I went to Dr. Kelly for help on someone else’s recommendation, when I was not only at the end of my rope again, but gnawing on it.
I was no longer seeing the Diane Lane look-a-like therapist. After months of sessions I found I couldn’t do it anymore. She seemed kind and she listened, but for some reason I didn’t completely trust her.
I put off finding a new therapist, because that’s what I do, and in the mean time things spiraled out of control. I spent almost an entire weekend in bed, in full melt down mode, and did something completely out of character. I talked to my mother.
Here was a woman that knew about curling up in a ball and checking out. All these years of living with this anal retentive, overly-emotional control freak that drove me nuts...and in the midst of my mess, I finally saw her. I felt ashamed of my inability to comfort her when that was probably all she’d ever wanted, ashamed that emotional displays make me uncomfortable and physical affection has a time limit.
She crawled into the bed and lay beside me while I cried. I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t want to be touched, but I didn’t want to be alone either. She’s never understood much about me at all – but this she knew how to deal with, this she could handle. When I had trouble breathing, she coached me right through it, calming me down.
I was too far gone to be embarrassed and when my sister crawled up and lay on the other side, sandwiching me between them, I just accepted it. Most days I feel as though they’re both vultures, waiting for me to show signs of weakness so they can swoop down and pick at my flesh. But that day I lay bleeding and they didn’t once take a bite. And when I finally told them what why and how, or at least as much of what why and how as I could spare, they told me not to worry and then they let me be.
Each day after that I got a little better – I got up, I cried less, I stopped staring into space and actually concentrated on something, anything else. I laughed, I went to dinner and I returned phone calls I’d been avoiding. Sometimes I’d get angry or disgusted with myself, for being what I call “melodramatic”, but generally I just “dealt with it”. And by that I mean I put it all back inside and locked it up.
I knew I needed to do something different, to seek out another therapist or take more than the occasional Xanax to numb the things that crept out of that locked place from time to time, but I didn’t. I took Dr. Kelly’s number and it joined the receipts and lipsticks at the bottom of my purse.
Until one day, not too long after my meltdown, I was sitting at work. I’d picked up my favorite fast food for lunch, brought it back to the office and ate every bite. Nothing was wrong at all on the surface, I felt fine. Except suddenly, I seemed to have something lodged in my throat.
I could still swallow, still breathe, but it was uncomfortable and I couldn’t seem to make the lump go away. I drank an entire bottle of water, even took out a mirror and examined the back of my throat just in case, but there was nothing. I got a fluttery feeling in my chest like my heart had grown wings and they were beating rapidly at my insides. My face grew hot and when I stood up I felt disoriented.
My boss walked by, glanced over and stopped. “What’s the matter? You’re very pale.”
“I don’t know. I feel strange...and like there’s something caught in my throat.” I explained all my symptoms and she told me to hold on, disappearing around the corner.
She brought back a nurse from the next department – one of the sorts that have a degree for paperwork purposes only and haven’t really practiced much medicine. I relayed my symptoms again and she nodded knowingly, perma-tanned fake boobs wobbling with every jerk of her head.
“It sounds like you’re having an allergic reaction. What have you eaten today?”
I looked at her, horrified. “Only Chick-fil-a...and I’m not allergic to anything!”
She nodded again. “Well, that’s what it sounds like. They use peanut oil, you know. Adults develop peanut allergies later in life all the time.”
“Oh no! No, no!” I had to take deep breaths at that point; the fluttering was making me supremely uncomfortable. Did people my age have heart attacks? What the fuck did Orange Boobs McGee know about it anyway? But the others immediately agreed with her and I couldn’t think of an alternate reason.
One of the other employees ran across the street and returned a few minutes later with a box of Benadryl allergy tablets, shoving two in my hand. I swallowed them and waited. For twenty minutes I paced back and forth between my office and my boss’s, sitting down and getting up over and over again, ranting.
“If I’m allergic to Chick-fil-a, you might as well go ahead and kill me now. Either that or I’ll eat it anyway and stab myself with an epi-pen every time!”
She laughed at me, but when I didn’t fall to the floor racked with convulsions she quickly lost interest. I decided I needed a second opinion.
“Mom”, I said with false calm after the receptionist connected us, “there’s something wrong with me.” I told her the problem, explaining how the feeling in my throat hadn’t gone away but got better and worse, better and worse. I told her the nurse’s theory about an allergic reaction and the Benadryl.
“But she’s got fake tanned fake boobs and I couldn’t real...”
“Alyson, do you have a Xanax in your purse?”
“Yes, why?”
“Because you’re not having an allergic reaction, you’re having a panic attack. You have no allergies, nor have you developed any. Take the pill, concentrate on breathing slowly in through your nose and out through your mouth and call me back in twenty minutes.”
“Oh”, I replied, stunned. “Ok...”
When I called her back and reported positive results, she sounded a bit smug. “What kind of nurse would tell you something like that?” But I didn’t really blame the Boobs MD up the hall – I hadn’t recognized the real problem either. I’d never had a panic attack out of nowhere before, not like that. I’d always been very upset to begin with, agitated or crying, before one presented itself. The seemingly random arrival of this one scared me and for it to happen at work, to cause me to lose an hour of my time, well that wasn’t acceptable.
“It’ll be alright”, she added after her rant.
“Thanks mom”, I said. And I really meant it.
I dug through the debris of my purse, pulled out the doctor’s number and took her next available appointment. I still had to wait a week and during that time I experienced several more attacks, including one in the car that was so bad I had to pull over. When I finally walked through her doors, I was doubling up on my precious, actually illegally procured Xanax.
Sitting in the exam room waiting on her, I wondered how much to say. Doctors can be funny about people admitting to taking drugs that don’t belong to them, but how else to explain how I’d been dealing with the problem thus far?
I was shocked when a woman that looked no older than me walked in and, truth be told, slightly miffed. I didn’t want a new doctor, I wanted someone more established. She looked more like a TV MD than the real thing.
But the minute we started speaking, I changed my mind. For an hour we talked – I answered all her professional questions and then, somehow, I was telling her about my dad and about therapist Diane Lane. And without divulging too much, she told me she’d been through some very similar experiences. My new doctor was young and optimistic – she seemed to “get it”, and she was only a family doctor. There was likely no couch in her office, in fact I didn’t even know if she had an actual office.
It wasn’t that I found someone to relate to, there were plenty of people that could say, “Yes, I know exactly how you feel and I’ve been there”. There was just something about her that put me at ease; I trusted her. I even told her about the pills. And I’d never once had that feeling with Diane Lane. With her, I’d laid out the things I thought she needed to know, resenting it and her, even if I wasn’t aware of it at the time. I wanted it to work, so I forced it until I couldn’t anymore, but gave just enough to get by and little else.
At the end of our appointment Dr. Kelly gave me two prescriptions – one for long term use and the other for more Xanax to use for panic attacks until the first had time to build up in my system. She said she thought therapy was something that I should continue with and she would call two of her colleagues for referrals, that I should keep trying until I found the right one, that it had taken her several tries too.
“It’s a shame”, I told her on my way out, “that you aren’t in that field.”
She smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll find the right one. Call me anytime.” And I’m sure she really meant it.
Showing posts with label boobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boobs. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Wedding day, part two - The reception
I stood near the bottom of the staircase and watched Tess walk slowly across the lawn. The bridesmaids had taken a side route on the way in, staying on the pathway, but she was forced to teeter down a row of uneven stepping stones in heels she was unaccustomed to wearing. The result was an awkward, painfully long procession and the music had ended by the time she finished her struggle up the stairs.
When she was finally situated the bridal party turned to face the couple, as previously directed. Unfortunately for me, turning to the side gave everyone in attendance a generous view of my left breast. I could see mom staring and I knew she thought the display of cleavage was my way of rebelling against an event I didn’t want to participate in or an attempt to make the hideous dress work in some way. But it wasn’t.
When I’d picked up the dress the top was already straining so I took it to a seamstress to reinforce it, to avoid any possible mishaps. But as soon as we started walking around the grounds taking pictures, the threads began to pop, stitch by stitch, until it was even more gaped open than when I bought it. Everyone in the wedding was, at regular intervals throughout the afternoon, overcome with laughter about my wardrobe malfunction – taking it in turns to making popping noises.
While the preacher started his spiel, I tried to inconspicuously raise my bouquet to chest height. It no doubt looked ridiculous, but it was better than the alternative – flashing my family, friends, neighbors, and the president of the American Pilipino association, who’d flown in from New York to witness the blessed event. The greenery was poking me unpleasantly and making my boobs itch, but I suffered in silence.
“If there is anyone here that can show just cause why these two should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace”, the preacher shouted threateningly. There was the tiniest pause for breath and he started to speak again, but was suddenly interrupted by loud and repetitive shrieking.
Larry the Goose, Tess’s web-footed mate, was objecting...when a lot of people wanted to, but wouldn’t. I’d always hated that goose, but I found myself feeling rather fond of him at that moment. The preacher had to wait until Larry finished honking, and everyone had stopped laughing, before continuing.
When the service ended after the second longest prayer in the history of prayers (the first was at the rehearsal), Papa and Tess slowly and awkwardly descended the stairs – she was all wrapped up in her dress and he had to take one step at a time, sideways, because of his leg braces. I was told later that my father picked that moment to pipe up and say, “Well, there goes my inheritance.”
They reached the bottom and went off on their way, which was our cue to start ascending the stairs one by one, meet a groomsman on the top platform and be escorted out. I’d fought to get my cousin Ben as my partner, since the alternatives were an old family friend that irritated me and my cousin Ashley’s letch of a husband.
He winked at me as we made our way to the top and I rolled my eyes. We met, hooked arms awkwardly (since he’s a foot taller), and started down. Days later, when I was looking through pictures of the ceremony, I saw one of Ben and me walking the aisle. In it we’re looking at each other, my neck craned up, his down, and grinning like idiots at some whispered joke I can’t remember. It looked just like a picture of me with another Ben, in another wedding, ten years ago. The dress was different, the hair was certainly different and it wasn’t the same cousin – but it made me remember a moment I’d almost forgotten, and I think that was worth being in that fiasco of a wedding and almost flashing my nips to all and sundry.
Anyway, we were forced to spend another hour taking pictures on the stairs while all the guests made their way through the buffet. I was pissed because I knew there wouldn’t be a single meatball left by the time we were finished, and I let it be known.
“How much longer is this going to take”, I asked a photographer. She was shorter than me, which is rare in people over the age of 12, so I used that to my advantage and gave her my best ‘I’m leaning over you, glaring, and you will be intimidated’ pose.
“I don’t know”, she said, not at all unsettled. She and her fellow photographer seemed to find me quite amusing, despite my best attempts to be the opposite.
“All the meatballs will be gone”, I grumbled, not for the first, or even the second, time. I can be rather single minded when meat is involved.
After more laughter, someone’s child was sent to fetch me a few meatballs (I got the last three) and someone’s boyfriend to get me a beer. Then I stood by a column and waited my turn again, stuffing a whole ball in my mouth and “mmming” inappropriately.
While I was rolling my eyes and blissfully chewing, my cousin poked me in the chest and said, “Hey, what’s all that green and orange stuff on your tits?” I looked down and sure enough, there were splotches of color all over my exposed cleavage. Confused, I rubbed at a spot with my finger and it immediately came off.
“It was the flowers”, a woman passing by said, peering down my dress. “You had them stuffed in there and they bled.” Everyone laughed at my expense, again, and I just sighed, shrugged and popped in another meatball. It was a testament to how hungry I was that I let the stuffing and bleeding remark go without comment.
My family is roughly the size of a professional football team – including managers, coaches, water people, and all those other random folks standing on the sidelines – and each little family unit had to take a picture with the happy couple.
My father showed up in jeans, work boots, a black t-shirt and a button up black and orange Harley Davidson shirt with the sleeves ripped off, the frayed edges sticking out several inches. There were plenty of other people wearing jeans, but none stood out quite as much as he did. I sat uncomfortably on the steps under the crook of his left arm, hid my beer behind the bouquet and tried to smile like I meant it. But I’m pretty sure, all things considered, it could be a candidate for the awkward family photos website.
The caption would read: “Just married Grandpa poses with his wife, an ex-mail order bride from the Philippines who is no longer suspected of murdering her first husband (hooray!), his son, a man that proudly shows everyone his cell phone collection of busted old lady titties...even at funerals, his two granddaughters (anorexic on right, Boobs McGee on left), and his great granddaughter, who only moments ago wiped boogers on the back of his tuxedo.” Or something like that.
The reception was in full swing by the time we made it to the patio. I went straight to the bar, grabbed another beer and walked away from them all – around the side of a building, up the hill and to my house. The first order of business was to get out of that stupid dress.
I was gone for about half an hour, at the most. The sun had been shining all day, but as I made my way back to the party in a slightly more comfortable dress, the sky had turned grey and the wind had begun to pick up.
Joining the huge circle of people around the dance floor, I noticed that only half of them were watching the Pilipino dance crew do their thing with balance beams of some sort. The other half was staring worriedly at the steadily darkening sky.
It held out until after the first dance and what I call “the money dance”. Apparently it’s a Pilipino custom for the couple to dance and people to come up to them (males to the bride and females to the groom), pin money on their clothing and take a turn round the dance floor.
Tess’s friend took the microphone from the DJ and explained the procedure to the crowd over the playing music. The first few minutes were rather awkward as everyone, including myself, looked around at each other and balked. Our reluctant faces, turning this way and that, said it all – “Ha! Fuck that shit! I came here for the free booze.” Finally a decent number of people started participating, but I have no doubt that it was just to get Tess’s friend to stop barking loudly into the mic.
I snuck away to the smoking crowd by the boat house and hid there until the first rain drops began to fall. The band and the DJ were swiftly moved to a covered area, just before the bottom dropped out. I was bummed because it made our dancing area considerably smaller, but it only lasted long enough to drive away the majority of the old people and non-family members. The guests dwindled and that was alright by us – more beer.
And while I was drinking more beer, I got a play by play of what I’d missed before the dancing. Apparently Papa and Tess were cutting the cake, surrounded by photographers and guests of course, and the minute they shoved it in each other’s faces, his pants fell down. The long table cloth obscured the scene from those facing them, only showing Papa’s surprised cake-covered face and Tess rapidly disappearing from view. But those to the side of the table got to see a very large, very old man in his underwear...and his tiny new bride, fumbling around on the ground, attempting to jerk his pants back up. And as expected, dirty old man that he is, Papa is still quite pleased about the incident.
I returned to the house once more, as the rain was all but finished, and changed clothes again. As I squished back down the hill in my rain boots and jeans, I saw dad walking around the perimeter with a glass jar in his hand. Some idiot had given him moonshine and I thought to myself, “Well, here we go...”
As the evening wore on, the band and the DJ taking it in turns to play a mix of country and every line dance known to man...twice, dad started to make his presence more known. Though Papa finally confiscated his moonshine, some damage was already done. He spent an hour with his arm around a visibly uncomfortable Ray, telling him how glad he was to be gaining a “husband in law” and how to tell when mom is going to “flip her shit”.
Responding to the desperate look in Ray’s eyes, my sister and I attempted to distract dad and draw him away. It worked, but only when he suddenly decided to physically force me to dance with him to a slow song. Though I tried to resist, he was having none of it and I knew if I continued to refuse, he’d get angry. So to keep the peace I swayed in a circle, avoiding his drunken stomping as best I could, while everyone snickered and shot me thumbs up.
My cousin’s boyfriend was the next recipient of his unwanted attention. I was standing with the two of them in front of the garage when he zigzagged right up to us and threw an arm around her.
“Who are you”, dad demanded of her boyfriend.
He answered, holding out his hand to shake, but dad just stared at him. I knew that look so I wasn’t surprised when he slurred, “I’ll black both your fucking eyes, boy.”
The poor guy turned white as a sheet.
“Shut up, Dad. Leave him alone”, I said, glaring at him.
After a few minutes of tense conversation, dad decided that “the boy” was alright, mostly because he had horses and motorcycles and, wouldn’t you know it...so did dad! What a fucking coincidence! A connection was made. Then the band struck up a fast song and dad shouted, “It’s time for the Jimbo Shuffle! Everybody to the floor! Jimbo Shuffle!” He zigzagged back up to the crowd, violence temporarily forgotten in his excitement.
But once he’d regaled everyone with The Jimbo Shuffle (which is the only dance he does: feet together and arms bent at the elbows with closed fists, he slides a few feet to one side and then the other, pumping his arms in a circle at the same time...a lit cigarette usually firmly clenched between his lips), he approached my cousin’s boyfriend once more.
“I’ll black both your fucking eyes. Don’t think I won’t you sonofabitch.”
He’d completely forgotten their truce, probably even that they’d spoken at all, and we had to intervene once more. They then had the same conversation as before and dad tugged him down the ramp to see his motorcycle while my cousin watched in horror. Fortunately, though, she didn’t have to worry for long. Dad’s ALDD (Alcoholic deficit disorder) kicked in and he started half running back up to the band shouting, “FREEBIRD! FREEBIRD!”
You’ve heard of “My Father, The Hero”? This was “My Father, The Epitome of Southern Stereotypes”. He requests the eight minute version of Freebird every time there’s a live band. Once, when we went to dinner, he embarrassed the shit out of me by asking the lead singer of a reggae band, “This shit is ok and all, but ya’ll know any Skynyrd? Freebird!”
A little while later, I realized just how far behind the others I was on the drinking scale.
There was a random pole, that looked like a stop sign post without the sign, sticking out of the ground in one of the flower beds bordering the overhang where the band was playing. And facing that pole, dancing in front of it as if it were an audience of one, was my neighbor. An hour later, she still hadn’t stopped gyrating and so I approached one of her daughters.
“Your mom’s been over there alone, dancing with that pole for over an hour.”
She glanced over and rolled her eyes. “I know. I wish she’d go home.”
Every now and then someone else would notice, comment, chuckle and go on about their business. That’s why I was surprised when all hell suddenly broke loose.
I was dancing with Claire when Leigha came running up crying. Apparently the daughter I’d first spoken to cussed out my mom for looking at her mom – at least that’s what I was able to gather from Leigha’s dramatics. It was over before I made it off the dance floor, but I approached the daughter and asked her what the problem was. The more she spoke, the angrier I became and I finally just held up my hand, said “no” and walked away.
I stalked into the house, fuming, with Marie on my heels. I knew I was doing the right thing by walking away and not escalating the situation, but that didn’t lessen my anger. I distracted myself by cleaning up the girly mess scattered all over Papa’s bed and floor.
Maybe 10 to 15 minutes later I was relatively calm and Marie and I had finished cleaning up, ready to head back outside. That’s when Leigha came running in, crying again. The first thing I thought was, “Dad tried to black both of what’s-his-name’s eyes and now they’re dancing around trying to slice each other’s nuts off with broken beer bottles!”
“They’re fighting”, she said. “Throwing beer and screaming and...”
We ran back through the house and out the door. I placed my family members first – Ray was off to one side talking to a neighbor, Mom talking to another neighbor, and dad was swaying alone in front of the band, completely oblivious. It was clear that he wasn’t the antagonist this time and closer to passing out than punching someone out. But who was? Where was the fight?
“They left”, Leigha said, pointing up the hill at a group of people that I recognized as our (yes more) neighbors – the pole dancing woman and her two daughters et al. The story came out in bits and pieces. Supposedly Claire went up to my mother to apologize for her sister’s behavior and when she did a family friend asked her to stop using profanity in front of the kids. She popped off at him, he yelled at her, she threw a beer at his head and that’s how the, apparently, three minute brawl started.
I was never a big fan of the wedding in general, but I was appalled at the way they disrespected my Papa by fucking up his reception. Not to mention completely shocked that it hadn’t been one of my family members that started the whole thing. The party ended abruptly and we’ve never called it a night so early before.
(Because of those events (and others that have happened since) there’s now a rift between my family and theirs. I’m broken hearted about it because I’ve been friends with those girls for 11 years.)
The band and the DJ started packing up an hour or more before they were supposed to and the few people that were left stood in an uncertain circle at the edge of the patio. No one was really sure what to do.
My sister looked as exhausted as I felt and so I said, “Are you ready to go home, Lee?”
“Yeah”, she answered immediately.
We told everyone goodnight and started our short uphill walk toward home.
“You know what? I just knew that, if anyone was going to start shit, it was going to be dad. And look...it wasn’t even anyone from the family. How crazy is that?”
She looked over at me and laughed. “I was just thinking the exact same thing.”
And somewhere in the dark, left behind, likely swaying back and forth in the middle of wedding debris, we heard dad singing.
“And this bird you cannot change! Oooooooh!”
When she was finally situated the bridal party turned to face the couple, as previously directed. Unfortunately for me, turning to the side gave everyone in attendance a generous view of my left breast. I could see mom staring and I knew she thought the display of cleavage was my way of rebelling against an event I didn’t want to participate in or an attempt to make the hideous dress work in some way. But it wasn’t.
When I’d picked up the dress the top was already straining so I took it to a seamstress to reinforce it, to avoid any possible mishaps. But as soon as we started walking around the grounds taking pictures, the threads began to pop, stitch by stitch, until it was even more gaped open than when I bought it. Everyone in the wedding was, at regular intervals throughout the afternoon, overcome with laughter about my wardrobe malfunction – taking it in turns to making popping noises.
While the preacher started his spiel, I tried to inconspicuously raise my bouquet to chest height. It no doubt looked ridiculous, but it was better than the alternative – flashing my family, friends, neighbors, and the president of the American Pilipino association, who’d flown in from New York to witness the blessed event. The greenery was poking me unpleasantly and making my boobs itch, but I suffered in silence.
“If there is anyone here that can show just cause why these two should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace”, the preacher shouted threateningly. There was the tiniest pause for breath and he started to speak again, but was suddenly interrupted by loud and repetitive shrieking.
Larry the Goose, Tess’s web-footed mate, was objecting...when a lot of people wanted to, but wouldn’t. I’d always hated that goose, but I found myself feeling rather fond of him at that moment. The preacher had to wait until Larry finished honking, and everyone had stopped laughing, before continuing.
That's his bad eye. He has one that works.
When the service ended after the second longest prayer in the history of prayers (the first was at the rehearsal), Papa and Tess slowly and awkwardly descended the stairs – she was all wrapped up in her dress and he had to take one step at a time, sideways, because of his leg braces. I was told later that my father picked that moment to pipe up and say, “Well, there goes my inheritance.”
They reached the bottom and went off on their way, which was our cue to start ascending the stairs one by one, meet a groomsman on the top platform and be escorted out. I’d fought to get my cousin Ben as my partner, since the alternatives were an old family friend that irritated me and my cousin Ashley’s letch of a husband.
He winked at me as we made our way to the top and I rolled my eyes. We met, hooked arms awkwardly (since he’s a foot taller), and started down. Days later, when I was looking through pictures of the ceremony, I saw one of Ben and me walking the aisle. In it we’re looking at each other, my neck craned up, his down, and grinning like idiots at some whispered joke I can’t remember. It looked just like a picture of me with another Ben, in another wedding, ten years ago. The dress was different, the hair was certainly different and it wasn’t the same cousin – but it made me remember a moment I’d almost forgotten, and I think that was worth being in that fiasco of a wedding and almost flashing my nips to all and sundry.
Anyway, we were forced to spend another hour taking pictures on the stairs while all the guests made their way through the buffet. I was pissed because I knew there wouldn’t be a single meatball left by the time we were finished, and I let it be known.
“How much longer is this going to take”, I asked a photographer. She was shorter than me, which is rare in people over the age of 12, so I used that to my advantage and gave her my best ‘I’m leaning over you, glaring, and you will be intimidated’ pose.
“I don’t know”, she said, not at all unsettled. She and her fellow photographer seemed to find me quite amusing, despite my best attempts to be the opposite.
“All the meatballs will be gone”, I grumbled, not for the first, or even the second, time. I can be rather single minded when meat is involved.
After more laughter, someone’s child was sent to fetch me a few meatballs (I got the last three) and someone’s boyfriend to get me a beer. Then I stood by a column and waited my turn again, stuffing a whole ball in my mouth and “mmming” inappropriately.
While I was rolling my eyes and blissfully chewing, my cousin poked me in the chest and said, “Hey, what’s all that green and orange stuff on your tits?” I looked down and sure enough, there were splotches of color all over my exposed cleavage. Confused, I rubbed at a spot with my finger and it immediately came off.
“It was the flowers”, a woman passing by said, peering down my dress. “You had them stuffed in there and they bled.” Everyone laughed at my expense, again, and I just sighed, shrugged and popped in another meatball. It was a testament to how hungry I was that I let the stuffing and bleeding remark go without comment.
My family is roughly the size of a professional football team – including managers, coaches, water people, and all those other random folks standing on the sidelines – and each little family unit had to take a picture with the happy couple.
My father showed up in jeans, work boots, a black t-shirt and a button up black and orange Harley Davidson shirt with the sleeves ripped off, the frayed edges sticking out several inches. There were plenty of other people wearing jeans, but none stood out quite as much as he did. I sat uncomfortably on the steps under the crook of his left arm, hid my beer behind the bouquet and tried to smile like I meant it. But I’m pretty sure, all things considered, it could be a candidate for the awkward family photos website.
The caption would read: “Just married Grandpa poses with his wife, an ex-mail order bride from the Philippines who is no longer suspected of murdering her first husband (hooray!), his son, a man that proudly shows everyone his cell phone collection of busted old lady titties...even at funerals, his two granddaughters (anorexic on right, Boobs McGee on left), and his great granddaughter, who only moments ago wiped boogers on the back of his tuxedo.” Or something like that.
The reception was in full swing by the time we made it to the patio. I went straight to the bar, grabbed another beer and walked away from them all – around the side of a building, up the hill and to my house. The first order of business was to get out of that stupid dress.
I was gone for about half an hour, at the most. The sun had been shining all day, but as I made my way back to the party in a slightly more comfortable dress, the sky had turned grey and the wind had begun to pick up.
Joining the huge circle of people around the dance floor, I noticed that only half of them were watching the Pilipino dance crew do their thing with balance beams of some sort. The other half was staring worriedly at the steadily darkening sky.
It held out until after the first dance and what I call “the money dance”. Apparently it’s a Pilipino custom for the couple to dance and people to come up to them (males to the bride and females to the groom), pin money on their clothing and take a turn round the dance floor.
Tess’s friend took the microphone from the DJ and explained the procedure to the crowd over the playing music. The first few minutes were rather awkward as everyone, including myself, looked around at each other and balked. Our reluctant faces, turning this way and that, said it all – “Ha! Fuck that shit! I came here for the free booze.” Finally a decent number of people started participating, but I have no doubt that it was just to get Tess’s friend to stop barking loudly into the mic.
I snuck away to the smoking crowd by the boat house and hid there until the first rain drops began to fall. The band and the DJ were swiftly moved to a covered area, just before the bottom dropped out. I was bummed because it made our dancing area considerably smaller, but it only lasted long enough to drive away the majority of the old people and non-family members. The guests dwindled and that was alright by us – more beer.
And while I was drinking more beer, I got a play by play of what I’d missed before the dancing. Apparently Papa and Tess were cutting the cake, surrounded by photographers and guests of course, and the minute they shoved it in each other’s faces, his pants fell down. The long table cloth obscured the scene from those facing them, only showing Papa’s surprised cake-covered face and Tess rapidly disappearing from view. But those to the side of the table got to see a very large, very old man in his underwear...and his tiny new bride, fumbling around on the ground, attempting to jerk his pants back up. And as expected, dirty old man that he is, Papa is still quite pleased about the incident.
I returned to the house once more, as the rain was all but finished, and changed clothes again. As I squished back down the hill in my rain boots and jeans, I saw dad walking around the perimeter with a glass jar in his hand. Some idiot had given him moonshine and I thought to myself, “Well, here we go...”
As the evening wore on, the band and the DJ taking it in turns to play a mix of country and every line dance known to man...twice, dad started to make his presence more known. Though Papa finally confiscated his moonshine, some damage was already done. He spent an hour with his arm around a visibly uncomfortable Ray, telling him how glad he was to be gaining a “husband in law” and how to tell when mom is going to “flip her shit”.
Responding to the desperate look in Ray’s eyes, my sister and I attempted to distract dad and draw him away. It worked, but only when he suddenly decided to physically force me to dance with him to a slow song. Though I tried to resist, he was having none of it and I knew if I continued to refuse, he’d get angry. So to keep the peace I swayed in a circle, avoiding his drunken stomping as best I could, while everyone snickered and shot me thumbs up.
My cousin’s boyfriend was the next recipient of his unwanted attention. I was standing with the two of them in front of the garage when he zigzagged right up to us and threw an arm around her.
“Who are you”, dad demanded of her boyfriend.
He answered, holding out his hand to shake, but dad just stared at him. I knew that look so I wasn’t surprised when he slurred, “I’ll black both your fucking eyes, boy.”
The poor guy turned white as a sheet.
“Shut up, Dad. Leave him alone”, I said, glaring at him.
After a few minutes of tense conversation, dad decided that “the boy” was alright, mostly because he had horses and motorcycles and, wouldn’t you know it...so did dad! What a fucking coincidence! A connection was made. Then the band struck up a fast song and dad shouted, “It’s time for the Jimbo Shuffle! Everybody to the floor! Jimbo Shuffle!” He zigzagged back up to the crowd, violence temporarily forgotten in his excitement.
But once he’d regaled everyone with The Jimbo Shuffle (which is the only dance he does: feet together and arms bent at the elbows with closed fists, he slides a few feet to one side and then the other, pumping his arms in a circle at the same time...a lit cigarette usually firmly clenched between his lips), he approached my cousin’s boyfriend once more.
“I’ll black both your fucking eyes. Don’t think I won’t you sonofabitch.”
He’d completely forgotten their truce, probably even that they’d spoken at all, and we had to intervene once more. They then had the same conversation as before and dad tugged him down the ramp to see his motorcycle while my cousin watched in horror. Fortunately, though, she didn’t have to worry for long. Dad’s ALDD (Alcoholic deficit disorder) kicked in and he started half running back up to the band shouting, “FREEBIRD! FREEBIRD!”
You’ve heard of “My Father, The Hero”? This was “My Father, The Epitome of Southern Stereotypes”. He requests the eight minute version of Freebird every time there’s a live band. Once, when we went to dinner, he embarrassed the shit out of me by asking the lead singer of a reggae band, “This shit is ok and all, but ya’ll know any Skynyrd? Freebird!”
A little while later, I realized just how far behind the others I was on the drinking scale.
There was a random pole, that looked like a stop sign post without the sign, sticking out of the ground in one of the flower beds bordering the overhang where the band was playing. And facing that pole, dancing in front of it as if it were an audience of one, was my neighbor. An hour later, she still hadn’t stopped gyrating and so I approached one of her daughters.
“Your mom’s been over there alone, dancing with that pole for over an hour.”
She glanced over and rolled her eyes. “I know. I wish she’d go home.”
Every now and then someone else would notice, comment, chuckle and go on about their business. That’s why I was surprised when all hell suddenly broke loose.
I was dancing with Claire when Leigha came running up crying. Apparently the daughter I’d first spoken to cussed out my mom for looking at her mom – at least that’s what I was able to gather from Leigha’s dramatics. It was over before I made it off the dance floor, but I approached the daughter and asked her what the problem was. The more she spoke, the angrier I became and I finally just held up my hand, said “no” and walked away.
I stalked into the house, fuming, with Marie on my heels. I knew I was doing the right thing by walking away and not escalating the situation, but that didn’t lessen my anger. I distracted myself by cleaning up the girly mess scattered all over Papa’s bed and floor.
Maybe 10 to 15 minutes later I was relatively calm and Marie and I had finished cleaning up, ready to head back outside. That’s when Leigha came running in, crying again. The first thing I thought was, “Dad tried to black both of what’s-his-name’s eyes and now they’re dancing around trying to slice each other’s nuts off with broken beer bottles!”
“They’re fighting”, she said. “Throwing beer and screaming and...”
We ran back through the house and out the door. I placed my family members first – Ray was off to one side talking to a neighbor, Mom talking to another neighbor, and dad was swaying alone in front of the band, completely oblivious. It was clear that he wasn’t the antagonist this time and closer to passing out than punching someone out. But who was? Where was the fight?
“They left”, Leigha said, pointing up the hill at a group of people that I recognized as our (yes more) neighbors – the pole dancing woman and her two daughters et al. The story came out in bits and pieces. Supposedly Claire went up to my mother to apologize for her sister’s behavior and when she did a family friend asked her to stop using profanity in front of the kids. She popped off at him, he yelled at her, she threw a beer at his head and that’s how the, apparently, three minute brawl started.
I was never a big fan of the wedding in general, but I was appalled at the way they disrespected my Papa by fucking up his reception. Not to mention completely shocked that it hadn’t been one of my family members that started the whole thing. The party ended abruptly and we’ve never called it a night so early before.
(Because of those events (and others that have happened since) there’s now a rift between my family and theirs. I’m broken hearted about it because I’ve been friends with those girls for 11 years.)
The band and the DJ started packing up an hour or more before they were supposed to and the few people that were left stood in an uncertain circle at the edge of the patio. No one was really sure what to do.
My sister looked as exhausted as I felt and so I said, “Are you ready to go home, Lee?”
“Yeah”, she answered immediately.
We told everyone goodnight and started our short uphill walk toward home.
“You know what? I just knew that, if anyone was going to start shit, it was going to be dad. And look...it wasn’t even anyone from the family. How crazy is that?”
She looked over at me and laughed. “I was just thinking the exact same thing.”
And somewhere in the dark, left behind, likely swaying back and forth in the middle of wedding debris, we heard dad singing.
“And this bird you cannot change! Oooooooh!”
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The VIP section
Several years ago I was in a gas station, minding my business, buying a forty and a pack of cigars. (Or maybe it was a pack of sour gummy worms and a Mountain Dew...whatever you need to tell yourself.)
I had the classic stoner (gummy worm addict) look going on – frizzy hair piled into a disheveled bird’s nest on top of my head, big sunglasses covering red eyes, and a t-shirt with a fraying decal on the back of a naked man and woman running under big letters spelling “Carolina Streaker”. Real jizz in your pants kind of stuff.
I paid for my contraband, went out the door and back to my car. I was smoking a cigarette and staring at the front of a huge black bus when I reached for my drink and realized it wasn’t there. Cussing, I got out and headed back toward the gas station. But as I reached for the door handle, someone yelled and I glanced back.
WHAM!
I collided with a man coming out the door, dropped my cigarette, and, if my muddled memory serves, shouted “Fucking Christ”. He apologized and grudgingly so did I, still looking down and brushing the ashes off my pants leg. Then we did the dance. You know the one? Left, left, right, right, sorry, sorry, left, left, right, right, pause, um ok, I’m going to go this way while you...no I said this way...ok...goddamn it, just be still!
The whole thing probably only took 10 seconds, but in my memory it slows down to a crawl. I suppose it’s my subconscious way of torture. Because during that last pause, before we went our separate ways, I finally looked him full in the face and noticed...
I’d been door dancing with Edwin McCain. Cue open mouthed shock and staring at suddenly VERY visible side of black bus with his name in GIANT letters and, oh yeah, his FACE on it. *slow clap*
That was my first disastrous brush with a celebrity. I mean, unless you want to count the time before that when I got so drunk I made out with a guy in a bar because I thought he was the front man from that band. You know the one? With the tattoos and spiky hair? And the ripped arms and holey pants? That guy.
And maybe also a girl that looked exactly like Kerri Russell. If Kerri Russell wore fishnets and rubbed her nipples suggestively in bars, which I’m sure she doesn’t. Not classy, fake Kerri Russell.
Oh, wait, and there was that time two years ago when my favorite band in the entire world, Ludo, was playing at a local tavern. It was a small place that my best friend and I frequented so I was positive I’d finally get to meet their lead singer Andrew Volpe. I’d already gotten two of the members to sign a CD at their last show, but somehow I missed him. And don’t get me wrong, I love them all, but Andrew Volpe makes my nipples hard.
Anyway, while waiting for the first few bands to play I got epically hammered and left for a quickie with the fireman because he lived in an apartment right next to the bar. All I remember about that was showing up, bouncing around on top of him and laughing for what I thought was about 15 minutes but turned out to be a lot longer, and hauling ass out the door still pulling on clothes and screaming, “I’m gonna miss Ludo!”
By the time I got back they were almost through with their set. I wrapped my arms around a wooden post between the stage and the bar and sang along with my favorite song and one other and it was over. A little while after they packed up, Rachel had to pry my grasp open and half carry my ass out the back door. And while she was helping me stumble across the parking lot I was shouting, “FUCKING LUDO WOOOOO! WOOOOO! YEAH!”
“Hey...you know they’re standing RIGHT there”, she said, embarrassed and irritated I’m sure.
“FUCKING LUDO WOOOOO!”
There they were, Andrew Volpe and the lot of them, standing in a group outside by themselves loading up and witnessing my embarrassing drunken display. Rachel knew better than to take me over there and hurried us to the car.
So apparently I’m terrible with celebrities. So terrible, in fact, that when my stepsister Jess told me we’d gotten VIP passes to meet Kendra Wilkinson and sit in the holy grail of club seating, I was a tad nervous.
Every summer, while I’m vacationing in Oklahoma, we go out drinking and dancing at least one night. This year I spent almost the entire week ping-ponging between my bed and the pool so I was happy when she finally said, “Friday night we’re going out”.
Friday afternoon we went to a movie and then did a little browsing for shoes or maybe a new shirt to wear out that night. I was relaxed, full of Chili’s chicken crispers, and aimlessly wandering the aisles flicking through racks, when I heard Jess talking excitedly on the phone. I made my way over to her just as she was hanging up.
“My friend got us VIP passes in to hang out with Kendra Wilkinson tonight, but we’ve got to dress up and wear something with pink in it.”
My first reaction was excitement - Holy shit! VIP? Really? That’s fucking awesome! Ooooh, Dave is gonna be so jealous when I tell him I met her! Go Kendra! Go Kendra!
My second reaction was panic - Wait? Dress up? Ohmygawd, I’ve got nothing to wear to a VIP party! I have no clothes! Nothing pink! SHIT! Wait...all of the girls there are going to be a size two with gigantic fake breasts and wearing pink see-through Band-Aid with built in herpes repellent! I don’t know if I want to do this.
In reality, I had a suitcase with six and a half dresses shoved in among the t-shirts and shorts that say COCKS across the chest or ass, and a firm grasp on how to avoid anything herpes related. (What? It’s a college sports team. Scouts honor.) I say six and a half because one was actually a skirt that I briefly considered turning into a strapless dress in the event that I wanted the natives to see how tan my ass cheeks have gotten this year. (For the record, I now have the ass cheeks of a Mexican. Just like my boobs. Ole motherfuckers.)
We spent the next few hours frantically trying on dresses and shoes. I suppose it was a bit more frantic on my end because I’d found the most beautiful bright blue stilettos that I was sure I couldn’t live without...yet also sure there was no way I’d manage to pair them with anything pink without looking like Malibu Barbie – the cracked out version. Somehow knowing that didn’t stop me from trying anyway.
In the end Jess threatened to leave me there, so I settled on buying two pairs of the same stilettos – one in black, one in silver – and waved a longing goodbye to their shiny blue sisters. I found a strapless dress with a tight teal bodice and a flowy skirt with swirls of different colors, including pink. It was a bit louder than my usual style. I’ve always been a bit of a solid colors, straight lines, lot of black type of girl. But it was crunch time and everyone else seemed to think it was perfect. (Or they were tired of my bitching and I actually looked like an over tropical, special needs tourist.)
We got ready at Jess’s house in record time, just taking quick showers and retouching makeup. I threw some mousse in my hair and decided to just let the afro go. By then I was less anxious and more resolved. I wasn’t going to suddenly get better looking. Best to just say fuck it and drink a lot.
We got to the club around 10:30, sat down in a booth and had a few drinks before making our way to the VIP area. And it was insane.
The tiny section was surrounded by people – baby hookers in skin tight dresses everywhere! There was a low wall around the area with two roped entrances guarded by men with their arms crossed in an imposing manner. Chases and couches with pillows and a few low tables were stragestically placed and men and women, dressed from skater pro to Las Vegas hooker, buzzed with anticipation. There was even one girl who had a dress cut down to her waist...and the boobs hanging almost as low to match.
It wasn’t what I expected and I was relieved. From the phone conversation with Jess’s friend, I thought it was supposed to be a more intimate affair. The word “table” was tossed around and I was afraid I’d be stuck next to some bunny with a double decker bus on her chest and a penchant for calling me “Excuse Me Peasant Please Move”.
Not at all. There were probably about 30 or so people in our little box and the rest of the hundreds were looking out from the balconies, the stage, and pressed up against the barriers like bloodhounds scenting a bitch in heat. They were salivating, I tell you. And from my perch on a low couch near the dividing wall, I could feel their hot breath on my neck. It was a little exciting. Not the hot breath part, that was kind of gross. I mean the atmosphere – knowing that I was sitting in a place they all wished they could be sitting.
When they announced her entrance the crowd went nuts. She went straight past the rope and stood on the lower deck of the VIP section, taking pictures with the people pressed against the edges and waving to those further out. I was proud of myself for not being all “WOOOOOO” or “Ohmyfreakinggawd you’re, like, so awesome” when she finally made it to the inner sanctum. I was actually completely calm and collected when we spoke, shook hands, and took a picture with her. And after having a bit to drink and going from past experiences, I’m thankful someone slipped me a chill pill. She was very down to earth and gracious, which made it easier I guess.
Even those people that say “If I ever meet a celebrity I’ll be totally cool and calm, unfazed...they’re just people” have those moments. Obviously. But maybe I’m finally growing out of my crazy fan stage.
Or maybe, three hours later and in a different club, I flew off a bar stool and busted my ass on the wet floor because I may or may not have heard someone say something about Ryan Reynolds being there and I was drunk enough to believe it AND attempt a gymnastic leap from a sitting position. Possibly. And maybe I blamed it on the slippery dress and a handsy skeezeball to my right wearing too much Axe.
The world may never know.
I had the classic stoner (gummy worm addict) look going on – frizzy hair piled into a disheveled bird’s nest on top of my head, big sunglasses covering red eyes, and a t-shirt with a fraying decal on the back of a naked man and woman running under big letters spelling “Carolina Streaker”. Real jizz in your pants kind of stuff.
I paid for my contraband, went out the door and back to my car. I was smoking a cigarette and staring at the front of a huge black bus when I reached for my drink and realized it wasn’t there. Cussing, I got out and headed back toward the gas station. But as I reached for the door handle, someone yelled and I glanced back.
WHAM!
I collided with a man coming out the door, dropped my cigarette, and, if my muddled memory serves, shouted “Fucking Christ”. He apologized and grudgingly so did I, still looking down and brushing the ashes off my pants leg. Then we did the dance. You know the one? Left, left, right, right, sorry, sorry, left, left, right, right, pause, um ok, I’m going to go this way while you...no I said this way...ok...goddamn it, just be still!
The whole thing probably only took 10 seconds, but in my memory it slows down to a crawl. I suppose it’s my subconscious way of torture. Because during that last pause, before we went our separate ways, I finally looked him full in the face and noticed...
I’d been door dancing with Edwin McCain. Cue open mouthed shock and staring at suddenly VERY visible side of black bus with his name in GIANT letters and, oh yeah, his FACE on it. *slow clap*
That was my first disastrous brush with a celebrity. I mean, unless you want to count the time before that when I got so drunk I made out with a guy in a bar because I thought he was the front man from that band. You know the one? With the tattoos and spiky hair? And the ripped arms and holey pants? That guy.
And maybe also a girl that looked exactly like Kerri Russell. If Kerri Russell wore fishnets and rubbed her nipples suggestively in bars, which I’m sure she doesn’t. Not classy, fake Kerri Russell.
Oh, wait, and there was that time two years ago when my favorite band in the entire world, Ludo, was playing at a local tavern. It was a small place that my best friend and I frequented so I was positive I’d finally get to meet their lead singer Andrew Volpe. I’d already gotten two of the members to sign a CD at their last show, but somehow I missed him. And don’t get me wrong, I love them all, but Andrew Volpe makes my nipples hard.
Anyway, while waiting for the first few bands to play I got epically hammered and left for a quickie with the fireman because he lived in an apartment right next to the bar. All I remember about that was showing up, bouncing around on top of him and laughing for what I thought was about 15 minutes but turned out to be a lot longer, and hauling ass out the door still pulling on clothes and screaming, “I’m gonna miss Ludo!”
By the time I got back they were almost through with their set. I wrapped my arms around a wooden post between the stage and the bar and sang along with my favorite song and one other and it was over. A little while after they packed up, Rachel had to pry my grasp open and half carry my ass out the back door. And while she was helping me stumble across the parking lot I was shouting, “FUCKING LUDO WOOOOO! WOOOOO! YEAH!”
“Hey...you know they’re standing RIGHT there”, she said, embarrassed and irritated I’m sure.
“FUCKING LUDO WOOOOO!”
There they were, Andrew Volpe and the lot of them, standing in a group outside by themselves loading up and witnessing my embarrassing drunken display. Rachel knew better than to take me over there and hurried us to the car.
So apparently I’m terrible with celebrities. So terrible, in fact, that when my stepsister Jess told me we’d gotten VIP passes to meet Kendra Wilkinson and sit in the holy grail of club seating, I was a tad nervous.
Every summer, while I’m vacationing in Oklahoma, we go out drinking and dancing at least one night. This year I spent almost the entire week ping-ponging between my bed and the pool so I was happy when she finally said, “Friday night we’re going out”.
Friday afternoon we went to a movie and then did a little browsing for shoes or maybe a new shirt to wear out that night. I was relaxed, full of Chili’s chicken crispers, and aimlessly wandering the aisles flicking through racks, when I heard Jess talking excitedly on the phone. I made my way over to her just as she was hanging up.
“My friend got us VIP passes in to hang out with Kendra Wilkinson tonight, but we’ve got to dress up and wear something with pink in it.”
My first reaction was excitement - Holy shit! VIP? Really? That’s fucking awesome! Ooooh, Dave is gonna be so jealous when I tell him I met her! Go Kendra! Go Kendra!
My second reaction was panic - Wait? Dress up? Ohmygawd, I’ve got nothing to wear to a VIP party! I have no clothes! Nothing pink! SHIT! Wait...all of the girls there are going to be a size two with gigantic fake breasts and wearing pink see-through Band-Aid with built in herpes repellent! I don’t know if I want to do this.
In reality, I had a suitcase with six and a half dresses shoved in among the t-shirts and shorts that say COCKS across the chest or ass, and a firm grasp on how to avoid anything herpes related. (What? It’s a college sports team. Scouts honor.) I say six and a half because one was actually a skirt that I briefly considered turning into a strapless dress in the event that I wanted the natives to see how tan my ass cheeks have gotten this year. (For the record, I now have the ass cheeks of a Mexican. Just like my boobs. Ole motherfuckers.)
We spent the next few hours frantically trying on dresses and shoes. I suppose it was a bit more frantic on my end because I’d found the most beautiful bright blue stilettos that I was sure I couldn’t live without...yet also sure there was no way I’d manage to pair them with anything pink without looking like Malibu Barbie – the cracked out version. Somehow knowing that didn’t stop me from trying anyway.
In the end Jess threatened to leave me there, so I settled on buying two pairs of the same stilettos – one in black, one in silver – and waved a longing goodbye to their shiny blue sisters. I found a strapless dress with a tight teal bodice and a flowy skirt with swirls of different colors, including pink. It was a bit louder than my usual style. I’ve always been a bit of a solid colors, straight lines, lot of black type of girl. But it was crunch time and everyone else seemed to think it was perfect. (Or they were tired of my bitching and I actually looked like an over tropical, special needs tourist.)
We got ready at Jess’s house in record time, just taking quick showers and retouching makeup. I threw some mousse in my hair and decided to just let the afro go. By then I was less anxious and more resolved. I wasn’t going to suddenly get better looking. Best to just say fuck it and drink a lot.
We got to the club around 10:30, sat down in a booth and had a few drinks before making our way to the VIP area. And it was insane.
The tiny section was surrounded by people – baby hookers in skin tight dresses everywhere! There was a low wall around the area with two roped entrances guarded by men with their arms crossed in an imposing manner. Chases and couches with pillows and a few low tables were stragestically placed and men and women, dressed from skater pro to Las Vegas hooker, buzzed with anticipation. There was even one girl who had a dress cut down to her waist...and the boobs hanging almost as low to match.
It wasn’t what I expected and I was relieved. From the phone conversation with Jess’s friend, I thought it was supposed to be a more intimate affair. The word “table” was tossed around and I was afraid I’d be stuck next to some bunny with a double decker bus on her chest and a penchant for calling me “Excuse Me Peasant Please Move”.
Not at all. There were probably about 30 or so people in our little box and the rest of the hundreds were looking out from the balconies, the stage, and pressed up against the barriers like bloodhounds scenting a bitch in heat. They were salivating, I tell you. And from my perch on a low couch near the dividing wall, I could feel their hot breath on my neck. It was a little exciting. Not the hot breath part, that was kind of gross. I mean the atmosphere – knowing that I was sitting in a place they all wished they could be sitting.
When they announced her entrance the crowd went nuts. She went straight past the rope and stood on the lower deck of the VIP section, taking pictures with the people pressed against the edges and waving to those further out. I was proud of myself for not being all “WOOOOOO” or “Ohmyfreakinggawd you’re, like, so awesome” when she finally made it to the inner sanctum. I was actually completely calm and collected when we spoke, shook hands, and took a picture with her. And after having a bit to drink and going from past experiences, I’m thankful someone slipped me a chill pill. She was very down to earth and gracious, which made it easier I guess.
Even those people that say “If I ever meet a celebrity I’ll be totally cool and calm, unfazed...they’re just people” have those moments. Obviously. But maybe I’m finally growing out of my crazy fan stage.
Or maybe, three hours later and in a different club, I flew off a bar stool and busted my ass on the wet floor because I may or may not have heard someone say something about Ryan Reynolds being there and I was drunk enough to believe it AND attempt a gymnastic leap from a sitting position. Possibly. And maybe I blamed it on the slippery dress and a handsy skeezeball to my right wearing too much Axe.
The world may never know.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Keepin' it classy
I’ve been working on a blog post about my best friend since last week. I wanted it to be funny and heartwarming, with a side of “oh no she din’nt!”. At present the almost finished product is a tad sappier than I intended. And I’m currently not in the mood for sappy.
So I’ve been sitting here for a few minutes, trying to decide what I should write about. Nothing special immediately comes to mind. Unless you want to count the million little things that went on over the long weekend that couldn’t possibly produce an entire post.
Like how, on Thursday, I spent four hours banging out unnecessary reports as fast as I could because certain people around here are fucktards with a capitol Fuck. It frustrates me to no end when I know the answer to a question and no one will listen.
No one: Am I a fucktard?
Me: Why, yes. Yes you are.
No One: *silence* Anybody else? I don’t understand the Office Assistant Language. She just does what I say – doesn’t really know what’s going on, poor girl. Can anyone else tell me if I’m a fucktard? *silence* Sigh. *turns to me* Fine! Have a full report on my desk by 3pm! I want charts with lots of color and pictures of gophers fornicating!
Me: *slam, slam, slam* (head hitting desk) I’ll get right on that! *slam*
I guess I could write a long post about frustration in general, but I think I’ve gone that route before: Sexual...check. Work...check. Home...check. Friends...check. Anything with a penis...check. Yeah, frustration is so done around here.
How about an outing with my friend Megan on Friday? I could talk about that?
We went to dinner at a trendy Japanese restaurant, but for some reason it was hotter than Satan’s ballsack in there. I was wearing a dress that, once seated, didn’t cover much of my ass and after eating a bowl of stupid egg something or other soup that she talked me into getting, my legs were super glued to the goddamned seat. She was sweating, I was sweating, everyone was sweating.
And our waiter was a complete sleaze ball.
He had dark eyes and dark hair gelled into ridiculously tall spikes. He wore big silver rings on each hand (not on his ring finger) and the standard black outfit of the other servers. He had a nice face and looked to be about 30 to 32, but clearly thought he looked no older than 25. When he approached the table my first thought was, “I know that guy from somewhere...he looks really familiar”. My second was, “*squinty suspicious eyes*... didn’t I fuck him...?”
That’s me. Keepin’ it classy since 2001...ish.
He got progressively handsy as the meal wore on. By the time we were enjoying a last drink before heading for the movie, he’d gone from shoulder massaging and back rubbing to squatting at breast level and licking his lips. By then I was almost sure he was a guy named Trey that used to run with mutual friends around my town, so I asked him.
Turns out I didn’t know him after all and his familiarity with my...person was even more unwarranted than I originally suspected. Especially when he referred to my breasts as “melons”. I mean, really? Are you a waiter or a pimp browsing the flesh market? I know how hard it can sometimes be to distinguish the two, but here’s a little trick: Nice restaurant = waiter. Seedy bar/alleyway/crack whore’s house = pimp. You’re welcome.
At the movie, Sex and the City 2 in case you were wondering, we had to sit near the front. Poor Megan’s neck started to bother her from all the craning, but other than an infrequent urge to cross my eyes I was alright. The film has gotten some bad reviews, but from what I can tell (and I’ve only seen every episode ever made twice, so what do I know?) the girls are the same as they’ve always been, plus a few years, and there are some great one liners. That’s all the review you’re going to get out of me. I’m not a critic and I almost always find something to enjoy about everything I watch.
We spent the rest of our night in a bar with a bunch of men. She canoodled with her boyfriend and sucked on hot honey wings while I debated the merits of certain cell phone brands and girls that don't like their nipples bothered with a guy whose name I simply cannot remember. He accused me of trying to distract him with my cleavage and I was forced to silently forgive the waiter from earlier because referenced once, it’s their fault. Referenced twice or more, it’s clearly mine.
Still keepin’ it classy, obviously.
Alright, even that didn’t take up an entire page. Would you like to hear about how I got my hair highlighted on Saturday morning, still nice and ripe from my 4am homecoming? Or how I went home and painted my toenails and fingernails with the neon blue polish from the OPI Shrek line? Or! How about how I was so lazy that I missed out on all the boating that day and by the time I made it into my bathing suit there was no one around and I lay on the dock for 10 minutes before a storm came up and blew me away?
No? Ok.
How about this one:
On Sunday I ran into this guy at my family BBQ / lake party. I hate it when guys that say they’re going to call you and never do still look great when you see them six months later. (Note to self: Write ode to swim trunks with no lining.) I also hate it when they don’t speak to you the entire day and every time you lock eyes across the gazebo they give you a little knowing smile before turning away. Like they’re just waiting for you to half levitate and float their way, dragging your toes behind you, with giant cartoon hearts beating out of your eyeballs and your tongue lolling out of your mouth. Puleeeassse, fucker! I’d rather masturbate to Larry King Live than let you think you’ve won.
The best part was when I was floating on a raft and he joined a group leaving on a boat ride. As they drove by he stood and faced me, half bowed and blew kisses, grinning like a maniac the entire time. I didn’t do anything except hiss at my friend Claire floating nearby, “Did you SEE that? What a DICK!”
“Yeah”, she replied, “you should have done this...uh uh!” She did the old hand chopping on either side of the vagina motion that I haven’t used since Bush #2 was in office.
“Fuck! Why didn’t I think of that?”
She continued to make chopping motions and grunting sounds, occasionally throwing in a few bird fingers and an arm hook move for good measure. I think that last one was supposed to mean “up yours”, but you can’t ever be too sure about these modern gestures. Now that I’m old I have to be careful about that sort of thing. I wouldn’t want to throw up any new aged gang signs by mistake.
I probably did the right thing by ignoring him (read: not coming up with an appropriate gesture in time). I’m above all that now. I’m, like, thisfuckingclose to being PTA mom extraordinaire. Maybe even a Girl Scout troop leader. Aren’t the little ones called Brownies? I fucking love brownies.
Sigh.
Ohmigawd, look you guys! I managed to make a post with a theme entirely by accident!
*chop chop* Uh uh! Who wants to see my melons?
So I’ve been sitting here for a few minutes, trying to decide what I should write about. Nothing special immediately comes to mind. Unless you want to count the million little things that went on over the long weekend that couldn’t possibly produce an entire post.
Like how, on Thursday, I spent four hours banging out unnecessary reports as fast as I could because certain people around here are fucktards with a capitol Fuck. It frustrates me to no end when I know the answer to a question and no one will listen.
No one: Am I a fucktard?
Me: Why, yes. Yes you are.
No One: *silence* Anybody else? I don’t understand the Office Assistant Language. She just does what I say – doesn’t really know what’s going on, poor girl. Can anyone else tell me if I’m a fucktard? *silence* Sigh. *turns to me* Fine! Have a full report on my desk by 3pm! I want charts with lots of color and pictures of gophers fornicating!
Me: *slam, slam, slam* (head hitting desk) I’ll get right on that! *slam*
I guess I could write a long post about frustration in general, but I think I’ve gone that route before: Sexual...check. Work...check. Home...check. Friends...check. Anything with a penis...check. Yeah, frustration is so done around here.
How about an outing with my friend Megan on Friday? I could talk about that?
We went to dinner at a trendy Japanese restaurant, but for some reason it was hotter than Satan’s ballsack in there. I was wearing a dress that, once seated, didn’t cover much of my ass and after eating a bowl of stupid egg something or other soup that she talked me into getting, my legs were super glued to the goddamned seat. She was sweating, I was sweating, everyone was sweating.
And our waiter was a complete sleaze ball.
He had dark eyes and dark hair gelled into ridiculously tall spikes. He wore big silver rings on each hand (not on his ring finger) and the standard black outfit of the other servers. He had a nice face and looked to be about 30 to 32, but clearly thought he looked no older than 25. When he approached the table my first thought was, “I know that guy from somewhere...he looks really familiar”. My second was, “*squinty suspicious eyes*... didn’t I fuck him...?”
That’s me. Keepin’ it classy since 2001...ish.
He got progressively handsy as the meal wore on. By the time we were enjoying a last drink before heading for the movie, he’d gone from shoulder massaging and back rubbing to squatting at breast level and licking his lips. By then I was almost sure he was a guy named Trey that used to run with mutual friends around my town, so I asked him.
Turns out I didn’t know him after all and his familiarity with my...person was even more unwarranted than I originally suspected. Especially when he referred to my breasts as “melons”. I mean, really? Are you a waiter or a pimp browsing the flesh market? I know how hard it can sometimes be to distinguish the two, but here’s a little trick: Nice restaurant = waiter. Seedy bar/alleyway/crack whore’s house = pimp. You’re welcome.
At the movie, Sex and the City 2 in case you were wondering, we had to sit near the front. Poor Megan’s neck started to bother her from all the craning, but other than an infrequent urge to cross my eyes I was alright. The film has gotten some bad reviews, but from what I can tell (and I’ve only seen every episode ever made twice, so what do I know?) the girls are the same as they’ve always been, plus a few years, and there are some great one liners. That’s all the review you’re going to get out of me. I’m not a critic and I almost always find something to enjoy about everything I watch.
We spent the rest of our night in a bar with a bunch of men. She canoodled with her boyfriend and sucked on hot honey wings while I debated the merits of certain cell phone brands and girls that don't like their nipples bothered with a guy whose name I simply cannot remember. He accused me of trying to distract him with my cleavage and I was forced to silently forgive the waiter from earlier because referenced once, it’s their fault. Referenced twice or more, it’s clearly mine.
Still keepin’ it classy, obviously.
Alright, even that didn’t take up an entire page. Would you like to hear about how I got my hair highlighted on Saturday morning, still nice and ripe from my 4am homecoming? Or how I went home and painted my toenails and fingernails with the neon blue polish from the OPI Shrek line? Or! How about how I was so lazy that I missed out on all the boating that day and by the time I made it into my bathing suit there was no one around and I lay on the dock for 10 minutes before a storm came up and blew me away?
No? Ok.
How about this one:
On Sunday I ran into this guy at my family BBQ / lake party. I hate it when guys that say they’re going to call you and never do still look great when you see them six months later. (Note to self: Write ode to swim trunks with no lining.) I also hate it when they don’t speak to you the entire day and every time you lock eyes across the gazebo they give you a little knowing smile before turning away. Like they’re just waiting for you to half levitate and float their way, dragging your toes behind you, with giant cartoon hearts beating out of your eyeballs and your tongue lolling out of your mouth. Puleeeassse, fucker! I’d rather masturbate to Larry King Live than let you think you’ve won.
The best part was when I was floating on a raft and he joined a group leaving on a boat ride. As they drove by he stood and faced me, half bowed and blew kisses, grinning like a maniac the entire time. I didn’t do anything except hiss at my friend Claire floating nearby, “Did you SEE that? What a DICK!”
“Yeah”, she replied, “you should have done this...uh uh!” She did the old hand chopping on either side of the vagina motion that I haven’t used since Bush #2 was in office.
“Fuck! Why didn’t I think of that?”
She continued to make chopping motions and grunting sounds, occasionally throwing in a few bird fingers and an arm hook move for good measure. I think that last one was supposed to mean “up yours”, but you can’t ever be too sure about these modern gestures. Now that I’m old I have to be careful about that sort of thing. I wouldn’t want to throw up any new aged gang signs by mistake.
I probably did the right thing by ignoring him (read: not coming up with an appropriate gesture in time). I’m above all that now. I’m, like, thisfuckingclose to being PTA mom extraordinaire. Maybe even a Girl Scout troop leader. Aren’t the little ones called Brownies? I fucking love brownies.
Sigh.
Ohmigawd, look you guys! I managed to make a post with a theme entirely by accident!
*chop chop* Uh uh! Who wants to see my melons?
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
I must, I must, I must increase my bust!
I was going to write a short post thanking all the guys that participated in Penis Week, but I’d rather do a video. So I’m thinking I might enlist the services of my best friend and make it a little extra special. (And that is not a girl-on-girl reference.) It’s in the heterosexual works.
I’ve always said that I’m glad my kid is a girl. I just didn’t think I could raise a boy. If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t think I could raise anything other than a penis or my hand...but here I am, doing it.
I took her shopping for fall clothes recently and was delighted to find that she and I have more in common than our freakishly long toes. We shop alike: Grab, try on, put back or keep, and get the fuck out. Fast, efficient, and leaving extra time for lunch.
There was only one exception: underwear.
My four year old decided she wanted a bra. Not a training bra, mind you, a REAL bra...with cups and adjustable straps. It took me about 15 minutes to get her away from those racks, sans bra and inappropriate panties, and hustle her, whining and pleading to the check out counter.
I told my mother about it when we got home.
“She wants a bra. Not a training bra with rainbows and butterflies all over it...a real one, with a matching set of bikini panties.”
"Are they made for her size?"
"Yes, the cups (air quotes) are flat, but"
She laughed. “Then why didn’t you get her one?”
“She’s four. Bras and bikini panties? Seriously?”
“Eh”, she said shrugging.
“I could be setting her up to be a....a....”
“A what? It’s no worse than the shit you used to wear.”
“Yeah, well you didn’t help me buy any of it!”
“Nope! And I’m not helping you with this one either!”
I got my first bra when I was six.
It was Fourth of July weekend and I was standing on my grandparent’s porch with my nine year old cousin, waving sparklers. She was making fun of me for not wearing a bra, pointing and laughing at my flat chest. This was the same she-devil that taught me about sex with a Barbie and Ken doll and how to steal the candy from our uncle’s army food packs.
The more she taunted me the angrier I got, until finally I took my sparkler and stabbed her in the hand with it. She ran off screaming and crying, eighties hair still visible over the bushes as she cut through the yard.
My Nana came out the side door, cigarette in one hand and the obligatory gin and tonic in the other. I didn’t know she'd been watching.
“What did ya do that for, dawlin?”
“She was making fun of me.”
She stood staring at me for a moment, blowing smoke out of her nose, before finally saying, "You come on with me.”
I was sure she was going to take the yard stick to my ass. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
She went into the spare bedroom, opened up the closet and started digging through a drawer. I stared at the lengthening ashes of the cigarette clamped between her bright pink lips. I remember thinking that if she dropped it, I had to step on it quick and make sure it was out. Because Papa always said, “Jackass, you make sure your Nana don’t burn this house down, ya hear?”
She finally found what she was looking for and turning around, held it up for me to see. It was a pale blue training bra with one of those sticky appliqués on the front of Strawberry Shortcake.
“This was ya cousin’s first training bra and now it’s yours.”
I didn’t want a hand-me-down training bra, but I knew better than to say that to Nana. She handed it over and told me to go to the bathroom and put it on.
The rest of the day she made sure to tell everyone that I was wearing that fucking bra. I was mortified. The only consolation was my cousin had a nice, red welt across her palm and was getting no sympathy. Training bra trumps sparkler burn.
My mom didn’t deal well with “girl issues”. It made her uncomfortable to talk about anything relating to underwear, boys, and especially periods. Nana used to say, “That woman just needs to touch herself, that’s all there is to it! Pain and simple.”
So Nana continued to buy my bras, panties, and other girl products as I grew up.When she passed away I was 12 and I started buying my own things.
My she-devil cousin was old enough to drive then and we would go to the mall with Papa’s credit card, buying whatever we wanted. My first run-in with Victoria’s Secret was on one such trip.
It was around my 13th birthday and I wanted something new and special to mark the occasion, but I wasn't sure what that was yet. She-devil marched into VS like she owned the place and started digging through the racks and bins. I was too busy gawking at all the leopard print and lace. Obviously this place had never heard of white cotton.
I finally started looking around, trying to draw as little attention as possible. I had a strong dislike for women that measure you for bras (still do actually) and I didn’t want one of them feeling me up in the VS dressing room in front of the she-devil.
I was rummaging through a bin when I saw a sign I couldn’t ignore. Glancing furtively around, I made my way toward every teenage girl’s destiny: the padded bra.
I found love with an emerald green, satin Wonderbra that day. The padding in that sucker was un-fucking-believable.
I took it to the counter, paid, and immediately went to the dressing room to switch it out with my plain white “Virgin” screamer.
BAM! Insta-titties!
I was so fucking proud of those things. Until I got home.
I stowed my bags in my room, made myself something to drink, and settled on the couch with a book. A short time later, my dad and mom came home from wherever the hell they’d been. It couldn’t have been 60 seconds before....
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH YOUR CHEST?” My dad was gawking at me.
“What? What’s going on?” My mom peered around him and her mouth promptly fell open.
“Let me see what you bought today”, she said reluctantly.
“Papa said I could get whatever I wanted!”
She started to my room. “Just show me.”
My dad was still yapping to himself, trying to wrap his pea brain around what was going on. “Don’t know what’s wrong with...is that green....I don’t think....”
A bright, emerald green strap was poking out from underneath my tank top and I shoved it back.
My mom started digging through my things and pulled out the Victoria’s Secret bag, empty except for tissue paper and a receipt. She read it and looked up at my dad standing in the doorway.
“It’s a MIRACLEbra”, she said with tears in her eyes, horrified. My dad looked at her, and then looked at my chest. Back and forth he went before finally bursting into laughter.
“MIRACLE! IT’S A MIRACLE”, he howled.
My face was bright red. I snatched the bag from her hand and stomped out.
“Call him”, I heard my dad say.
“I WILL not”, my mom replied.
Then I heard the unmistakable sound of the speaker phone. Ring. Ring. Ring. I stood in the hall, horror struck.
“HELLO”, my Papa shouted into the phone. He always shouts.
“DAD! THERE’S BEEN A MIRACLE!”
“WHAT?”
“WE’VE HAD A MIRACLE AT 154 blank ROAD!”
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKIN BOUT, JIM?”
“YOUR GRANDAUGHTER BOUGHT A MIRACLE BRA WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD! SHE’S GOT 'ER BOOBIES PUSHED UP TO 'ER CHIN!”
Loud, obnoxious, old man laughter.
“AND IT’S BRIGHT GREEN!”
More laughter.
For the next several years I became known as “The Miracle at 154 blank Road”...all because my mother was too embarrassed to help me shop for underwear.
Now it’s mine and my daughter’s turn to go through these rituals. I guess I'm about to buy her first training bra. Weird. Hopefully I'll do alright with this girly, parenting stuff and not embarrass her too much. It's definitely not all sugar, spice and everything nice.
But it will probably be fine.
After all...I have no problem touching myself.
**********
I’ve always said that I’m glad my kid is a girl. I just didn’t think I could raise a boy. If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t think I could raise anything other than a penis or my hand...but here I am, doing it.
I took her shopping for fall clothes recently and was delighted to find that she and I have more in common than our freakishly long toes. We shop alike: Grab, try on, put back or keep, and get the fuck out. Fast, efficient, and leaving extra time for lunch.
There was only one exception: underwear.
My four year old decided she wanted a bra. Not a training bra, mind you, a REAL bra...with cups and adjustable straps. It took me about 15 minutes to get her away from those racks, sans bra and inappropriate panties, and hustle her, whining and pleading to the check out counter.
I told my mother about it when we got home.
“She wants a bra. Not a training bra with rainbows and butterflies all over it...a real one, with a matching set of bikini panties.”
"Are they made for her size?"
"Yes, the cups (air quotes) are flat, but"
She laughed. “Then why didn’t you get her one?”
“She’s four. Bras and bikini panties? Seriously?”
“Eh”, she said shrugging.
“I could be setting her up to be a....a....”
“A what? It’s no worse than the shit you used to wear.”
“Yeah, well you didn’t help me buy any of it!”
“Nope! And I’m not helping you with this one either!”
I got my first bra when I was six.
It was Fourth of July weekend and I was standing on my grandparent’s porch with my nine year old cousin, waving sparklers. She was making fun of me for not wearing a bra, pointing and laughing at my flat chest. This was the same she-devil that taught me about sex with a Barbie and Ken doll and how to steal the candy from our uncle’s army food packs.
The more she taunted me the angrier I got, until finally I took my sparkler and stabbed her in the hand with it. She ran off screaming and crying, eighties hair still visible over the bushes as she cut through the yard.
My Nana came out the side door, cigarette in one hand and the obligatory gin and tonic in the other. I didn’t know she'd been watching.
“What did ya do that for, dawlin?”
“She was making fun of me.”
She stood staring at me for a moment, blowing smoke out of her nose, before finally saying, "You come on with me.”
I was sure she was going to take the yard stick to my ass. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
She went into the spare bedroom, opened up the closet and started digging through a drawer. I stared at the lengthening ashes of the cigarette clamped between her bright pink lips. I remember thinking that if she dropped it, I had to step on it quick and make sure it was out. Because Papa always said, “Jackass, you make sure your Nana don’t burn this house down, ya hear?”
She finally found what she was looking for and turning around, held it up for me to see. It was a pale blue training bra with one of those sticky appliqués on the front of Strawberry Shortcake.
“This was ya cousin’s first training bra and now it’s yours.”
I didn’t want a hand-me-down training bra, but I knew better than to say that to Nana. She handed it over and told me to go to the bathroom and put it on.
The rest of the day she made sure to tell everyone that I was wearing that fucking bra. I was mortified. The only consolation was my cousin had a nice, red welt across her palm and was getting no sympathy. Training bra trumps sparkler burn.
My mom didn’t deal well with “girl issues”. It made her uncomfortable to talk about anything relating to underwear, boys, and especially periods. Nana used to say, “That woman just needs to touch herself, that’s all there is to it! Pain and simple.”
So Nana continued to buy my bras, panties, and other girl products as I grew up.When she passed away I was 12 and I started buying my own things.
My she-devil cousin was old enough to drive then and we would go to the mall with Papa’s credit card, buying whatever we wanted. My first run-in with Victoria’s Secret was on one such trip.
It was around my 13th birthday and I wanted something new and special to mark the occasion, but I wasn't sure what that was yet. She-devil marched into VS like she owned the place and started digging through the racks and bins. I was too busy gawking at all the leopard print and lace. Obviously this place had never heard of white cotton.
I finally started looking around, trying to draw as little attention as possible. I had a strong dislike for women that measure you for bras (still do actually) and I didn’t want one of them feeling me up in the VS dressing room in front of the she-devil.
I was rummaging through a bin when I saw a sign I couldn’t ignore. Glancing furtively around, I made my way toward every teenage girl’s destiny: the padded bra.
I found love with an emerald green, satin Wonderbra that day. The padding in that sucker was un-fucking-believable.
I took it to the counter, paid, and immediately went to the dressing room to switch it out with my plain white “Virgin” screamer.
BAM! Insta-titties!
I was so fucking proud of those things. Until I got home.
I stowed my bags in my room, made myself something to drink, and settled on the couch with a book. A short time later, my dad and mom came home from wherever the hell they’d been. It couldn’t have been 60 seconds before....
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH YOUR CHEST?” My dad was gawking at me.
“What? What’s going on?” My mom peered around him and her mouth promptly fell open.
“Let me see what you bought today”, she said reluctantly.
“Papa said I could get whatever I wanted!”
She started to my room. “Just show me.”
My dad was still yapping to himself, trying to wrap his pea brain around what was going on. “Don’t know what’s wrong with...is that green....I don’t think....”
A bright, emerald green strap was poking out from underneath my tank top and I shoved it back.
My mom started digging through my things and pulled out the Victoria’s Secret bag, empty except for tissue paper and a receipt. She read it and looked up at my dad standing in the doorway.
“It’s a MIRACLEbra”, she said with tears in her eyes, horrified. My dad looked at her, and then looked at my chest. Back and forth he went before finally bursting into laughter.
“MIRACLE! IT’S A MIRACLE”, he howled.
My face was bright red. I snatched the bag from her hand and stomped out.
“Call him”, I heard my dad say.
“I WILL not”, my mom replied.
Then I heard the unmistakable sound of the speaker phone. Ring. Ring. Ring. I stood in the hall, horror struck.
“HELLO”, my Papa shouted into the phone. He always shouts.
“DAD! THERE’S BEEN A MIRACLE!”
“WHAT?”
“WE’VE HAD A MIRACLE AT 154 blank ROAD!”
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKIN BOUT, JIM?”
“YOUR GRANDAUGHTER BOUGHT A MIRACLE BRA WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD! SHE’S GOT 'ER BOOBIES PUSHED UP TO 'ER CHIN!”
Loud, obnoxious, old man laughter.
“AND IT’S BRIGHT GREEN!”
More laughter.
For the next several years I became known as “The Miracle at 154 blank Road”...all because my mother was too embarrassed to help me shop for underwear.
Now it’s mine and my daughter’s turn to go through these rituals. I guess I'm about to buy her first training bra. Weird. Hopefully I'll do alright with this girly, parenting stuff and not embarrass her too much. It's definitely not all sugar, spice and everything nice.
But it will probably be fine.
After all...I have no problem touching myself.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Does it feel hot in here to you? Must be me. Do do CHHH!
Sometimes I feel a little muddled in the head.
You know, like there’s cotton wool up there and you can’t think so you say what you think you’re trying to think out loud and it comes out something like this:
“My nipples are hard ‘cause I got the chills and it’s not even cold.”
And your big boss is standing there looking at you like you’ve peed on the carpet they just shampooed, but you don’t even care because you’re trying to think about why your nipples are hard when it’s not cold and wondering if you unknowingly had a sexual daydream somewhere in your cotton wool brain and then getting this horrifically angry expression on your face because you can’t THINK and you haven’t gotten laid in forever and if your brain is having sexual daydreams without you then you are really going to be PISSED. Then you say something like, “I’ll have that for you this Monday”, and he gawks at you as you zig zag down the hallway with your head tilted to the side and shouts, “Today is Tuesday!” and your only reply is a maestro finger move in the air and a half sung, “Tuesday’s gone with the wind!”
No? Maybe it’s just me.
And sometimes I feel a little depressed.
You know, like when your four year old daughter says she doesn’t want you to walk her into school this morning because you aren’t wearing any make up and your hair is wet and you wonder who taught this ungrateful child to care so much about appearances and then you remember sitting on the porch and openly laughing at that incredibly fat five year old jumping up and down on the trampoline that isn’t even hers and knowing that if she breaks it you’ll be blamed for it because your fat ass was jumping on it two days ago, but then making a remark about her bob haircut and who does that to a fat kid anyway? Then you hang your head in shame and vow that your daughter will learn that it’s not what’s on the outside and jiggling up and down that counts, but what’s working its way through those fat little insides and if she ever wants another snack pack again she’ll do well to keep that trap shut.
No? Maybe it’s just me.
And sometimes I feel like vomiting.
You know, like when you find out through the grapevine that your mother’s ex boyfriend whom you nicknamed Spongebob because of the ridiculous tattoo on his fat pasty white leg has been asking mutual acquaintances if you are single and if they think you’d be interested in going out with him and when they tell you about it they laugh uncontrollably, especially when you start making those retching sounds and not even as a joke, they’re totally real. Then you freak the fuck out because what if he thinks you owe him something because he fixed your car and gave you that expensive digital camera and a $100 gift card for Christmas and he shows up to put the fucking lotion on your skin and give you the hose he used on your mother...OH DEAR GAWD and the retching continues because he’s probably crazy enough to do it. After all he tried to buy you and you totally let him and you realize that you’re probably going to get stuffed into a van when you leave work by a short, fat man that looks kind of like him but you can’t really tell because he’s got used panty hose over his face and you make a promise to yourself that if this happens you will stab yourself in the jugular no matter what Jesus says about suicide.
No? Maybe it’s just me.
And sometimes I feel sheepish.
You know, like when you write a blog post that makes absolutely no sense but you can’t help it because the alternative is actually doing some work or getting up to go to the copy machine where you’ll surely pass your boss and he’ll shake his head because he’s positive about two things – first that he’s writing you up for wearing that shirt when he specifically told you through another employee that that amount of cleavage is not suitable for the office and secondly he’ll forgive you all your weird habits and outbursts and even your unsuitable cleavage if you’d just sit on his desk one time with no under....
Ahem. I’m sure that’s just me.
Thank you, come again.
You know, like there’s cotton wool up there and you can’t think so you say what you think you’re trying to think out loud and it comes out something like this:
“My nipples are hard ‘cause I got the chills and it’s not even cold.”
And your big boss is standing there looking at you like you’ve peed on the carpet they just shampooed, but you don’t even care because you’re trying to think about why your nipples are hard when it’s not cold and wondering if you unknowingly had a sexual daydream somewhere in your cotton wool brain and then getting this horrifically angry expression on your face because you can’t THINK and you haven’t gotten laid in forever and if your brain is having sexual daydreams without you then you are really going to be PISSED. Then you say something like, “I’ll have that for you this Monday”, and he gawks at you as you zig zag down the hallway with your head tilted to the side and shouts, “Today is Tuesday!” and your only reply is a maestro finger move in the air and a half sung, “Tuesday’s gone with the wind!”
No? Maybe it’s just me.
And sometimes I feel a little depressed.
You know, like when your four year old daughter says she doesn’t want you to walk her into school this morning because you aren’t wearing any make up and your hair is wet and you wonder who taught this ungrateful child to care so much about appearances and then you remember sitting on the porch and openly laughing at that incredibly fat five year old jumping up and down on the trampoline that isn’t even hers and knowing that if she breaks it you’ll be blamed for it because your fat ass was jumping on it two days ago, but then making a remark about her bob haircut and who does that to a fat kid anyway? Then you hang your head in shame and vow that your daughter will learn that it’s not what’s on the outside and jiggling up and down that counts, but what’s working its way through those fat little insides and if she ever wants another snack pack again she’ll do well to keep that trap shut.
No? Maybe it’s just me.
And sometimes I feel like vomiting.
You know, like when you find out through the grapevine that your mother’s ex boyfriend whom you nicknamed Spongebob because of the ridiculous tattoo on his fat pasty white leg has been asking mutual acquaintances if you are single and if they think you’d be interested in going out with him and when they tell you about it they laugh uncontrollably, especially when you start making those retching sounds and not even as a joke, they’re totally real. Then you freak the fuck out because what if he thinks you owe him something because he fixed your car and gave you that expensive digital camera and a $100 gift card for Christmas and he shows up to put the fucking lotion on your skin and give you the hose he used on your mother...OH DEAR GAWD and the retching continues because he’s probably crazy enough to do it. After all he tried to buy you and you totally let him and you realize that you’re probably going to get stuffed into a van when you leave work by a short, fat man that looks kind of like him but you can’t really tell because he’s got used panty hose over his face and you make a promise to yourself that if this happens you will stab yourself in the jugular no matter what Jesus says about suicide.
No? Maybe it’s just me.
And sometimes I feel sheepish.
You know, like when you write a blog post that makes absolutely no sense but you can’t help it because the alternative is actually doing some work or getting up to go to the copy machine where you’ll surely pass your boss and he’ll shake his head because he’s positive about two things – first that he’s writing you up for wearing that shirt when he specifically told you through another employee that that amount of cleavage is not suitable for the office and secondly he’ll forgive you all your weird habits and outbursts and even your unsuitable cleavage if you’d just sit on his desk one time with no under....
Ahem. I’m sure that’s just me.
Thank you, come again.
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