Category: My Life

Back in the Saddle

The last few days I’ve been overwhelmed, wondering how I’m going to make all this mom stuff go and still have time for fun stuff. Stuff like going to the dentist! Purchasing underwear that fits me! The depraved luxury of cleaning out our refrigerator!

Anyway, now that we’re no longer attending weddings every twenty minutes, we decided to re-join the gym (the extra fifteen pounds or so has done nothing for my funk). This morning I was grimly plugging away on the elliptical machine. I was thinking about how little time I have, and how many things I want to do, and how the elliptical machine is not one of those things.

Then the news came on, and they showed that picture. You know the one. It’s Melissa Hughes, standing on a recently collapsed bridge, holding her baby girl. And that baby is so tiny, and calm, and safe, I want to cheer. Because, my friends, it is a monumental thing to hold a safe, healthy baby in your arms.

And thus ended my existential crisis about overdue birthday cards. I am a jackass, God. Thanks for the awesome baby.

There Goes August

Let’s say you’ve had a particular Yahoo email address since college. You use it to order products, give it to new people you meet, keep in touch with old friends. Now say it randomly stopped forwarding to your daily inbox about two years ago. And you? Failed. To. Notice.

You randomly log in to find thousands of messages waiting for you. Notes from old friends, notices from services, Evite after Evite after Evite.

Suddenly, you can taste the upper part of your esophagus.

Once you begin breathing again, how much time do you spend searching for the “Do Over” button before it’s acceptable to bang your head against the keyboard?

Old Habits

Me: You used my toothbrush.
Him: I did?
Me: Yes, you’ve done it three times this week.
Him: Oh.
Me: Mine is the blue one. Yours is the green one.
Him: Eh, it’s not like we’ve never made out. Same diff.
Me: Ugh! Uggggh. I’m not into finding my toothbrush mysteriously wet. Also, you don’t rinse off all the toothpaste and it’s gross. Also stop using my goddamn toothbrush, dude
Him: OK.

Two days later:

Me: You used my toothbrush again.
Him: Oh.
Me: Stop it.
Him: OK.

Three days later:

Me: Did you see I bought a purple toothbrush for me?
Him: I did!
Me: You are green! I am purple!
Him: I appreciate that.

A week later:

Me: AAAAHHHHHHHH!!! AHHHHHH! Stop using my toothbrush you big jerk! Stop it! Stop it!
Bryan: Shit.
Me: You just use whichever one is closest, don’t you?
Him: Yes.
Me: You don’t even check, do you?
Him: No.
Me: You’ve been doing this for several years and I’m just now noticing. Is that what’s going on here?
Him: Yes.
Me: Excuse me while I go scrape my tongue.

It Took Me About Three Hours

Reader tip! Don’t wrap an evening of drinking by spiking your champagne with Limoncello.

Buuuuuut, as long as 32-percent alcohol is coursing through your veins, you may as well send a few dozen text messages. You can send them all to different people by simply thinking of a new person you’d like to talk to. Don’t be all anal about whether you’ve actually entered their phone number or just the one you last dialed. Hit on the following key points:

Everything south of my waist is wet, and not in a hot way.

o never has anyone been drunk enough

Sara could fix my car, love. We are so very drunk.

Um. My terrariums are doing smashingly. Sara must plug in.

You must only be living jusy so, with the so trashed so well. It took me three hours or so. Cheers, rae.

Just so. Sara Brown is wasted. She won’t have anything theft, monsieur. How’s france treatin’ ya?

Around 2 a.m., compose incoherent messages on the postcards you’ve been acquiring since college. For example:

Dallas has the worst airport in the continental U.S. and you’re always on that thing with the guys who golf.

What?
OK.
I’m going to lay down.
My nose, even my nose hurts.

-It’s 2:32 a.m. I mean seriously, go to the bathroom.
-OK, I’m going to.
-OK.

Every once in awhile I am so afraid of ghosts, I can’t sleep. Which is bullshit, because ghosts don’t have muscles.

True enough.

When you wake up unsure of whether you may still be drunk, call a cab instead of driving to breakfast. Of course, the taxi driver will be drunk, but he will still take you to the place where they melt the cheese over the potatoes and give you plate after plate of andouille sausage.

Thanks, wasted cab driver. We needed that.

You Know Who You Are

Excellent dialogue from my friend’s four-year-old daughter, Isabel:

When playing with a toy harmonica, elbows akimbo–
“All right everybody! Let’s hear one for the briiiide!”

When coaxing the dog to chase you–
“C’mon, doggie! Chase me! C’mon doggie! You wanna piece of me, doggie? You wanna piece of me?!”

When encouraging the dog to obtain a cookie traped inside his hollow toy–
“Get it, doggie! Eat it! You know who you are! You know what you want! EAT IT!”

Falling in Love

http://www.db798.com/pictobrowser.swf

On my wedding day, I was blindsided by jitters. After my flower girl freaked about all those strangers watching her, I realized they’d be watching me too. Monitoring me, really. Attentive to my every motion, examining each fleeting facial expression, taking bets on whether I’d fall on my face and tangle myself in a profusion of tulle.*

My stage fright was so extreme that it was not eased by the bottle of champagne in the bridal suite. One of my bridesmaids finally sent for the groom’s bourbon. Two shots later, I was unattractively flushed and on my way to get hitched.

A few weeks ago, Liv had a similar case of stage fright on her wedding day. Sara and I entered Liv’s hotel room to find her pale and still, listening to a recording of the wedding recessional. Sara gasped and plugged in a Johnny Cash CD, while I arranged for room service to supply us with Maker’s on the rocks. Twenty minutes later, Liv was upbeat and ready to wed.

Incidentally, Biz and Liv eloped, which meant I got to make a wedding bouquet (this is getting to be a hobby for me). I’d never seen Liv’s dress, so I made her two bouquets, and she chose. Oddly, the one that incorporated weeds I’d picked last-minute from nearby fields looked awesome with her ensemble.

I’m in favor of any wedding where I get to be in a hot tub an hour before the ceremony. The wedding was so laid back and fun that I’ve decided everyone should elope from now on. I’ll make your bouquet.

*My fears in this area were not unfounded — falling dramatically at weddings is a personal tradition. I’ve fallen while descending church stairs in my bridesmaid’s gown, I’ve fallen while jitterbugging with the bride’s sister during our attendant’s dance, and I’ve been dropped on my head by drunken, dancing uncles too many times to count (drunk people like to dip). I did eventually take a nosedive on the dance floor at my own wedding, but I made it down the aisle just fine.

Sara’s Bachelorette

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We arrived in Vegas fresh, hydrated, and well stocked with penis-shaped party supplies and outfits too slutty to wear at home. The Las Vegas airport greeted us with an enormous banner featuring Carrot Top in pancake makeup, surrounded by women in bikinis. The text read, “Carrot Top Fantasy.” I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that prhase somewhere before.

ox·y·mo·ron [ok-si-mawr-on, -mohr-]
–noun, plural -mo·ra
Rhetoric.
a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in “deafening silence,” “poor little rich girl,” or “Carrot Top fantasy.”

Every square inch of Vegas is decorative. There’s fabric on the ceiling, crystals on the tabletops, tassels on women’s nipples. In the evening, as I removed my tassels to pump breast milk in the private massage room of our suite at the Wynne, I thought to myself, I need more agate doves in my life. Where can a girl get her hands on some agate doves?

The answer of course, was the lobby. So we swiped a few on our way out to see KA, which was magical. Seriously, people, if you haven’t seen any Cirque du Soleil, you must. Those shows will make you dream better.

I’m joking about the doves, of course. They were glued down.

Salesmanship

Salad Bar Guy says, “That’s, like, the perfect salad! Yum.” Suddenly, I feel extra-great about the salad I’m building. This is an effing delicious salad I’m about to consume! I’m Nobel laureate of the $5 lunch.