Blobby, Misshapened Freak Puffs

I really hate it when MDH goes to bed before me.

Oh I realize that MDH is a grown ass man, who can make decisions for himself and frankly do pretty much whatever the fuck he wants, up to and including going to bed at whatever time he damn well pleases... but still, it bugs the shit out of me when he goes to bed before I'm ready. I like us to go to bed at the same time. That's how we usually do it.

Actually I like to get up there just a scant few minutes before he does. I turn on the over head light and then turn on our individual bedside lamps and then go back and turn off the overhead light. If it's a day that I haven't made the bed then I'll take a moment to straighten out the sheets, fluff up the pillows and even up the blanket distribution. Nobody asks me to do this, it's just nice, so I do it.

On nights when MDH goes to bed before me he just plops his ass right into the bed. Plop.

There is no preparation.

There is no consideration.

He doesn't turn the light on for me or fluff up or straighten anything. This is leading me to think that perhaps I should stop going up there before him and preparing things for us, because obviously he doesn't appreciate it. Perhaps maybe he's never even noticed that I do all that nice stuff at all. And if he doesn't notice or appreciate it then why should I continue to do it?

Here is why I will continue to do it... because it's much easier than the alternative, which I will now describe:

When I'm ready to go to bed I arrive upstairs to a very, very dark bedroom. You see, we now live on the surface of the sun* and have installed both blinds and blackout curtains over the windows in order to keep our bedroom from becoming a pizza oven and that we not burn to death.

We're talking dangerous dark, like smash your face into a door frame and stub your toe and scream in blood curdling pain kind of dark, so I like to flip on the overhead light before I walk over to my side of the bed to turn on my bedside lamp. The flipping on of the overhead light causes MDH wake up slightly and moan in agony at the bright light in his face.

He does this even without the overhead light, after I have groped my way slowly across the room. The instant I snap on my bedside lamp the moaning and whining begins.

It is at this point, when the light comes on that I notice the complete fucked-up-ed-ness of the pillows and covers. Basically, he is spread eagled in the middle of the bed, somehow clutching every corner of the blanket and now untucked sheets and desperately clinging to my pillows** like a drowning man to a life raft.

You sleeping motherfucker.

Now is the time that I must attempt to shove him back over to his side of the bed (an enormous king-sized bed, mind you) whilst simultaneously prying him loose from my pillows and unclenching the blankets*** and sheets from his grasp. He is a large, large man, who all the while is whining and groaning like a large, large infant and I want to bash his head in.

My research concludes that the length of time that has passed between when he chose to go to bed and when I chose to join him there is directly proportionate to the degree to which the bed is fucked up and decibel of sleepy whining and moaning that occurs.

UPDATE: As Veg so rightly pointed out in the comments, having a made bed beforehand actually prevents this particular rage of mine from occcuring. Yesterday I did not make the bed. So I am most definitely, at least partly to blame.

I'd also like to just make sure we all understand that the going to bed at different times and MDH whining and hogging all of the bedding is actually a pretty rare thing around here. The bed is usually made and we usually go to bed at the same time. Yesterday was a rare non-made bed day and an even more rare unbalanced bedtimes. Rare as it is, apparently it still makes me fly into a fit.

*Texas

**I am a diva and I have 4 pillows and I use them all. Furthermore, they are not just any pillows, they cost ... well never mind how much they cost... they are fancy pants, extra firm goose down pillows. They are glorious and they are mine(!). The reason I have 4 is because I originally bought 2 for me and 2 for MDH, but he balked at the price and insisted he didn't like them. I told him fine, go pick out your own damn pillows. So he went to K-Mart and picked out his own from the $5 bin, and was rather smug about it. I now use all 4 of the fancy pants pillows. I make myself a little nest and it's wonderful. I sleep like an angel. Anyhoo... MDH prefers to use the $5 foam poly pillows that are so stiff they could stand up by themselves if they weren't so misshapen due to their being made from a horrible space age polymer by 3 year old Sri-Lankans. They're like... old beat up sofa cushions jammed into 600 thread count pillowcases. It's weird, and yet MDH refuses to acknowledge the clear and marked difference between the obvious quality of my lush and pliable goose down dream givers and his blobby, misshapen freak puffs. He even talks smack about my pillows and yet I have busted him multiple times hogging them when I have failed to separate them on the bed properly.

***You are correct, we don't have need of a lot of blankets on the surface of the sun. This summer we are only using one light weight quilt, but it is still of the utmost importance that it remain evenly distributed on the bed and not be hogged.

Is This Thing On?

Is anyone still out there? Jesus. It's been a long time since my last post and you know what? I still don't have anything relevant to say. Not that I'm going to let that stand in my way. I never have, why should I stop now?

Anyhoo... I'm back in my old post at Large Corporation making the world safe for data management and things are things. My cubicle this time around, although equipped with a delightful ass caressing, lumbar supporting, real deal, gen-u-wine Aeron chair, is tiny. Miniscule. The cube is teeny-tiny. Insulting. More insulting - they have taken internet access away from all of the contractors in the department. More humiliating than insulting I suppose, but what can you do? Certainly not check gmail, live-stream NPR, read blogs or get a weather forecast. It's a drag, a huge donkey cock suck if ever there was one although I do enjoy endlessly bitching about it to anyone who will listen, so there's that.

It's great to be working again, and trust me I don't forget it. I keep reminding myself of it every day.

Since Bag O'Mice and Hey Mr. DJ both retired guess who got assigned both of their workloads? It's me! Hooray! Actually, so far it hasn't been all that bad and I'm not nearly as swamped as you might think. Come to think of it, now that I'm fully aware of the scope of the projects they were working on I'm not sure at all what those two old coots were up to all day before they left.

At least in the case of Bag O'Mice it seems he must have spent around three quarters of his day puttering back and forth between his desk and the copier as I have discovered that the heaving, giant dossiers, nearly bursting at the seams that I inherited from him are mostly full of printed email correspondence. Yes. Apparently Bag O'Mice printed all of his emails. Jackass.

What else? People I actually got offered a job one week after I started working for Large Corporation again. Not a great job. In fact kind of a shitty job working for the state and I turned it down. It was the right thing to do. It boiled down to pay (although surprisingly it wasn't that much less), but also the work was not exactly what I would call stimulating. Filing. Data entry. Been there. Done that.

I would have felt totally differently about it if I hadn't taken the call from the state's HR lady while luxuriating in the awesomeness of my fabulous new designer office chair and sipping a gratis vente Starbucks in front of my two 20 inch flat screen monitors, which were at the moment displaying the very latest in database software technology.

During the interview, which by the way took place the week before at an office located in a run down strip mall in a questionable part of town, when I had asked them(because I come prepared for that shit so when they say "do you have any questions for us? I immediately whip out a printed list and go to town) what was their most challenging obstacle to accomplishing the long term goals of the department (eh? eh? a good one I think) they replied that it was that a lot of people balk at using a computer, not using the new software we just got, but the fact that they have to use a computer, like at all. This is not the place for me.

The whole interview experience was like that Sesame Street song, One of These Things Is Not Like the Others. I mean if you could have seen the other people who were interviewing - I got to see the competition because they corralled us all together in this big giant room while we waited our turns to meet with the HR people. It was like a casting call for creepy losers and pressed, dry cleaned, prissy me. A couple of the creepy losers were already doing the same job in a different city and were merely interviewing to be transferred, a formality I guess, and spent their time commiserating between themselves at top volume about what a shitty job it was.

So between listening to that, the disconcerting interview-ee holding pen concept and the fact that I had gone through the trouble of hot rollering my hair and wiggling into pantyhose and was sitting next to a rumpled man wearing scuffed white (white!) cowboy boots, enough pomade to wax a Buick who smelled like he hadn't washed his suit since the civil war, when I realized that we were all interviewing for the same position I almost bailed.

I don't normally like to think that I'm better than anyone else, maybe that I'm better off, but not better. But in this case, better, better off, either way I knew that I didn't belong there. I stayed for the interview, but the whole thing felt wrong, wrong, wrong and I knew that it would be a huge step down. Clearly some of those other folks needed that job worse than me and if that's a snobby thing to say - well I just don't care.

Did I mention that the job was shitty? Have I harped enough on that or do you need to hear about that some more? Oh and it wasn't even a permanent job. Yeah. Up to 2 years. Not even a guarantee of two years. Only possibly two years. To me I might as well stay at Large Corp where I have so many friends and a new comfy spaceship chair, challenging work that I enjoy and a small modicum of hope.

It's funny though the feedback I got from different people that I talked to about it. Some people were like oooh a job with the state, like that in itself was a boondoggle. Even when I explained that it was a temporary, low paying, shitty job, some still insisted that it was a good opportunity and a "foot in the door". Perhaps I might feel it was a good opportunity if Large Corporation hadn't asked me to come back, or I was 21 and freshly out of college or didn't have a bachelor's degree and over 15 years of professional experience. To me it felt like a huge step in the wrong direction.

Anyhoo... (you get a bonus anyhoo because it's been so long since my last post) going back to Large Corporation has been like going to a family reunion only the people there are happy to see me and nice to me. It's been like putting on a pair of old slippers only not really because it smells better than my old slippers, which frankly still kind of smell like Cool Ranch Doritos even after I run them thru the wash.

Let Yourself Go

Wednesday for the first time - like ever in my professional life - I wore my hair in a pony tail to work. Maybe that doesn't seem like a big deal, but people I'm telling you normally l blow my hair out and put on an extra coat of mascara just to take out the trash. A pony tail to work, for me represents an unprecedented level of lazy personal grooming*.

Now that the deed is done and the pony tail has been debuted, and even though I kind of liked it and many of my coworkers remarked about how nice it looked, I worry that it's all downhill from here. To prove my point - the pants I wore on Wednesday began to disintegrate shortly after my arrival to the office, probably dying of embarrassment from being seen in public with me and my lazy-ass pony tail head. The hems of both legs came undone. Both legs - what the frigg?

I handled the situation with relative style and ease like fuckin' McGuyver. Not really. I stapled the hems of my pants. With a stapler. I walked around all day with the hems of my pants visibly stapled and I wore a pony tail. The end is nigh and it's all my fault. I'm sorry.

Not convinced that end of times is come? Today I wore open toed sandals to work. Stock your shelters.

In my defense, I'm dog tired dude. I'm sorry to "dude" you, but holy shit I'm having a difficult time adjusting to my new summer schedule. I've been getting up at the crack of my ass (otherwise known as 5:30am), hopping directly in the shower and running off to work as soon as I'm dry. Stopping briefly, of course, on my way out the door to throw on some clothes and slop some coffee into a travel mug.

My old schedule had me getting out of bed at 6:30, then schlepping around in slippers and a haze for as long as I needed, taking my damn sweet time for the wake up portion of my day.

Coffee at my leisure.

Breakfast?

Sure, why not? Don't mind if I do.

I was pretty much able to take my damn sweet time to make myself beautiful and plan my outfit for work too. It was good times.

Anyhoo... I do not remember the last time I wore a pony tail in public that I wasn't performing yard work and even then I never crossed our property line. I do a quick mirror check and touch up my lipstick to go to the window to yell at the neighbors dog.

Do you understand that I am tightly wound?

I cannot explain and have no excuse for the open toed sandals. They are cute and it's the Friday beginning a holiday weekend so there was no one at the office today to see and judge my janky toes. Besides it was a half day so get off my back.

*Pony tails are pefectly fine and I have seen that many of my fellow lady folk are able to pass off a stylish, professional pony tail and any number of inventive and chic bun, updo and twisty hair creations, but I personally do not have that level of confidence. When I attempt to step out the door wearing a pony tail I hear my mothers voice in my head asking me with a sneer, "how much longer will it take for you to get ready dear? I can wait if you'd like to finish combing your hair".

So technically I don't have a problem with pony tails, my mother does. Or at least the voice in my head that sounds like my mother does. Whatever - bottom line is: Pony tails are fine, but not for me. I can't poop in the woods or wear flip flops either, but those are entirely different topics, although the source of all of my quirks and neurosis is the same.

Doling Out the Punishments - Passive Agressive Style

People have gotten really dumb this week - have you noticed? I mean good lord, it's only Tuesday, but I've already received record volumes of frantic voice mails and moronic emails chock full of flaming envelope symbols and red exclamation points and the word URGENT! in the subject line from project team mates and co-workers who are normally quite lovely and reasonable.

These people are making demands, kicking ass and taking names and I feel like I have spent my entire day talking them down from ledges and reminding them of existing procedures that have been in place for 1000 years and asking them to revisit their old friend Common Sense and I've had about all I can take.

Calm down crazy face.

We are not performing neurosurgery here and nobody's life or job is on the line. Think about it for a minute - why would I need to request graphics for a vat of goo? That's right genius. You just sent out an angry gram, flaming envelope style email, copied to twelve million people including my boss and yours, demanding that I put graphics on a vat of chemicals.*

Re-fucking-lax dumb people.

Take yourself down to whatever is your gender appropriate restroom and splash some cold water on your face (get a coolpapertowel). Calm down and prepare for your punishment for bugging me all day fucking day with this ridiculous bullshit.

Your punishment? I will hit "Reply All" and publicly humiliate you by pointing out your blunder and reveal to the world that you have cotton candy between your ears in the form an email designed to appear informative and friendly, reminding you in a joking fashion that we cannot put graphics on goo (you silly!) copied to 12 million people including my boss and yours.

Take that jackhole.

I've also been experiencing a very high volume of asshats who are trying to work around the normal rules and procedures that have been in place for 1000 years, sending purposely wonky stuff my way and think that I won't catch on.

Well they are wrong.

The punishment is the same. Public humiliation in the form of an email designed to look like an innocent question and request for clarification about the wonky bullshit thing you sent me, copied to your boss and mine, that will make it perfectly clear to all parties involved that you are trying to get away with something sneaky and that I am on to you, you weasel.

URGENT! ? My ass.

*Not a real scenario, but similar and equally stupid.

Over Used & No Longer Funny (if it ever was). I Know! Right?

Dear English Speaking People Everywhere,

Please be done saying the following:

I know! Right?

I understand. I get it. It has become your habit to use this little 3-word gem at the end of another person's every sentence during a conversation in which you wish to convey understanding and a certain trite fellowship. Could you please, just for the rest of this week (and there are only a couple of days left so I think you could at least try) say something else? How about vigorously nodding your head or saying something straightforward like, "I understand", or "Yep".

Also would you please stop saying:

I just threw up in my mouth a little.

I'm sure that whatever someone is saying is somehow disgusting. I get it. I understand. But what you must understand is that when you use this charming little phrase it makes me want to shit in my pants a little and throw it at your head.

Sincerely,

Lady

PS - This is all you get for tonight. A reprimand. Project Runway's on. I'm busy. More answers to 20 Questions on tomorrow night's post.

Million Movie Meme

I wrote this post late Saturday afternoon and didn't have time to finish it before I had to get ready for my night out with the girls. Then I didn't get home until past midnight by which time we had had a terrible storm and lost power for the next 16 hours or so. It took me freakin' forever to write this hog because of all the pictures and links and by this point I'm just bloody sick of looking at it, so I apologize here in advance for any weird grammar or spelling errors.

With an intro like that I'm sure you are bursting at the seams to read this now.

I'm going to refrain from air kissing myself to avoid adding any extra strain to my already overtaxed neck. Yes. I've tagged myself for a meme, since nobody else would. I don't want to name any names here Tara.

Anyhoo... it's a movie meme and I couldn't resist because I love movies almost as much as I love eating and breathing.

There are just too many movie answers for me to choose from, so I have blatantly stolen an idea from New York Magazines weekly feature The Approval Matrix, where they section off Brilliant and Despicable things by labeling them either Highbrow or Lowbrow. I adore this feature. You can click on the image on the left to see the full size version of this weeks Approval Matrix. (I'm not sure how Rachel Ray and Dunkin' Donuts ended up on the Highbrow side.)

My movie meme will answer each question in the meme with the (Lowbrow) title of a mainstream, big name studio movie and with the (Highbrow) title of a lesser known or possibly totally unknown independent or foreign film or any combination of these things. This is my blog so I get to stand in judgment on what's Lowbrow and what's Highbrow - if you disagree leave it in the comments.

1. One that made you laugh:
Movie: Blazing Saddles (1974) - Because I can never resist a fart joke or anything with Madeline Kahn (RIP).

Film: Flirting with Disaster (1996) - I laughed throughout the entire thing and had to watch it again because I missed so much from laughing the first time.

2. One that made you cry:
Movie: Beaches (1988) - the whole thing with the dying and the daughter. It's just too much and I'm a huge Bette Midler fan. The music gets me every time.

Film: Hilary & Jackie (1998) - based on a true story, the whole thing with the success and the madness and the love of two sisters, plus it stars two actors I adore: Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths. Also has great music.

3. One movie you loved when you were a child (I will eliminate the Highbrow/Lowbrow element here because as kid I didn't know the difference or really care. I'm going to list a few that I still love to this day and you may also notice that they are all pretty old. We didn't have a lot of money for going to the movies when I was a kid so I watched old movies on TV all the time):

Gigi (1958) - In retrospect the premise is probably a bit racy because it's about a little girl who is being groomed to become a courtesan, but I loved the songs, the costumes, and the fancy manners.

Harvey (1950) - What little kid wouldn't want to hang around with a guy who had an invisible 7 foot rabbit wearing a waistcoat and pocket watch for a best friend?

We can also include here anything with Cary Grant, Doris Day and Fred Astaire.

4. One you’ve seen more than once (I'll lean this one more toward movies that I will watch whenever I notice that they are on TV. There could be 15 minutes left and I will watch them anyway.):

Movie: When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Film: Cold Comfort Farm (1995) tied with Amelie (2001)

5. One you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it I'm going to dispense withe Highbrow/Lowbrow here too. I'm not embarrassed, but these are a couple that I didn't expect to love:
There's Something About Mary (1998) - I could not help myself.

Stuart Saves His Family (1995) - Yes. Starring Al Franken as Stuart Smalley, that 12-step program guy from SNL. I do not remember why I rented this stupid thing. I watched it in secret and then laughed so hard that I made all of my friends watch it with me. Trust me. It's really good.

6. One you hated:
Movie - Mr. Hollands Opus - I'm not going to put the year or a link because that would require an IMDB search and that might cause someone at IMDB to think that I give a shit about this movie - what a turd this was. It doesn't even deserve bold font. Forever known to me as Mr. Hollands Anus.

Film - The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) - I actually walked out of this film - crying. I had had enough cringing, gasping and covering my eyes in my friend Dan's armpit in the middle of a fully packed theater. It was in a word; awful.

7. One that scared you:
Movie: 28 Days Later (2002) - I don't watch a lot of scary movies, but I gave this one a shot because I like the director, Danny Boyle.

Film: El Orphanito (2007) - Scary, Spanish, ghostie goodness. Make sure you have already had a good crap before watching.

8. One that bored you: I think I can safely exempt myself from this one. I'm pretty careful with my movie selections, especially if I'm shelling out full price to see it in a theater. If I'm watching it on DVD I simply stop watching. Besides I rarely ever get bored.

9. One that made you happy:
Movie - Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985) - Never was the tale of a weirdo who lost his bike more delightful.

Film - Juno (2007) - Never was a tale of teen pregnancy more delightful.

10. One that made you miserable:
Movie - Leaving Las Vegas (1995) - a jolly little fable about a dude who wants to literally drink himself to death. 100% Charm Free.

Film - Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) - My bad. I didn't pay close enough attention to the title of this piece of shit and take the word Imaginary to heart. I mean, I know that she was known for being really weird and that she eventually killed herself, but I had hoped for more insight into what made her tick and instead I was treated to middle aged nudists and gargantuan hair clogs. It made me itchy.

11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see:
Movie - Any of those Police Academy things.

Film - Cloverfield (2008) - OK - I doubt that this is highbrow, but I can't think of anything else at the moment, and I know for certain that I do not want to see this thing. Not because it's too scary, but because I heard the camera work was not dissimilar to The Blair Witch Project, which caused me to get motion sickness and spend the second half of the film in the ladies room puking my guts up. No film is good enough for me to go through that again.

12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with (oddly both of these characters appear naked in their respective stories):
Movie - Jason Segel's cleverly named character, Jason in the movie Knocked Up (2007).

Film - Julian Sands as George Emerson from the Ivory Merchant A Room with a View (1985). Upon deep reflection I have just realized that Julian Sands was the first man I ever saw naked. Of course in the same scene in which Julian Sands is naked you also see Simon Callow's penis bouncing around as well. Some of you may remember Mr. Callow as the chubby bearded guy that keels over from a heart attack and dies in Four Weddings and a Funeral. I choose Julian Sands as my happy memory even though he went on to totally bum me out by making that horrible Warlock movie.

Just to qualify I did not fall in love with George Emerson because I saw Julian Sands naked. George was a romantic guy (and not bad to look at either) who knew exactly what he wanted with Lucy Honeychurch and by the end of the story completely transforms her. In the movie George lives and that is how I like to remember him. I read the book about 5 years after I first saw that movie and was devastated to learn that his character dies in the war and that Ivory/Merchant kind of butchered EM Forrester's book, but I really don't care. I like it better when I think of George and Lucy living forever in love in that damn window.

13. The last one you saw (I'll qualify this with - in a theater):
Movie - Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) - S'ok.

Film - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) - I wrote about this already.

14. The next movie you hope to see:
How about the next movie I'm going to see? Because I don't just dream it baby - I live it. It's Sex & the City and I'm going to do the whole cliche all the way and see it with my girlfriends after dinner and drinks this very evening. Minus the expensive heels. Fuck that - I'm wearing flip-flops.

15. Tag Five People:
I'm only going to tag one person. The only person I can think of that loves movies more than me, and whose opinion of movies I value more than any other - yes my friend Dan - I mean you Dan G.

C'mon! Write us up a little something. It's about movies, you know you want to. Don't make me beg. Write!

Ill Communication

Buon giorno! It's quarter to 10 on Sunday morning, MDH is still sleeping and I've got a little bit of time for blogging before the beast awakens.

Well, he's not a beast just yet, but he will be. Trust me. He's got a job interview in Chicago on Tuesday which means that he will begin preparations today - trying on every suit he owns, laundering every pair of underwear, researching the company, chanting, anointing himself with oils, and beating himself with willow branches until he bleeds - and begin to transform into a total asshole for the rest of the day. When this man, who under normal conditions is a marshmallow, gets nervous he displays a form of grumpitude equal to no other.

When he wakes up I'm getting the fuck out of here for the rest of the afternoon and early evening.

I woke up refreshed and perky and if I'm around Sir-Gripe-A-Lot for very long my lovely mood and graceful disposition will be crushed like a grape and since shit always rolls downhill - I will have no one else to take it out on but the cat. It's always the innocents who suffer the most.

I have some shopping to do anyway. I'd take the cat with me if I could.

So, since I don't have much time before the bear comes out of his den I'm going to hit you with a quick and dirty recap of recent events, conversations and observations, in no particular order.

1. A clerk with a name tag that said Cecil above the word Turkey, at the check in desk of a hotel we stayed in recently handed us our room key and asked MDH if he would like to have the password to the Virus. MDH and the clerk proceeded to have a verbal volley that lasted for far too long and consisted of my husband saying things like, "I'm sorry, what?" and "Could you repeat that again?" while Cecil responded back with "The Virus!, The Virus!" in the kind of increasingly frenzied tones one experiences when not being understood. Poor Cecil. Poor MDH.

I put an end to the escalating heated exchange when I realized that putting the country of origin on the name tags was the hotels clever way of keeping us aware of the ethnic diversity of their staff. Later that day I was to meet Clara, Hong-Kong and Rosalee, Trinadad. Cecil, Turkey was an indication of where Cecil was from, not a personality trait or strange job title.

Remembering from experience my old boss who was Turkish and had a strange accent that always reminded me of Count Dracula, with the endearing way that he pronounced his W's as V's and was always swallowing his L's, I had the epiphany that Cecil was trying to say "Wireless" - not "Virus". Thank god.

MDH and I wondered on our way up to our room how many people never bothered to investigate Cecil's offer of a Virus and lived out the rest of their hotel stay with no internets.

(My gracious - #1 has turned out quite long!)

2. It is very hot an humid here this week and we have been peppered with Thunderstorms. It's the kind of weather that causes my normally smooth and shiny hair to frizz out like a fright wig. In an effort to go with it, I decided to style my hair in such a way as to work with the frizz rather than try to smooth it all out like I normally do.

At first I was pleased with the results, but after working a full 9 hour day when I finally plopped down in my steaming hot car to drive home and viewed my head in the rear view mirror and the combination of heat and humidity throughout the day had caused all my make-up to melt off too. I looked like Phyllis Diller.

3. Late yesterday afternoon MDH shocked me by asking if I'd like to get out of the house and go out to dinner. Although I'm pretty sure he only did this to get out of going to the grocery store to pick up hamburger buns like I'd asked him to do earlier in the day, it worked and we drove to the beach to have dinner in a lovely spot right on the water.

We had been to this restaurant a year or so ago with some friends of ours that have since moved away to Oregon. The night we ate there our friends drove, so MDH and I didn't remember where it was exactly, except that it was next to the water. We couldn't remember the name of the place either.

Needless to say when we got to the beachy town where the restaurant was located we drove around in circles, arguing and bickering like a couple of spider monkeys over the last banana chunk, until we remembered that MDH's new crackberry has a GPS feature. I typed in the word "restaurant" and zoomed in on locales that were on the water and we (I) finally found the place, reaffirming my earlier statements on this blog that I would make an excellent contestant on that show The Amazing Race.

4. Just as we were polishing off a lovely dessert of strawberry shortcake with strawberry ice cream, the sky started to get very stormy with lots of lightening strikes. The storm was heading toward our house so we decided to leave the restaurant right away and try to get home before it hit. We made it, but along the way we passed a giant RV sales lot with big balloons and banners desperately displayed in an attempt to get some poor dumbass to buy a camper with gas prices at $4.09 a gallon.

Anyhoo... it was at this moment that MDH surprised me yet again, twice in the same day, and expressed his lifelong desire to someday travel the country in an RV - the following conversation ensued (those of you married for any length of time will relate):

Me: Really? I will miss you while you are away.

MDH: I thought it would be something the two of us would do together in our old age.

Me: Have you learned nothing about me, 'lo these past 9 years? Maybe we can work something out where you sleep in the RV in the parking lot after you drop me off at a hotel. I've never pooped in a camper and that's a record I'm not planning to break in my lifetime if I can help it.

MDH: I've always wanted to sleep in one of those camper beds (grabbing my knee)

Me: Oh, I get it now... if this camper's a'rockin...

MDH: It's probably out of alignment.


PS: I chose the tag "electrocution by coat hanger" because it popped up when I tried to type something else and then I was interested to see what the original post was that caused me to create that tag. It'll be a total surprise.

Son, You Got a Panty On Yer Head...

Recently I heard this woman on NPR talking about an essay she wrote for the New York Times called "It's Not You, It's Your Books", the gist of which is that people have literary deal breakers in their relationships.

Being a native of Central Ohio I never really had a literary deal breaker in as much as I couldn't tolerate the company of someone who loved Ayn Rand or hated Dostoevsky, it was more like I was thrilled if the dude had a job, didn't have a mullet and could read at all, period. It was an extra super-duper double coupon bonus (and I didn't care what genres were preferred) if he happened to list reading as high up on his list of things he enjoyed doing.

Holding out for an avid reader totally paid off in the end because my husband (even though he doesn't enjoy fiction the way I do and is more into history and politics) is so brilliant it makes me want to weep with joy.

I am totally biased about reading, maybe unfaily so, but I have this thing like if you don't read then you must be stupid. Not that I'm some genius (my lips move when I do simple addition and I may even go blank and begin to drool) and I have certainly run into many people in my life that have proved this theory wrong. I used to work with a guy (at the construction company) who was functionally illiterate (like couldn't even fill out his insurance forms), but had an amazing photographic memory and could eerily recite shit that he had overheard word for word.

So it's fine not to be a reader, chances are I probably would have had sex with you anyway although I most likely wouldn't have dated you publicly or introduced you to my friends.

The concept of the literary deal breaker is how I knew that my best friend Amys marriage to Assface was as doomed as doomed can be when, not even one full year after their wedding, Assface proudly and pompously announced that reading for pleasure was a complete waste of time.

Amy was floored.

I probably mentally nicknamed him Assface right then and there.

Imagine the shock and horror of my poor darling Amy at this news. Like finding out you're married to Joseph Stalin or Jesse Helms or Roy Cohn. Fuck, name any historic killjoy.

Not that she hadn't noticed in all that time that he didn't care for reading. But he was a student and she just assumed that he didn't have the time. It never occurred to her that he or anyone on the planet could actually be anti-reading. What the fuck?

As I was saying, I didn't really have a literary deal breaker so much but I did have a movie deal breaker.

I loved the movie Raising Arizona so much that I saw it twice in one day. I went to see it at the theater the day it opened with my friend M. She and I both worked in retail at the time and had Fridays off so we went to the movies a lot on Friday afternoons. Matinee prices. We were young and poor.

Raising Arizona was the fucking funniest thing I had ever seen in my whole young goddamn life. M and I laughed so much we missed half the movie so we decided to shell out for it again at the next show.

It was too good not to share so we went to the pay phone in the theater lobby (because back then "car phones", as they were called were only owned by oil tycoons, real estate barons and Hugh Hefner) and called in the reinforcements, her boyfriend, my best friend, her sister and all our other friends and demanded they meet us at the theater immediately for our second viewing. We called as many people as we had change in our pockets to call.

A little later in life when I met Dan and Nature Boy I knew we would all be great friends because they loved Raising Arizona as much as me. To this day we all make references to and quote from this movie to each other. Some highlights include:

Not unless round's funny.

Sometimes I get the menstrual cramps... real hard.

Does the Pope wear a funny hat?

Let me sneak a little peek-a-loo!

I'm crapping you negative.

These things aren't as meaningful or as funny typed out here on my blog, but trust me Raising Arizona is all kinds of funny.

When I was a young singleton, and some man-boy was poking around looking for a date and he either refused to watch it, said it wasn't funny or didn't get it - he was immediately ruled out and the connection was instantly dead. I felt like if you didn't get that movie than you would never get me.

Flossing was my other deal breaker. That tidbit is somewhat unrelated to the subject of this post but a reminder to all you young (and old) single people out there of the importance of dental hygiene.

Now... on the other end of the spectrum I had another movie deal breaker in that I knew that if the interested party claimed to love any number of the Police Academy movies, Porky's, or anything having to do with Steven Seagal or god forbid Chuck Fucking Norris, not only would never work but I might have just run away screaming.

Anyhoo... if you have never seen Raising Arizona, what the hell is wrong with you? Rent it immediately. I realize that it's 21 years old now, but I think it is every bit as good as it was when it came out. I plugged in this scene for you that I found on YouTube. I never realized how much punch the Cohen Bros. were able to pack into a 7 and a half minute scene. There is not a millimeter of film wasted.



What movie, book or music is/was YOUR dating deal breaker?

The Assface Chronicles - Screen So Soft

Last night I talked to my best friend Amy on the phone for a long time. We don't get to do that very often these days as she is the mother (and new step mother) of 3 unruly and obnoxious teenagers. Talking to her for any length of time is glorious and certainly I always take whatever time she can give, but last night was an extra 2 hour after school special. I was over the moon.

First of all she started off her conversation with me as she often does by declaring her ex-husband Assface to be an even bigger dickhead than he was the last time I spoke to her and then she tells me of his crazy antics and I agree with her that yes, indeed somehow he has become a bigger dickhead than he was before. Only last night I analyzed why he keeps becoming an increasingly large clot and here is my theory and a list of examples:

1. Assface no longer has Amy to stop him from doing asinine things like wear a suit, carry a briefcase and generally behave like a self righteous stiff when proctoring their daughters piano competition at OSU so that everyone mistakes him for a judge.

2. She is no longer around to pull him away when he has overstayed his welcome when visiting friends and trust me he needs it. The man is missing the natural ability to tell when he is boring the snot out of people in addition to being too thick to take polite hints that people would like to go to bed, thus resulting (we heard stories thru the grapevine) in slamming doors and situations escalating to near violence (being brusquely escorted to his car by the elbow) and tearfully told in plain English (after many hints were dropped) that he must leave.

OK. I made up the part about the elbow escort, but all the rest is true.

When they were still married I always took the direct approach with Assface, having learned of his handicap early on and even then it didn't always work.

Me (smiling, with one eyebrow raised: ALLrighty Assface GET OUT OF HERE...

Assface: 010101010101

Me: I mean it dude - VA MINOS - Adios Muchacho... On yer way...

Assface: 00011110000101001

Me: I'm shutting the door now. I have to go take a shit so please leave.

Assface: 000011100011110001

You get the picture. By the way Assface speaks in a low, inaudible monotone that is remarkably similar to what I imagine binary sounds like.

3. He no longer has Amy around to give a list of 25 good reasons why you don't allow your daughter to have a sleep over at the neighbor's who have the police and social services visiting 3 times a week and then act surprised when your child ends up with head lice.

There are lots of things that he still does that Amy was never able to talk him out of when they were married like wearing black socks with shorts and spraying every surface of his home with Skin So Soft in the summertime for it's supposed bug repellent properties.

Notoriously, Assface once spent over an hour obsessively spraying every inch of the screens of the screened in porch of their old house with Skin So Soft before a BBQ. For those of you unfamiliar with Avon's line of products, Skin So Soft is a spray-on oil conconction - for human skin.

I don't really know if it kept the bugs away, but it rendered every doorknob unturnable, caused every guest at the party to slip upon the oily surface of the porch floor and Dan and I to giggle incessantly (and to this day) about the supple, touchable nature of the porch screens and forever think of the substance as "Screen So Soft".

Nobody In Their Right Mind Would Need This #11 Special Fashion Edition

Muffin Top

Don't you like yourself? Don't you like the rest of us? Aren't you terribly uncomfortable? Don't you have a full length mirror? Doesn't anyone among your family and friends love you enough to tell you you look as if your jeans are cutting off all circulation to your liver and kidneys? This seems dangerous to me.

Not that I don't have some pants in my wardrobe that are a bit tight in the waist. I choose, however, to wear shirts that are long enough to cover up my big fat gut rather than short shirts that highlight my big fat gut.

I'm a people person.

Baggy Muscle Pants and Whatever You Call This Top
We get it dude, you're all muscle-y and shit. We get it. You work out 6 hours a day and eat raw eggs and hormones and have shelves full of giant containers of powdered protein on display for all to see in the finished basement bedroom of your mom's house. We get it, you enjoy showing us your giant arms and pink, taut nipples.

We get it.

You're a manly mass of buffness.

You're creeping everyone out.

By the way, when you dress like this everyone around you assumes you are a stupid meat head. I'm not saying body building is wrong or that you are a stupid meat head. I'm just saying keep it to yourself meat head and save this outfit for the gym.

Cover up.

Nobody wants to see your nips.

Teeshirts & Sweatshirts with Airbrushed Animals and/or Gothic/Sci-Fi Scenes

It's OK to have a passion for unicorns, kittens, wolves, eagles, tigers, scantily clad women wearing fur bikinis and carrying swords.

Whatever it is you're into it's totally fine.

But if you wear these types of shirts and wonder why you can't get laid it's because you are wearing these types of shirts and all the people you may like to have sex with think you are an enormous douche.

Fashion Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this post reflect the views and opinions of one middle aged, overweight, bitter and shoddily clad lady, currently writing this post in black sweatpants with a green stripe down the side and a safety orange, long sleeved LL Bean t-shirt that she has been wearing for 2 days straight.* The fashion views and opinions expressed in the blog are completely without merit as the middle aged, overweight slobbo writing it does not as yet, have her own column in Vogue or W Magazine and is not likely to ever have such any time soon or ever. The lady writing this blog does not claim to be an expert on fashion by any stretch of the imagination. Not at all. She merely states (in her personal opinion) the obvious for the purposes of humor and can only hope that those of you out there who may be reading the blog share her often condescending and imperialist viewpoint and sense of humor. If you hold a differing view to the ridiculous pieces of shit clothing choices above please feel free to offer up your opposing view in the comments.

*Please note the slovenly lady in question would never leave the house in the outfit described due to the magnetic attraction between her full length mirror and the giant stick up her ass.