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Letter to My Past Self

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Image from pixabay

I don’t really know how time travel works.  I’ve watched movies and read books that use it as a device, but I’ve also watched movies and read books that have things like meet-cutes and happy endings and other things I’ve never encountered in real life, so who knows.  Maybe someday someone will invent a time machine that will allow my younger self to read this blog before it has even been written.  On the off-chance that this happens, I thought I’d write a letter to my younger self with a few words of wisdom:

Dear Younger Self,

When you are very little, you will believe everything your older sister tells you.  Don’t do this.  It will not be a good idea for about sixteen years.  For instance, despite what your sister says, there are no My Little Ponies in the woods behind your house. There is, however, poison ivy.  You have been warned.

When you are a little older (for reference:  old enough to know what poison ivy looks like), you will sometimes feel bad because the kids at school will make fun of you.  I thought you might like a little perspective on how being different is actually a good thing and how it gets better with time.  Then I thought you’d probably rather have some ammo to use against them, so here it is:  Danny, the kid who made up that rhyme about your last name, has a crush on his best friend, who has a crush on your best friend, who hasn’t actually worked out that boys aren’t icky yet.  That ought to last you for a while.  I know.  You’re welcome.

When you start going through puberty,  you’re going to need to know a lot of things that will take you an unfairly long time to learn.  I’m not going to tell you most of them for fear of messing with the space-time continuum, and also because looking back on this time in my life helps me realize that things now really aren’t that bad.  I will, however, let you know a few things.  One, your boobs will eventually end up more or less the same size.  I know how freaked out you are about that.  Second, this is the time in your life when you find out who you are.  This is when you learn the skills that get you through life—not trigonometry, which never ends up coming in handy no matter what Mr. Jaffurs says, but the really hard things.  This is when you learn how to deal with people who don’t like you, or tests you haven’t studied for, or just general unfairness.  There are always going to be people who don’t like you, and tests you haven’t studied for, and general unfairness, and you’re going to have to deal with them.  And, guess what?  You do.  Honestly, you do it really well.  It’s the kind of thing you don’t get graded on (except for the tests), but it’s what gets you through the hard times, and not everybody learns it.  So, good job.  Don’t be so hard on yourself.

Also, start hoarding toilet paper.  It’s going to be like gold in 2020.

Sincerely,

Me (at least for now)

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How I ended up singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” for 135 hours

IMG_0938The release of the movie Bohemian Rhapsody got me thinking.  Mostly, it got me thinking that, even though I love Queen with the devotion of the twelve year old girl I was when I discovered them, I’m really sick of seeing that biopic trailer every time I try to watch a video on YouTube.  I was sitting through the trailer again the other day while waiting to watch a video of some random girl doing the dance from “Thriller” in full zombie makeup, and I started thinking about an article I’d read that said we spend roughly 2 years of our lives in the shower–or possibly 6 months, depending on (as far as I can tell) if you’re British or not.  I started to wonder how many hours of my life I’ve spent watching the Bohemian Rhapsody trailer.  Then I started to wonder how many hours of my life I’ve spent watching trailers for movies I’ll never see.  Then I started to wonder how many hours of my life I’ve spent singing the song “Bohemian Rhapsody.”  Then I got out the calculator.  After that, things just kind of spiraled and–well, this happened:

Amount of Time in My Life I’ve Spent Doing Things That Aren’t Usually the Subjects of Articles About How Much Time We Spend Doing Things:

1. Singing “Bohemian Rhapsody”:  I kinda gave this one away in the title, but here’s my reasoning:  I sing this song in the shower at least once a week, from start to finish, including all the bits with the words that sound like a hymn from the Church of Satan.  Multiply the song’s 6 minute run time by 52 weeks in the year for (cough cough) years and you get:  8112 minutes/135 hours/5 and a half days.  I think Freddie Mercury would have been proud–you know, as long as he never actually heard me sing.  Oh, Lord.  You don’t think he can hear me in heaven, do you?  I’m pretty loud.

2.  Watching movies I secretly think are stupid because my friends have crushes on the actors:  1116 minutes/18 and a half hours.  For this total, I added up the running times of the third Jurassic Park movie, two Jennifer Aniston movies, Dumb and Dumberer (the sequel; I liked the first one), Deuce Bigalow:  Male Gigolo, and all five Twilight movies.  I’m not including movies like She’s All That, which I thought was going to be stupid but I ended up really liking, or Batman and Robin (the one with George Clooney), which my friends and I were all excited to see but agreed afterward sucked pretty hard.  I’m also not including Titanic because I was always very open about how stupid I thought it was.

3.  Putting off doing things I don’t really mind doing:  I’m not really sure about the exact figures for this one, but I’m guessing the number’s pretty high.  I’m going to peg it at about five times the amount of time it would have taken to just get off my butt and do it.  Sample activities I’ve spent about five times as long putting off as it would have taken to just do include:  emptying the trash, writing thank-you notes, calling my mother back, getting a breast exam, and meeting my boyfriend’s parents.  I should probably leave that last one out of any calculations I do, though, because it’ll screw up the curve.

4. Yelling at my pets:  This one truly shocked me.  Over the course of my cats’ lives, I’ve spent about 78,625 minutes/1310 hours/55 days yelling at them.  I feel like a really bad kitty mommy.  I estimated that I spend about five minutes per day per cat shouting “No!”, calling them bad cats, and occasionally chasing them around the house screaming “Why are you so evil??”  I didn’t think five minutes was excessive, but with two senior kitties plus their big sister (she died a few years ago), five minutes per cat per day really adds up.  I feel bad.  Not bad enough to stop yelling at them, but still pretty bad.

5.  Stalking boys I had crushes on:  I was trying to figure out a way to calculate this one, and I eventually settled on this:  By the time I was done stalking a guy, I had learned as much or more about him as I learned in an entire college course–one I cared about, anyway.  I skipped a lot of the Gen Ed requirement classes (note to my mother:  I’m totally kidding about that.  I attended every class.  I definitely didn’t skip one class so many times that the professor asked my friends if I was sick).  So I made a list of the guys I’ve had crushes on, and if you count each one as a course, I’ve stalked enough guys to complete a college major.  I basically have a degree in Obsessive Infatuation.  Bet my philosophy diploma isn’t looking so bad now, huh, Dad?

6.  Time I spent learning the dance from the “Thriller” music video:  none, because I didn’t do that.  The person in that YouTube video could have been anyone under all the zombie makeup.  The fact that I have the exact red leather jacket that Michael Jackson wore during his groundbreaking musical short film helmed by An American Werewolf in London director John Landis proves nothing except that I have keen fashion sense and spend a lot of time on Ebay.  But if I were the person in the YouTube video, I would just say this:  it’s a lot easier to dance like no one is watching when you’re pretty sure no one can recognize you.  Also, how come today’s zombies don’t dance?  I understand about the problem with body parts falling off, but just stay away from twerking and you’ll be fine.

7.  Walking around in public without realizing I had food/ink/stickers/weird crease marks on my face:  I’d love to tell you, but I can’t make an accurate estimate until my “friends” tell me when they put that “I’m a porn star–ask me how!” sticker on my forehead.  Seriously, guys.  I went out to get the mail like that.  Not cool.

8.  Reading other people’s blogs and sulking because they’re so much better than mine:  just, all the time.  It’s depressing how freaking talented everyone else is. They’re so funny and smart and cool… why is everyone else always so much cooler than I am?? I’m smart!!  I’m funny!! I’m talented–I learned the dance from “Thriller” in just three days–wait…crap.

I give up.  I’ll never be cool.  I’ll always be the crazy lady who yells at her cats and dances in a zombie costume on Halloween (I put the “trick” in “trick or treat”) (yeah, no, definitely not funny.  Sorry about that).  But if my only legacy is that I spent over 100 hours of my life singing “Bohemian Rhapsody,” I can live with that.  There are worse ways to spend your time.

Addendum:  Apparently the Bohemian Rhapsody movie sucks.  Weirdly, I still want to see it.  Damn you, YouTube!

[The image used in this blog is in the public domain at, as almost always, pixabay.com]

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Honest Review: My Ex-Boyfriend

IMG_0693I don’t really do product reviews on this blog, but it seems like everybody else does, which makes me feel like I’m missing out.  So I’m starting a new feature:  LBG’s Honest Reviews.  I promise that, whatever I’m reviewing, I will give you my completely unbiased opinion, no matter how many people try to stop me.  I will also make sure I thoroughly try out what I’m reviewing, so I can tell you all about it and you’ll be able to trust my conclusions, or at least understand them.  With that in mind, I thought I would make my first review about something I’ve examined from every angle, something I’ve used multiple times and in multiple ways, something I can truly say I gave my all:  my ex-boyfriend.

I realize that there are tons of different ex-boyfriend models out there, with newer ones coming on the market every year, and not every model will have the same features mine has.  For instance, not everyone will want the cries-when-drunk version, or the optional incipient beer gut, and of course the POS-car attachment can get pretty expensive.  But for those who are tired of constantly upgrading and are ready to make a commitment, here is my honest review of my ex-boyfriend.

Pros:

My ex-boyfriend comes with attractive packaging and initially presents as very appealing.  He has an excellent marketing campaign aimed at the slightly-inebriated thirty-something female:  his introductory approach emphasizes his southern charm, complete with cowboy boots, accent, and pulling the chair out for his date (which I have to admit was completely adorable) and obscures his less appealing qualities with copious amounts of alcohol.  It’s certainly an approach that’s been taken before, but the polish and professionalism that come with experience set my ex-boyfriend apart from the frat boy crowd.

IMG_0696Once you have my ex-boyfriend back in your home and you’ve taken off the wrapper, you’ll find that he comes with several notable upgrades from the standard model.  The one that’s proven the most popular is that he comes with his own guitar, which he can actually play quite well.  Upon further exploration, his repertoire is mainly limited to country music and mullet rock, but his acoustic version of Warrant’s classic “Cherry Pie” will surprise you with its wistful acknowledgment of the fragility of innocence.  Other pre-programmed features include:  the ability to perform eerily good imitations of all the main cast members of Game of Thrones; an extensive familiarity with every film in the Saw franchise; and, for some reason, clogging.

My ex-boyfriend also comes with a self-cleaning feature that is among the most elaborate currently on the market:  he will spend hours in the bathroom with a hand mirror, three different kinds of razors and special beard scissors trying to achieve the perfect beard-to-mustache ratio.  He will then spend three minutes cutting his hair.  He does require a special cleaning formula to keep his designer vintage-look jeans in pristine condition, but while the purchase and storage of a specialty cleaning product can be a nuisance, the actual cleaning requires no effort on your part as he does not trust anyone else to wash his denim, performing the entire task himself by hand.  Note to potential consumers:  please be ready to sacrifice all other use of your clothes drying rack for up to two days at a time, as my ex-boyfriend will begin to glitch if you suggest anything like, I don’t know, using the dryer.

Cons:

Those of you with slow internet connections may want to consider a different model,  as my ex-boyfriend takes up an astonishing amount of bandwidth while interfacing with such programs as Fortnite, Overwatch, and something involving Tom Clancy, who I honestly didn’t even realize did anything other than books.  While my ex-boyfriend is engaged with these programs, you will be unable to do anything requiring an internet connection, the ability to concentrate without someone shouting “SUCK IT!!!” every few minutes, or crossing the living room.  I recommend using the time during his pre-gaming ritual to download the kind of movie he refuses to watch with you (for instance:  anything starring Melissa McCarthy) and then retiring to the kitchen with your laptop and a pair of headphones.

IMG_0694Other things to consider when my ex-boyfriend sits down next to you in a bar include:  he often makes an extremely unpleasant buzzing sound while recharging at night.  It seems to come from his nasal area and resembles a kind of erratic, intermittent jack hammering, or possibly an exceptionally winded Darth Vader.  It can be temporarily alleviated with a flailing slap on his upper arm, but it will almost inevitably start up again within ten minutes.  There does not appear to be an update or patch in the works to remedy this minor but disproportionately annoying design flaw, probably because he will never actually admit it happens (he will also never admit that komodo dragons are real, no matter how many pictures, Wikipedia entries, or actual komodo dragons you show him, but he believes every word of The Da Vinci Code.  Make of that what you will).

In addition, although initially providing a very satisfying user experience, his performance quality degraded rapidly after a few months.  He would often fail to perform tasks he deemed “stupid” until the third or fourth request, and he developed a tendency to wipe his memory after he put something down, rendering him incapable of picking it back up and putting it away again.  It’s also worth noting that his attractive packaging conceals some frankly below-average hardware and that certain basic boyfriend functions become unavailable after the consumption of alcohol.  Also, it turns out he was sexting his ex-girlfriend the entire time we were together, so f*ck him.

Conclusions:

Overall, I’m afraid I can’t recommend my ex-boyfriend.  While his design is stylistically and aesthetically pleasing, his performance is unsatisfactory and his habit of going into sleep mode at unscheduled intervals can be extremely inconvenient.  His failure to deliver on his initial promises cannot be offset by claims of future upgrades involving “hitting the gym extra hard” and “just focusing on my baby girl and making sure she’s happy.”  In such a crowded market, we can and should demand more.  Especially if he’s still sexting his ex-girlfriend.  F*ck him.  Actually, you know what?  Don’t.

[Disclaimer:  I did not receive any payment or other compensation for this review, and while I did technically receive my ex-boyfriend for free, overall he ended up costing me quite a bit of money, especially since he never paid me back for that wedding present we were supposed to go halfsies on and that was for his friends who I barely knew anyway.  There really ought to be a “My ex stiffed me on a joint wedding present” deduction for tax returns.]

 

[All images are in the public domain courtesy of pixabay.com:  Image 1, Image 2, Image 3.]

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Things I’m Afraid My Cats Will Someday Say To Me

IMG_0242I don’t talk to my cats, because I’m not a crazy cat lady.  Okay, I do talk to my cats, but I’m still not a crazy cat lady because they don’t answer me.  In English.  Yet.  I worry that someday they will, though, and here are some of the things I’m afraid they might say to me:

  1. Sometimes I just fake a purr so you’ll stop and I can get some sleep.
  2. I’m not sure the vet got everything down there, if you know what I mean.
  3. Not that I care what you’re wearing, because I’m a cat, and cats only have one outfit, and it’s awesome, but that shirt looks terrible on you.
  4. Why is it okay for you to feed us food you think smells disgusting?
  5. I can’t decide which of my favorite pee-spots to use.  Thoughts?
  6. We’re thinking of getting another human.
  7. So, I’ve memorized all your passwords and I just figured out how to type…
  8. Pass the remote, I want to watch that show about the Kardashians.
  9. Oh, hey, remember that time when you accidentally bashed my head on the doorknob and I couldn’t walk straight for, like, a week but you didn’t take me to the vet because it would mean you wouldn’t have beer money?  I do.
  10. Whatchu talkin bout, Willis?!

I’m a little surprised by number 8; I had them pegged as more “Say Yes To The Dress” types.  And if they ever do actually say number 10 I’ll die laughing, especially since in my head they sound like Zooey Deschanel.  I swear I’m not a crazy cat lady!  Maybe just crazy?

 

[Image in the public domain via pixabay.com]

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Happy (Step)Father’s Day!

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The original step-dad

When I was picking out my Father’s Day cards, I found all sorts of possible combinations:  from daughter to father, from father to grandfather, from son-in-law to father-in-law, even one from the dog (I’m not kidding about that).  I did not, however, see any that were geared specifically to a stepdad.  It can be a little tricky, picking out the right card for a stepfather.  It makes me wonder if the card industry has decided that stepfathers aren’t really family, or maybe they’re just hoping someone will make up a separate Stepfather’s Day so they can cash in even more.  In case there’s any question, though, I’d like to lay out the case for why my stepdad is definitely family and should absolutely get a Father’s Day card.  I think that, if you read all of my reasons, you’ll end up agreeing—and if any of you work for card companies, maybe you’ll come up with a few card options for next year.

My Reasons For Why My Stepdad Is Family:

 1.  He went to my school concerts and plays

I took this for granted when I was growing up.  If I had a concert, everybody went.  That’s just how it was.  Now that I’m old enough to have to be fortunate enough to sit through go to children’s concerts myself, I understand just how much that meant, because those concerts are terrible  horrible GODAWFUL.  When I was a child, I thought my choir or band or whatever was usually pretty good, and comparatively speaking, we probably were.  But that’s like saying that sour milk smells comparatively better than rotten eggs.  It may be true, but that’s still really, really bad, and he sat through it over and over and over, knowing how dreadful it was going to be, because he wanted to support me.  That’s family.

2.  He helped me move

Not just once.  Not just when there were elevators.  Twice a summer every summer while I was in college, and about a half-dozen times since then, almost always when it was either sweltering or freezing cold with icy rain just to keep things fun.  It’s not just help moving furniture, either, it’s cleaning up the apartment (including bathrooms) and fixing leaks and figuring out why that light fixture isn’t working and I don’t even know what else, because he does it all while I’m off doing something easy, and he does it without being asked, which is good because I’d never have the nerve to ask him to do half the things he does.  That’s family.

3.  He puts up with my pets

I once had a seven-week gap between apartment leases, and I had to ask my mom and stepdad to take the cats in while I rented a room for those seven weeks.  I don’t know that I would ever describe my stepdad as a cat person.  I think he’s the kind of guy that, if he had to have pets, he would pick a dog, but he’d just as soon not have anything else to have to clean up after.  He took the cats in without a murmur, though, and let them have their catty way with his house.  I even heard stories of him letting “that brown cat” (my siamese) curl up on his head at night, but I’m not sure I can believe that one without pictures (oh please, Mom, tell me there are pictures!).  Subjecting his wall-to-wall carpeting to creatures whose favorite pastime is horking up most of the food they just ate was really testing the limits, but he did it because I needed him to and never once complained.  That’s family.

4.  I can’t stand the thought of disappointing him

I love my dad.  A lot of the things I do, I do because I want him to be proud of me.  A lot of the things that keep me up at night are things that would disappoint him.  Most of the time, these things motivate me to make good choices (saving for retirement! yay!).  Sometimes, not so much (don’t follow that dream! it’s not sensible!).  But that’s on me because those are my choices.  At the heart of every one of those things that my dad wants for me, and that I want to do to make him proud, is his wish for me to be happy.  That’s how you know that someone is family.  Underneath all of the fighting and nagging and drama and stress, you all truly want each other to be happy.  So I make good choices because I don’t want to disappoint my father, who wants me to be happy, or my stepfather, who wants the same thing.  I want to make them both proud because they’re both family.

I defy you to hear those reasons and then tell me that my stepdad doesn’t need a Father’s Day card.  As an adopted child with stepparents, I can tell you categorically that blood is neither the beginning nor the end of family.  Hallmark and the other greeting card companies just need to get with it.  Although, I did find a pretty good card for my stepdad this year.  On the front, it asked “Where would I be without you?”, and on the inside it said “Yes, but which prison?”  Really, I think that sums it all up, don’t you?

[All images are in the public domain via pixabay.com]

 

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How I Got My Snark Back

Dear Weird Guy I Met At The Bar,

girl-1064666_6402I want you to know that, even though I wouldn’t give you my phone number or my real name, I’m so glad we met.  Not because you said you liked my hair; although that’s usually a solid move with a girl, I’d recommend against using the word “fetish” within the first half hour of conversation.  I appreciated the super-clear warning sign, don’t get me wrong, but maybe ease into that a little more slowly next time.  With someone other than me.  But that’s not why I’m glad we met.

It’s also not because we had a deep and meaningful conversation about the relevance of Eastern philosophies on contemporary Western living.  We might have, if you had been able to pronounce the words “Bhagavad Gita,” but even if your speech hadn’t been slurred from what you initially claimed was your third beer and eventually admitted was your seventh, I doubt we would have ended up discussing the theistic aspects of moksha.  Also, the “main dude” in the Bhagavad Gita is named Arjuna, not Arwen, and that’s still not why I’m glad we met.

I did get some entertainment out of listening to you try to convince me that you like doing yoga because you enjoy the female energy and that you never even notice the boobs of the women in your class.  It was especially amusing because, for the ten minutes before you gazed into my eyes and made that earnest declaration, you’d been addressing most of your intoxicated musings to my cleavage.  Not an original move, no, but the fact that you clearly had no idea you’d just been doing it gave it that special something so often missing from drunken ogling.  Well done, sir!  But that’s still not why I’m glad we met.

I’m glad we met because, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t just smile awkwardly while secretly snarking at you in my head.  This time my smile was one of real  enjoyment.  I don’t know whether I was responding to some quality in you or whether there was just magic in the air that night, but when I heard you talk about actualizing your inner tranquility,  I was finally able to give myself permission to snark out loud.  You can’t imagine how good it felt after denying myself for so long.  It was snark without shame, reckless and abandoned, and it was bliss.  You gave me the best night I’ve had in a long time.  You gave me my snark back.  I’m so glad we met.

And if I didn’t say it last night, thanks for buying me the drink I was nursing while I mocked you to your face.  It was delicious.

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Snarks and kisses,

The Little Blind Girl

 

[images in the public domain via pixabay.com]

 

 

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How Not To Be A Workout Buddy

floor-exercises-825064_640So you’ve decided to get serious about going to the gym?  You know, one of the best things you can do to improve your exercise routine is to get yourself a workout buddy.  Studies have shown that people who exercise with a partner are more likely to reach their fitness goals.  After all, no app, tool, or supplement can give you the kind of motivation you’ll get from a workout partner who really knows you:

Little Blind Girl:  Hey, I know we’re supposed to go to the gym right now, but Skeeter’s Taco Shack is having this contest called “Guess the Fish” where you eat free if you can—

Friend:  Nope.  The last time we skipped our workout, you made me swear on Season Two of Grey’s Anatomy that I would never let you do that again, so go squeeze your doughy butt into some spandex.  We’re hitting the gym.

Little Blind Girl:  Nah, I’m gonna bail.  Sorry, but there is nothing that could get me into my gym clothes right now.

Friend:  (thinks for a second)  Remember how you wore your fishnet stockings to that party the other night, but they’d gotten so tight that you had little criss-cross marks all over your legs the next day?

Little Blind Girl:  Hand me that sports bra.

When you exercise with a buddy, gym time isn’t just more fun; it’s also more effective.  Your friend will know when you’re not challenging yourself and can give you that extra push you need:

(while going for a run )

Friend:  You sure you can’t go any faster?  Okay, okay.  Oh, hey, I’ve got a call.  (talking into cell phone)  Hello?  Oh, hi, Grandma.  How’d the surgery go? (pause) Me?  I’m just out for a run with the Little Blind Girl. (pause) Sure, you can join us!

Little Blind Girl:  Very funny.

Friend:  (still talking into phone) No, Grandma, your wheelchair won’t slow us down.

Little Blind Girl:  Your phone isn’t even on!

Don’t forget that you and your exercise buddy can help each other outside the gym, too.  After all, no matter how much energy you put into your workout, you won’t see results if you don’t maintain a healthy diet:

(at Skeeter’s Taco Shack )

Little Blind Girl:  Well, Skeeter, I’m impressed by the addition of sushi to your menu, especially at that price, but today I’m more in the mood for the pasta carbonara platter—with extra parmesan, of course— and if you could bump the portion size up to “Last Meal On Death Row,” that’d be great.

Friend:  Guess how long you’d have to stay on the rowing machine to burn off all those calories?

Little Blind Girl:  I’ll have the grilled chicken breast, please.  No sauce.

And when all that effort finally starts paying off, no one will appreciate your hard-earned hard body more than the person who was with you for every rep:

Little Blind Girl:  Check out my new arm muscles!

Friend:  All right. (puts hand on Little Blind Girl’s bicep) Okay, flex.

Little Blind Girl:  I am flexing!

Friend:  Oh.  Are you sure?

The buddy system isn’t just for crossing the street.  When it comes to diet and exercise, there’s nothing like a partner to keep you motivated and on track.  So if you’re serious about fitness, make sure that when you head to the gym, you bring along the most important equipment of all:  a friend.

 

[Image is in the public domain via pixabay.com]

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Insulting E-Cards By Shakespeare

Because I’ve had five migraines in the past two days and I’m not feeling very nice right now, and also because I love Shakespeare.  Migraines, these e-cards are for you:

1. First migraine, lasted six and a half hours

insults-by-shakespeare-methinkst-thou-art-a-general-offence-and-every-man-should-beat-thee-alls-well-that-ends-well-b9c6e

2.  Second migraine, woke me up from a dream in which I was a secretary for Johnny Cash, but he would only talk to me in song

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3.  Third migraine, had me seriously considering a DIY icepick lobotomy

insults-by-shakespeare-thou-art-like-a-toad-ugly-and-venomous-as-you-like-it-53974

4.  Fourth migraine, I admit, made me its b*tch

insults-by-shakespeare-your-virginity-breeds-mites-much-like-a-cheese-alls-well-that-ends-well-9c9f6

5.  Fifth migraine, took my joy, my dignity, and my will to live, mixed them in a blender with some ice cream and chocolate syrup, and drank them

insults-by-shakespeare-thou-art-unfit-for-any-place-but-hell-richard-iii-2def0

I hope you enjoyed the results of my pain!  Hang on, I feel another migraine coming on.  Awesome.  I’m gonna go not compare it to a summer’s day.  Peace out, ye fat guts (Henry IV, Part 1.  Sort of).

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Miracles, Audrey Hepburn Movies, And Other True Stories About My Mom

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image in public domain via pixabay.com; text added

Mother’s Day snuck up on me, which seems appropriate because my mother often does the same thing.  I wanted to write a Mother’s Day post this year, partly because I’m running out of blog topics I have a fantastic mother who’s always worth writing about and partly because I’ve had particular reason to appreciate her over the last year.  I wasn’t sure quite how to approach it, though.  My Sainted Mother has made a number of appearances on this blog already, and most of the stories she wouldn’t mind me telling the entire internet have already been told.

Fortunately, I found inspiration in the news. I try to stay educated on current events because, appropriately enough, my mother raised me to believe that it’s my duty to stay informed as a voter and as a member of society.  I also like to check to see if we’ve gone to war with anyone new since yesterday, and I wish I meant that as a joke.  So I took a look at the news and oh, the news, the news did not disappoint.

At first I thought it did, and not because of headlines about serial killers, though there were headlines about serial killers.  The news I’m talking about was equally shocking, but it was also, somehow, horrendously mundane.  I read articles about political sniping and voters trying to decide which candidate for leader of the free world is the least worst; interviews in which global atrocities were politicized and romanticized, and in the process trivialized; and editorials in respected publications demanding that the moral beliefs of private citizens be enforced as law.  How can any rational being not be disappointed in news like this?

Inadvertently, however, all that muck made it obvious to me how I should approach this Mother’s Day post.  My mother is everything that’s missing from the news today.  She’s intelligent, free-thinking, non-judgmental, and familiar with the rules of grammar.  (She’s also, and this is really neither here nor there when it comes to the news, very good-looking.  When she went abroad as a young woman, snobby Parisian men lost their snobby Parisian heads over her in spite of her being an American.  True story).  What stands out to me most clearly right now, though, and what has lasted rather longer than the dew on her skin and the gloss in her hair, is how classy she is.  Life with my mother is like an Audrey Hepburn movie:  it’s beautiful, it’s fun, and it’s clearly better for having her in it.  It’s also simply not the same with anyone else.

All my life, whenever I’ve gone somewhere with my mother, I’ve seen the people around her just bloom, and I’ve tried for years to pin down why.  Other people can be nice, polite, thoughtful, helpful, all those same attributes my mother has, and they don’t have the same effect.  You can do the exact things she does and say the exact words she says with all the same tones and inflections, but you won’t get the same results–trust me, I’ve tried; it’s like the beginning of Peter Pan without the fairy dust.  But when you’re with my mother, something about her makes the world start acting like a dusty summer garden when it finally rains; all the beautiful things can lift up their heads and flourish, and they do.

In hotels, when she travels, she knows the names of the concierge, the manager, the assistant managers, the coffee shop baristas, the housekeepers, the gardeners, and the maintenance staff.  She doesn’t learn their names to curry favor, she does it because she wants to know their names.  She knows which waiter in the hotel restaurant has a child applying to colleges and whose grandmother is recovering from surgery, and she also knows which colleges and what kind of surgery.  When someone is in distress, she asks if she can do anything and hopes the answer is yes.  She’ll read this, I know, and she’ll think I’m painting a picture of a rosebush and leaving out the thorns.  I’m not.  Even my mother can’t deny that I’m not the kind of person who leaves out the thorns.  I’m just the kind of person who recognizes what she’s got, and I’ve got an exceptionally classy mother.

This blog post was almost very different, though, because the twist in this particular tale is that I’m adopted.  I suspect that, no matter what the circumstances are, most adopted children never really stop being afraid that they’ll be rejected, and that’s still my biggest fear.  Rationally speaking, I know that my adoption is probably not going to be undone after thirty-five years, but tell that to a kid who grew up knowing she’d been returned to sender once already.  My mother (and father and sister) gave me a home and a family and I will never stop being grateful for that, but a home and a family couldn’t soothe my fear because they’re the very things I’ve been so afraid I’ll lose.  It would take a miracle to banish that fear.  So my mother performed a miracle.  She raised me with a love so strong and so good that it overcame every fear and doubt, and made me believe.  She made me hers.

My mother gave a motherless child the impossible gift:  total and unshakeable faith in her love for me.  I will always be her daughter and she will always be my mother.  She told me so, and she lives her life with such honor and grace that I could never doubt her.  She made room for me in her home and her heart, and she’s my mother not by blood or even by court order, but by a lifetime of love.  She’s a class act if ever there was one, and no matter what else is going on in my life or what horrible things are in the news, all I have to do to find the good in this world is think of her.  I know that my sister, her biological daughter, feels the same.  I’ll never be able to repay my mother for what she’s done for me and been to me.  All I can do is say thank you.

Thank you, Mom.  I love you so much.  Happy Mother’s Day.

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10 Things I’d Rather Do Than Go To The Gym

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image in public domain  (pixabay.com)

Any time I need motivation to do some chore I’ve been putting off, all I have to do is tell myself to go to the gym, and like magic, I’m suddenly cleaning the bathroom grout. I don’t know why I hate going to the gym so much. I don’t hate actually being at the gym. Once I’m there and I’ve started exercising, I usually get into it. I certainly don’t hate the self-satisfied glow I get after I’ve been to the gym. Plus, then I get to stop off for a post-exercise smoothie and say, “I always hydrate after I work out,” and watch everyone who wasn’t at the gym look guilty.

I’ve had to start facing facts now that I can’t fit into any of my jeans. I don’t know why, but as far as getting myself to put on gym clothes and head toward the shiny, pretty building with the shiny, pretty workout equipment and the shiny, pretty people, I’d rather chew off my own hand at the wrist and use it to punch myself in the throat. Heh. I’d rather tattoo my entire face hot pink than go to the gym. Ooh! I’d rather walk through a room full of clowns than go to the gym. Hey, this is fun! I wonder what else I’d rather do than go to the gym?

Top 10 Things I’d Rather Do Than Go To The Gym

  1. Give a bath to five feral cats, all at the same time.
  2. Prepare, bake, and eat a dirty-sock pie.
  3. Find that video of me from my fourth-grade school play, the one where I’m wearing some sort of metallic tutu and have glitter on my butt, and post it on YouTube.
  4. Take a selfie. Any kind of selfie.
  5. Find the source of that weird smell in the refrigerator and lick it.
  6. Trim my toenails with my teeth.
  7. Run a resort for obese exhibitionist nymphomaniacs.
  8. Tell my parents what really happened to the Mercedes.
  9. Go through natural childbirth.
  10. Write a blog post about things I’d rather do than go to the gym.

I’ll be honest, that got a little disturbing. But we’ve all got our dark secrets; some of us just choose to make them available to anyone with an internet connection and basic literacy skills. So what is it that you would rather eat a dirty-sock pie than do? Clean out the garage? Get a tetanus booster? Go see that play your significant other is in that you’re trying to be supportive about? Come on, leave me a comment with your shameful confession. It’ll be just between us! And if you believe that, I’ve got a truly impressive workout routine I’m going to tell you I did. Now, to round up five feral cats….

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