I Can See Clearly Now
Sunday, August 31, 2008
I hate going to the eye doctor. Is this better or is this better? Click. Click. Click. Now, is this better(click) or is this better(click, click)?I really concentrate, I try to discern the difference but I never really know and I feel like I'm cheating or at the very least guessing.
I went for my exam last week and in the middle of all this 'is this better or this better' business, I started to imagine if this same test was applied to other fields. For instance a sex worker leans to the right a little, is this better(shifts) or is this better. A model offers one pout and then another, is this better or is this better, a proctologist, a lawyer reading closing arguments. Isn't there a surer way after all these years than is this better or is this better? Something just a smidge more precise?
The whole reason I was there voluntarily getting air shot out at some unimaginable velocity straight at my peepers was a jog I took a few weeks ago. The kids were in bed and I decided to go for a run. I slipped on some yoga pants, a heavy duty sports bra to keep the girls from jiggling, a t-shirt and headed out.
In my neighborhood there are cats everywhere. It's probably because it's a very intellectual area, almost a mecca of smartosity and knowitallness and everyone knows smart people love cats. You could almost call it a cat colony with a couple of dogs thrown in for entertainment.
Sometimes in my bored ocd mind, I'll count cats on my run and when I hit 20(usually about a half hour), I consider myself done. This includes cats in the window, on porches, under parked cars. The more tired I get, the more intently I look for them so I can call it a night.
So I was jogging and I'd made it to twenty cats and was walking toward home when I saw a big nondescript cat ambling toward me in the gutter. "Here kitty", I said. I slowed down and made a few of my very realistic cat noises that say, "hey you, I'm friendly".
I'm a sucker for animals in general and love to give a good head scratch to any cat who'll let me. It probably appeals to my need to be liked. So I'm approaching the cat slowly and when I'm only a few feet away, I stop, crouch down and offer my hand. "Come here kitteh, you can haz cheezeburger?", I offer, my voice lilting a little. The cat comes closer, still hesitating a bit.
My hand is out and I just patiently wait playing a little hard to get and finally the cat starts walking slowly toward my outstretched hand. My eyes slowly adjust as the cat inches toward me, the cat gets closer almost reaching my fingers, my vision is pretty bad, I'm squinting. Nice kitt--wait a minute, that's not a cat, that's a fucking raccoon.
"Ehh," I shout startled and jump up and thankfully, this ginormous raccoon gets startled too and runs away in the other direction before he can get close enough chew my face off. I used to like raccoons, even fed them hotdogs through the screen at my cousin's house when I was little but I almost got mauled and eaten by a pack of them so I am terrified.
Long story short, I decide it's time I got my eyes checked, it's been way too long, that I've been wearing the same prescription for years, just reordering pack after pack of contacts. And if getting your face chewed off by a crazed raccoon isn't enough incentive, I had even considered getting Botox for my forehead wrinkle but realize the wrinkle is from continuous squinting and not age. Even when waxing, I knew my face was getting a little too close to clients. Not that I cared, but you know, you wouldn't want your gyno's head right above your cha squinting to make sure she'd got a good view.
So, here I sit, in this cracked, orange plethor chair with the permanent butt dents with the tech doing the whole, "is this better or is this better." It's all making me a bit hostile, I have visions of making some notable hand gesture, "Is this better, or is this better," I'd ask cleverly, ok, not so clever, but it seemed so at the time.
Finally after the drops, the compressed air, the poking, the prodding and the clearly technical and precise prescription figuring, I walk out of the office with my little white piece of paper only to shriek and pull back from the blinding, atomic-like bright light the moment I leave the doors. What the, was there a goddamn A-bomb, did we get a second sun? Where is all of this light coming from? Ah, that's right, the dilation. I escape back into the office like Nosferatu shielding himself from sunlight so that I can get a spiffy pair of roll up glasses to wear home. Not too sporty but at least I'll avoid extra eye damage that will have me in the orange, leather chair with contraptions on like Johnny Depp wore in Sleepy Hollow too soon.
They Say It's My Birthday, I'm gonna Have a good Time
Thursday, August 28, 2008
It's my thirty-fifth birthday today. Thirty-five years ago, a seventeen year old cheerleader(also known as my mother) huffed and puffed until I flew out of her. As my mom tells it, her labour was about an hour, short and pretty easy. Guess your body at 17 is primed for childbirth even if your head's not.
I don't feel like I'm 35, not that 35 is old because it isn't(I'm going to keep telling myself that all day) but it doesn't feel like the age I am. I feel like I'm 27, my husband tells me I look like I'm in my mid to late 20's, in my teens if I put my glasses on, which he just told me he thoroughly enjoys. He said this in a tone that tells me he wants me to put the glasses on the next time we have sex which will probably be a couple of weeks considering the recent surgery. No sexy time on my birthday, that's enough to make me cry.
5. Buy yourself something indulgent that you use nearly every day, be it a nice pair of jeans or a good bottle of shampoo or an expensive lipstick.
The Last Two Days In Pictures
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
School Daze
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
This is the PTA.
Watch out for these ladies. They have a lot of school spirit, maybe a little more than is healthy. They like to organize stuff. They like meetings. They take minutes and on behalf of the PTA, they would like to welcome you, well kind of.
They like to put up banners and send home flyers. They adore fundraisers. They will make you sell gift wrap and peppermint bark and magazines and cookie dough. They are not above using guilt to force you to participate.
They like open houses and carnivals. They can't get enough of silent auctions. They live for bake sales and book fairs and spaghetti suppers. They want your recycling and they want it bad. Oh, and don't forget about yearbook, you didn't think you'd get away without a yearbook did you?
In spite of our alarmingly high property taxes our school apparently doesn't have enough for musical education and the mobile computer lab. Tell you what PTA, I will not sell your gift wrap or peppermint bark or magazines or cookie dough or anything for that matter.
I have one thing to say to you ladies. How much? I'll write the check now for the full amount if you promise to leave me alone.
The Best Meal Eva!
Monday, August 25, 2008
We are back from Las Vegas. Sadly, we did not win big but we had so much fun. We walked the strip, we gambled, we ate, we lazed in the pool, we window-shopped and more. We had a beautiful dinner at Morels, a french steakhouse in the Palazzo hotel.
It was one of those chic-chic restaurants where the focus is on the food and wine. We had an almost three hour meal and enjoyed every minute of it. I am a big foodie and love the experience of fine dining and the quality of ingredients. Rarely do we eat like this but it was such a treat. This is a picture of the dining room at Morels.
First we were introduced to our team of servers, yes team. That team had a captain, as in, "My name is Richard and I will be your Captain this evening." We had a sommilier(wine steward) who advised us what wine pairings were most complimentary to our food. We also had a server whose job seemed to consist only of filling our water and folding our napkin whenever one of us left the table to use the restroom. Seriously, you'd go to the restroom and come back to your napkin refolded sitting on the table.
When we sat down, we were asked what water we'd like, we were given the still water selections and the sparkling water selections. Of course we chose tap, I like good food but will never pay eight dollars for a glass of water. Another waiter handed us beautifully bound menus and told us the Captain would be by to walk us through the menus. Among the selctions was Wagyu beef, the most expensive and highly sought after meat. Can you imagine paying $185 for a steak? That's what you'd have to shell out for this prized beef. Unless I'm going to poop out a brick of gold afterward, this was a little pricey for me.
Next, they brought us bread right from the oven served with butter and olive tapenade. Butter you say, that sounds like what you'd get in any restaurant but you'd be wrong, this was french butter.
I, the occasional carnivore, partook in the 18oz bone-in ribeye, and ate it all, save for the bone. Gene had oven-roasted Australian lobster, the first time my husband has eaten any animal(though basically an insect) in years. We had asparagus with a citrus beurre-blance, a fancy-schmancy white sauce with pristinely segmented slices of meyer lemon, grapefruit and orange, no pith, no peel, no seeds. By the way, I found out that the term for doing this to a citrus fruit is called supreming, or to supreme, and it was.
"Thank you, thank you, this is a moment of joy and I want to kiss everybody. This is wonderful to be here, too dive in this ocean of chocolate generosity, how do you say, gratitude, I thank you, so happy, so happy, I want to thank my parents, mamma, pappa for putting me here so I can be to do this, this, this life is beautiful, chocolate is beautiful, I want to make the love to this souffle, I want to make love to all of you."
Viva Las Vegas
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Tomorrow, hubs and I are dumping the kids at Grandma's and high-tailing it to Las Vegas. That's us in the picture up there, that's what we look like when our kids aren't around. We're celebrating an anniversary and my 35th(ugh) birthday just the two of us. I am leaving the machine at home to focus on my man and my money, woohoo nickel slots here comes momma, she's a high rolla.
Word Up #2
Formerly Fun's Second Installment of the Word Up Book Awards
Diamond explores the forces which have shaped thousands of years of human history. Want to know why Smallpox was more effective than weapons in virtually emptying in just a few generations the continents of the Americas of their native inhabitants? Diamond asserts that the cultures that domesticated plants and animals early got a head start on developing writing, government, technology, weapons of war, and immunity to deadly germs.
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature-Matt Ridley
This is my favorite of the three because it's mostly about sex. Why exactly do we have sex? Using Lewis Carroll's Red Queen (who runs as fast as she can to stay in the same place) as a metaphor for evolution, Ridley explains why sex was the result of an evolutionary arms race between hosts and their disease-causing parasites. Constantly combining and recombining genes every generation, people "keep their genes one step ahead of their parasites," strengthening resistance to bacteria and viruses that cause deadly diseases or epidemics. Isn't that sexy? If you are a creation scientist(snickering, sorry) or a intelligent design proponent(sorry again snickering, unlike politics this is one area I just can't allow for a broad swath of opinions given the facts), you will not like this book. If you want to know why he thinks women as the gender that has to spend the most time and energy creating and rearing offspring tend to avoid extra mating and why John Edwards wants to be polygamous(he's only trying to help us become more disease resistant people) you will enjoy this book.
Bloom unites genetics, animal biology, cultural history, anthropology and philosophy to explain why violence, destructiveness and war is woven into our biological fabric. He uses concepts like pecking order, memes (self-replicating clusters of ideas)no they are not just blog surveys, the "neural net" or group mind of the social "superorganism" to try to explain the often violent history of humankind. Read this book and you'll be equipped with loads of anecdotes to debut at the next cocktail party you attend because don't we all go to cocktail parties constantly?
Get Up Out of That Bottle
I was commenting on someone's post yesterday and I made a reference to Captain Anthony Nelson from I Dream of Jeanie and it got me thinking. Remember I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched? Tony would get mad at Jeannie every time she folded her arms and did the head nod and Darren disapproved of Samantha wiggling her button of a nose.
If you had any of these types of powers, would your husbands get angry at you for using them?
If I said “Yes Master” when my husband asked me for something, I think he'd fall on the ground laughing, holding his side. Then he'd probably make me do it again, but he would never discourage me from using the full range of my powers to make our lives easier.
Take for example when we bought our last car. Of the two of us, I am the better negotiator. I was a salesperson for years and I know exactly how to manipulate the situation to my advantage, oh, and I can totally charm strange men(I mean strangers that are men, not strange like wierd men). I would have made a great hooker, there goes FormerlyFun they'd say, she's got a heart of gold. So would my husband want me to squelch these gifts and be less of myself? Never. Especially if it means saving thousands of dollars and getting an almost no cost extended warranty.
If you had the power to clean the house with a head nod, make a gourmet meal with a nose wiggle or blink and all of a sudden the kids are in bed fast asleep and you're in his lap with nothing on but a pair of FMPs would your husband stop you? He'd want you to use these gifts, he'd treasure them. He'd brag to his friends about it. He'd dream up lists of things for you to do.
I can see it now," First, I want you to make my manager's pants fall down during the meeting, then I want you to help me win at basketball with the boys later, and oh, fix my PC would you and really, how many times do I have to remind you, I want the silver Bugatti Veryon, 'k?"
Remember when Tony would put Jeanie in her bottle when she was bad. I'm s
ure there are times when my husband would like to put me in a bottle and cork it. I kind of wish I had a bottle, as long as the kids couldn't come in it. I'd love to sit on a retro couch with big soft pillows and read for punishment. Oh master, I have been a bad Jeanie.
Though they were entertaining and I spent my summers glued to reruns, I think these shows were about men's subconscious fear of female power. Look girls, they were telling us, don't try and exercise your power or things get all screwed up. Now we have the girls from Heroes, Zena, Buffy, Aeon Flux, the girls from Charmed and Kim Possible. Long way to go to get to real equality but we have come a long way.
To Boldly Go Where No Bebe Has Gone Before
The bebe doesn't watch too much tv but every day occasionally I'll bribe the big kids with a movie if they'll watch her so I can get stuff done. On many days, when my husband gets home from work, he'll take over with the bebe while I go make dinner. He's a big Star Trek fan and right around the time he comes home, Star Trek is on. I don't know which of the tv series it is but the bebe has seen it so many times she gets excited and dances when the intro comes on. I also on occasion have been known to hum it to her when I rock her at night, I shouldn't do it because hubs is doing a good enough job turning her into a nerd baby but I can't resist the big toothy smile she flashes me.
She's all like,"put on the Trek beeotch, I'm wait-ting."
I Sing the Body Electric
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
I thought about her several times today as I folded clothes, rocked my daughter, cooked dinner. I had a very difficult delivery with my youngest that ended in a c-section where I had to be completely knocked out. I was remembering that last surgery as I thought of her.
I thought about the controlled panic I had heading into the surgical suite, the fear building as they hoisted me onto the operating table with the bright lights overhead, putting my arms in restraints, my anxiety increasing until I realized I was holding my breath as my eyes passed over the shiny trays filled with sharp metal implements resting on sterile blue pads. I'm tearing up right now just remembering how scared I was, scared for myself, the child inside me and my husband and kids.
I won't forget the nurse who summarily dismissed my questions telling me not to worry about it. Information helps me feel secure and I'm asking because I am worried I told her. She just walked out of the room. I remember thinking even at that moment that this nurse should only be allowed to work with patients who are already unconscious.
I remember the nurse who held my strapped down hand while the other nurses bustled about prepping. She wiped at some of the tears that rolled down my cheeks and told me that everything was going to be fine, the surgeon was so good at what he did, that I was lucky he was on that night, that I was in the very best of hands. She told me that my husband would be soon be allowed in and that he could hold my hand through the whole thing.
I remember the beginning of the surgery. I remember my husband's worried face betraying all of the reassuring things he was saying. I remember the beginning of pain. I remember the energy in the room changed, things got more frantic. Then I don't remember anything at all.
I thought about my aunt as I recalled the disorienting feeling coming out of anesthesia. Once it registers where you are and why you are there, the searching of those familiar faces to gauge if the news is good or bad. There was my immediate visceral childlike wish that my mother was there. And of course because my surgery ended in a birth, there was a happy, relieved husband(this time for real) and a perfect, healthy, content child.
It is not a fun thing to be faced with the temporal nature of our physical bodies, even if we make the choice to be there, blood, and guts, and viscera are things better left on the inside so you can walk around sure that your body is more bullet proof than it is, hopeful that it is running as intended and that no original design failures, disease or owner inflicted miseries catch up with you.
Of course I wish my aunt the best, a speedy recovery, the cleanest bill of health and a new pair of breasts that she can look at knowing she may have changed the future.
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
love, white-blow and delirious nice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the
prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.
This the nucleus--after the child is born of woman, man is born
of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
outlet again.
Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as
daughters.
As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
Are the Special Olympians Doping?
You know things have gotten bad when even the Special Olympics is not above reproach. Is nothing sacrosanct?
Special Olympics Performance Enhancing Scandal
Word Up #1
I laugh a little when I see the requisite summer reading lists. With my gaggle of goobers, the first half of the summer was spent making plans for the rest of the summer, the second half of the summer has been spent in preparation for September. I didn't get much summer reading done.
I remember my singleton summer days. I had a great job where when I was on the road(which was often) they worked my like a horse, but when I was home it was a different story entirely. I'd work from home many days and leave the office, when I did go in, no later than 3pm. So I had hours upon hours of time to spend lazing in the sun or under a shady tree with a good book or seven. If a book was particularly engrossing, I'd stay up all night finishing it, turning page after page as I stretched across my bed until I no longer needed the lamp to read by.
I am a voracious reader, always have been. I was a only child so my best mates were generally books. Reading made me a precocious child. My parents, just seventeen and nineteen when I graced them wit my presence, never thought to limit what books I had access to. I read everything I could get my hands on. There's nothing like a little Stephen King, Harold Robbins and Michael Crichton to get an eight year old thinking. Not to mention the Alex Comfort I would get my hands on a few years later. I credit all that reading for my sense of humour and my vocabulary. Reading is the reason I can write.
My tastes run the gamut, fiction, non-fiction, travel, scientific, crime, humor, sexuality, biographies, business, investing, child development, you name it. Give me a an O'Henry collection of short stories and I'll be your new best friend. Pass along something like Freakonomics or the Tipping Point and I will immediately ignore you to start reading. I've never read much science fiction, well, unless you count the Choose Your Own Adventure books of my youth. I have yet to pick up any sports biographies and Westerns were never my thing. Pretty much everything else graces my reading list.
I just bought a slew of the books I enjoyed as a child. The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Island of the Blue Dolphins, A Wrinkle in Time, M.C. Higgins the Great, Watership Down, no Harold Robbins for my kids just yet. I can't wait to share with them books that though I read some 25 years ago, are still firmly affixed in my memory.
I was recently asked by a friend of mine for my summer recommendations. Between the bebe, the bustle of summer, and the spa, I have only picked up a few newly published books. I do however, have a cache of favorites that like the handful of books I'm reading to my kids, still own real estate in my cluttered and overtaxed noggin. Until school starts and I can get back to regular reading, here are my first ever Formerly Fun Word Up Awards. It's my blog and I can give away dumb, made-up awards, everyone else does. So here's the first of the bunch.
The Formerly Fun Word Up Awards
Best Travel/Food Book Written By A Bitter, Hot, Acerbicly Hilarious, Chef, Ex-Heroin Addict
A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisine-Anthony Bourdain
Often referred to as cooking's bad boy and a gastronomic Indiana Jones, Anthony Bourdain(who also hosts No Reservations on the Food Network) is sophisticated and brutish at the same time. In a Cook's Tour he canvasses the world for the best meal eva taking him to places like Russia, Cambodia, Japan, Glasgow, London all with a camera crew in tow catching his every drunken escapade, cultural moments and missteps. This is one of those books where you want to have the guy for dinner, pick his brain and let him get you drunk and make you laugh(and have your way with him if you weren't married). He is pompous and self-deprecating. He will also eat anything, my kind of guy.
Best Collection of Humor Essays By A Surprisingly Shy Gay Man Who Made Me Cackle In A Room Full of People While Everyone Else Was Silent
Me Talk Pretty One Day-David Sedaris
I saw him at a reading in a small auditorium last year, it was a beloved Christmas gift from my husband. Sedaris was so funny and in the dim light I forgot I wasn't alone and laughed out loud several times when no one else was laughing(I do this quite a bit at movies too). I was a little embarrassed but it was well worth it for the pleasure of hearing him read his own work. Me Talk Pretty One Day refers to one of my favourite stories where he relates how he(after moving to France with his beaux)and his fellow students try to communicate amongst each other in a French language class while trying to explain Easter to a Muslim student through the various multiple language barriers. It's one of his best essays and if you don't laugh out loud reading it, you are dead on the inside.
Best Book If You Want to Know Why Alien Abductions are a Mass Hallucination, Why Spoonbending Is Ridiculous and Faithhealing Absurd From A Scientist Infused With Enough Wonder to Put These Things Up to the Scrutiny of the Scientific Method
The Demon Haunted World:Science As A Candle In the Dark-Carl Sagan
For Carl Sagan, Cornell astrophysicist and famed creator of Cosmos on PBS, skepticism and wonder went hand in hand(he died in 1996). In the Demon Haunted World, Sagan tells us why science does not destroy spirituality, smartly debunks various elements of pseudoscience urging critical thinking without ever losing his sense of wonder and quest for the true and real. The struggle to bring scientific knowledge to the masses was a preoccupation of his. Like any great teacher, he explains difficult concepts in understandable terms and even posthumously, he continues to capture the imagination of many.
Best Science Writing For People Who Want Someone Else To Pick The Good Stuff That's Accessible and Readable By The Non-Academic So That Maybe You Can Finally Understand Global Warming and Discuss It From a Platform of Actually Knowing Something About It
The Best American Science Writing- multiple authors
Want to know what makes people gay? Want to know the disturbing consequences of the ever lengthening human life-span? Want to know about the Theory of Everything, big balls these scientists, can you imagine saying, yes, I think I've finally come up with the theory of everything. Want to look like a giant smarty pants to your friends? Issued each year, these collections of writing make the modern work of science relative and salient to the non-scientist interested in the world around us.
More awards to come, in the meantime, I'm always looking for new authors or those gems that some people manage to find. What are your favourites? What are you reading right now? Come on, don't hold out on me, don't boggart your literature man.
Hey Look, Is That Traci Lords?
Monday, August 18, 2008
Saturday my husband dropped the big kids off at Grandma's while I worked. We planned to have a 'date night' with the bebe in tow. Doesn't sound like much of a date night but a happy, mumbling baby is easier to have adult convo through than an eight year old and a four year old with a LOT to say.
We got ready to go out and I decide to snazz it up a little because hubs loves when I dress up girlie-girl. I did my hair, put on a little makeup, my new black dress my peep toes FMPs I bought. “Whew, fo-xy la-dy”, he said as I walked past him. Clearly, my husband knows what it takes to get laid around here.
We headed out to the local outdoor mall/theater/restaurant/center/amphitheater/fountainy area. We nibbled on sushi and yummy soup and revelled in the time together. The bebe was in great spirits and happily amused herself for a half hour shoving little clumps of sticky rice into her gullet.
After dinner, we decided to walk around. They had a Beatles cover band playing in the amphitheater and it was cool and breezy outside with the sun beginning to go down. I held the bebe for awhile as we walked around window shopping and listening to the music. With the FMP's and all, my arms got tired and the hubs took the bebe.
We walked past a group of guys, "You were sure getting some looks," my husband said.
“Really?", I said.
I puffed up a little, I did look good. I started noticing a lot of guys checking me out, I was really getting some looks.
I looked down to check that my goods weren't actually hanging out of the dress when I saw what all those guys were looking at. The bebe had smeared gooey rice slobber all over my black dress. It looked like the husband had spilled his baby juice all over the front of my dress. I'm not kidding, it looked like my dress was the victim of a money shot, thanks kiddo.
Good thing my head didn't get too big. I furiously wiped off the offending white stain, unlike Monica I'm not saving the evidence. To my credit I did get a few looks after this, and this time they weren't snickering.
Don't Cha Think Your Savior Is Hot Like Mine?
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Clearly I am getting smited? smoted? for my 'Rock Me Sexy Jesus" post yesterday.
So it's Sunday and the God Squad showed up at our house bright and early wanting to know if we had accepted Jesus Christ as our personal savior. Personal savior? It looked like Jesus Christ was their personal trainer.
Clearly this was the Southern California God Squad because they were sex-xy. Sexy on the Sunday Sabbath has got to be a sin of some sort in the good book or the bad book or some kind of book.
There were three of them, a mom that looked like one of the women straight out of the Real Housewives of Orange County except like 15 years younger, and two tweener girls that looked like the Ashley twins in the days before anorexia and Bea Arthur like mu-mus.
You know if they really want to convert people, maybe they're on to something. I looked at them as they droned on, sounding to a still sleepy me like all of the adults on the Charlie Brown specials, “Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah.” and in my head I had visions of them breaking into some pageant routine of “Don't You Wish Your Savior Was Hot Like Mine?”a la the Pussycat Dolls if they were all blonde-haired, blue-eyed. Yep, Pussycat Dolls for Christ. Thank god my husband didn't answer the door, we'd already be converted.
I put in Don't Cha Savior & miraculously(ha, ha) I found this, I love google.
This is kinda the song I heard in my head while they were all like, "Wah-wah, well, not quite but an interesting rendition nonetheless.
Here's the Lyrics For You(in case you don't want to listen 5 times like I did to soak it all in.
I know you're faithful
I know you pray
But I'm here to tell you that brother
You've been led astray
You've got a cleric
Or a rabbi
When it comes to judgement day you'll be left high and dry
Don't cha wish your savior was right like mine
Don't cha wish your diety could turn water to wine, don't cha, don't cha
Don't you think your Buddha is a little off
Don't cha wish your Allah was great like God
Don't cha think I'm totally going straight to hell? See you there!
Look It's Rightous Jesus Sweater Barbie
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Rock me, rock me, rock me sexy Jesus. This one may just be going on my Christmas List.
The Accidental Brazilian
Friday, August 15, 2008
Today is Friday and as most of you know, I have a long day ahead of me defuzzing the women(and sometimes men) of sunny, Southern California. I have been asked to tell more stories about the spa. What's that you say Virgina, you want a story?
I had many of you ask me about the dirty girls, and ugly chachas and weird customers and yes, I have them but what comes to mind, since I've already detailed for you what goes on during the bikini wax, is what happens after the wax. Or at least as my clients related it to me after the fact.
Some of my clients came to me already seasoned waxers. Some were virgins who started with a modest 'edge of leg' bikini wax and worked their way to the Brazilian as they became more comfortable with the process and no doubt, more comfortable with me. Some newbies wanted it all off from the get go, and some Brazilians were purely accidental.
How does one have an accidental Brazilian you wonder? You get one because your esthetician got confused.
This particular client I will call Liesl(yes, it's a Sound of Music shout out) Liesl was in her early forties, a bit reserved and shy and newly single after a painful, protracted divorce. She had been coming to me for facials to clear up a case of adult hormonal/stress acne and as she began dating again, she expressed some curiosity in waxing. I gave her the lowdown and she said,
"Oh, Christine, I'm getting terrified just thinking about it, it's not the pain I just don't think I could ever take my clothes off for you, I'm way too shy."
I reassured her like I do so many other women that I perform chacha waxes so frequently that the nudity doesn't even register with me anymore.
She continued her facials for the next few months and she'd tell me stories about getting back into the dating world, the men she was meeting, the perils and the pitfalls. She'd regale me with stories of disastrous dates, some of them funny, most a bit sad. It seemed she was meeting every bum, deviant, freeloader, criminal, sponger, loser and cad in the metro-area. She was a very nice person and after the garbage her ex had put her through , she deserved a good guy.
She also started to lose some weight and get into shape, one of the side effects of divorce I'm told. As she got in better shape, I think her physical confidence grew and she started talking about getting waxed again. She also told me that she had started seeing somebody new and thought it might be a nice surprise and a way to spice it up a little. As her confidence grew, she was getting bolder in general and it looked good on her.
She still expressed hesitance and shyness but made an appointment for a week later. On that day she came in and as I was prepping, she said the same sort of thing to me that nearly every woman says,
"Oh Christine, I'm soooo hairy, don't be shocked, don't look at my stomach, sorry I didn't shave my legs, oh, I need a pedicure."Look, as long as your business is clean and your feet don't stink, you're good in my book. I don't even care if your feet are dirty, this is the land of flip flops and I've gotten used to it. It's not like hairy legs gets in the way of a bikini wax anyway.
So she gets on the table and she is squealing with embarrassment. Her hands are over her face, she is already grimacing and I haven't even started. I ask her what I ask most new clients,
"Are we leaving anything behind?So I took it all off, and she did better than I thought.
"Well, what are my choices?"
"Most people opt for everything off, some people like a strip of hair, some people like a petite triangle, some people like the thumb-size patch(I hate this one it makes it look like a Hitler vag) but technically the Brazilian is everything south of the Equator and whatever you want on the top."
"Well what do you think?"
"I've gone back and forth, I usually go fully bare and sometimes when I want some contouring, I sport the petite triangle."
"Ok, give me what you've got."
Until she looked down.
"Christine, where did it all go, you mugged me, I got nothing left."
"I thought you wanted it all off, you said give me what you have?"
"I meant the triangle, not everything, for Christ's sake I look like a six year old."
"Oh Liesl, I'm sorry, I misunderstood you. I wish I would have given you what you wanted but look on the bright side, unlike a bad haircut, not many people will see this as it grows out, but I am really sorry."
"Well, it's ok I guess," she said as she inspected her smooth skin. "I'm just afraid that the boyfriend is going to think it's too much."
"Too much what?"
"Too much, you know, too much vagina."
"If my experience counts for anything, he'll like it."
"But why do they like it anyhow, is it because you look like a child cause that's weird."
"No, its because men are visual and with hair there, they can't see much. They also like the idea that you go through this complicated and painful ritual to present it to them, it's like your punani on a silver platter"
"I don't know but I guess we'll see."
She left and I felt really bad that I'd misunderstood. At the end of the day I knew it wasn't that big of deal, but I like clients to leave with what they wanted. I worked through the rest of the day, cleaned up and locked up and went home.
When I returned the next day I went to check the messages and the first one was from Liesl, the time stamp on it said something like 2am. I got that panicky feeling that maybe she'd left and got upset about it and I was going to get a tongue lashing or worse.
Beep: (in a hushed voice)Hi Christine it's Liesl, he absolutely lost. his. shit.
He went nuts, he spent like an hour just staring at it and the next hour with
his face buried in it, we are so doing this from now on, thank you, thank you,
once again thank you, a thousand thank yous, mark me down for the year.
True customer satisfaction, it's a beautiful thing. They were also married a year later, I still see her and she is a very happy women, and I feel like I got to play a small part in it.
My Three Long Term Projects
Thursday, August 14, 2008
They have all been playing together lately which makes me happy for so many reasons.The biggest being less work for me. Not really, the real reason I love it is I grew up without siblings(I have two bros from my dad's 2nd marriage and they rock but they came in the picture when I was already a teenager.) I really missed having someone to plays with lots of days. My cousin Julie and I would schedule our 'fake sick' days on the same day and then play via the phone all day. I also dig that someday, when they think hubs and I are crazy and overbearing or whatever it is they'll think about us when they are grown, they'll at least have someone to commiserate with who knows where their coming from.
Stoopid Room So Messy
At this very moment I am listening to my four year old daughter have the funniest tantrum. I am so mean because I have to be honest, she is so entertaining me right now. She was already a little verklempt because of some real or imagined slight from her brother and I made the mistake of telling her she had to go clean her room.
Now she is in there doing the one part shout, one part cry and one part hurl incoherent insults, probably in my direction.
"Bu-bu-bud I don wanna pick up my ro-ro-ro-room. I hate deez cars, stoopid room soooo messy, it's too hard mom, bawh, where's is my crashtran? So-so-somebody took my crashtran, bawh."I can hear the little toy cars I asked her to pick up being slammed into the bucket, so even though she's having a fit, she's doing what I asked. I win, I win. The funny thing is I do the same thing when I'm pissed that nobody's picking up any of their shit. I stomp around the house, mumbling semi-coherent invectives:
"I must be the only person around here who doesn't need glasses 'cause apparently no one else can see all this shit." "I bet if I didn't put this crap away it would pile up and eventually crush us to death." "Here's your laundry you filthy ingrates."
5 Great Words To Describe My Mood & Now I'm Going To Use Them In a Sentence
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
1.without interest, vigor, or determination; listless; lethargic.
2.lazy; slothful, idle, indolent: a lackadaisical fellow.
I am feeling utterly lackadaisical, I think I need to go back on the meds.
misanthrope
1. a hater of humankind.
2. one who distrusts mankind.
John Edward's recent dalliances have pushed me that much closer to misanthropy.
doldrums
1.a state of inactivity or stagnation, as in business or art.
2.a belt of calms and light baffling winds north of the equator between the northern and southern trade winds in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
3.the weather prevailing in this area.
4.a dull, listless, depressed mood; low spirits.
Walking around like a ghost, I find myself caught in the doldrums again.
scurrilous
1.given to the use of vulgar, coarse, or abusive language; foul-mouthed.
2.expressed in vulgar, coarse, and abusive language.
My mood has left me with nothing but scurrilous invectives to throw in your direction.
jocularity
1.a feeling facetious merriment
2.fun characterized by humor
3.activity characterized by good humor
This beeotch could use a little jocularity por fa vour.
20 Signs You're a Young Gay Man
I get shloads of free magazines at the spa all the time. They send them to spas and salons frequently because it boosts their circulation, allowing them to charge more to advertisers. Recently I got one that is ”America's #1 Gay Men's Magazine” and calls itself the gay version of Details. I brought it home to page through out of curiosity and to see how the other half of the other half lives. Based on the magazine, its features, ads and editorials, this is what I gleaned interests young, gay, men.
1.Underpants. Really tighty whiteys, boxer briefs, stringy thingies, I've never seen this much variety in men's underwear.
2.Funny, female heavy drinker, hot messes.
3.Lime flavored Bud lite.
4.Tom Cruise- Don't send me troll mail on this one Scientolgists.
5.10,000 BC loinclothes, basically just prehistoric underwear(see #1)
6.Sarah Jessica Parker(see #2)
7.White pants and very tan men
8.Hosting eurodance partys
9.Calvin Klein. Preeminent designer of men's underwear(see #1) and white pants(see #7).
10.Stylish vodka
11.David Sedaris(who isn't interested, this guy is hilarious)
12.Back to school clothes that expose your underwear(see #1)
13.More fashion designers that design underwear(see #1 and #9)
14.Gay-friendly travel destinations.
15.Sizzling hot beaches with well-heeled bronzebodies in designer swimwear. Basically just underwear for the water(see #1) and by the way, usually skimpier than underwear itself, these guys have definately been manscaped.
16. Grooming products
17. An absence of body hair
18. Biographies of underwear cover models
19.Playing chicken in the pool in their fashion swimwear
20. Working out, so you look good in your underwear
If you like 3 or more of these things, are male and spend more than exactly no minutes a day thinking about male underwear, you just may be a gay male 18-34. Now go get a spray tan, put your new white pants on, pour yourself a persimmon/pomegranate flavoured vodka and send out the e-vites for your Eurodance party.
Banal Stuff- Snicker, Snicker, She Said Banal
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
When you're eating kettle corn from Trader Joe's and all those little bits fall out of your hands as you shove fistfulls into your mouth, you know what's good to have around? A baby.Those little crumbles are the perfect size for her to start working on developing a popcorn addiction that's as strong as mine. She'll go pick up, with her little gripping pincer grasp, all those little pieces, and they're not popped in peanut oil so pretty safe right?
At least it's food she'd eating off the floor, better than the half of caterpillar she fought the cat for yesterday(I only wish the cat had won).
Red Shoe Diaries
These are her first shoes ever(red too, such a sexy bebe). Check out Frankenstein. Clearly she takes after me in the graceful department, notice how she floats around gazelle-like.
Guest Post From the Dirty Pirate Hooker
Monday, August 11, 2008
So remember last week when I told you the Dirty Pirate Hooker herself was coming in for a brazilian wax on Saturday and we were going to post on each others sites?
Well, we were both women of our word. On that note, here's a few choice words from DPH herself on what it's like to be waxed by me. You can click on her name/link to get my side of the story. It was great to meet her and she even bought me lunch, a class act even if she is indeed a dirty pirate hooker.
The Wax Nazi & My Smooth Vagina.
I woke up that morning feeling confident and at ease. I knew I would need all of my piratey strength to not chicken out of the mission that lie ahead of me: the brazilian. I walk in the door of the spa and see a beautiful blonde, with boobs begging me to motor-boat them. She was clad in leather and smelled of sex...or wax, I can't be sure.
She takes me into the back room and tells me to strip. This being a natural request, I oblige. I lay my naked ass down on the table and spread 'em wide. She brings her light down to inspect my goods. I know she's impressed, who wouldn't be?
She slathers hot wax, roughly the temperature of the sun all over me and RIPS! I'm pretty sure I called her a whore and the bitch just smiled and smacked my ass. She rips again and I scream. She says in her wax nazi voice, "you don't scream". I put on my figurative 'big girl' panties and brace for the mind numbing pain of follicles being removed from my money maker.
What the fuck did I get myself into? As I cry like a little bitch and pray for death, all the while calling her every bad name in my extensive vocabulary; we near the end. Literally. "Bring your knees to your chest you dirty pirate", she says. I didn't think things could get worse. Oh, how wrong I was.
Formerly Fun, you need to change your name to 'wax nazi' cause you own that shit! You were awesome and I loved every second of it (except the lip on the right side, you bitch). I was more comfortable with you than I am with my OB/GYN. I will bring my Dirty Pirate Vagina back to your gentle hands again. Will you marry me?
Here's the Dirty Pirate Hooker inspecting my work.
Cellulite Schmellulite
Being in the beauty industry, I foster some guilt that I profit, in part, by the female desire to look a certain way. I have continued to eschew offering Botox, dermal fillers and 'mini' medical treatments at the spa in spite of the fact that they are terribly profitable because I can't reconcile the money with the damage these more invasive treatments can do to the psyche and the person.
I'm all for self-improvement, I've already had a laser skin treatment and feel pretty comfortable saying there's Botox in my future but I've seen the desperation with which so many women pursue these things. Often it's not to feel better or look a bit younger or boost your confidence. For many women(I'm sure men too but I know less about their feelings here) it's an attempt to repair, however futilely, a severely damaged self esteem and an absolutely skewed and distorted perception of their and other's appearance. These obsessions and expectations have crept into our consciousness and we've let them.
One of the best parts about working at the spa is I see lots of women naked. Seeing all of these different women and their different, very real bodies gives me a more accurate representation of what it is to be woman. When you spend too much time looking at television, cinema, magazines and all the other popular media that present images not reality, you forget what a flesh and blood female really looks like.
This distortion of perception means that most of us measure our own bodies against a standard that isn't even real. These magazines and the industry in general want us to feel bad. Why would we buy expensive anti-cellulite cream if we know that every woman besides a few genetically blessed has cellulite?
How many women dislike or even hate their thighs? They're too big, too wide, too bumpy, too veiny, too soft, too dimply, too fleshy. I have seen thousands of thig
hs on my waxing table, front and back and you know what? Women's thighs, as compared to men's or major athletes, are voluminous and soft. It's one of the places women store fat, fat that kept us fertile even in leaner times historically. So why don't you pat yourself on the back for your genetic ability to keep the human race going even in times of relative famine instead of lamenting that your not a size 6.
One of my favorite quotes on beauty and reality is from Cindy Crawford who was quoted in Self magazine as saying, “You have to realize that before hours of hair and makeup, even I don’t look like Cindy Crawford.” Even our culturally ideal beauties are not beautiful enough. Photoshop altering of photos is not only the norm, it's expected. Remember the outcry when people found out that the British GQ altered a cover shot of Kate Winslet making her far longer and leaner than she was? *Look at the photo above of Kate Winslet, look at her image in the mirror, it more accurately reflects what she looked like before retouching.
The Dove beauty campaign is still about selling products. Just telling you you're ok, you're natural so purchase our products. It's about leveraging a different angle to make you feel like your beliefs align with theirs. Still, I have to love a company that at least approaches it a different way. I'm a girly-girl, I like washing my face with stuff that feels good, I like slathering a masque on from time to time or washing my bod with soap that smells like fresh cut grass or lavender, but I definitely like the idea of approaching these products as a consumer and not a victim.
Nobody's Perfect?
Saturday, August 9, 2008
I've heard many people say you can't expect politicians to be perfect. Since when did not fucking some other woman while your wife is going through cancer treatment become the standard of perfect? Of course these guys aren't perfect. They are highly ego-driven, cavalier, giant ladder-climbers, greedy, at times morally ambiguous but can't just one of them channel their big swinging dicks into something positive like reforming the healthcare system? It's like an investment really, solve the healthcare crisis, retire and get more free pussy than you ever dreamed of, I might just be first in line to thank him.
I am an independent who tends to vote democrat and definitely will not be voting Republican any time soon and I am so miffed that given the current political climate, John Edwards lusted after the Presidential nomination and surely would have taken it if he could have, knowing that he had this skeleton, already partially discovered, just waiting to jump out of the closet. Good thing it came out before he was potentially a running mate or you know what we would have had another 4-8 years of? Helping big oil get bigger.
I feel for his wife, people say she's probably so embarrassed and I say she has nothing to be ashamed of, this is his mistake and it reflects on him alone.
Also, let me add, how fucking stupid are these guys. They know(on both parties) that people are just waiting and watching for them to screw up in a big way. Someone's going to find out. And yes, the same traits that get you elected get you laid but can't one of the just refrain.
I think to get anyone in office who actually lives by the code they profess we are going to have to either elect a woman or give the guys that medication they give sexual predators to dumb down their libido and render them semi-harmless. Maybe then the mistresses and airport bathroom handjobs will finally taper off.
He Said, She Said - 7
Friday, August 8, 2008
Conversations With My Husband
After I spent the better part of the day cleaning.
Me: When I add another day to my work schedule in September, can I get a cleaning lady?
Me: Because I'm home most of the week and should be able to get everything done.
Him: Yeah, but then you're going to want to get me involved.
Same day.
Him: Did you get anything posted today?
Him: Why not.
Me: Because I was mommybitch and I cleaned the house all day.
Him: You should totally put one of those laughing out loud kitties up with something like be right back after the house is clean.
Me: Wuh?
Him: You know, those laughing out loud cats you send me?
Me: You mean Lol cats?
Him: Yeah, lol stands for laughing out loud, duh.
Me: Okay Sparky.
As we sit in bed discussing the days events.
Him: Did you hear about John Edwards.
Me: John Edwards is a fucking tool.
Him: Total tool, his wife had cancer.
Me: Has cancer and you know, he so would have taken the Democrat nomination if he would have gotten it and then once again, the democrats would have gone down in a blaze of whory man-shame.
Him:Whory man-shame?
Me: I hope he gets ass cancer.
As were watching the Olympics opening ceremonies.
Me: Honey, blah, blah ,blah, kids, blah, blah, spa...
Him: Shhh, (pointing at the tv) girls in uniforms.
Go Sit on the Timeout Chair, I'm Zaftig Dammit
I was in the bath tub last night and my four year old daughter came in to chat with me and keep me company. I suspect she wanted to spend a little time staring at my boobs because she is in this phase right now where she is just fascinated with them. It probably started when I was breastfeeding because they got GIGANTIC and they were out all the time. She's asked me frequently, “when I'm a grownup, my boobs will be big like yours right?'
So same question last night but then she, in all her four year old naiveté followed it up, her voice filled with hopeful expectancy, "when "I'm a grown up my butt will be big like yours right?"
"Oh, god, not if your lucky," I thought. I silently hope she inherited my husband's naturally slender physique and vowed to take up pilates again.
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