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I just tucked my son into bed.
I am with him all day long, so my husband always reads him the bedtime stories that are part of our goodnight process. I kiss him goodnight and leave the two of them snuggled in bed together for story time.
At the door on the way out, I turn and say, “Have a good night-night, I’ll see you in the morning. Mommy loves Miles!” and as per our ritual, my son replies, “Miles loves Mommy!”
Sometimes Miles adds, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” because he heard it on a cartoon.
(Thank you, Little Bear. Appreciate that. How about you do an episode where you explain to my constantly over-analyzing brain why the parent bears wear clothes and the kid bear runs around naked? That would actually be helpful to me.)
I have never liked the “Don’t let the bedbugs bite” saying, which I’m assuming hearkens back to the days when bedbugs were a very real problem. It seems morbid and makes me itchy. One of those creepy “Ring Around the Rosy” things where the cutesy saying is actually about some archaic and gruesome malady.
So when my son started saying it, I found a way to spin it cute. He has a favorite stuffed toy my mother gave him. It is a rainbow-colored bug that we named Nightbug once he decided he had to have it nearby in order to sleep.
So when he says “Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” I reply: “If they do, give ‘em a kiss ‘cause it’s Nightbug!”
This always makes my son giggle. Unfortunately, this makes my husband wince. He is not fond of my attempt to make bugs in our son’s bed into a friendly thing. He is not okay with it at all. Annoyed eye-rolls aplenty at my cheesiness. Sometimes I sneer at him in reply on my way out.
(I also get the eye-rolls when I say “in my elephant” rather than “in my element.”)
(I can’t help it.)
He is also not okay with it when I combine “Knock your self out!” and “Eat your heart out!” into the bizarre and therefore much more entertaining saying: “Knock your heart out!”
He actually gets angry. (So of course I say it even more. You married folks know what I’m talking about.)
Knock your heart out.
A funny band-mate of mine did this by accident one time and it stuck. Years ago. Isn’t it odd how certain things stick with you?
My husband sometimes sarcastically says, “And if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a wonderful Christmas,” in reference to wishing we’d done things differently.
I had an ex who said basically the same thing in a more crass way. He used to say, “And if shit were butter, we’d spread it on bread.” I always remembered that one. I have a soft spot for crass. I hope I’m one of those old ladies who curses a lot.
That said… I also hope that unlike my grandmother on my biological father’s side, I do not curse openly in the presence of children. My son met his great-grandmother (he’s named after her maiden name of Miles) for the first time recently in Phoenix, and I still can’t believe he didn’t learn some lovely new words to share with the nice ladies who teach his church preschool.
She dropped every single curse word you can imagine, save for the F-bomb. And I’m sure if we’d just had more time she would have found a way to work that one in.
My grandma would curse; I’d give my younger sister Sommer who was with us the Official WTF? Look, and then glance nonchalantly at Miles, hoping he hadn’t noticed. I got lucky—he was immersed in his toys every time.
I’m no delicate flower. I’m often the first one seated at the Table of Inappropriateness and will drop a “That’s what SHE said!” whenever humanly possible, but I was really shocked. This woman raised four kids, for goodness sakes. She knows better than to call someone an asshole in front of a three-year-old.
I got sick the night before we flew to Arizona, which really sucked. I had hoped to try to see my friend Tammy who lives in Tuscon while we were there, but my wretched illness combined with the fact that every day was filled with a family event made me not even try.
My entire family, both mother’s and father’s sides, live in Arizona. I was born there and nearly everyone I’m immediately related to in the world resides there. So when I go there, it is a whirlwind to try and visit as much of the family as possible. A really fun whirlwind, but a whirlwind nonetheless.
Miles caught my cold during our last day or so there. He’s almost over it, but it is hanging on in my weak lungs as usual. I’m hoping it doesn’t turn into pneumonia again, but my chest is hurting and I’m exhausted. Damn it. I have things to do.
It is so weird how all of my respiratory illnesses go straight into pneumonia now. I am pretty certain I’m going to be one of those older folks who dies from pneumonia, and I am one hundred percent surprised. I would not have picked “lungs” as my weak spot.
I’ve been a singer my whole life, a good swimmer, and I used to run for miles without any effort. My legs would give out before my lungs when I’d go for a run. I’ve always thought I had really strong lungs. I would have pegged the liver as my wimpy organ. Who knew?
I just re-read this blog and realized I’m giving you a written snapshot into the way my brain hops from one thing to another, traveling on the raveling threads of different thoughts until I’ve knitted a completely different outfit altogether. It’s like a gray matter roller coaster, kids. Put your arms in the air, here comes another random segue!
I’m feeling loopy. I’m not drinking, I swear. Just tired.
Before I stop babbling, I must recommend some books.
I’m reading the Slash biography (by Slash with Anthony Bozza). It’s pretty good.
If he’s telling the truth, then Axl is a power-tripping control freak with an ego the size of the Sun. I will never support Guns & Roses because Axl owns the name and that’s all it means anymore. Just stupid Axl and his grody new “chubby old guy with cornrows” look. Not the awesome band that made one of my top five ever albums, Appetite for Destruction.
I’ve been in a band with a lead singer/guitar player/psychopath like that. Two drummers in a row “nicknamed” her Hitler. Yeesh. When I got away from her, it was like a black shroud of negativity fell off of me and I could see the sun again. Because of my own experience, I could really relate to the way Slash talks in the book about quitting the band he’s thrown his life and heart into, and watching some egotistical bastard destroy everything he helped create.
The process of acquiring band members and discussions of the relationships between them were also relatable to me after playing in bands for twelve years. A band is so much like a family. There is a crazy dynamic there that nobody outside of the band will ever see.
The hardest part of getting a band somewhere, once you have a decent musical set to offer the world, is simply trying to keep everyone together and happy.
If one person is off, everybody’s off. Your drummer’s coked up and can’t keep the rhythm, guess what? You ALL sound disjointed and off playing with him/her. Your guitar player just broke up with his girlfriend and is depressed, guess what? You are ALL going through that break-up. Your singer has the flu and can’t sing for shit, and you all sound like shit. You get it.
This factor is both the most irritating and most amazing part of playing in a band. You become one entity with a sound of its own. You change or remove one person and it can become a completely different thing. One of the coolest things about Appetite for Destruction is that it was lightning in a bottle. If you had changed one member of the band, or done one thing differently, there might not be a Slash book to read today. Everyone contributed something unique and absolutely perfect for what they were doing to that record.
That Appetite for Destruction cassette got me through my first year of college. I was barely seventeen, working a closing shift at the KFC at night and getting up at 4 a.m. to work in a donut shop across from campus. I’d run over to my classes from there, go home after classes for a quick nap, start over. On the off-days, I’d drink alcohol and have seventeen-year-old sex with my loser boyfriend. And listen to that damned cassette. I flipped it over and over until I wore it out. The cassette, I mean. Heh.
Okay, that’s enough of that sassy talk.
The other books I would like to recommend were written by my friend Richard Cox. He’s a great writer. He lives here in Tulsa and also writes for this website, manned by another favorite writer of mine, Brad Listi: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com
The books I read are The God Particle and Rift, and I absolutely loved them both. I’m not going to talk about them because there is nothing that drives me crazier than a spoiler. But if you are looking for a good new book to read, try one. He’s awesome.
He has a new book coming out as well that I think is his best yet, so keep your eyes peeled for that as well. Here’s his website with the book buying information: http://www.richardcox.net
Hope all is great in your world, my friends.
This year, my parents offered us Spring Break plane tickets, so my son Miles and I jumped at the chance to fly out to Phoenix for a visit.
Okay, so that’s a lie. Actually, I agonized for a few months over whether or not I was emotionally ready to attempt a plane ride with a somewhat sheltered, not-quite-potty-trained three-year-old.
I finally told myself to stop being such a wimp and just do it. Nobody’s gonna die if my kid is the one pooping his pants and throwing a tantrum on the plane. The flight to Phoenix is less than three hours, after all. Three potentially horrifying, stressful, humiliating hours of my life in exchange for a really fun week visiting with my family. I decided the exchange was worth it and we committed to dates.
Turns out, I had nothing to worry about. Miles was a little dream on both flights. Not a single fit or grumpy moment.
Before we left, I tried to stress how easy it is to get lost in an airport as best I could, without scaring the living daylights out of the kid. He stayed by me in public and always held my hand, which is usually a major issue for my independent boy. I also had a bag full of preschool work books, new books to read, plastic toys and crayons that kept him occupied the whole time.
He didn’t poop his pants on the flight there or home, so I never had to figure out how to change a messy diaper in one of those tiny airplane restrooms. I hope I never do. That’s a skill set I’ll really be okay with never mastering.
I was worried the flight might scare him because I forgot that kids don’t over-think everything like we grown-ups sometimes do. I am personally a nervous flyer because I just can’t understand how the gigantic, heavy jet stays up in the sky. I usually spend the entire flight neurotically waiting for the airplane to suddenly figure out that it really shouldn’t be up there, and plummet to the ground.
Traveling with a child was different because I had to make being trapped miles from the ground in a metal tube seem fun and exciting, so I focused on how “amazing” it was that we were flying, how “cool” it was that we could go so much faster than cars, etc. While I was selling it to him, I ended up kind of selling it to myself and it really helped my nerves.
Not as much as the alcoholic beverage I usually order on a flight to calm myself down, mind you. But you know, Mommy can’t drink on the job, so “Ooooh, look at the clouds, sweetie!” will have to do. But I will admit that I glanced longingly at the Bloody Mary the nice man next to me was holding more than once.
Miles had two firsts on the airplane, strangely enough. The first “I want to do this when I grow up” statement he’s ever uttered, and he wrote his name all by himself for the first time, without any prompting from me or help.
I didn’t even know he was doing it. He was writing while I took pictures to document his first “aware of it” plane ride (he flew with me at two months when we left Los Angeles, where he was born). He said “I wrote my name, Mommy!” and held up the word “MILE” scribbled in crayon. Wow. Not bad for a kiddo who just turned three a few months ago, right? (I even got pictures, which you will see below.)
While we were discussing that a pilot was flying our airplane, Miles stated that he wants to be an airplane pilot when he grows up. He’s never said anything of the sort before. So there you have it. We’ll see, I guess. (I’m just hoping he doesn’t have to ask people if they’d like fries with that when he grows up, really. Pilot would be very much okay with me.)
Miles was excited to see his “Dramma and Drampa” and especially loved their swimming pool and novel new landscape. The desert looks like another planet compared to the green, humid place we call home, and he seemed fascinated by it. He helps me water plants in our backyard, so he became a little obsessed with watering his very patient Grampa’s beautifully landscaped desert plants with swimming pool water. We’re hoping this won’t have any adverse effects on the flora.
I was excited to see my parents and their new home. They just bought it and moved in a few months ago, but it was decorated so beautifully that you couldn’t tell. I was impressed. I fell in love with the high ceilings, open floor plan and bright, natural lighting. I am not a fan of rabbit-warren-divided, ranch-style homes and love an airy, happy house. I’d rather live in one really big room than the same amount of space walled off into tiny sections. It was perfect.
I’m going to post pictures from our vacation in little chunks, rather than all at once, because I have a ridiculous amount of them to share. Once home, I got them off my camera, but I haven’t yet cleaned up and rotated them all for public consumption. I’m doing this in the little bursts of Me Time that mommies get, as much as that kills this girl who can’t stand to walk away from something unfinished. (I’ve had to let that part of my personality go since giving birth. It has been one of my greatest challenges.)
Pictures from the plane ride and poolside:
More to come. Hope you are having a beautiful day, wherever you are, my friends.
I just walked a few miles around the neighborhood. My daily exercise. I have to either walk for 45 minutes or do my 45-minute-long DVD workout of abdominal exercises and light weight lifting for my chest and arms, every day.
Rare exceptions. I painted my kitchen recently, all by myself, for example. I let myself off the exercising hook that day. And I’m glad, because I still hurt from climbing up on the counters to reach the parts above the cabinets. Ouch, whined the old lady.
On the phone to my little sister recently, I was expressing my fervent desire to someday once again wear my all-time favorite pair of jeans, a little size 5/6 dream from Abercrombie & Fitch* I bought used at the Buffalo Exchange on La Brea in Los Angeles.
Perfect amount of wear. Low-waisted, but not so low I need a Brazilian wax to wear them in a non-obscene manner. Moderately boot-cut, without looking like they floated in on the bell-bottomed ass of a seventies time machine commuter. Best pair of jeans ever.
My sister told me that she uses stickers for exercise motivation. Like, if she works out, she gets to put a sticker on the calendar that day. I laughed at her. I asked her if she was eight years old. Mocked her shamelessly.
So she did what every younger sister who has been mocked does, she gave me the finger and mailed me a sheet of happy, sparkly flower stickers with a note that said, “Put one of these on your calendar whenever you work out!” Smiley face.
So I tried it. And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work. I want my stupid little sticker every day. I want that calendar to look like a happy fucking garden full of flower stickers, the likes of which I’ve never seen. I want it to explode with the flowery sticker expression of my motivation; a cheerful, floral testament to my determination and moxie.
I want my daily sticker.
Damn it. She was right.
I even got my husband doing it.
I gave him some “Good job!” motivational-type stickers I bought for our son, and he puts one next to my flower sticker when he works out. His have different wild animals on them.
A couple that regresses back to childhood together stays together, isn’t that how the old saying goes? Ahem.
I listened to The Breeders old Pod album today as I walked. The perfect pop drums and incredible dynamics on that record still blow me away to this day.
I decided that it’s a good thing that I got pregnant and left Los Angeles, because I probably would have ended up as an orange, leathery, weird old lady you might see walking down Hollywood Boulevard, air drumming along with my iPod.
I can’t get used to the fact that nobody else can hear the music to which I’m listening. I want to share the music, the feeling it gives me, and I forget that I’m the only one feeling it. I want to dance and nod my head, but I would look bat-shit crazy.
We have a treadmill for inclement weather, but I prefer to walk outside if I can. I like to leave things behind. We do this our whole lives, if you really think about it, so it makes sense that it feels so natural.
You’ve left everything behind you thus far.
You heartless bastard.
I’m just kidding. That’s just how the concept of “past” works. We’re constantly moving ahead into the future. I don’t really think you’re a heartless bastard.
Unless I dated you at some point. Then I reserve the right. (Somebody’s gotta keep this cross warm, damn it.)
I have been playing online Scrabble lately. The program allows you to have a conversation during the game. It makes it even more fun.
I try to use the word I’m putting down in a sentence, just to see what pops out. My favorite Scrabble conversation has been with my friend Brittaney. She told me I could share, so… the Scrabble word that was played has been italicized for your pleasure:
Tawni F: Tawni held Brittaney’s silky hair back while she projectile vomited vodka into the bushes outside of the club.
Brittaney P: While she could care less about Brittaney’s clothes, she *did* want to keep that silky hair tidy.
Tawni F: The club’s bouncer called the police on the two dicey looking girls out front, puking in the bushes while talking about silky hair.
Brittaney P: “I’m as pretty as them!,” she slurred through vodka-induced tears. “I can be a cheerleader, too! I can be a pretty cheerleader! RAH!!”
Tawni F: Brittaney and Tawni spent the rest of the evening making cool CD mixes of their favorite songs while they made fun of cheerleaders, ate pizza and drank more vodka.
Brittaney P: The vodka was clearly a bad idea, as not an hour later, cries of “Don’t encage me!” were heard through the windows of Tawni’s dark attic.
Tawni F: Brittaney and Tawni had to bemoan their love of vodka as they surveyed the wrecked house and broken attic windows through which something large had escaped.
Brittaney P: That something was a robot. A *drunk* robot.
Tawni F: The drunk robot must have been very quiet as he escaped from the attic. Or maybe Brittaney and Tawni were just passed out from the vodka. Yeah, it was probably that.
Brittaney P: Or it was the pot. The girls had been taking hit after hit from the bong since 4:00 that day. A possible reason they missed the ado….
Tawni F: The girls decided to equip the cage in the attic with a security alarm so they wouldn’t doze through another robot escape.
Brittaney P: Brittaney had zero faith in their ability to construct said alarm in the state they were in.
Tawni F: Tawni said “Faith? Wait… what?” and began to doze. The robots win again.
Brittaney P: And with that, Brittaney put her favorite Slayer album in the tape deck!
Tawni F: The delightful sounds of Slayer woke Tawni up, so she and Brittaney began rocking on all fronts with the robot. Turns out, it was a ROCK robot!
Brittaney P: The vodka-induced hallucinations wore off. When Britt saw the ad for raspberry Stoli on tv she remarked to Tawn, “Aw hell no, I gots to wean myself off this shit!”
Tawni F: Tawni was vying for Britt’s attention as she drooled at the raspberry Stoli ad. “I am not holding up your silky hair while you puke this time if you leave me for raspberry-flavored vodka!” she shrilled at her friend Brittaney. Brittaney and the rock robot covered their ears and winced at Tawni.
Brittaney P: Turns out, Britt was wincing because the rock robot had accidentally pinched her labia trying out one of its new “rock moves.”
Tawni F: Tawni was no juror, so she tried not to judge Brittaney or the rock robot for the creepy “labia dance” they seemed to be performing for her entertainment.
Brittaney P: “Fava beans,” she exclaimed. “What are you, Silence of the Freaking Lambs, Rock Robot??”
Tawni F: It took all of Tawni’s guile to escape the liver-hungry Rock Robot.
********
See? Isn’t that so much more fun than normal Scrabble? You get a bizarre story to go with your Scrabble game. Sweet.
I hope you’re having a beautiful week, my friends.
* Also known as “Ambercroombie and Flitch” if you are cool enough: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/blisti/2009/03/youre-so-cool/#more-12593
I just dropped the boy off at preschool. He goes two days a week. It’s called a Mother’s Day Out program at the church. I usually call it “Oh My God Is It Tuesday Or Thursday Yet?”
I live for those two little chunks of Me Time. I’ve tiled and grouted a kitchen sink backsplash in the last week. Next I’m going to paint another wall blue. Go me.
Today I stopped at the grocery store for a few things on the way home. A whiny fit-free shopping experience is the height of my pleasure these days.
(What? I can take my time and read ingredients and not spend the trip wrestling things from my toddler before he drops them on the floor? I am living in the lap of luxury. Lap of luxury, I tell you!)
When he was younger and I was more of a rookie, he once dropped an entire carton of eggs on the grocery store floor. I was looking at nuts. (Looking at nuts! AHHAHA. Heh. Ahem.) Reading the cans. I wanted unsalted. As usual, the healthier version of anything existing in the Midwest was proving elusive.
I heard the whump of the Styrofoam container hitting the ground, with the thick, wet crackle of eggs breaking. Shit.
“Uh-oh Mommy,” he said in his cute little elfin voice. “I dwopped the eggs!”
Yes. Mommy is painfully aware that you dwopped the eggs. Thanks.
I have worked in a grocery store and never understood people who just run away from spills, leaving them for other unsuspecting customers to roll their carts through. It spreads the mess everywhere and irritates the employee stuck cleaning it all up.
(As that employee, when you hear the sickening crash of a product hitting the floor somewhere in the grocery store, you just pray for solid. Something dry. Or maybe you just think: “Not syrup, not syrup, not syrup, please not syrup…”)
So I rushed to the front of the store and spotted an employee, asked her if she could get me some paper towels. I was happy to clean it up myself.
She rolled her eyes, grabbed the roll of paper towels and huffed over to the egg mess with me. My son was trying to say hi and introduce himself in the rabidly friendly way he greets all strangers, much to my shy dismay. She completely ignored him.
“Hi, I’m Miles! What’s your name? I’m two!” he chirped, holding up two fingers in a desperate attempt to engage this new person who wouldn’t even look at him.
(This is a huge pet peeve of mine. If a two-year-old is saying hi to you, is it so fucking hard to say hi back, maybe even smile? I know that all children are going to eventually learn that the world isn’t always a friendly place, and everybody isn’t always happy, but how about not at two? How about you give the two-year-olds a few more years of bliss before you slap them in their innocent little faces with your jaded asshole demeanor, you grumpy bastards? Is that so much to ask?)
She continued to ignore my sweet kid, while acting completely stressed out, telling me that she was supposed to be on the way to her lunch break right now. Total bitchy guilt trip. Like she’s never dropped anything.
I told her to just give me the towels; I really didn’t mind cleaning it up.
“Go eat your lunch. I can clean it up. I don’t mind at all,” I said.
She implied with a put-upon look and a dismissive hand gesture that I wouldn’t be able to do it right, and continued with the wiping and heavy sighing. She seemed to really be missing her cross and crown of thorns that day.
She made me wish I’d been the asshole who just left the mess on the floor and walked away.
As the employee, I was always the opposite with clumsy customers. I would say things to make them feel better, like “Oh, everybody drops things, it’s no big deal, happens all the time.” I’d also tell them we really appreciated that they told someone about the spill so we could clean it up quickly. I’m all about the positive reinforcement.
My first instinct is always to make anyone uncomfortable feel better, so people who seem to enjoy the embarrassment or unhappiness of others completely freak me out. For this reason, in the face of poor treatment, I never react the way I later wish I had. My brain can’t even process it. The behavior is just that foreign to me. I’m bewildered. Dumbstruck.
My husband is the opposite. He’s lightning fast and super smooth. He’s very outgoing, with a drama degree and years of audition and improv experience. Quick-thinking. I completely covet this quality.
It’s pretty amazing to watch as he processes the rude behavior, gets angry at them for acting like a jerk, and comes up with the best witty comeback possible, which he delivers perfectly every time. Oh, how I love to live through him.
There’s a Seinfeld where George Costanza comes up with what he thinks is the perfect response to a rude comment long after the moment is over, that response being: “Oh yeah? Well, the Jerk Store called, and they’re all out of YOU!”
So sometimes I have this Costanza Moment, because, like George, I never think up the good response in time.
I seethe later, of course, once I am no longer in my shocked stupor, and it hits me that someone was mean to me. We’ll even mockingly quote the Jerk Store line in my honor. But my husband never has a Costanza Moment. It’s impressive.
Driving home from the grocery store, the Cult came on my iPod. I like the Cult. Their song Love Removal Machine came on and I remembered that one of the first bands I was in (The Glitter Kicks) covered it. I had forgotten.
We were an original band, but we worked up a cover song every once in a while for fun. 867-5309/Jenny by Tommy Tutone. Voices Carry by ‘Til Tuesday. Roxanne by the Police. The Wait by the Pretenders. There was talk of Fugazi’s Waiting Room, but that never came to fruition. Would have been cool.
We played Love Removal Machine for the first time live at a weird show we’d booked in which we were the only pop band in a line-up of metal bands.
Two really hard, loud metal bands played; then it was our turn. We were nervous.
The crowd was dressed in black, lots of long hair, and we were pretty sure our band would not receive a warm reception. We started the set, and were correct in that assumption. Then we pulled out Love Removal Machine.
I watched angry faces light up in recognition. Yeahs were yelled. Fists were pumped. The crowd sang along with me. We had them, if only for a moment.
Because it wasn’t a movie, I didn’t get carried across the bar in a celebratory crowd surf, as the worlds of melody and metal came together in a loving musical hug or anything like that. I’m sure they still thought we were a flimsy pop rock band. But it seemed like the animosity was gone after that.
Whew. Thank you, ironically named Cult song.
I’m going to go work out now while I have the chance, maybe paint a wall or organize something. It’s an exciting life I lead, I know. Don’t be jealous. Don’t be a hater. Just go ahead and have a beautiful day anyhow, my friends.
I wake up somewhere between five and six naturally. But lately, I have been sleeping exceptionally poorly.
My body has drifted into a ritual of going to sleep around ten p.m. and waking up around one a.m. I usually lie in the dark with a racing mind until sometime past four.
I have an ever-present stack of books next to my bed; I’ve never known it any other way. After an hour of desperately trying to lead my brain to a happy place that will allow it to drift back into the realm of unconscious, I usually give up and read a book until I feel sleepy again.
The distraction of crawling into someone else’s brain is the only one that ever truly gives me a break from my own. The real reason I love to read is revealed. The audience gasps.
The biggest suck is that the boy child wakes up between six and seven every day, like clockwork. No chance to play catch up. The sleep is lost to me forever, and the dark circles under my eyes aren’t temporary anymore.
I’m going to try melatonin. Has anyone tried it? Does it work for you?
I’m terrified of Ambien and Lunesta. I’ve heard they make people hallucinate and do weird things. And I do not need to take up the hobby of sleep eating at this point in my metabolic life. I’m depressingly excited to have finally lost enough pregnancy weight to squeeze back into what were my pre-baby “fat pants.”
Speaking of pants, this morning I got out of bed and pulled on my pants, because I sleep naked. Always have. (Stop trying. You really want to make that into a sexy mental image, but you can’t get the aforementioned “fat pants” out of your head. It’s okay; you’re only human.)
I grabbed my shirt and stumbled into the kitchen to pour what Dolly Parton, that wonderful lady, would dub my cup of ambition.
My husband was putting on his jacket and getting ready to leave for work. He said, “Hello Topless,” in a lascivious voice.
Always prepared for the acquisition of new beads, I jokingly swung the shirt I was holding around over my head, and said “Wooooo!” in my best bimbo imitation.
Then my sternum bones popped. Crack!
My husband exclaimed, “Yeah! Spring Break!” and pointed at my chest mockingly. So much for my young slutty chick imitation.
Getting old really sucks sometimes. But at least we both had a good laugh over how disgusting my creaky old body has become. Ahhahahahaha, I’m all gross inside. It’s hilarious.
So you know, there’s that.
But it’s okay. We make fun of him too. He’s spending Spring Break in Texas with his best high school buddies this year.
So in his mocking, we imitate him like this:
“Wooooo! Spring Break! Show us your… two-for-one appetizer specials!”
(Because they’re a bunch of thirty-something guys, more interested in food than topless girls.)
(Get it?)
(I’m funny, damn it.)
The first time my bony chest plate popped, I was living in Los Angeles. I was dating a guitar player I’d met when our bands played a show together.
I had spent the night at his house. It was morning. Early stages of the relationship, so I still cared what he thought of me. Nobody’s going to cut a fart in front of the other or anything.
I stretched and it cracked loudly, like a giant knuckle over my heart.
I froze, and said to this guy, “Oh my god. That’s never happened before. I think my sternum just popped!”
“Eww. I think I’m gonna puke,” he replied, wrinkling his nose.
I’m so hot.
Ever since then, it occasionally pops. I feel like my entire frame is out of adjustment, especially since I carried the gigantic nine-pound-plus child around in my guts for months.
Can chiropractors work on the front of a skeletal system? Or is that just called sexual harassment?
In other disturbing health news, I think I might have caught the spider that was biting my toes as I slept.
I don’t think the spider had, like, a hunger for human toes. I think I probably moved in my sleep while he was hanging out at the end of my bed after crawling up from underneath.
It bit me. That means it touched me. Yuck.
I spent over a week with a painful, tingling, purplish-red circle on the end of my big toe.
I thought maybe I’d bumped it vigorously treadmill-ing or something until I got a few more bites on other toes. (If you think “treadmill injury” sounds hokey, you have not witnessed my level of Clumsy. Just trust me on this one.)
I washed all the bedding in hot water, but I do this weekly anyhow. (Just one of those shows about dust mites living in our eyebrows. That’s all it took to push me over the edge into OCD-land, in case you’re wondering.)
I sprayed Lysol all around the edges and under the bed. I am aware that the influenza virus wasn’t biting my toes, but it was the most toxic thing we had.
Still, another bite happened.
Then one day I walked quickly into our bedroom to grab something, and a large black fuzzy creature sprung out of my line of sight, under a magazine next to the bed.
The spider. The little fucker who has been biting me! I thought.
I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a yogurt container I’d washed in preparation for starting garden seedlings. It was now a spider containment device. Voila.
I caught the spider and identified it as Phidippus audax, also known as the Bold or Daring Jumping Spider. The most common biting spider in the United States.
It was as big around as a quarter. All the pictures I took of it don’t do it justice, so I found one online.
It looked exactly like this:
..
http://dermatology.cdlib.org/DOJvol3num2/centerfold/phidippus.html….
It had white dots on its back and cool iridescent green fangs, just like the picture. It’s not the first one of its kind I’ve found in our house.
We live out in the sticks, in a newly developed neighborhood. There are fields all around us and a golf course on another side, so we have a rabbit and mouse problem. We hear coyotes howling at night. Hawks circle overhead for the easy pickings. I occasionally look out my window and see owls sitting on our back fence.
We even have grasshopper mice out here, the kind that howl like coyotes on helium. I’ve blogged about it before.
My husband snores, so we rarely sleep together. He was awakened on the couch a few times by the tiny high-pitched howls of what sounded like hundreds of grasshopper mice out back. Eerie. It gave him the willies.
Years ago, I watched an animal show about grasshopper mice. They hunt insects and howl; carnivorous mice. When they howl, I think it is quite possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve always remembered it.
I found a video of grasshopper mice howling online and he agreed that the howls he’d heard sounded similar.
So cute:
Can also be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkY1vzt6xRA
I later visually identified them in our backyard. The white stomachs; the extra-long tails. Grasshopper mice. They are indigenous to this area, so I don’t know why I was surprised. I guess I was just shocked to have the mice I remembered from that animal program I watched years ago, right here in my backyard.
This has apparently degraded into an animal blog. Sorry. It happens. I’ll go ahead and embrace my biology geek in front of you now. If you accidentally thought I was cool, you might want to look away now.
I have been an animal nerd most of my life, checking out all of the animal books I could find at the library when I was a kid, and poring over them for hours.
I’m still fascinated by the mind-blowing variety of creatures with which/whom we share the planet. So I’ll go ahead and share the cool fish footage I found.
Macropinna microstoma, commonly known as the “barreleye” or “spookfish:
….
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2009/02/barreleye-fish.html
Freaky, right? I think I would shit my scuba suit if one of those swam past me.
“Yes, students, scuba is an acronym for: self-contained underwater… bleeding asshole! What the fuck was THAT?”
Can you believe something like this exists?
What if there were humans who had transparent heads, allowing you to see their brains and inner head workings?
How is nature able to create invisible skin like this?
There is a glass-winged butterfly with wings you can see through as well. Did you know this?
Look:
I want clear wings you can see through. No fair.
Okay, you’ve seen through enough of my geek for today.
My not-so-invisible nerd.
I hope you have a fascinating week, my friends. 
