i obsess.

generosity by which i'm befuddled. also, humbled. also, apparently, drunk, but only on fumes of embarrassment. (and maybe wine.)

I was driving to one of my many therapy appointments this week and thinking, "It's always darkest before the dawn."  (My head goes on cliche-autopilot during the dark spans.  Makes for very kicky water-cooler talk.  I sound like a cross between June Cleaver and the adorably zany neighbor on Valerie.  You know.  That show in the eighties that starred Valerie Harper [or, as you may remember her more immediately, Rhoda, whom I also adored, who also happened to be a zany neighbor herself, earlier, on the Mary Tyler Moore show.  jesus.  This may never end.  Didn't Dick and Laura have a zany neighbor, too?  No.  That was covered by Dick's comedy teammates.  But, Rhoda -- oh, the accent!  oh, the head scarves!  Lovvved].  Valerie, the show, also starred my favorite at the time, the appetite-for-the-eyes Jason Bateman.  Edie Clurg played the zany neighbor.  She was righteously zany.  Not quite as good as when she was the secretary with the endless number of pencils in her 'hive and her "oh, Ed"s on FBDO, you know, the one who sniffed glue and swore under her breath with perfect comedic timing, but -- I'll take my Edie Clurg where I can get her.  Well, unless it's on Hannah Montana, which I just found out she's recently done a guest turn on, because I looked at her page on imdb, because, dude.  I don't have cable.  Or a tweenage daughter.  Or any desire to know anything about Hannah Montana beyond its mere, burbling existence.  Etc.

June Cleaver and Edie Clurg.  Yep!  You betcha!  Fucker!

Wow.  My devolution of/war on clever conversation proceeds at its stumbling-yet-regular rate. 

*pats self on back*)

I am, quite obviously, stalling.

See, there are these bloggers, these people who came outta the woodwork and got together and sent me some gift cards that arrived today in the mail, that will buy this week's groceries, and a free-wheeling trip to Starbucks for treats and delicacies and non-necessaries -- oh, the frivolous things one can buy at Starbucks! -- and a card that is specifically for fun items only. 

They did this, these people, these amazing, incredible, thoughtful, beautifully kind people, because I've kind of been a massive fucking headcase-y mess of all hot messes, well, the broke-ain't-no-joke kind, and you have no idea how embarrassed and humbled and grateful and awed you can be until you're standing in my slightly-worn flats, shivering with shame and blessedness. 

There's simply no way for them to know how opportune it was, this gift, this kindness.

My darkest has, seemingly, broken up and is being replaced by the first lovely beams of pink-and-lavender-hued dawn.

Also, you fucking beautiful wenches made me cry.  Twice.  Then and now.

This week's groceries and dinners and lunches and breakfasts and mealtime toasts will all go to you, since you've made them happen.

Thank you so much.

I really wish I could think of something else to say, something to make you understand how depthfully you've touched me, touched my family, your kindness.  (Aside from making up words in your honor.  Words like "depthfully."  And "happy-diddliferous."  Although, quite honestly, that second one sounds more like something Ned Flanders would say, or maybe the zany-neighbor/La Cleaver would come up with.  Not as honorful as "depthfully."  However, "honorful" is kinda working for me.)

Shit.

(Maybe I could just swear a few more times and call you some more filthy names?  That's always *my* preferred form of thanks.)

You beautiful fucking wenches.   Love to each of you.

Er, that is, to

you

and you

and you

and you

and you

and you

and you

and you

and you

money woes don't pack so well into an old kit bag.

Am so stressed out about money.  We're waiting on a refinance that, if it doesn't go through, will ruin us financially.  And we didn't do stupid things with equity and all that.  We just picked a *really* shit moment to buy a house that needed work - and not the kind that was willing to wait for a few years (look for my next book!, about what to avoid when purchasing an older home, and how many cabinets and inch-sized niches to peer into using a micro-lens in order to best determine whether said old house is worth the duckets!).

Will be returning to a full-time position with the mountain resort, in their sales office, at first of September.  Jack begins preschool the same week, and I'll just be coming home from the convention the Friday prior.  He'll be in daycare all day, three days a week, as a pre-schooler, with the bigger kids, in a classroom of twenty children and two teachers.  He'll also be attending grandmacare for the other two days (and thank jeeeesus they can do that for us, although I have my reservations about it all, which are drowned by our need for me to be working full time, so, reservations be damned).

Today he cried so hard when I left him off at school, harder than he has since he began there last fall.  It was horrid. 

I am witless as to how to manage this.

And hopeful that the medication I'm waiting for a prescription on from the psych will ameliorate the scattered, dull memory issues, and general lack-of-focus/disorganization.  Because if I'm ever gonna need to be able to organize myself and my family, this is that time. 

junior-high memories; un-green in their resistance to disintegration.

I spent several years vacillating between being embarrassed about being pretty and being embarrassed about being smart.  (The puzzling element of this sort of vacillating is no longer a puzzle, given my recent comprehension of how ADHD works, and how it's affected me since I was small, but I want to nit-pick the one see-saw just highlighted for a minute and see where it goes.  I'm sure I'll work some of the opposing pieces to death and beyond at a later date, so if you were really, really hoping I'd be squeezing my brain to the choking point on a separate subject, be sure to come back for the exciting series! on opposing-personality-overanalyzation! that will follow this, or, you know, remember how I operate and face the fact that I'll n.e.v.e.r. do this particular study again, merely because I said I would.  *face crumples*)

So.  Embarrassed about being pretty.  Embarrassed about being smart.

And never really making much of either asset.  For, surely, they were that.  Assets.  I see, as an adult, an adult who eats her own heart out over having lost opportunities, having been too busy with the mortification of being in possession of natural gifts that others did not inherit, shame that I was selected for wit (such as it is - ah-ah!, *there* you are, self-deprecation, just in the nick of time, too - I was about to start feeling slightly positive about my minute slice of the smarty pie - don't dilly-dally, now, self-dep; just shove on in and guide me away from taking note of my potential.  Keep me from enjoying it or even acknowledging it without the regular sledge-hammer of shame and guilt!  Do your damn job, self-dep.  Holy stupidity.  Where would you be without me, you fiendish predator?, I mean, favorite lover/hater of all time?).

Maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead and refer to the pretty/witty as asshat rather than asset.

They do both share a commonality, after all; ass.

*********

Trying again!  Sticking my fingers in my ears and ignoring self-dep!  Lalalalalalalalalacan'thearyouselfdep youareataselfdepconferenceforasshattedassetsbye!

*********

I vacillated all those years (though, quite obviously, not anymore, *ahem*) about having been smart and gregarious and attractive.  I seemed to have an easy time making friends.  I had some kind of gift.

And then some people didn't like it, my gift, and they stomped on me.  Eighth grade.  A rainy day under the eaves at middle school.  Amy, and yes, it's her real name, because if she ever stumbles on this, I'd like her to know how it still stings, this darkly-lit pinpoint of my memory, Amy wanted to pick someone's hair out with an eighties perm-pick.  Black.  With a long handle.

No one would let her, and I didn't either, but she decided to just start in on me anyway.  Some backstory: my hair was, while thick and coarse throughout my youth, fairly straight until pre-pubescence, when the DNA gods saw fit to bring it to a new plateau of horrid, and I developed tight ringlets.  This was just beginning to happen, but I had no awareness of it as yet, and had chopped my hair off in the seventh grade *after* a very-Brady-perm (I KNOW) left it soul-glo-quality-gerry-curled.  So was growing out a perm and it was still in a fairly awkward period of re-growth.  I didn't really have an arsenal of managing the largess of my locks, yet, because of this new precedent of curliness taking place, and, in fact, developed it only as a result of the following event.  Amy began picking at my hair, and I continued to quietly complain, saying no, don't, stop it, but quietly.  And others began to use their fingers to back-comb it, and suddenly it was The Lord of the Flies, with my supposed best friend, Marisha (also another real name, and another person who I hope feels shame if/when she ever reads this, because I want her to know the sting this still holds), laughing hysterically.  So many kids had descended on my head that I felt a little wild.  The arms, the hands and nails grazing my face, the pulling and tugging and the little stabs of pain, and then I noticed it was raining next to my leg, there were drops of water.  I thought it strange, given the giant eaves under which we had taken refuge from the weather, and then it occurred to me I was crying, *I* was making those drops land, sizzling, on the cold concrete.  I leapt to my feet and threw my arms out, yelling, banshee-like, FUCKKKKK! OFFFFF!, and dashed inside and into the nearest bathroom, hunkering down into a stall in the middle and sobbing.

Jade (you, too, you heartless wretch) and Amy chased me down.  They got into a stall on either side (a chess move I hadn't foreseen else I'd have taken a corner stall) and climbed onto the toilets, choking down laughter through their speech, "Debbie -- heehehehehehheee -- are you -- gasppp -- okaaaaay??"  BWAHHHAHAHAHAHAA!, and there were kids gathered outside the door, laughing like a group of monkeys.  Cackling and gasping and maniacal.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the councilor's office.  (One of the adults working there was Amy's mom.  Well, technically, she was the office secretary.  But she was present.  And knew why I'd been molested.  There wasn't a lot of eye contact made by her with me that day.  Go figure.)

I tried, in vain, to get all of the hair into the tiniest knot possible, with the aid of bobby pins scrounged by the kind councilor, and a rubber band.  I didn't return to classes until the next day.

With my hair in a band and kept bound around my face with all the pins I could manage. 

For months.

Months without end.

I don't just have hair shame because of that event.  I have shame about my bigger-than-life personality, a thing highlighted by the gigantic frame of hair. 

Only, you know, I'm starting to realize that the pain and the power of that episode is ebbing.  At the conference this year, I still grappled with the guilt over my enormous energy x hair x voice x non-stop verbal stream, but it was less than last year.  I told Gwen the story about the eighth-grade hairmare (as I panicked while late, again, to one of the conf. parties, in a desperate hunt for a hair tie), the utter desertion by my supposed best friend (some best fucking friend), and my almost-compulsive need to have at least one hair band and one hair pin (but two or three are better) on my person at all times.

And the telling didn't hurt as much this time.  I didn't want to cry.  I didn't feel devastated.

That's something.

smut blogging.

I refrain from posting really often, because there are so many smutty items of business that dance like wee, naked gingerbread hookers across my mental screen that I just really don't think you, yes, you, care to read about.

You're welcome.

(unless -- ?)

(cough you love smut cough?)

(cough please debbie post more smut more often hack?)

You know.  Feel free to - discuss.  With me.  Here.

I'm (really obviously) pretty open.

the no-one-cares post, edition 308.

I hate blogging.  I love the community, but I hate the blogging part.

I'm psyched about SF, but I'm completely terrified that, even though everyone has basically already witnessed me handing myself my own ass via the dancing solo mio at the first social function of last year's conference, at a bar where there was no dance floor, and yes, I'm aware that "basically" is crap and constitutes English-abuse, I will manage to somehow further disappoint everyone and only be able to grunt monosyllabically this time around, and everyone will say, wow.  She can't write AND she's a fucking boor/bore/halitosis-riddled drunken hot tranny mess w/excruciatingly overblown sense of fashion that has no basis in reality whatsoever (take yr pick).

What I *really* want to know is, when do we get to all just begin communicating telephathically and BASTA with this writing-it-all-down shit?

*taps nails, twists hair around boring (aka left) hand's index finger*

from craptacular to coated-in-awesome. all in one day.

So this day started out, as the subject line alludes to, a rather rocky one.  In an attempt (very, very = FAILed) to prove to myself that I'm not addicted to the anxiety medication I'm taking before bed every night, klonopin for you nosy types, but only the smallest dose they make it in and also halved, I snubbed the bottle before climbing under the cozy covers.  You know where I'm going with this.  J had to pee at three-something-horrid-or-other, and then I had to change his bedding, and then I was wide awake and lying there, staring at the ceiling, going over minute details from a time in my history I'd rather forget forever and ever, but, no, instead, details, loads of 'em.  And the spinning.  And I kept telling myself to just get UP and take the damn med'cine, already, but the bed, it was so cozy.  It really, really was.  And I was tired, and so I did not take it, because I am stubborn, but really, what that translates to is FUCKING dumb as tacks.

Yeah.

look, i'm sorry. really.

I know.  I said I was quitting. 

And - I meant it!  I did!  I don't say these things idly, just to dance the feathery toy and see who will bat at it with vigor.  I want to quit.  STILL.  But I'm - I'm just no GOOD at it.  Do you want to know how long it took me to quit smoking cigarettes?  It took me, no fooling, ten years, and that was the *wind-down*.  I started saying I was quitting when I was twenty-four.  I then went off and on until -- wait.  When *was* the last time I smoked?  Well, I don't remember, but don't get all huffy with me.  My point is still the same.  I suck the BIGGEST, nastiest, ugliest, wrinkliest, uh, yeah.  I was gonna try to emphasize how much I suck by saying the thing that most easily comes to mind after saying the words "I suck," but then I chickened out just there at the last split second.  You would have, too, if you knew your MIL read your blog occasionally.  I should go wash my brain out with soap.

Anyway.  I suck at quitting. 

So don't you look all smirky and self-satisfied, when you see I've once again written an entry, that I said I was quitting, and I lied, and now my word has been worn even *more* paper-thin than it was prior to that statement, my word is beginning to resemble fishnet stockings, which is kind of hot, so maybe I LIKE coming off cried-wolfish, you know, trampy-wolfish-fishnet-untrustworthy red-lipped-come-hither-go-away-get-back-here no-actually-go-the-fuck-away-you-louse, not YOU internet babe, just the pretend louses, the ones that still hang about in the gray shadows *beneath* the treehouse where my brain lives, because oh my GOD how many times I've said it, in reference to just about everything under the sun, and meant it, meant it like I've never meant anything ever before in my entire, sad, miserable, bloody life, ooh!, that reminds me of something *else* I want to write about, but - *ahem*.  I meant it, I still mean it, I just -- I can't.

*hangs head in bleak shame*

It's this weird thing I'm tangling with right now; this whole understanding I've been trying to grapple with since the ADHD diagnosis/confirmation.  I finally put together that I have, for as long as I can remember, always done the opposite of what I say I'm going to do.  Which was really horrible for situations like, say, church, where during Wednesday prayer meetings, we would sit quietly and discuss sinful stuff with one another, and open up about things we were struggling with.  The whole idea was this: to put it out there, to confess to it amongst the group, to have others to be accountable to.  Accountability.  It was this huge, big thing.  So that's kind of my first important memory of deliberately breaking the accountability clause; that is, the moment I'd confess it, stating that I would never want to do that thing, in the very next moment, I'd LONG to do it.  Or long to not do it.  Whichever was apropos.

But I know I didn't begin the habit there; I recall my mother helping me with selecting clothes by saying, "Well, I know whichever one I point to, you're just going to choose the opposite."  (She didn't *say* harrumph afterward, but she looked it.  Strongly.)  That started happening regularly when I was -- prior to my being an adolescent?  I think.  I don't know.  It's foggy up in here in the treehouse in my head where my brain likes to hang out.

I'm a rebel.  For no good, apparent reason that I can suss out.  I've tried - I've laid awake for hours, those horrid, middle-of-the-night anguished hours, trying to do the math.  I've even punched with my index finger at an imagined calculator in a mad, scrambled, exhausted attempt to arithmetically resolve this giant conUNdrum of stupidity that dwells in the treehouse between my two still-clogged ears. 

I say I'm going to do something.  I mean business.  The very next moment, I want nothing to do with that idea - I want to run, shouting, yelling, away, away!, and never think of it again.   And I kind of do it, too.  I mean, sans the ridiculous banshee behavior.  I do it internally.  I pretend I never was going to do that thing, I pretend it doesn't freaking exist.  *What* idea?  What in tarnation are you TALKING about?  Never heard of it.  Nope.  Nu-uh.  lalalala!

I say I am going to stop doing something.  And it is like a new, beautiful thing.  It is like ambrosia.  It is my favorite thing in the world.

Now.  I know this bit, I get it - the oppositional behavior (because I am fated to live as a toddler for my entire existence).  But if it has to be, then can't I make it work for me?  Can't I somehow psyche myself out, trick myself, fool the treehouse-dwelling mental tissues to peep out only in time to see what I *want* them to?  (Granted.  This means having more than one brain; a brain that hangs out in an imaginary treehouse, and another, separate, *smart* brain that does the work, cleans up the place, keeps order, is the pit boss.  Is that even possible?  And before you answer that ridiculous question, be aware that Bobby McFerrin was able to sing with two parts of his voice simultaneously, one high note, one low note, sustained.  Now, you, with your hands on your hips all sassy, go ahead and mock my idea.  It's not THAT dumb.

Well.  Okay.  It's pretty fucking dumb.  But - still!  Bobby! McFerrin! People!)

Sigh.

Anyway.  If someone could, you know, explain how I might manage to sleep better because I can finally put the imaginary calculator away, stop doing the musty math on how to trick my brain, using the same brain, I would be grateful.

I need some fucking sleep.

a good poke in the eye sounds preferable.

Read this and try not to weep.  With rage.

And my parents wonder why I cringe when I even hear the name Dobson.  Hypocrite to beat all hypocrites, fostering other, even more callous and blatant-y, hypocrites.  Oy.  It maketh my head wish it would split wide open rather than be forced to recall that I was raised by the man's books.  The ones my parents got for "free," after a gracious "donation" they traded for each of the parcels of supposed wise-parenting manuals, usually around $18 or some such rather high number, considering this happened during the eighties.  I'm betting they paid more for those "free" books than if they'd bought them at the local xtian bookstore.  (The one that I now live rather approximate to, which makes me shiver if I don't cross my eyes when I'm turning past it, and the eye-crossing thing makes for rather unsafe-ish driving, so you can guess at my dilemma.)

Anyway.  I'm funneling my frustration re: the stove not being installed yesterday afternoon, many thanks to incorrect information in the specs given to us by the store we bought the stove from, and confirmed in their tech dept., or, that is, the electrician confirmed it, even though he was pretty convinced the information was incorrect, but went ahead and installed the kind of outlet the specs showed the stove required, because the tech dept. was adamant that the specs were telling the truth (maybe the specs are republican members of the current administration?  also, that's a joke, because, like there are any members of this administration who *aren't* republicans?  oh.  oh, I slay me.  *wipes eyes*).

Um, I'm trying to not be pissed.  But can I tell you how much FUN it is to do dishes in the bathtub for weeks, after having made dinner in a toaster oven?  I know.  I know.  I have NO RIGHT to bitch.  I am getting a B-U-T-ful new kitchen out of the pain-assery that is living sans kitchen and heaping helpings of dust.  Lungfuls of the stuff.  Yum-o.  I should roll with the punches.  I am fully aware of how light this load is; how bad I'm gonna feel after the apocalypse, when nary a toaster oven is to be had, nevermind a nice, clean bathtub to do dishes in.  Or bathe (like I won't be secretly delighted to not have to deal with my bathing phobia - although I'm so contrary I'm sure to, at that instant, want to bathe like I've never wanted anything before).

Ugh.  Don't listen to me, please?  I'm the grossest whiner in the world.  (Especially if you consider the bathing phobia.  That notches it up nicely.)

I have a whine hangover.

i owe you an apology, interwebs.

I just realized that I haven't been trying as hard to compete for your love as I used to, back in the olden days of my youth online, back when I'd shine a sentence (or, more likely, a sentence that resembled a long paragraph) up like a blemishless apple on my striped t-shirt with its tear, a tattoo from that time I clambered over the chain-link fence in the neighbor's yard because we were sneaking into *their* neighbor's yard, the one with the roly-poly apples lying about in the grass, that also happened to possess a dog, generally on a leash, who was not tied up that particular day.  But still, the apple, shiny, and handed over with a grin that lacked a tooth, right up front, and the other front one still only just revealing its brilliant, jagged newness, raring to bite through delicious apples and savory cookies and decadent life.

Um.

Anyway.  I'm sorry.  I've been slutting it up regular, lately, all slap-dash and barely ever a nice image or slice of poem, just my sloppy thoughts and even then only by half.

I promise to try harder.  Do better.  Scroll up and down a little more, previous to bringing my finger down with more emphasis on the publish button than any other portion of my utterances.

********

I went to my very good friend's birthday function last Wednesday, and was trying to disengage myself from a conversation that had somehow arisen, despite my attempt to feign it off, between me and a woman whom I've known for around ten years, yet still cannot seem to convince myself that I am friends with, because her conversational skills are more pushy than friendly, and it always leaves me wishing I could be anywhere but there.  That's really sad, isn't it.  And we were seated at a distance, there was another old acquaintance between us, who is another someone I've never managed to convince myself that I am good friends with, although I had thought we were something like it.  But the topic of conversation between the first woman and myself had fallen into child care (she has two young boys), and though I was desperate to change the subject, before I had the chance to politely redirect it, the friend between us abruptly stood up, and as she did, explained somewhat menacingly that she was, no offense, completely uninterested in the "mommy talk" and would prefer to not be in the middle of it. 

No offense.

Then, of course, after that, I was firmly entrenched in that conversation, the "mommy talk" one, and while I had gone out that evening with the feeling of carefree, just-me-ish-ness that I was once allowed to cloak myself in from sun-up 'til sun-down, or, really, more like a nude feeling that I was unaware of, that carefree nobody-but-me kinda feeling beneath my other vestments of insecurity and goofiness and sexiness and all other kinds of things that I once wore more carefully than my single self required -- I was suddenly quite aware.  I was aware that I was not any longer that single self.  No amount of cosmetic application, no amount of skinny jeans and teal patent secretary stilettos with the cone heels and somewhat-rounded toes and vintage cameo necklaces and vintage white patent clutches and other ironic costume baubles, no amount of fancy-new-coiffe, fresh-from-the-uber-chic-stylist, nor a very trim figure, nor the other sundry bits that made me think, somehow, I'd escaped the appearance of "on-the-town-Mommy" (tm) -- none of it mattered.  I was, to that old acquaintance, someone I now deliberately do not refer to as "friend," only a mommy.

Offense.

Later, I was informed by some young party-attendee-upstart that I would do well to visit his salon and allow him to use some *really great products* in order to avoid such a lot of frizz in my straightening process (I had actually bothered to straighten my hair quite hurriedly that evening, because my stylist had left it wet, against her wishes, as it was raining torrentially and I refused to waste the time to style when it would only 'fro up on me as I ran through the bouncing puddles to where my car was parked, over a block away.  I never straighten anymore, and I particularly avoid it on rainy days, because omigod whatisthefuckingpoint, but I did it that evening due to lack of time and because I wanted to bring the chic thing I was trying to work all the way up to my tippy-top, and not leave it at my forehead, where chic melted into Benji-at-the-park, and seriously, I did not owe that presumptuous little queen an explanation of any sort, particularly when he was trying to convince me that Bumble and Bumble was some kind of unheard-of ode to modernity.  Honey.  I was using Bumble and Bumble while you were learning how to pretend you didn't love pink and purple around the other first-graders.  But thanks for the tip).

After that, some girl who was dressed like a cross between Debbie Harry and Edie Sedgwick wanted to make out with me.  I realized that she was high and/or highly intoxicated, and acknowledged that my husband would probably not relish my explanation of all that extra perfume on my neck, though she didn't seem to appreciate the explanation.  Whatev.  I had bigger, more insulting fish to fry.  When given the chance to shame the old acquaintance who had "mommy-talk"ed me into feeling like the star leper of the evening, I instead aided her further in her quest to make me feel teeny-tiny.  She explained that she'd joined a book club and that there were a few pregnant women in the club, and at one of the latest meetings, the conversation had "dev-," at which point she paused.  Even *she* had the sense to see what kind of uncomplimentary thing that would be to say to someone with a child.  Only, me, I'm that person who loves helping out someone who stumbles mid-sentence.  I always offer a verbal arm of support if I can connect to what word they're trying to say.  I do it in order to help the conversation across the road, to get it seamlessly to the other side, so that the person speaking can continue their speech without losing their place and getting muddled, which is what happens to me when I'm speaking and stumble, I'll often lose my place and then I can't find my way back and I turn lobster-red and take a really big gulp of my drink and shiver into my shoes, while someone else grabs the conversation torch and runs in a different direction altogether and I limp off, looking for the loo.  Anyway.  She allowed me to aid her with her word-hobble, "devolve, yes, it had devolved into a conversation about obstetricians."  With a look that said, you can only *imagine* how bored I had become.  I nodded my head blindly and gulped, feeling lost.  How had I just handed her another hammer to smash down onto my skull?  I felt so utterly stupid.  Then she finished her statement with something about how she'd gone into the kitchen to do the dishes while those irritating mommies conversed about their inane productive systems' fruits.

Offense.  I ought to have been on mine.

How had I done that?  How had I given her the opportunity to make me feel so small -- twice?  Without ever making my own case for existence? 

I don't think I'll try to help her across the road again in any future conversations, though.  I'll be wearing a nice, thick coat of disinterested-chic.  Maybe that will impress her more than the other kind, which didn't seem to do anything but stir up -- ?  A hornet's nest of boorishness. 

Maybe next time, I'll just make out with the first girl who offers.  At least then I won't leave feeling insulted.

today.

Duh.  Leave it to me to totally dumbass it up and post something as fluff as my fucking prom picture on this date.

Sorry, everyone.  I'm an idiot.

prom = a bad idea.

In general, I tend to believe that fiercely.  Somehow, I got sidetracked right around prom season my senior year of high school, mostly because I'd been gone the entire year before in Brasil, on my exchange, and I sort of felt like it was something I needed to do, attend prom, so I wouldn't feel as though I'd missed something (and for those of you who are savvy about John Hughes films, you'll know just which one I may have seen several thousand times too many and am referencing re: that particular missing-something sentiment.  I'll even give you a quote for helpsies:  "What about prom, Blaine?  WHAT? ABOUT? PROM?"  There.  Now go brush up on your eighties classics).

Anyway.  Sigh.  Marcie asked me once upon a time to post a photo of myself from high school, and I had a few of just that very thing thrust (rather rudely) upon me by my mother last week.  So.  Here's your request fulfilled, M (betcha you'll regret having asked when your eyes are permanently scorched by the visual).  And may I please throw in the disclaimer that I had sustained minor brain damage prior to getting dressed (in a frock that, at bare freaking minimum, I had the sense to not purchase, but instead to borrow, so at least there's that)?  Also, never get your hair cut by a new, never-seen-before stylist, one who decides to ignore your request for a particular style choice completely, and instead gouges deep wedges into your formerly un-layered and-loving-it-that-way hair on the day of a major social function.  Otherwise, you may be dubbed Mariah for the rest of the school year.  Fun!

Deep breath, Deb.  Deep breath.

Here.  And please?  Shut.  Up.  (This is not a reference to Stacy's Shut. Up. evoked when witnessing a fashion transformation for the good.  Certainly not.  In no way whatsoever.  Okay.  Yes.  I AM stalling.  How did you know?)

Double Sigh.  (Although I have to confess, I'm not sure why I'm sighing so much; no one is twisting my arm to post this photo.  Other than the Scary Voodoo Monster that hijacked my brain many years ago.  The crazy-making one.  Yes.  Uh-huh.  Still stalling.)
    

But I'll include the un-cropped version, too, because it's too mean not to; after all, there's that sensational cummerbund my date is wearing to be put on permanent shame display right here for you all to enjoy and envy.

Please note that we are not touching, because to do so would've probably made the poor boy jump out of his skin (and I stand behind that statement - I asked him to prom, because he was on prom court, AND was dateless the week or so prior, when I'd finally decided I wanted to go, AND I knew he needed a date, AND he made a bee-line away from me as soon as we got to the location of the event, never to return, so trust me - he no wanna toucha the Debba).

Not that I can blame the kid.  Just get an eyeful of that vision of tulle and satin and fake pearl-and-rhinestone and 'pillar-brows-of-horror and YOWZA-that's-SOME-wrist-'sage atrocity.  It's as though Lisa-Lisa and Mariah Carey did too many jell-o shots at some lame-ass rekkid party in the leighties, bailed to crash a mall to buy black stretch capris and oversized mens' sportcoats with bold, checkered patterns and quarterback-y shoulder pads, bonded over ex-boyfriends, ate too many dunkin' donuts, and wound up barfing into the same bucket behind the mall, the results of which morphed and subsequently fused a new, entirely scarier and horrific being for one special day.

Thanks for stopping by.

*****

I'm running with Julie's offer to post a prom photo if she can unearth one, and daring anyone else out there who'd like to take up this awesome challenge to do so.  Go ahead.  Meme it up, my promalicious sisters.  Link back and let's make this one for serious.  Best (i.e., worst) prom dress gets a -- gets a fadiddle shirt.  Of her (or, hell, his) own design.  I'll create it, and put it on the shirt size/color/style of the winner's choice. 

And, yes, I'll be picking the winner.  Heh.  *rubs hands gleefully*

tres coisas.

um:  I am moving tomorrow.  I am leaving this house behind me, leaving it in my wake, with not an overwhelming amount of sentimentalism (which is pretty crazy given my typical richtering levels of such over just about everything in my world).  This house is merely a box we've lived in, because we wanted to buy in and it was the best house we could get for the money at the time.  I'm not bummed to leave.  Even though we brought our wild monkey-boy home to it as a newborn, and there are all those memories of his first two years bound up in its walls.  You know what?  I'm transporting the memories, and the crazy kidlet, with me when I go, and this house?  Can be someone else's box for livin' in.  Welcome to it.

dois:  I keep getting all of these spammy greeting card emails in my yahoo inbox, and I'm starting to assume that it's the new wave of spam.  It was kinda bothering me until I realized it was just a hoax, but I'm worried I might've infected my pc anyway with trying to crack one open before I put it together.  Argh.  Anybody else getting wacked over the email-head with these suckers?  So. annoying.

tres:  Slouching Mom and Binky both awarded me with niceties that make me scratch my head and wonder what I did to deserve their liking-of-me enough to think I merit such things, but I know - learn to take a damn compliment, Debbie, geeeeeez.  Thanks, you guys.  It really gets me right here.  I mean it.  I can't get treacly today because I haven't got time.  I'm moving tomorrow (oh - did I mention -- ??  also, hi!  I'm into redundancy!).  But I am so grateful. 

bonus points:  I'm also thankful as hell to all of you who comment on my blog even when I suck balls at getting around to your blogs or even just responding via email to say how much I appreciate your words of comfort, your time spent devising those thoughts for me to mull over and feel warm-fuzzied by, your big hearts.  I feel like my brain is about to spin off into the ether because of all the crazy shit we're treading into headlong, but I am so so thankful for your care and compassion.  I promise to either get back to you in some form in the next several days (but! we'll be sans internet until the cable people get over to the new homestead to hook that shit up, and you can't know how much it's killing me just to type that) or to have thought that you deserve crowns woven of roses and sweet peas for being so lovely as to write such ridiculously nice things to me.  Now go put your crowns on and admire yourselves in the mirror for a second.  You beautiful American foxes.

xo

i'll take Meme for 200.

Nina came up with this one and I think it's genius, 'specially when I have little spare time and am simultaneously facing not much creativity in the brain-stacks.  She shared things about herself that people oughtta be prepared for when meeting her in Chicago in a few weeks.  I think I'll do the same.  You can totally pick up here, Ruth, and also Jenny, and also Jen, and Mrs. Chicky, too, and Motherbumper, pretty please.  And don't diss me on this, ladies, or I'll be so royally pissed that I may not share my favorite lip gloss with you almost ever, for almost the whole weekend.  So, there.  Nyahhhh.

Um. 

Heh.

I'll come up with something.  My brain isn't producing much more than soft static, but it's gotta have DREGS in there, fer crying out loud.  After all, I only just informed Nora this morning via Ma Bell that "when I make the keychain version of [her], it'll be positive euphemisms all the time."  The brain that coughed up that furball should have a few more of those stashed somewheres.

So.

*drums fingers*

Oh!  Got one!  Alright - I'm a total dingbat when I'm nervous - I can't focus for shitttt.  I'll get three words into a sentence and look shamefaced, and the blood will drain away and I'll stammer and hum and wonder whether a complete sentence will exit my mouth again, ever, and you'll think - gosh.  She seems so proliferate online.  Huh.  (And then I'll start again and it'll nevereverever stop and you'll be like, oh, riiiiight.  She IS that proliferate.  Plus twenty times more annoying!)

And - um.

?

Oh!  I also say randomly insulting things due to nervous rambling, but rather than realize that I'm being rude and STOPPING IT, I go into rudeness-hyperdrive and the flux capacitor invades my rudeness and I'm light-years ahead, ruding it up, and the other person is standing there gaping at my rude fucking mouth, and I CANT. MAKE. IT. STOP.  It's lovely.  I'm a total joy to speak with for the first time.

On the other hand, I'm randomly quippy and funny in a new setting.  Nerves make me wryly observant.  So long as I don't get on a rude tangent.  Otherwise, it's rude city.  And not the cool ska kind, either.

Uh?  I'm kinda just as tall as I would seem, I think?  Nina?  Feel free to chime in on this one.

And my hair takes up more space than it oughtta.  I probably should consider renting it its own trundle bed.  And maybe buying it a drink once in a while. 

Um, and I tend to flaunt my freakish physical characteristics when I'm embarrassed about how I can't SEEM TO CONTROL THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE, so I turn to my oddly well-formed muscles and demonstrate pump-you-up poses so as to detract from my mouth.  It doesn't play out well from there.  As you can probably imagine.

If I drink too much I'll try to pretend I haven't and I may get real braggy-pants at a certain juncture or other.  I can usually keep it together enough to get my sad-clown-girl-self outta the joint before it descends too far into the abyss of mouth-hell.  Again I refer to Nina to act as witness regarding this and other nonsense a la Deb.

Oh!  But I have been informed by Nora that I'm good at compliments.  So I may pay you some nice ones if you can withstand the bombardment by me of the other annoying verbal missiles.

Welcome to the Molotov cocktail that is me.  With a sugar rim.

Your turn, sisters du sledge.  Give it.

(And if you're going and you wanna participate in this meme say so in the comments and I'll add you to my aforementioned taggees.  It's all embarrassing and crazy from here anyway - do you really even WANT to participate?  'Course you do.)

p.s. Nora, I promise on my child's eyes that I'll meme it up with your baton-pass next.  Swear.  The G-rated kind.

to pop or not to pop.

What's more genteel - heading out into the public square (heh - you probably thought I was gonna say "sphere," didn't you.  surprise!  a shape you TOTALLY didn't see coming) with a ginormous, un-touched, severely-left-alone pimple perched unbecomingly on your proboscis?  Or a red spot where a pimple had taken up temporary residence, real estate you just couldn't spare?  (And this applies equally to blackheads.)

Because I can't help seeing a weird statement in having forced a pimple to abandon its squatter's status prematurely, where people are FOREVER SQUAWKING AT ME, ahem, gently explaining to me the negative effects of "messing with that thing on your face."  A weird statement in that I-just-can't-resist situation; it seems like it's a negative point somehow; the inability to keep from popping the damn thing.  An indelicacy; an impatience; a thing your mother (and every wanna-be surrogate in your general circumference) has warned you against.

But I'm sorry.  Because I'll do it every single time, since I'd rather have a red, sore, bereft-looking facial spot (a highly embarrassing comment on my lack of self-control over pimple-urgency) than a giant, green-yellow ball of pus riding high on my upper nostril (or, more likely, smack in between my eyebrows).  Because that?  Is fucking disgusting.

Yeah.  Screw you, pimple-nazis.

(This post was inspired, a little indirectly, but still inspired nonetheless, by Mama Tulip; because a) she mentioned how much she enjoys the pursuit of the pimple-popping pastime, but also because b) she imparted invaluable information about brow-waxing in a comment on my eyebrow-lament-post recently; and it made me realize that I need to come clean about my past; I not only am a beauty-school graduate, but I am a licensed esthetician.  Which I enjoy spelling with an "a" sometimes, even though I suspect that it isn't correct.  Kudos to Dan Quayle for leaving me forever in the dark as to whether words ought to include extra letters.  Maybe they should, part of me argues; it's sort of like an accessory for that word.  And why shouldn't words get to play dress-up occasionally?  Sigh.  Please someone make my brain swallow itself.)

guilt - why doesn't it come with its own carrying case? with wheels?

'Course, I'd probably throw it over a cliff if I could wheel it there.  As is, I have to lug it around inside my chest, and it's getting heavier, just like J, and the two together are -- I only wish they equalled a thorough exercise regimen, because I would be in better shape than those crazies on the dancing reality show.  (Tivo was set for a few minutes earlier than Lost in the fall, to catch extra stuff if the timing was off - I got an eyefuller of the dancin' than I really would've liked.)

My guilt is about blogging.  This time.

I don't even visit my favorite blog friends anymore, because of the guilt.  I am mortified that they'll notice I visited on their sitemeter and didn't comment.  My own neurosis is to blame for that feeling, not anyone's having informed me that they just hate me and my ass-face for reading and daring to not drop a comment in the box.  I just assume that people hate me for not saying lots of stuff like I used to, even though I'm really busy all the time, and I spend around five minutes every few days on blogging now, I can't convince myself that you aren't all ready to spurn me hotly if I were to show up at one of your parties, even if I had an armload of cake made of cookie dough and topped with fudge and whipped cream to proffer. 

I also don't visit because I'm ashamed of my negligence.  I'm ashamed to see that everyone else is carrying on as usual, saying nice things, paying compliments, giving hugs, being caring and compassionate, and I can't do it anymore.  I don't know why I feel like I have to explain myself - I should probably try very very very hard to believe that you all understand how busy I am, what with running around after J all day, and squeezing laundry and dishes and meal-making and customer service and digitizing and grocery trips and post office runs and website fulfillment and once every several days, a shower (or at least a good face-scrubbing) into the giant daily burrito.

Now I'm depressed again.  This is all so overwhelming, and no one has been more supportive of the utter overwhelmingness of it all than you, my blogging compadres.  I've never met anyone more sympathetic and compassionate.

And I can't get you back.  My hands are tied.  I'm only going to get more busy, so I can't lie and suggest that I'll eventually re-emerge in the scene.  I won't. 

And I won't lie about having cried about it, too, when no one is around, and J is down for a nap.

I miss you.

this blog weighs a ton.

In emotional terms.  Ahhh, yes.  Meta time is here.  Blogginess and blogs.  Time to worry a hole in the corner of this page.  Again.

But I'll surprise you, because I'm only gonna say one thing:  I spend WAY too much of the non-blog-related parts of my day stressing out about the various significant (and not-so-significant) aspects of my existence within this corner of the internet.  And it seems so silly, but it's real (I sound like I'm pleading with you to believe me.  And I am).  I have to wonder if I'm alone in this, or if you do it, too.  (Tell me you do, because I could use a little validation, alright?  A spoonful of it would go a long way toward making me want to not shred my computer in my central-heating-destroyed-skin hands.  Shred it to bits.  And then burn it.  Also to bits.)

In other, less barftastically obnoxious corners of my brain, I have this:  Stacy, you should still be watching the double G (Gilmore Girls, yes, sigh, I still watch it.  Even though I'm thirty-frillion.  Get off me, okay?  Well, wait, before you get off, could you scratch my -- heh.  I'm kidding.  Just go.  Before I beg - such an unattractive quality in a woman my age, begging.  Not that I'll ever let a little nuisance like age prevent me from begging openly on an occasional basis for the rest of my nauseatingly pathetic life).  Because the Gilmores (yes, I've returned to the topic) is still every tiny, morsel-scraping bit as good as it has been, ever.  Yes, the season opened a bit shufflingly, sort of like the show was trying to retire and wear its jammies to the grocery store and rock on the porch and begin drinking too early in the day before it had actually quit the career, but it's been coming back around, and has lately hit full stride.  Last week was a good example, I think.

(That or *I've* been drinking too early in the day and wearing my jammies to the store and have suddenly become too impaired by that behavior to notice other equally impaired people/inanimate objects/television shows/monkeys are not necessarily in as good shape as I'm assuming them to be.)

Ahem.

Oh.  Also, today when we were driving to the store (yes!  A trip to the store!  Something I'm sure you were praying quietly, humbly, pleadingly for me to give a full run-down about at some point in the near future; well, baby, today's your lucky day - gah, I'm so Carly-Simon-vain right now), I flipped on the radio -- which, I must explain, I never do, because I loathe all radio stations, minus the local jazz one, due to the fifteen-hour-long commercial "breaks," and I'm sure anyone who has one-eighteenth of an ear agrees with me.  So.  Yes.  Radio flipping, and while I was intent on finding a channel playing the xmas classics to scare my child and scar him for many, many years as I sang along in a warbly falsetto, I stopped short on an "old-school lunchbox show" (or whatever the hell its sorta-trying-a-little-too-hard name was).  They were playing C + C Music Factory.  You know you would've, too.  Your looks of disapproval and derision don't fool me.

So.  I'm singing, and car-dancing, which is mostly about hands and above-the-waist gyrations, and a little neck/head stuff thrown in, but I throw a little glance over my shoulder to see whether I can turn out from the corner I'm stopped at and I notice J:  hands up, gyrating slightly around the shoulders, hands shimmying in the air, feet bouncing.  He's trying to mimic my silly hand/wrist-rotate-thingy, and instead of being embarrassed, which I should, no, I should be HORRIFIED, I laugh and pat his leg while I tell him, "Good car-dancing!  What a good car-dancer you are!"  I'll be lucky if he's not dressed entirely in parachute-pantsuits and wearing his white boy red afro in a Kid N Play fade by the time he's five.  Also, I'll still be alive, because Caleb won't have a contract out on me for having persuaded his son to become a freakshow.

(I should insert the part about how the song had segued into the one I'm about to post, and I'm a' holla at Shanny, because it reminds me of -- um, 2001?  2002?   I can't find my abacus - I think J must have hidden it.  Good, old Mountain Hood -- rhymed with food -- Meadows.  Miss you.  Visit me sometime, will ya?  Thanks Easter Bunny -- bawk, bawk!)

* Had some serious trouble locating the one semi-intact version of the song, so wait for it to load before you view, then jump in at about 2:00.

i obsess over this.

It's so tough to access the painful stuff.  When I'm curled on the sofa, dreaming of all that I *would* say here, if I only possessed the adequate freedom within myself to -- but is it freedom that is required?  is it more chutzpah, more of a digging apparatus, more of a nutcracker (heh.  nutcracker.  I'm nine.)?  -- to compel it to loosen enough to be written, to shake it out in even a broken, dismembered bunch of pieces that can't seemingly be pushed together well enough to make some jigsaw, disjointed shape.

I would say more than I currently allow myself, because I suspect certain family members of occasionally perusing my thoughts, and it inhibits me.  If my hunch is correct, by the way, and you do read, and you continue to do so, please be aware that you hurt me by your action.  I need this place to vent.  I require a location where I can empty out the bin of bad spirits that inhabit my head, and the place in my chest that fills with soul-bile.  This place is like the compost pile for my emotional refrigerator.  And you force me to keep moldy oranges and spotty, past-code deli meats inside that chest, when you come here and make this literature (uh, yeah) something you take in with your morning coffee. 

If you have not been invited by me to be here (and I say this only to people who know me IRL to whom I have not expressly extended an invitation, or mentioned this site to), I would request that you stop reading.  I ask you, no, I plead with you to cease and desist.  You steal from me, otherwise.  And you indirectly cause damage (albeit minimal, which I shouldn't even have to state, b/c this is my space) to my son and my husband, not to mention me, when you strip me of my outlet, this faucet of free-flowing words and thoughts and emotional vomit.

I know you didn't intentionally begin to read for the purpose of stealing from me, but you do it, awareness of such being a part of your absorption of my words or no.

I realize that you love me, and that you are merely interested in the way that our family's daily workings occur, and I respect it, that curiosity.  But I need this place like I need air, and sleep, and water.

I'm going to now begin writing anew the things that I truly feel/think/must express, because I believe that you care enough, if not for me, then for my small family and its ultimate health, to quit this place.

And I thank you, sincerely and fully, for your acquiesence to my plea.