort of conference where men who are too old for This Shit are meeting to get drunk and scream Whoo.

Normally this would piss me off and dude my two vodka martinis had long wore off (though it was my first time getting ON a plane drunk) but I was pretty merry last night.

V A C A T I O N

I know that it is only four days but dude did I need this. Of course J is sleeping, and went to sleep a couple of hours before me but I think I am just so happy to not be at work that I can't sleep that much.

And we are going to see my Cubbies! In less than three hours! WHEEEEE

Of course it does make me laugh that even in a hotel room--completely dogless--we both slept in these elaborate contortions that allow for easy dog sleeping in favorite places. We are pathetic.

Less Than 24 Hours Until I Blow This Joint

I should be packing.

And cleaning my house since Travis will be staying here while we are gone.

I haven't slept normally in a week, worrying about the shit I need to do and am in semi-panic mode. Of course I am not packing or cleaning I am instead blogging. And watching shit on my DVR and the Yankee/Red Sox game (which frankly rules).

Let's see if my head explodes.

Why Baseball Needs To Shut The Fuck Up Already And Please Just Hit The Goddamn Homerun Already So People Will Stop Wigging

I am so very TIRED of all the kvetching about Barry Bonds.

I am tired of the fretting about him breaking a record that is not a record. I am tired of the hand-wringing-think-of-the-CHILDREN of a not so nice guy doing something amazing.

This is a uniquely baseball problem. I think it is the nature of the game, one that treasures and honors it's history in such a way, to take itself too seriously. But the hero worship of the game and of it's stars has really gone too far.

A lot of this is about Babe Ruth. And I will be blunt, the dick sucking of Babe Ruth by America just needs to fucking stop. It is about nostalgia, it is about longing for a person and an era that never really existed. I have no doubt that Babe Ruth was an extrordinary player, the numbers do speak, but I do know that those numbers do not say everything. For all the howling about Barry Bonds' alleged drug use (and guess what, a BOOK is not a conviction this is still America we can wait for some proof which probably will come), I am not certain he gained a greater competitive advantage over Ruth. Ruth played an era where many of the best players, African Americans were excluded. He played in an era where fixing games was routine. He abused every substance known to man. I am willing to guess he gained a few homeruns out of the deal.

Which is fine by the way, I have no qualm with Babe Ruth. My issue is with sports writers and fans and every other idiot in the world that has sought to turn him into a saint. But he did things that in a media soaked atmosphere like today would have people clamoring for his removal from the game--and cheering Bonds for passing him.

I never saw Babe Ruth play a game. Chances are no one who will read this post has either. But we are supposed to believe forever and ever that Babe Ruth is the best player that has ever and will ever play. This is why people don't watch baseball. Because we remove the possibility of something special. When Jimmy Rollins was on his hit streak half of the media and baseball world were bitching that it shouldn't count because it was over two seasons (despite the fact that it was a separate record and HI WOULDN'T THAT BE HARDER). The baseball world will NEVER allow any modern player to be as good as the Hall of Famers--they refuse to think about it. Is it any wonder that many of the best athletes turn away from baseball? Basketball is always talking about the next Jordan, and maybe that is a lot of pressure to be on a young player but it is an assumption that there will be another Jordan. That there will be another great player. And another after him.

The shit with Barry is only partly about steroids. That part could be reconciled. But it really is about a hero worship that is fucking up baseball. I always tell my husband you can tell how good some one's argument is because if they have to bring Hitler into it than it really sucks (this stemmed from a whole debate in Jew class about Hell and how there must be one because otherwise where would HITLER go). I feel the same way about Babe Ruth. If you need a special case for Babe Ruth than there is something wrong with the system. It was ok for Barry to pass Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle and a whole host of others. But it isn't ok for him to pass Ruth?

That says a lot about what is wrong with baseball. And that is not Barry's fault at all.

New! Improved! Apparently THINNER!

Oh y'all.

I just got the cutest fucking haircut. It is exactly what I wanted. It is fun and different but I still got to keep the length and can wear a pony tail if I want to. Was thrilled.

And J says "oh it looks THINNER."

How long does it take for a man to recover from a case of idiocy? We've been married five years and I am still waiting.

Guilt

When I read this post of Erin's (about last night's Oprah) I felt this sudden rush of shit to the heart. Erin mentions that she never knew that she had let herself become vulnerable to abuse and I know that not only did I do that once, but that I set that guy back into the world without saying a world.

When I was seventeen and a senior in high school I was in the process of just detaching from my life. I was going away to school, my friends were all staying behind, it had been a rough year with several deaths, my parents' marriage and our home life was not the best. It is normal for anyone to detach themselves a bit and in my situation I did it more extremely than most.

And I met a boy. A boy that wasn't like other boys that I ever dated. I went for the scrawny artistic type, who were full of themselves about the books they read and the music they liked. He was a football player, not going to college at all and was full of himself about sports teams and how much he could bench press. We spent a lot of time together that summer--I knew my mother was worried, worried that I wouldn't go to school, that he would ruin everything. I wanted to tell her that I enjoyed his company but I didn't love him, not to worry. But I kept things from my mother then--not because I wanted to hurt her but because I didn't really know not to.

And I went away at the end of the summer. We "stayed together" but I didn't consider us serious. But he did. He called me every night. He wrote to me, sent me terrible and unintentionally hilarious mixed tapes.

He was obsessive, calling over and over until I answered--even at 3am. And I was an idiot. I thought he loved me. I didn't break it off really--just let it keep going. I loved school but it was nice to have some one care about me so much.

And things happened at school, things that are too complicated to go into, but I wasn't going back the next year. I was welcome back but I wasn't going and I didn't know what I was going to do exactly. Get a job, go to school at home. Freak the hell out.

I got home and my friends had moved on. My parents were so crazy, I didn't want to live there. And they were angry with me--they thought I had come home for him. And, in a move that didn't prove them wrong in the slightest, I moved in with him.

And that is when he stopped thinking I was so wonderful. He didn't like my clothes anymore. Or my hair. He was the only one allowed to have friends. We ate what he wanted, watched the movies he liked, listened to only the music he liked. But I couldn't leave, that would be admitting I had made a bad decision. GASP.

So I stayed. I was so isolated. He manipulated me about sex--I wouldn't label it rape but it wasn't exactly consensual either. But still, I was an adult. It was my job to take care of myself and I was doing a shitty job. I was also falling apart. Until then I had been a fairly confident person. I thought I was intelligent and capable, funny and interesting. I wasn't afraid to try new things or meet people. I followed my impulses. But I wasn't that girl anymore.

Eight months later we were arguing about all the people he was having over, the drugs they were doing, it was just too much for me. And he slapped me across the face. We both freaked out a little. Staring at each other. And I realized that I was afraid of him. He outweighed me by more than 100 pounds. I would be hard pressed to protect myself from him.

And I left a week later. All the obstacles about pride and no support system and money just faded away. I felt blessed and feel grateful every day that I called my dad and he helped me.

He is angry with me about though. Even today. Disappointed. Because I didn't press charges. I didn't even report it.

I can't explain to him why exactly. I mean I give him the concrete reasons, how it was a slap which is sort of a gray area in the assault code. That I couldn't prove anything, that I had no bruises or witnesses. That all I could offer was me, the ex-girlfriend. What I couldn't explain was how I was grateful for that slap. How it pushed me into action. How I KNEW that was abuse, even though I had failed to recognize the things he had been doing to me for months. The things that changed me as a person I couldn't see. That slap woke me up.

I will never be the person I was in high school again. I mourn her. She was somebody I really loved. I like who I am now too, I think I am stronger for it. More watchful and wary. That is both good and bad.

I didn't press charges because I saw his face after that slap. Felt him watch me as I packed. And even though I fled that house as if he were chasing me with a torch he never attempted to stop me. I didn't press charges because I believe in the capacity for change. And we were barely adults, and maybe he grew up with that slap.

But I still worry. And when I hear stories of women abused I wonder if I betrayed my fellow women the way my father thinks I did. I have googled his name, not for the reasons that you usually check up on an ex, but to see if he has ever been charged with domestic violence.

It is hard to feel good even when there are no results. Maybe she didn't press charges either.

Fucking Internet Kharma

I feel like I am taking it in the kharmic ass for my rather smug post a couple of weeks ago about how we are in a good place. I felt so comfortable and safe and happy and since all of that things have gone all crazy. To be fair my life is still pretty great but there is a lot of just SHIT happening workwise and healthwise and good GOD I would like it to stop now.

I am tired. Tired in my bones. Some of that stems from my rather princessy sleep habits-I just live a noticeably happier life with eight hours a day of sleep-and some from stress and some from other shit.

I made a mistake at work today. Well actually over time. It is from being stretched a little thin but also from being careless and procrastinating and I am trying not to flog myself silly over it. It is a mistake, these happen, and I need to get over myself. No one died. But I am not good at getting over mistakes.

J hurt his back this weekend and has been basically an invalid all week. He cannot really stand up straight. He tosses and turns. He is sort of pathetic.

Things are just happening and I am a little lost. This happens sometimes and after a while we just get our bearings again. I hope it happens soon because I hate feeling like this.

BLERG

No sleep last night + leaving wallet, Ipod, cellphone and office key at home on dining room table + at work for more than thirteen hours (plus commuting time) = BLERG

Nothing left in the tank.

And I Am Spent

Just so you know I was not nervous during the entire finale of Cheerleader Nation. And I did not cry a little. A shriek.

Just for the record that never happened.

Goddamn, how do their parents do it? I need a drink.

GODDAMN

Buster is SO VERY angry right now. Two children are out on the sidewalk playing with a large plastic truck and The Must Be STOPPED.

His pitiful little voice is all worn out from the yowling. And I am considering using duct tape to seal his mouth shut.

Oh not really.

I mean I am really considering doing it but I won't.

Probably.

Open Letter to LWWISDITEWFTFWHP

Dear Lovely Woman Who I See Daily In The Elevator Who Floods The Floor With Her Perfume,

Miss LWWISDITEWFTFWHP, I am sure you are so lovely, it is even in your name. You seem polite, you hold the door open when some one is sprinting for the elevator, you have a handbag I would spike my husband in the nuts for and you always look people in the eye. You seem like good egg.

Why do you insist on wearing layer upon layer of Michael Kors? Yes, Sephora calls it "warm and wearable," but I am fairly certain they did not mean the whole bottle. I love the strange little orange man too, he is a DELIGHT on Project Runway, but I think his empire is ok. You do not need to buy the lotion, the powder, the shower gel, the deodorant and the perfume and wear all at once.

I used to love that perfume. It struck me as sophisticated but still youthful, at least until Linda told me her mother wears it and now it is all Korean grandma all the time, but still you would have ruined it for me.

I can smells you whether we share the elevator or not. I can tell when you have been to the restroom. Sometimes I think I can tell if you have been to the employee cafeteria and those fuckers abuse cilantro in a serious way so you would think that would drown it out. But you cannot stop the Kors.

I am begging you to stop the Kors. Your assault on my sinuses has gone on long enough. I beg of you, please, try something new like SOAP.

You are so sweet, and really that handbag is GORGEOUS. Please do not make me bludgeon you with a hammer or spray you with faux skunk smell to get you to stop. I like to believe we above such things.

Don't test me.

Your loving not even a co-worker we just work on the same damn floor you would think that the square footage would fucking protect me,

AB

Cubs Euphoria

My dogs are howling and the neighbors are boggling at the screaming in my house during the eighth inning of this. Jacque Jones I knew you had it in you. Matt Murton, you are making me reconsider my distaste for redheads.

It was the kind of gorgeous day in Seattle that makes people flee their office at noon--there are only like two such delightful days per years. The dogs and I spent a lovely hour in the back yard eating chili, peeing on blackberry bushes and taking photos of the train yard behind my house (I will let y'all guess who was doing what).

I truly had something to post here but for the life of me I can't recall what because I am all bubbleheaded from the Cubs coming from behind. I know they are just cockteasing me (is that possible as I don't have a cock? I doubt J would loan his for this purpose) and will be below .500 very soon but still. God bless them.

Somehow I will try to not flash my boobs at them when we are in San Francisco.

Really Utilizing My Commute Time Quite Well

Still reading like I am getting graded on it.

Sunday Update

Softball re-started today and the AB household . . .had a rough night. I kept hitting line drives at people. J hit the crap out of the ball but took a line drive to the shin that has him walking around gimpy. He still managed to flirt with their hot first baseman (I have to give him credit, she was very purdy and here he was an injured hero) and cry out for attention so I expect he will be good as new (with an impressive bruise) within a couple of days. If not I will just amputate the leg with some nail scissors and fix him up right quick.

We did win though so the leg would not be lost in vain. And I didn't have to play second, which is important.
***
My hair is still enormous so that post is coming. Am trying very hard not to cut it off. But so tempting. I miss my short messy hair.
***
I made some seriously excellent chili (inspired my Miss Linda) on Saturday and we have been eating that for every meal. Breakfast of chili with cheese and crackers is GOOD. Not the classiest I suppose. I am only worried that we are going to run out soon and SADLY that means I am going to have to cook something else.

Perhaps waffles.

Mixed Bag

Sometimes I get all obsessive because my mom irritates me. And then sometimes I just want to write her a serious love poem about why she is the awesomest. Those times include today, because I just talked to her an hour about all the crazy books I read growing up in that house and how she really needs new shoes in the right shade of coral and why we as a family are fucking failures at networking and how I am going to buy my dad a big pizza cutter for Father's Day so he can open all the windows in my house that are painted shut since he keeps bragging it is so easy.

In other words my mom is as erratic and exhausting as me.

We sat here and talked and I ate chips and salsa just like I have been all evening while J cleans the whole house. I mean the kitchen is just fabulous. I don't know what possessed him or how I resisted the urge to pitch in. Actually I do know, I had a real shitter of a day--one where I alternated between wild-eyed optimism and stoned faced certainty about the doom that is about to unfold. And my period is late and I have very weird looking acne on my chin and I really need a haircut (hold on Frank, I feel a hair entry coming!). It just was not my best day and My Role clearly was to watch What Not To Wear and then talk to my mother while eating most of a jar of Pace picante and also a grapefruit.

Just the thing for some one who belongs on the bland diet.

So all my Zen early in the week about how it sucked to our friend and how lucky I am is still sort of true except many of the good things I had allowed myself to believe would happen probably are not going to and I am Sad About That. And possibly Angry. Do you see the capitals? And the situation with our friend is worse even though he probably thinks it is better I know differently. That noise you hear in the background is the whistle of the train that is going to take his ass down in a month or two if we can't pull him off the tracks.

Did I put that in vague enough terms?

So yeah, shitty day, but my mother is frankly delightful. And my husband is trying desperately to put out and well, I will leave it at that.

Not Worth Anything

Sometimes I have these spasms of guilt. I think about things that I have done or said--usually years ago--that I wish I could take back. I either didn't mean it or was just an asshole, but it has been so long that I know that the other person probably doesn't even remember it. I am not talking about "I am sorry I ran over your dog" (which NO) but more of "I'm sorry I said that the mascara made you look like a hooker and hurt your feelings, I mean we were twelve but STILL." I guarantee you that girl doesn't remember me saying that fifteen years ago but I remember it. And I feel badly.

I don't know where this comes from. In some ways I think it is a good thing, it is good to worry about others. It is good to feel an obligation to be a good person. But in other ways it is like an oppressive weight. I worry too much about what other people think, how they will feel. And my remorse for the little things later isn't even about this other person any more. It is just arrogant and self-absorbed. It isn't that I want them to forgive me, I just want to feel like a good person.

Which doesn't actually make any of that worth a shit.

More Books

Here

Magic Food

Every day I make decisions. How to spend large amounts of money. What is important and what is not.

But my toughest decision happens at lunch.

As in what to eat for it.

My digestive system is . . .errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr temperamental. And food is just an adventure to me. I could go on the bland diet, which is recommended for Crohn's, but I actually like eating and bland diet is a soul-sucking thing I would like to avoid until my entrails are about to squirt out my ass. I like food. But sometimes it doesn't like me.

Finding the magical combination that will not make me cramp up in agony is an adventure. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to it. Sometimes Mexican seems like the worst idea possible but chili is ok. I have to pay incredible attention to how my body is feeling at that moment to make a guess about how to feed it.

There are certain magic foods, like saltines with butter and apples with peanut butter and a certain raisin vanilla toast, that always work. No matter what I can eat them and be assured that I will not DIE. The problem is I have learned through experience that foods lose their magic if I eat them too often.

My best lunch option right now is this veggie soup that is full of vegetables that I wouldn't normally eat but love in this soup. It has no fat and is full of vitamins. It never kills me and makes me feel virtuously healthy. It is perfection in a paper bowl.

Sadly, I have to ration it out to myself like diamonds. You never know how long the magic will last.

Meme

A meme from a tag from Linda:

20 years ago I:
1. Had several pairs of legwarmers, including ones that had matching sweaters.
2. Had a violent and unusual allergic reaction to penicillin which means DAMNIT there are nude photos of me somewhere. Except I am in seven in them. And covered in weird purple sores.
3. Ate popsicles for breakfast. Whenever my mom would let me which was pretty often because she really wanted me to eat breakfast.

10 years ago I:
1. Was in shock after two classmates were decapitated in a car accident.
2. Was already mentally packing up to leave for college that summer.
3. Dyed a purple stripe in my hair to match my prom dress.

5 years ago I:
1. Was still a newlywed.
2. Quit my job, that we really needed, because my boss stood on my desk and urinated.
3. Took out my tongue ring for good.

3 years ago I:
1. Started blogging.
2. Was the sole support of our little family (and was being crushed under the weight of it).
3. Decided to become Jewish.

1 year ago I:
1. Was panicking about finding a new job.
2. Was mourning the death of a friend.
3. Switched to Blogger.

Yesterday I:
1. Bought a cute new jacket that made me feel Springy.
2. Read The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green.
3. Got 4 100% scores on the crossword.

Today I:
1. Wore my cute new Springy jacket.
2. Freaked out about my job because I am a big old worrier.
3. Sat silently as a drunk on the bus called us all "honky bitch cunts who should have your throats slit" instead of punching him in the face.

Tomorrow I:
1. Will email the bus company and complain that the driver didn't throw him off, even after he started puking on himself.
2. Try to not worry so much.
3. Finish a class on Aish that I have been putting off.

In the next year I:
1. Will read fifty books.
2. Go on a vacation.
3. Finally finish my conversion.

In the next minute I will tag:

Tara
Tonya

You Know Everyone Is Going To Be Fussing Over Pedro But The Old Guy Is More Than Getting It Done

Did you see my boy Greggie? Less than a two hour game. Forty is the new thirty.

DAMN.

Total sidenote but if I were a Dodger fan I would be pissed because the LA announcers were seriously sucking Maddux's cock through the whole game. I mean her deserves the adoration but my GOD men. Have some dignity.

Plug

Look at me, updating the Book Blog.

I Still Can't Cheer For St. Louis

Have entirely too many Cardinals on my fantasy team and I am still rooting against them. Even Isringhausen who is my fucking CLOSER.

I never thought I would be cheering for the fucking PIRATES.

Starting Over

It is a gorgeous sunny day. I wore sandals to work today. I am eating a GIANT ham sandwich and watching Buster bang his head against the front window. The Cubs are on the west coast so their game starts in less than an hour.

Life is really good in other words.

As annoyed as I was with my mother yesterday I have to admit I am in a good place right now. I do hear the chimes of doom a bit in that statement but still . . .

Good things are happening. With my career. With my family. With J. Everyone seems to be doing so well.

Except. A friend. Who we love too much I think. Who is family. He is dealing with an ugly part of being an adult. That sometimes things don't work out. Sometimes you have your life planned and you know that it is going to work and then it just doesn't. And you are in pieces.

His has to start over today. And we will help him. Because we love him. Because he will be ok. But it does make me take a moment to enjoy being at the top of the roller coaster. I have definitely been in the drops enough to know that these are the times that count.

Why I Hate It When People Talk To My Mother

Our being Jewish upsets my mother.

She is trying to cope and be supportive. And I do understand why she is upset. It is hard to watch your child reject what you believe, even if they do it in a kind way. She worries about hate violence against us. She worries about our children feeling different, being different, because she teaches school and knows how hard that can be.

And she really fucking worries about Easter.

A few weeks ago she was at a luncheon and found that many of the women there were Jewish. She got into a long discussion with one woman in particular, who I can tell is Orthodox which we are not, and who one level was very helpful in showing my mom that SEE THERE ARE JEWS EVERYWHERE and on another level scared the shit out of her.

The big thing about Judaism and actually all religions is that there is a broad spectrum of belief. Particularly in a group that is so small and has been historically persecuted it is tempting to paint with a broad brush . . a JEW IS WOODY ALLEN kind of thing. But Jews live everywhere, do all kinds of careers, they are poor and rich, and they believe many different things.

My experience with the Orthodox is limited. But they believe a more literal view of the Torah than Reform Jews do. So this woman told my mother that we couldn't become Jewish that when the Messiah comes he wouldn't have room for us. And well my mother freaked out a bit.

I am not even sure that view represents the whole of Orthodoxy. I know that I don't care. We are not culturally Jewish and there is nothing we can do about that. And some people are never going to like it. There are pricks everywhere is what I am saying. We are used to it.

I resent people telling my mother that though. But funnily enough I resent one of her other tidbits even more.

She told my mother celebrating Easter was fine.

Of course she means in the secular way with bunnies and eggs and chocolate. And my mother understood that. But I was SO ANGRY that my mother took her word at that. See, that is the thing about Judaism--I get to decide what is right for me. And for me, celebrating a holiday that has been used historically as an excuse to kill Jews is a problem. Did we go to dinner today? YES. Did I greedily accept a bunny from my dad (who buys me the best ones each year and GOOD GOD I love this one)? Absolutely. We are figuring this out. How to make these things work for everyone to feel comfortable. It is going to be a constant process.

And I resent the hell out of this woman, who doesn't believe that I am Jewish, who will NEVER accept that I am Jewish, declaring that the TORAH says bunnies are fine so I should just fucking celebrate Easter and make my mother happy.

I am actually tired of that comment, you should do this to make your mother happy. People have no idea the things that I do to make my mother happy. Making her happy is a joy to me. And she deserves it, she has done so much for me. I love my mother, I really do. But I don't have to give up everything, we can compromise.

I get so much shit for Christmas and Easter. Why can't you just do those holidays for your family? But why can't they do our holidays with us? Why can't we have a Passover seder instead?

We are sorting it out, as a family. It is hard. It will always be hard. There is no need for everyone to make it even harder.

Somehow I Am Positive The Rabbi Would Be Appalled

I was multi-tasking on the bus, commuting and doing a little Torah study through Aish Audio (as I love to do) and honestly, I was a little troubled by the class I had just listened to. Some of the classes on that site are more Orthodox than my beliefs and while I think there is value in learning that way it still can make me so frustrated. And I was just pissed off when I got in my car.

And this song was on the stereo.

Please go click and read the lyrics. Now imagine that sung in the same Kermit the Frog monotone that little kids use to sing their ABC's. Now imagine that with your best Boss Hogg accent. That is exactly how that song sounds.

It is just so awesome.

People just do not understand how awesomely bad country music can be. This song just warms the cockles of my heart. I mean this guy finds out his girl is doing some one else by driving by her house and he is brilliant enough to know "well GOSH, that sure ain't my truck in front of that there house." And a SONG IS BORN.

I own this cd and most of the rest of it is shit, just bad not awesomely bad, though it does have a brilliant example of that tried and true country standard--the idea that true love is born in high school and then your grow old and die together.* Sadly, it does not have an example of true love born in high school but Daddy thinks he is a bad guy and Mama says well he is just like you setting up the girl for a lifetime of bad dating choices.

I mean none of these touch the GENIUS of Islands in the Stream, which is not awesomely bad but just blame fucking awesome and anyone who does not appreciate the brilliance of Kenny and Dolly can just suck it, but still they are a good way to move on from some troubling Torah.

A sentence that I am pretty sure has never been said or typed before in the history of the goddamn WORLD.

*How fantastic is it that there are two fucking cheesy country songs with that title?

OUTRAGED

Today is the start of Pesach which we celebrated at the AB household with fruit and chicken and then J passed out halfway from back pain.

And then I started to SCREAM over this.

Way to fucking ruin a holy day assholes.

My Problem

There are times when I just feel like the biggest middle class white asshole. Actually, I am guaranteed to feel that at least twice every weekday while I am at work. Because my office has a black cleaning woman who's entire job is to clean the bathrooms and office spaces on two floors of our building. She cleans these spaces over and over (which honestly makes me wonder if we are animals or does some one have OCD that the bathrooms are cleaned literally six times a day) every single day and it kills me.

She is a nice woman. She actually likes her job unless she is totally lying to me (which is possible of course). I can see why. For a cleaning job it is a score. Weekday schedule, she gets the same medical/dental/401K/benefit package as the rest of the employees and even the worst of the messes we make are not as bad as a custodian at like a school or restaurant would have to deal with.

She smiles and laughs while she works. And wears the most gorgeous earrings. And while I am sure she doesn't imagine this as her life's work she seems to enjoy her work.

But something about it brings out all my fears about race and class and all of the ugliness of how our society operates.

I know they pay her well. I know she is appreciated. This is my problem, which makes it worse.

Even Steven

I admit, this caused me to squeal with JOY.

Between that and their sweep of the Cardinals this weekend that ALMOST made up for the extremely smelly woman I had to sit by on the way home on the bus tonight. I hate to sound like a judgmental bitch but of course I am totally a judgmental bitch and you now how some older people or overweight people smell a little "plaquey"? You know sort of sour and dirty and like they haven't bathed recently? Like something is moldering between the ER . . .folds?

That was a long fucking fifty minutes is what I am saying.

So the universe and I better be EVEN.

Softball Start

We had our first softball game today and it did . . .not go well. This was a team that I was not planning on playing for--we only know one person on it and J sort of volunteered me without asking--and I am not sure I want to play on it again.

I will though, because like most co-ed teams they need more women.

I had to play second base. Which I have not played since I played in a coach pitch league where you rotated positions and I believe that was almost twenty years ago.

It went about as well as you could imagine. It didn't help that the guy playing shortstop was not helpful. Running after flyballs only to say YOURS at the last second. I did my best but you know.

I didn't play well.

As a bright spot we only lost by like ten runs.

Wooo HOOO

I Hate You Safeway, OH YES I DO

Oh Safeway. I have such a bone to pick with you.

I hate you, Safeway. I understand from others that you have nice stores in other places but your stores here are dark and dirty. Your cashiers are uniformly rude and snap their gum a little too stridently. Your bag boys bag meat with household cleaners. Your bakers have rivers of snot leaking down their faces.

I could forgive that, SAFEWAY, if at least you had the good prices you claim you have. But sadly, that is your worst flaw of all.

I live in a neighborhood that is transition. There are those like my husband and I, who have cars and can visit the slightly farther away QFC. And there are those who are poorer and have less access to personal transportation and also have totally bought your marketing plan for this area. To feed these people the line that your stores are dirty and nasty because you are keeping prices low.

I call BULLSHIT, Safeway.

Because your fucking prices suck. Your produce is half rotted and the meat looks grey even in the shrinkwrap. You know why poor Americans are fat? Because you fucking make it impossible for them to buy healthy foods but somehow all the junky crap is cheap.

Though it is still cheaper at the FUCKING QFC.

Safeway, I hate you. I hate your filthy stores and your smug ass cheerful logo. And I hate more and more that you are the closest grocery to me. Because sometimes I forget the hate and just bop in for chips and soda. Run in because I need a damn gallon of milk.

I hope I remember how much I hate you this time. Because shitty half-stale bread should not be THREE DOLLARS A LOAF.

Needing a Money Tree--One Without The Weird Caterpillars

My sister emailed me about this this morning. She said that our de-humidifier was also a humidifier and to stop being such a weirdo (I might be paraphrasing as she is the nice one in the family).

HA!

I had lunch with our father who was all your sister is a crackhead (again, possible paraphrase).

Apparently, we had a humidifier and a de-humidifier and now I have spent way too much time thinking about this and I just need to buy the damn penguin damn it.

Also I need new sneakers for softball.

And a BIKE.

And apparently a money tree to pay for it all.

Humidi-WHA?

You know why I love blogging? Because people support your stupid obsessions and tell you to get a damn bike.

I'm thinking about it. Will probably make J nuts about it until he just puts a gun to my head and makes me buy one. Lovingly of course.

I am also sort of obsessed with humidifiers. My fucking sinuses are still all crazy. They are clogged and yet bleed like a motherfucker when I blow my nose. I keep getting sinus headaches and my face swells every night. Dr. Google tells me to keep my head elevated and the sinus cavity moist.

Humidifiers come highly recommended and they are not terribly expensive. Look. You can get one shaped like a PENGUIN.

I just have a sort of intellectual problem with humidifiers. Since growing up in the midwest we had a GIGANTIC de-humidifier that was pretty much a piece of furniture. All summer long we cursed the humidity and adults bitched about how it wasn't the heat it was the HUMIDITY. All that bitchy taught we to hate moisture. And now I am supposed to pay money for an appliance that will bring it into the air of my home?

Of course all my pillows have bloodstains on them. If I don't do this soon J is going to have a hell of a time convincing people he doesn't beat the shit out of me in my sleep.

Obsession

So. I am sort of obsessed with getting a bicycle.

I am not sure, exactly, I want one. Something about wanting to get some more exercise and stupidly romanticized notions of riding my bike to the fruit market and on errands and BLAH BLAH BLAH.

I have always liked riding bikes, even though I haven't owned one for a long time. One of my favorite summers was spent riding around to places that I was not exactly allowed to go--illicit places like friends' houses and the LIBRARY.

Anyway, I was having flashbacks the other day and thinking about how fun that way and how the park is close by and the beach and downtown and GOD then I looked online and now I totally really really want this.

It is so wild crazy being 27 and all old and shit.

It Won't Last

I cannot help but be thrilled by this.

Of course it would have been even better if MLB audio had actually WORKED today.

WHEEEEEEE indeed.

Best Day

I know that today is technically Opening Day but for me the real Opening Day is tomorrow, when all the teams play and the season really starts. Plus, I really fucking hate the White Sox and don't like the Indians so much and the damn game is on rain delay so MEH to the whole thing.

Normally I take Opening Day off from work. J and I drink beers and make hot dogs and watch every game we can (sometimes with two TVs). To be honest, it isn't just Opening Day it is HAPPY NEW YEAR.

But the flu/virus/thing that ate my sinuses took that from me too because I can't take ANOTHER day off so I will miss it. FUCKING VIRUS. The only thing that helps me is that Harold is back on my TV screen. Looking fine in his suits. Like how it should be.

Think of me tomorrow, toiling in my fucking office while my Cubbies are playing. But here are my picks for the year. I will be 100% wrong but I am still going to do it.

American League:
West: Angels
Central: Cleveland
East: New York
Wild Card: Boston

National League:
West: San Francisco
Central: (this pains me) Cardinals (PLEASE GOD LET ME BE WRONG)
East: Atlanta (every year I think it will be some one else and then the Braves pull it off again so until further notice that banner stays with them)
Wild Card: Mets

AL Cy Young:
Bartolo Colon
NL Cy Young:
Carlos Zambrano

AL MVP:
Alex Rodriguez
NL MVP:
Derrek Lee

My fantasy team has entirely too fucking many Cardinals on it and my Cubs are going to suck it. But it is the best part of the year.

I wish it could be Opening Day every day.

Celebrating in Our Own Way

J and I have been trying to celebrate Shabbat every week. For those of you who are not Jewish, Shabbat is the Jewish Sabbath, celebrated from Friday at sundown until Saturday until a few minutes after sundown.

Shabbat is the not the same as Sunday church, something that my mother does not understand no matter how many times I try to explain it. I think because people always want to equate another religion with the one they believe in, instead of just accepting that the practices are different and separate and IT IS OK MOM MY GOD IS NOT SENDING ME TO HELL FOR NOT GOING TO TEMPLE EACH WEEK IN FACT THERE IS NO HELL.

And then she passes out.

Shabbat is about the day of rest. Spending time with your family. Eating together, drinking wine, separating the work week from this day, celebrating God but also taking pleasure in the world. Every person and family does it differently. People go to services, they bless the wine and eat challah and they might pray. But you can celebrate it at home too, by taking a nap in the afternoon, going for a walk, studying Torah, having sex (actually it is a COMMANDMENT to have sex on Shabbat which is J's favorite thing actually).

We try to eat dinner together. We make something special. We drink wine. We talk to each other in a way that we usual don't have time to do.

It has made such a difference. It is interesting because that sounds sort of lame and stupid and cheesy. And I suppose it is. But I feel more Jewish on Shabbat (even if our dinner is something like cheeseburgers) and feel like I have more purpose.

Last night we celebrated Shabbat by watching the Silvertips beat the Americans and move on to the next round of the playoffs.

It was just like going to the temple.

Hey Blondie

I started growing my hair out this fall.

It was unintentional at first, I have had shorter hair for years. But my hair grows impossibly fast and I was bored with my cut and next thing you know it was just longer. And so I decided to see if I could wait it out.

Because my hair is difficult when short. But almost impossible long. It is thick and wavy and takes EONS to dry even with a blow dryer. I haven't had long hair since high school, when I had this all one length monster pyramid that weighed eighty-four thousand pounds. My hair was beautiful but not particularly flattering to me or my face. Just more pretty of it's own value.

I cut my hair shorter and I felt liberated. I had free time! My face looked better! Was a beauty miracle.

But am a fickle lass who is always wanting a change and growing it out a bit--I have now officially hit the medium to long category since it is at my shoulders--is the flavor of the month right now.

Odd thing is, I am getting REACTIONS from people about it.

Things I have learned by having longer hair (which admittedly is white blond so I am sure people deduct about eighty IQ automatically):

1. Boys like longer hair.

2. NO REALLY. I mean and I guess I knew that but I am not the kind of girl that causes a ruckus in front of a construction sight. However, my hair totally is that kind of girl. Also on the free way and from strange men on buses.

3. Women dig it too. It is like I get points for being friendlier than I am.

4. My husband, who always claimed that short hair is hot, really doesn't want me to cut it. I mean he would get over it. But there is much playing with my hair happening right now. Is very very odd.

5. Except I like getting my hair played with. Who knew? Is relaxing.

6. People are really weird about the color. Men in particular want to know if it is natural. Which honestly, I always interpret as a "what color is your pubic hair?" kind of question. If women ask I figure they want to know who my colorist is but guys always seem to be fishing for if the collar and cuffs match**.

7. BOYS REALLY LIKE LONG HAIR. Am I dumb? I mean I knew this was a preference but GODDAMN.

8. People will think you are taller and thinner than you really are. This is the most awesome part frankly. Used to be that people thought I was about 5'7 (which is about right) now they always guess 5'9 (what I would like to be) and some one says to me, "have you lost weight?" nearly every day. This could mean that I looked short and fat before of course.

So nothing earth shattering. The attention is odd because I don't think I look that good honestly. My face looks a little wonky and my hair is just SO BIG. But everyone else is having such a good time I am toughing it out.

Is practically a community service.

**In a big overshare but GOD everyone I have ever been naked with has been fascinated by this. Blond people (at least in my experience) do not have pubic hair that exactly matches their hair. It matches more closely to the eyebrows. Which is usually a shade or two darker. This is why I always laugh when people think my hair is fake because my eyebrows are darker because most people that have the matching eyebrows are dying them. If everyone starts staring at my eyebrows it is going to FREAK ME OUT PUBIC HAIR IS NOT THAT INTERESTING.

Chatty Daddy

My father and I have had a strange relationship. One that has had periods of hero worship, times of anger and loathing, silence through most of the 1990's and now is chatty and loving and dare I jinx it? Like friends.

I am not sure how we are friends or even why. Other then a stubbornness that we share (among other unattractive traits) and how a few years ago we just silently DECIDED we were going to be friends.

And now we talk every day. Something that pisses my mother off because apparently once you are married for more than thirty years you don't talk anymore you just communicate silently with inflections of the head so they gossip through me. Which is awkward and inefficient but well . . .you just summed up my family.

My dad and I talk about anything and everything. He always calls with a story to tell me and it is usually during his commute or while he is at the drugstore or the like. I think that sort of multi-tasking appeals to his work ethic. And commuting is boring.

Some days we talk a couple of times, plus email. I don't know how this happens but I do know that when it does we get an impressive list of topics such as today's list:

1. Things that his dachshund Leon has eaten this week that he is not supposed to. Most of which were once touching one of my parents' ass (like underwear and pajama pants but also masking tape which if that touched anyone's ass I don't want to know even if they are wild and crazy empty nesters).

2. How even though they didn't get plumbing until very late (I believe the year 1960 was mentioned but . . .) his family still had a shower years before many of his aunts and uncles and how one in particular would bring all his kids over on Saturday nights to bathe.

3. How no one would ever buy my grandparents' house because there is no shower in the bathroom (it is in the basement pretty much just in the middle of the room). And how we know that when they die some one will just tear it down but we cannot talk about it or my dad will cry and goddamn we only cry about the dog.

4. That no matter what he wants to say Jamie Moyer is not the same as Greg Maddux. God my dad is a crackhead (we did not actually discuss a crack habit but CLEARLY).

5. How this is the best part of baseball season, because you haven't cried yet.

6. He lied to me about his bracket, but unintentionally. His is just as jacked as everyone else's except he picked Florida (but dude my sister went there so WHATEVER DAD).

7. That working for a non-profit really helps when you need the bank to stop bitching about how there is no money in your business' account. "But we are a school for special needs children" works much better than, "My bosses are rich white guys who are tight fisted in a sick and fucked up way."

8. That pergo really is just shit, looks like shit and wears like shit.

9. Excel is the root of and the cure for all evil.

10. He doesn't think I should keep kosher for Passover because I have been sick.

11. Except for chicken and matzo ball soup.

12. Not that he is telling me how to practice my religion that he doesn't know anything about. Even though he is. He means well. He is a dad.

13. Yes, we are still calling it Spring Dinner instead of EASTER.

14. No, I still want my damn bunny.

15. Meh, logic schmogic. I get a bunny!

16. Goddamn we talk a lot.

I guess my mom has reason to gripe. I think my father only gets about 700 words a day so if he calls me twice and talks to anyone in his office at all I think he can't even answer her when she asks how his day was.

I Promise This Is The Last Bit--At Lease Until Next Time

It was bothering me today so I am adding this update to the whole Big Love thing.

I don't really like the idea of polygamy. While I can understand in the abstract the appeal--having a more community-type family, shared childcare, shared housework--I cannot imagine that playing out in real life. My marriage is about partnership and about a shared vision for our future as a family (despite his idiocy about MY TV WATCHING) and I just don't get how that works in a family with multiple wives. Perhaps I am selfish in nature. But I don't think you can be partners with more than one person.

I also understand that social implications of polygamy. That the institution seems to breed some things that are troublesome for all. Families that have more children than they can afford. Young men who are abandoned or driven away so that they are not competition for wives. Young women forced into marriages to men older than their fathers. These are big issues that cascade through a whole society and while I am sure that many polygamists don't do such things. They exist and that has to be acknowledged.

All of that aside I hate the conversations about polygamy. For me, there is something wrong about me being all in some one's business about how they want their family to operate. I think marriage is between two people. But if those two people want to have three additional adults in their marriage without a legal benefit and everyone is over eighteen and consenting? Well, even if I don't want to live that way and I don't want my kids to live that way I just don't like people interfering legally.

My husband has suggested that women are instrinsically exploited by this, that they cannot make this decision for themselves. And I have heard that repeated time and again by well meaning people. But FUCK. I hate that. Because it means that a woman cannot make a choice that you do not understand, she doesn't know what she is doing. It infantilizes her and I think that is more exploitive than anything else. Basically marriage gets reduced to this--that the man gets a women to have sex with and wait on him and the women are desperate for love and affection. It is 2006. Is that what we really think marriage is?

People have sex out of marriage all the time. Marriage is not a sexual transaction. And I think the whole men want sex and women want love crap needs to retire. I imagine that every person in the world has a different set of needs in a marriage and that those needs cannot be described wholly in one word like that. It demeans us all to speak in those terms. If this was about how we don't want men to have sex with so many women than why are we not OUTRAGED like this about affairs? This isn't 100% about sex.

Again, I don't like polygamy. And I don't think that this show or gay marriage or anything else changes that. But I really hate that the media and religious leaders and apparently J think that we are too stupid as a society to see that.

We Are Just Sad If This Is What We Fight About

So J and I had a stupid fight about Big Love. Oh dear, let us not call it a fight, more of a loud and stupid disagreement. My darling husband saw fit to tell me that he thinks that show glamourizes polygamy and is degrading to women and OH WON'T YOU THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

It took me a while to figure out why on earth it was bugging me so much that he was harping on me about this damn show (besides the fact that he hadn't watched it at all) was that he was telling me what I should think and do and that makes me want to rip his face off. Perhaps I have issues with that? I just think that I am smart enough to not to want to run off and marry into a family with many many wives just because it is on HBO. Perhaps my OH SO WISE husband could grant me permission to make my own damn tv watching decisions.

Saying that this show makes polygamy look glamorous and wonderful is like saying that people got into oil ranching and shooting each other because of Dallas.

I am sure some one will email me to prove that there was a study and that sure did happen after Dallas was on the air and HI ANYABETH YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

Way to take his side.

At any rate, I enjoyed the show. Because the characters are very real to me, nobody seems particularly good or bad. They all feel human. And it is different and smart and what Desperate Housewives could have been if they weren't so stupid and fucking lazy with that show. In my view Big Love is basically a soap opera and blah blah J and I need to get over ourselves.

Something Is Just WRONG With That

J and I have never been ones to care about the yard. To call us gardeners would be such an insult to gardens everywhere my guess is that flowers would rebel by not blooming in protest. Our old house had a lawn service built into the HOA dues so all we had to do was keep the weeds in our tiny flower beds down.

I am sorry to say that we never even did that.

Before we sold the place it was a mad dash to kill off shoulder-high weeks and plant something that was er alive in their place. We laid down bark and soil and just tried to make it look like we did some maintence at all during the previous four years.

The new place has no HOA and no lawn service. In theory this means that we just have to mow the lawn as there is not much in the way of a garden. But we are a lazy pair and it took us the better part of an afternoon to sweep up all the pine needles (an entire yard waste bin full of just needles) and cut up the big pile of cardboard boxes that have been piled up outside our mudroom since we moved in. We are so lazy that some of that cardboard had been there since September.

Yes. It did smell just as lovely as you might think. Especially with all the rain and dog piss.

Aren't I lovely for claiming other people are trash?

It is all gone now and frankly I am starting to think that my dad was right all along. That it is easier if you don't let it get so bad.

MY FATHER IS STARTING TO MAKE SENSE THE END IS NEAR.

Home Sweet Home

I am not lying when I say that I live in one of the most gorgeous places on earth. I hesitate to even post such a photo, because I curse every positive media moment that this area gets as you can here the millions of Californians moving here each time it happens, but I don't think people are going to flood the neighborhood because of one photo.

I won't post another though, just in case.

At the bottom of the hill you can see the train yard. J loves the noise from that yard beyond reason. I think it has something to do with boyhood fantasies of riding the railroad--either that or adult fantasies of escaping life with me. But what other people see as a negative about our neighborhood has really become a positive. We don't have the endless chirping of frogs outside anymore, we have the endless bell ringing of a huge network of trains. I really love it when they drop a car and you can almost hear the silent MOTHERFUCKER hanging in the air.

I feel so at home when people say motherfucker.

I hate my commute. I mean, I do it by bus and train so it isn't so bad but those are hours of my life that I spend trying not to smell the guy in front of me instead of watching Cheerleader Nation and that is just no way to live. But that is what I come home to each night.

Now imagine the crashing of tons of steel hitting cement and unionized workers cursing in ways that would curl your hair.

Feels like home doesn't it?

Slow Start

It is funny how it is the little details you start skipping when you get sick. No eyeliner, maybe a ponytail instead of straightening your hair--then you feel worse so you stop wearing heels and maybe you don't moisturize for a week. You don't do the dishes and you don't make the bed. Next thing you know it is working on two weeks and your husband is humping your leg and whining BUT BABY.

And when you are napping on the toilet at work (what? don't you do that) you notice that it has been QUITE a while since you did any landscaping of the bikini line. But I suppose the bikini line is a signal that business is as usual and given the fact that I barfed up a lung today just trying to make it to noon business is not usual.

I did shave a bit though, because when your bikini line hits mid thigh you have let it go too long.

I was doing so well and maybe I got cocky. I still cough like I am in the late stages of emphysema but I felt pretty good. We even went to our class last night. I mean I almost passed out have way through but Christ, I hadn't been up past seven in a week. But today was bad. Bad in a way that I am just going to pretend didn't even happen. Instead, I am partying because Big Baby won! And I cried. And baseball starts in two weeks. And Peter Gammons made me cry about that. And because I truly LOVE my electric water kettle. But not enough to cry.

I didn't say it was a wild party. Starting slow.

Cheerleaders Kick . . .

As some one who has watched Bring It On way too many times it shouldn't shock me that I am hopelessly in love with Cheerleader Nation.

Economically advantage spoiled southern girls who cheerlead and break curfew, what is not to love?

Actually, considering they are all in high school I just love all these girls and find them adorable. Yes, they are bratty about curfew and I just want to shake that Chelsea when she brats at her mother. But that is the age and I call my mother weekly to apologize for being an asshole as a teen so they can do it too. It is just oddly compelling to watch.

I personally love the football loving dad who has no boys and so is maybe a little too into his daughter's cheerleading. I want to adopt him and his adorable, "they work just as hard as football players" self.

Of course J sprained his eyeball rolling his shit at me for watching it today so . . .just another reason to hit subscribe on the Ti-Faux.

But He Really Does Have Tiny Hands

Even though it is not even seven pm and first graders are still playing outside I am settling into bed for the night. This virus has taken my stamina and hocked it out like a gooey loogie. At two this afternoon I was totally wiped out, though I did fake my way through a couple more hours.

I think the combination of sickness and medicine made me really punchy because on the way home I could not stop staring at this woman. She was a very large woman, tall and with broad shoulders. And wearing GIANT cowboy boots. Actually, many things about her made me double check to make sure that she really was a woman, not that it should matter one way or the other. I finally checked her hands, and they were small enough that I was reasonably sure.

Then I started thinking about how my dad would be a good cross dresser. Because he has tiny hands and feet and incredibly thick hair.

Of all the things this virus has taken from me, the innocence of never imagining my father as a woman is what I think I will miss the most.

Any Day Now

Y'all. My concept of God doesn't really allow asking for things. I don't really see God as a Santa Claus who answers the letters of good little girls and boys. But I broke my own philosophy this week because I KNOW I prayed for death at some point Thursday. I reached a low point of vomiting up mucus. I didn't stop coughing for four days straight.

Today is a bit better. I went and got a pedicure with my mom this afternoon. Of course I am now totally wiped out.

I'm sorry for being so pitiful. I should be back to normal any day now.

The Virus That Is Trying To Make Me Crash My Car

This morning I was driving into work (because of an elaborate and now feeling fool-hardy plan to go to work and go to the doctor) I did the Grossest Thing I Have Ever Done.

I do not hand out that title lightly folks. I have done many gross things, things like fishing my cell phone out a vomit-filled toilet. Things that you just do not talk about in mixed company.

But today I was driving and I suddenly could NOT BREATHE. Breathing is important y'all, I think we can all agree. I was having many thoughts about not breathing. Thoughts like DUDE I NEED AIR but also about how I was going to crash my car, killing myself and others and causing the mother of all traffic jams. I figured out that I was choking on a loogie and so I picked up a cup and hocked everything in my soul into it.

A loogie the exact size, shape, color and consistency of a EXTRA LARGE EGG YOLK came flying out of my throat. Streaked with blood.

And I am gross enough to admit that cup is still in my car because I am not well enough to deal with the fucking cup.

That was just the start of my day y'all. The crux of the matter is that I am not dying (excellent), I will continue to feel like shit for an indeterminate number of days (not excellent), I do not have mono or strep (really excellent). I have the shakes very bad and am coughing and hacking and in my own fool-hardy way considering going to work tomorrow (see I am filling in for some one on leave and doing her job and my job plus I was out for a conference for three days last week and missing even a couple of hours feels like DEATH to me right now).

If you need me I will be under the influence of strong pain killers and cuddling my prescription inhaler. My dogs will be poking me to check if I am still alive.

Perhaps they will update here.

Rooster Says Shut Up

Rooster says I need to stop being such a fucking baby.

Rooster says fevers of over a hundred are no big deal. Rooster says stop whimpering about your damn hand, Lady, because CHRIST.

On the bright side, I have scared the shit of this cat with my deep manly voice and fluid cough. I feel like hammered ass which should be obvious since the main pleasure of my day has been upsetting the damn cat. J just took a trip to the drugstore for tea and many drugs and I am wondering if I will make it past seven tonight.

Sometimes I really miss having an immune system. Pretty much every cold and flu season.

Seven Days

Buster had a long day today.

Obviously.

There was sun. And running. A walk to the park that involved sniffing every blade of grass that has ever been peed on in the distinguished history of grass-peeing. There was stuffed gorilla asses that needed kicking. There were birds that had to be barked at DON'T THEY KNOW THEY CAN'T JUST FLY BY WINDOWS MY GOD IT IS ANARCHY!

Buster is tired. And looks a little hungover really. Just in that one eye but really he promises he did not just smoke a giant doobie.

Quit looking at Buster. He does not know where you can get weed.

Buster is resting up for next Sunday.

Graceful As Always

Today has been a learning experience for me. I've been learning exactly how many things I do with my left hand during a day. Things like shampooing my hair, drying my hair, holding wine at Trader Joe's, buttoning my pants. Things that are extremely painful to do when you managed to fuck the hell out of your hand falling up cement stairs and jamming it into a metal railing.

Yeah. It is possible to fall up stairs.

The stairs leading to our cellar are uneven--being built in 1916 and all. And I am. . .not the most graceful. So I took a plotz over my own damn feet, jammed the railing into the web of my head between my thumb and pointer finger. That part of my palm is now enormous and purple. And hurts like a mother fucker.

I can't really grip anything. Can't quite hold anything with any authority. And so I wailed through my shower, trying to shampoo without pressing anything into my palm. I walked around town with wet and stringy hair today because I couldn't begin to face drying my hair.

I can tell working this week is going to be an adventure.

But Really It Doesn't Hurt

I have figure out that acupuncture squicks some people out but good. I have to admit, I do sometimes chuckle maniacally when I realize that I actually pay a women to jam 30-40 needles into my body once a week. But I am pretty open-minded about body work so it doesn't freak me out (except that one time she put one between my eyeballs and I almost DIED).

People ask about pain--it usually doesn't hurt. And they ask about blood. And I had never bled.

Except this week.

I usually have about ten needles in my ears (around the cartilidge--she isn't piercing my ears or anything). They are the only ones that ever really hurt, mainly because she has to use a larger needle to get it to stay in the harder tissue. And she will clean out my ear after she removes the needle because there might be a pinprick of blood.

Well this week I guess we skipped that step because back at my desk, at least an hour after my appointment with my hair up and away from my ears I scratched the cartilidge and came out with a finger full of gore.

Both my ears were just coated in dried blood. After I cleaned it all up I starting thinking about what the hell everyone I had seen for the past hour must of thought. I mean MY GOD I had dried blood just EVERYWHERE.

Just wrapping up the week re-enforcing that professional image I have been trying to cultivate.

Maybe Another Week?

I went to the acupuncturist today and she was like, "You are so positive!" And I was.

I am.

I feel so good today, despite a cold that is making me feel a little like my face is re-melting, that I wasn't even pissed off that she suggested that I am usually less than sunny.

I am not sure why I feel this way. I have spent most of the week in a big meeting at work that I was dreading but actually loved. And I think I wasn't the only one to drink the Kool-Aide because everyone in my group is so chipper and motivated. Perhaps they had amazing drugs hidden in those pastries they were feeding us every five minutes.

I feel relaxed. I feel asleep with thirty needles in my face today and it was the best nap I have had in ages. I feel like what we are doing is working. Progress is being made everywhere.

I don't know how long this feeling will last but I am savoring it like the opening bars of Islands In The Stream.

To Go Or Not To Go

A couple of weeks ago I got a postcard announcing my tenth high school reunion is coming up this summer. I threw it in my purse and tried to pretend that it hadn't come.

Because I don't know if I want to go or not.

I didn't have a bad high school experience. I was neither popular or unpopular. I had friends and activities and had as good a time as is possible without becoming one of those sickos that really LIKED high school. I wasn't scarred by the whole ordeal but I am not sure how I real feel about the whole thing.

I haven't maintained friendships with anyone from high school. I haven't seen anyone for at least seven years. I can't actually think of a reason that I should go but then again I can't really think of a reason that I shouldn't.

How DECISIVE of me huh?

It seems like people go to reunions because they want to see other people all fat and old. Or to prove that their lives are better than their former classmates. I am quite sure that some people I went to school with are fat. I am sure that some of them have failed to do the things they wanted to. I am sure others are beautiful and successful. I think when I was eighteen I might have really enjoyed seeing a fat cheerleader or too. And I do have a job that would impress some people (stupid people but STILL). None of that feels very important though. I suppose that is being an adult (LAME).

So I am torn on the whole thing. I have nothing to prove to anyone and nothing I want some one to prove to me. The only reason to go is to possible see people I may miss without even realizing it.

And to show of my awesomely hot husband of course.

Loose Ends

So I have a stop gap solution to the creep bus fucker situation (since driving is not an option and shit I am not staying at work an extra half an hour). A lovely gentleman (who totally looks like my third grade math teacher but obviously isn't what with the whole three thousand miles away and hasn't aged a bit in twenty years thing) who rides my bus to and from every day stopped me at the stop in the morning and said, "I don't like what he did."

Just simple. Direct. I told him the whole thing, how I didn't know the guy, how he was creeping me out and he says, "Sit with me. Every day. He can't bother you if he can't sit by you."

So hooray for not-my-third-grade-teacher man! You are divine!

It does make me a little depressed with myself that I had to be all woe to me I need a MAN TO HELP me about this situation. And I don't. But seriously, anything that removes the idea of physical confrontation even further away from a possibility is good with me.

And to deal with my mini-breakdown of the other night I have decided that I am doing my hair and fucking wearing lip gloss EVERY DAY to help with the I feel like a hag thing. We are talking business plans and bullshitting about things that will not happen for a real long time to deal with the what am I doing with my life thing. And I am considering spending a hunk of my bonus on a fun object to deal with the somebody get this woman a fucking hobby so she won't lose her shit all the time thing.

Exciting no? And so specific!