That's My Bix!

Things I’ve learned during my time staying home:

The real Jack and Jennifer on Days of Our Lives are apparently far more lame that I remembered. Jack was simpering and goofy yesterday and made me embarrassed for him. Also, Hope and Bo were entirely too wrapped up in their son’s love life.

And might I just add that I was a tad bit disturbed to see Belle and Brady have apparently aged 17 years since their births 8 years ago. Apparently, one should never leave the town of Salem… any prolonged absence brings about rapid aging, but a return to Salem freezes one in a state of eternal youth. It bothers me to see that Hope, born in 1974 and is three years younger than me, is now about to become a Grandmother. This show never ceases to make me feel really old.

The Snuggle Bear is possibly a minion of Satan. Look at its dead unfeeling eyes. The bear smiles but its eyes are cold and dead. It freaks me out.

Cleaning commercials are so blatantly aimed at women that it pisses me off. Where are the men who are scrubbing the floors or taking care of their children without making a comment like “When is your mother coming home?”

And the Pine Sol woman needs orthodontia. Badly.

Is it just me or is that Verizon “Can you hear me now? Good.” Guy kind of hot in a dorky 1940’s hair kind of way. I got a few naughty mind pictures of him yesterday…. Can you feel me now?…Good.

My house gets really damned cold during the day due to the fact that I’m a retard and can’t figure out how to override the programmable thermostat.

I surf the internet far too much.

Brushing your teeth? Way overrated.

Sex while feverish? Very surreal.

I will go through extraordinary heroic measures to locate some Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers to float in my Chicken & Stars soup.

Chris (played by John Corbett) from Northern Exposure is quite possibly my ideal one night stand. Not that I’m that kind of girl or anything, but if I were and he weren’t a fictional character…. damn!

It’s really hard to be the least bit productive while you’re sick. I did manage to trek down to the basement and start one load of laundry, but then I never took it out of the washer, so now it’s undoubtedly infected with that basement funk smell and it was all for naught.

My cats hibernate during the day. Seriously. The part of the house which is not covered with a fluffy down comforter is a cat-free zone during the day. It’s a little spooky.

High school kids take short cuts across my lawn and all go out and smoke on the neighbor lady’s porch during lunch.

It’s hard to drink lots of fluids when you can’t figure out which box contains the glasses and which box contains a pitcher in which to make juice. It’s a lot easier to just drink a can of Diet Coke.

Star Jones has a way better wardrobe than I do. And I hate her a little bit for that. Just a little. I hate Camryn Manheim more for her $900 suits on The Practice. They can all bite my fluffy off-the-shelf ass.

I guess I’m still a little grumpy and sick. Bah.

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Oh, and I feel like a total nerd. When I go to Atlanta next week, I want to meet BadSnake in the worst way and I know that she’s hip to the real life Diarylander thing, so I sent her a simpering email requesting an audience with her. I actually blushed when I was writing it. I felt like I was writing fan mail, which I suppose I was. She probably thinks I’m John Hinckley Jr. or something, which I’m not, if only for the fact that I go by one name and not three. All psychos go by three names (John Wayne Gacy, Mark David Chapman, Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, Ed Begley Jr. She hasn’t responded, but I wrote it late last night. She probably thinks I’m a total freak. Maybe Belle can send her a reference stating I’m not a freak, but then I stepped on Belle’s foot so that’s a strike against me.

I may just die of anticipation or embarrassment. I’m not sure which. She’s so cool I may actually get the vapors, which is a very Southern thing, so I’ll have that going for me.

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I’ve given into my illness and made an appointment to see the doctor this afternoon for my bronchitis, despite the fact that I am actually at work today and theoretically feeling better. The side benefit of this is that I will find out if I have actually lost any of my bulbous ass or if my slimming gut is only in my imagination. I hate the scale. I hate everything it represents. I hate the fact that I get all happy about my progress and the scale shouts back “Oh yeah, bitchtard, well take a look at THIS! Better start stocking up on the rice cakes, huh?” and then the tired rebuttal of “oh, well, muscle weighs more than fat, yada yada yada.” But it will all be worth it if I can manage to score myself some form of codeine. Bronchitis is a codeine illness, so keep your fingers crossed. Weetabix loves her happy golden sleep.

I should be probably concerned about my deep affection for that drug, but I’m not.

I was having lunch with Pretty Penny last week and mentioned something about trying to lose my bulbous ass, and she mentioned that she was surprised because I seemed to have such a healthy attitude about my body and seemed to be accepting of it the way it is.

Yes and no.

I accept that I am a fat girl. I relish my curves. Calista Flockhart disturbs me. Her body makes me sad. She looks like a baby bird, born without feathers, desperately angular and cold. And luckily, I am in no danger of becoming a Kate Moss, not even a Kate Winslet. Don’t get my wrong; Audrey Hepburn was lovely and petite. There’s nothing wrong with being thin. But to be thin because it is the end all be all of a woman’s existence–That’s just wrong. It’s just that my particular body image is that I’m a curvy round kind of girl. And that bothers my mother, being that she looks a lot like Cher, in both bone structure and body type (not to mention the strange romantic history). And I have to deal with people telling me that I look nothing like my sister Mo, who is cute and pixie-like, so I tell them, no, she looks nothing like me. And honestly, both my mother and Mo were cursed with this whole flat butt syndrome thing that I escaped.

I recently purchased some women’s magazines, which I tend to do only in the January-March season, as that is when I care about how my dining room looks or want ideas for meals heavy with beef and root vegetables. And not one of them has a cover free of “diet secrets”. Not a one. When I was looking at going into the publishing industry, I once read that a magazine can increase their sales by 25% if they put the words “lose weight” on the cover somewhere, pointing to an obligatory weight loss article somewhere. This bothers me. It bothers me that so many women are trying desperately to diminish themselves, to take up less space, to disappear.

So I tried to explain my contradictory attempt at losing part of my bulbous ass to Penny. The problem is not that I am a curvy round sex goddess; the problem is that I am not the curvy round sex goddess I want to be. That is probably really hard for thin people to understand… or maybe anyone at all, for that matter. It certainly must seem like “why go through the trouble of losing weight if you’re not going to lose all of it?” Well, mostly because I don’t give a shit what society thinks I should weigh. I have an internal mind picture of myself and it is what it is. Right now, when I look in the mirror, my face doesn’t look right. It doesn’t feel like me right now. My ass has a bulbous quality that, when I catch its reflection, I think that it belongs to someone else. It doesn’t feel like my ass.

So I have a number in mind, based upon what I was when I was 19. That’s where I would like to be. It’s the number you usually see BEFORE people start the diet, but I’d be happy with it. I’m 5’9″… it’s not realistic for me to be 130 pounds, not with my gargantuan farm girl bone structure. My hips are child birthing hips, preferably in a ploughed field, using a scythe to cut the afterbirth. What is more, I don’t think I would be comfortable being anything less than a size 16. So I’m aiming for size 16/18 territory. There you have it in a nutshell. I’d still be a curvy round sex goddess, because that’s what I am. It’s what I was born to be. And I’m ok with that

So, I’m sorry if I give mixed signals, but hey, I have this condition, I’m a girl. I think it’s hard coded in my DNA.

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I had flutter tummy this morning and I couldn’t really bear the thought of getting my standard Venti Caffe Mocha, so I ordered a Venti Chai instead. Surly Girl came to the window with my Chai in hand and said, ‘What’s up with this?’ I shrugged and said ‘Thought I’d mix things up a bit.’ She laughed and then said, ‘Have a great day’, starting to walk away from the window while I sat there, my $5 in hand. I waved the bill at her. ‘What about&AO8AvwC9AO8AvwC9- I said. ‘Nah&AO8AvwC9AO8AvwC9- She said and smiled.

I don’t know what to make of that. Surly Girl gave me comp Chai. I’m floored. Now I totally have to come up with a new name for her. Got a suggestion? Tell the message board.

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Speaking of message boards, (Ok, it was in the guestbook, but same thing) apparently there has been a spark of interest concerning my blue toilet seat. How did it get blue? Why do I think it was Esteban’s ass and not my own ass? Is Esteban a smurf?

Well’ let me tell you!

Esteban has some strange chemical properties about him. I think he might be part Duracell battery. His chemical composition will oxidize a pure silver ring or necklace in a week. It’s fascinating to see, actually. Sort of like those Oxy-clean commercials, only in reverse. He also disintegrates mattress pads and turns sheets yellow. There is something in his man grease that scares me. And he also sucks dye off of clothing and bedding. I’ve seen him take off a shirt to reveal a chest of a drowning victim on the Titanic, all blue and surreal. It’s like he sweats Windex. And when I strip the sheets, the mattress pad on my side of the bed is pristine and white, save for a few drool marks from the occasional happy golden sleep kind of nights. His side of the bed is torn, mangled and tinged blue, because the majority of the sheets we use are navy blue or white and quite a few of his clothes are blue or green.

As are his jeans. And boxer shorts.

Thus, shave it with Occam’s Razor and I think we know who the blue-assed culprit is.

Thus, this is the basis for my assumption that Esteban turned the toilet seat blue. And yes, he’s done it in the past. But I’m not going to get a blue one, because it wouldn’t look right in the newly painted taupe/worn glove colored bathroom. Thus, I’m thinking a solid oak or something. Something that won’t look like our toilet was spraying Ty-D-Bowl with every flush.

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I went home sick today after a little chunder incident in the bathroom. Flutter tummy has gotten the best of me. Almost unbelievably, I will be going back at 5:30 to work until 7:00 because no one on my team was able to cover that shift.

I love my job sometimes.

So today.

My lips feel weird. I keep wanting to squinch them all up into old lady kiss lips until they stop that crazy tight itching feeling. I want to run around and give everyone old lady squinch kisses. ‘Someone stop her before she squinches again!!!’

Today, Esteban and I woke up late and laid around in bed until almost noon, feeling the sun, like an alien being, shining in from the window by my side of the bed, down onto us in our nest of white cotton. Then Tilly almost punctured my lung by walking on me.

I was hungry for mashed potatoes from the Machine Shed. Esteban didn’t want food from the Machine Shed, as he feels it is only mediocre and not the homemade ambrosia that I deem it to be. He bandied a few suggestions for other restaurants that we could try, but I countered with ‘You’d rather take a chance on a place that we both might detest rather than go someplace that would really make me happy and that you’re ok with.’ He said nothing but then drove us to the Machine Shed anyway.

My husband told me that I was really spoiled.

I told my husband that it was about time that someone spoiled me.

We then spent $300 garbing his ass for the wedding we’re attending in Atlanta in two weeks. Um’ who’s spoiled???

I painted my fingernails blood red. They’re not as cute anymore because I broke one of them when I was having my pissy snit on Wednesday.

We then went out to dinner with Mary Kaye and Angel (whom you might remember from the Milwaukee Chronicles and one of my best friends from high school, Fern and her husband Keith, who never really says all that much but just sits there and smiles.

I wore a black suit, with nothing on underneath, as it was evening and I’m all daring since the whole Rock Star clothing extravaganza, along with my kicky eyeglasses. Mary Kaye gave me one of the best compliments ever, stating that if we were out at a club and didn’t know each other, she’d be hitting on me right then. A little boost to my ego, especially after not even one lesbian hit on me either of those nights in Milwaukee. Ok, it’s Mary Kaye, but still. It’s a nice thought.

We had a pleasant dinner, marked only by a three-year-old kid who had undoubtedly been drinking far too many double mochas because he was WIRED TO THE GILLS BABY!!!! Everything was said at a shrill freak-out voice with that kid. Luckily, they finished eating and were gone by the time our entr’e arrived. I had lasagna (feeling safe with red sauce, since I was wearing black. When you’ve got large hooters, you have to consider wardrobe before ordering) and Esteban had gnocchi pistachio. Angel gave him tips on flirting, but Esteban didn’t really get the hang of it. I tried to explain that after 12 plus years, our idea of flirting is ‘So’ do you wanna?’ ‘Yeah, let’s.’ and then we get down and knock boots. Well, ok, not that simplified, but things are taken to a different level. There isn’t the strutting of tail feathers, the preening, the game playing. It’s bare and simple and I like it that way.

Besides, I get caffeinated flirting with Starbucks Guy.

By the way, Angel and MK specifically checked out Starbucks and described their barrista to me to see if she was Surly Girl. She wasn’t. I’ve made psuedo-celebrities out of our local barristas, apparently. And honestly, Surly Girl has been really really nice to me recently. She doesn’t even take my order anymore, just automatically asks if I want a Venti Vanilla Caffe Mocha as soon as she sees me. And she makes small talk. I think it’s because she’s not constantly seeing Starbucks Guy flirting with me. I miss him in the morning. I want to find out what was up with his shift change.

Best moment of the day: when we were driving home, CSN’s ‘Southern Cross’ came on the radio and Esteban and I sang it together, me taking the high harmony, he replicating the Stephen Stills part, which is precisely in his range. Esteban feels his voice is inharmonious and doesn’t sing all that often, even though he enjoys singing. I adore his voice and sometimes when I’m feeling sick or can’t sleep, I ask him to sing acapella. And sometimes, if the situation is perfect and we’ve been having a good day, he’ll sing with me. And there’s something about ‘Southern Cross’ which almost always makes it so.

So we sang together for three and a half minutes. And it was lovely, even though my voice cracked since I was taking the Judy Collins or possibly Neil Young part way up high and I still have a sore throat. But it was a very pure moment.

He told me that he was really looking forward to spending time with me on the drive to and from Atlanta. I am too, I said, but I’m not looking forward to the raging fight we’re undoubtedly going to have at one point. We both laughed because it used to be like clockwork that we’d get into a big old fight if we spent any large amount of trapped time together or went on a long car ride. I’m not entirely certain that we will have a fight, but we’re both kind of interested to see how long it will take before it happens. Which state will we be in? Which state will it end in? Will it be to or from Atlanta? I may draw up a grid and hold a pool. Actually, either we have finally fought out all of our major fights (leaving the unsolvables like the dirty dishes, the way I treat the CD’s in my car, etc) OR we’ve finally figured out how to avoid those nasty topics. It will be interesting, nonetheless.

Speaking of Atlanta, if anyone in the area is interested in doing lunch on Sunday, March 10 somewhere, having a little Diaryland Get-Together, let me know via email. I’ve heard that the Cheesecake Factory is a good place, but I’m up for suggestions (Sushi? Got sushi???) But not the stalkers. Stalkers and the like are not invited.

My lips still feel really weird. Squinch.

First off, I’m completely impressed by the pleas and demands appearing on Levontaun’s guestbook. Some of them made me giggle like an insane elf. Particularly the one that promised a plague of, well, plague. You’ve all made me blush. And now my rosacea’s all flaring and stuff, but it’s worth it to know what great readers I have, so there.

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So yesterday…

I broke my new kitchen wall.

I was in the middle of my pissy snit and went to make a pizza for dinner. My throat hurt. My hair was wet. I had no Starbucks Guy. Viggo didn’t appreciate the Scully suit. My kitchen cupboards are empty, have no doors, there are boxes full of various kitchen implements everywhere, and there is a sink full of dirty dishes. It was the mother of all pissy snits.

I’m not proud of this but I’m telling you anyway. That’s how much I love you guys. I let you see me when I have a configuration of I Was a Teenage Pizza Face zits and goofy deflated wet hair and a very poor attitude.

There was a paint roller sitting on the stove, minus the fuzzy part you apply the paint with. I don’t know the technical jargon for that but we’ll just call it the Fuzzy Condom and leave it at that. Not that I really needed to actually provide a name for it but it makes me feel better to be comprehensive.

Anyway, a sane normal person would have picked up the paint roller thing sans Fuzzy Condom and placed it gently over by all the other construction garbage. A logical adult with dry hair and clear skin would have not tossed the paint roller over to the pile of dirty buckets, rags, and various tools.

But that’s not what I did. Because I am not such a person.

You knew that.

I whipped that mutha like a tantrum-throwing three year old. Ok, it was supposed to have been a gentle arc but it turned into a javelin event Olympic tryout. It hit the new wall and left a big old indent that screams “A Pissy Snit Tantrum Was Here”.

Oh the shame. And the worst part was that I knew that I shouldn’t have done it. And even worse was that I knew that the second Esteban saw it, his voice would reach freak out proportions and he would start getting mad at the contractors or my mom or what have you because there’s a big freaking hole in the new wall. And I really couldn’t blame him for that. So I did what any sane 30-year-old coward would do.

I called my mommy and said “I broke the wall.”

Luckily, my mother is an artist in deception. She relishes it. She distrusts the happy marriage that Esteban and I have, mostly because functional relationships are foreign to her. So it made her giddy to know that I was covering something up. She immediately came over and fixed the dent in the wall and then moved a bucket in front of it, so you can’t tell. Then she’s going to paint it so it matches the rest of the kitchen.

And don’t any of you go and tell Esteban that I broke the wall! This is hush-hush, people!!!

Oh, I’ll probably tell him.

When the kitchen is done.

Maybe.

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I bought some green face powder stuff to reduce the amount of redness on my Triangle of Shame. It’s the color of Cr’me De Menthe but it says it’s created by physicians, most likely Dr. Frankenstein.

I tried some this morning and guess what? There must be a specific technique that you must use because I looked like I had been snorting some green cocaine or perhaps sticking my face in a leprechaun’s butt crack. Seriously. No one will be looking at my red zits because they’ll be too busy wondering why I look like the love child of the Jolly Green Giant and Princess Fiona, Post Ogre-ing.

Actually, the resemblance between me and Ogre Princess Fiona is rather striking. I should probably be bothered by that, but I’m not. She’s got a groovy auburn braid that I covet.

And she knows karate. And can make birds explode with the sound of her voice. That might come in handy someday.

Although, it would make my attempts at karaoke very messy indeed.

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Warning: this next bit has been declared PG-13 by Tipper Gore, because she has nothing better to do these days

Because you were all so very good at urging Levontaun to update, I will give you a Weetabix extra. Something I have been hesitating to write about because I don’t want to be slapped soundly by the primary player in this story.

I know, I’ll give her a pseudonym so no one will know it is her. A second pseudonym, actually. We’ll call her Jo.

So when we were kids, my mother had an English bulldog named Scooter. Scooter was a fabulous animal, all jowly and drooly and underbitey. But Scooter had a slight personality defect. He was a humper. He loved to engage in a little hump action. We also had a collie named Seamus and the funniest thing was to watch Scooter, who weighed 50 pounds and stood approximately 14 inches high, try to mount the very tall, slender Seamus. It could entertain one for hours, and sometimes, it did.

Hey, that was when we lived in the country. There wasn’t a lot to do out there, you know?

Anyway, on Saturday mornings,my sister JO and I would watch cartoons, like any normal kids did. I would sit on the sofa and Jo would spread out on the floor, on a big floor pillow.

That was her big mistake.

From down the hall, I would hear Scooter whine in my mother’s room. She’d be sleeping in and would open the door so Scooter could get out of the room and theoretically, we would let him outside. I distinctly remember how vivid it was, hearing the sound of his toenails on the linoleum as he ambled down the hall. Then he’d pause and I could almost picture him, sniffing the air, listening to the jubilant sounds of the Smurfs coming from the living room. I’d hear the sounds of his toenails picking up speed and then I’d see him round the corner at a gallop, eyes wild, tongue lolling out greedily as he spied Jo sitting on the floor.

I must interject here and point out that Jo was six years old and weighed probably forty-five pounds. She was short for her age as well. Scooter was fifty pounds of pure canine muscle.

They say that in moments of high suspense, all of your senses are heightened. You remember tiny details. I still remember the way the dust sparkled in the morning light, the strange smell of our burnt sienna shag carpeting, the sounds of Scooter grunting as he tried to get his stubby legs up to speed.

Jo would look back over her shoulder, her face still frozen in a smile as she laughed at the antics of Gargamel and Azriel. Then it would slowly contort in surprise, then a look of horror would pass over her face as she’d realize what was about to happen.

Once he had her pinned, she was at the mercy of his hot doggy lovin’.

I’d usually laugh and laugh and then laugh some more. I was cruel. I was mean. I realize this, but you must also know that this happened every damn Saturday morning. And it’s not like Scooter was a terribly bright animal. You could foist his humping by simply not sitting on the floor like an inviting temptress. You sat on the sofa instead. The animal had three inch legs. He couldn’t jump up there to get you. It was simple physics, really.

Eventually, I would wipe the tears from my eyes and pull Scooter off her. She’d usually kick me then, for not moving sooner. I’d tell her that it wasn’t a good idea to kick the person that was saving her from a randy English bulldog. Then I’d corral him outside and she’d scurry up to the sofa.

Thus, Mo may not have been made a woman until her teens, but her legs lost their virginity a decade earlier.

Um, I mean…Jo.

Now she’s going to hurt me.

It’s a good thing I can still kick her ass.

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Oh I can not wait to see the Googles I’ll be getting from this here entry.

I need it to be spring.

Right. Now.

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As I type this, it is sleeting outside. As I type this, my hair is wet from having to walk to the plebe parking outside our building.

You know how I used to park in rock star parking at work? A scant forty yards from the door along the side of the building in the illegal area?

Well guess what they did? They made that LEGAL parking. And you’d think I’d be jumping for joy, but now everyone who always WANTED to park there but didn’t want to break the freaking parking code, AND not to mention, gets to work far earlier than I do, now THEY are all parking there.

Humph.

Rules suck.

Parking sucks.

And need I even tell you that I wore dress flats to work today, to go with my Scully suit and my grey ass pearls? Need I even tell you that I chose not to wear a coat because it was fairly warm and I normally don’t have to walk from B.F.E. to get into work? Need I even tell you that?

No. I don’t think I need to.

Walking two hundred yards through rain and sleet, doing that little ‘girly running but not running’ maneuver that you see stupid women doing and that I detest, without a coat or umbrella’. Well, it doesn’t put one in the best of moods. Nor does it make one’s hair presentable for the staff at Starbucks.

You see, I wear nothing under the Scully suit. I like how my pale skin contrasts with the black fabric and it’s not a low cut suit, but rather fairly high. Thus nothing comes between me and my Scully suit. Well, a bra, but you know what I meant. And it looks really nice with my grey ass pearls. To further enhance this whole black/silver thing I had going on, I painted my newly long fingernails a shiny retro silver as well.

Then I realized on the drive to work this morning that if I move my arms a certain way, The Scully shifts and basically exposes my right breast to the world.

And what better way to utilize that new found talent than to drive through Starbucks after work for a lovely Venti Chai Latte??? Hmmmm?

However, after the run to the Monte in the back forty, I looked very much like a half-drowned Carnie Wilson in that Hold On video, except without Chynna and Wendy to stand behind and hide my bulbous ass. And the worse part was that I was then wet and wearing a ton of unnatural fibers and my hair was droopy.

Then I decided that maybe I’d try to pull off an adorable mussed-up Meg Ryan type thing. I fluffed up my stringy soggy locks and pouted, checking out the look in the mirror.

We had progressed from Carnie Wilson Pre-Stomach Stapling to Micheal Jackson Post-Face Meltdown. Only without all the pedophilia.

Or his sister Latoya.

And have I mentioned that during the wet trek out to the peasant parking, my face somehow erupted not one, not two, but three (THREE!!!) zits, all in perfect formation. One on either side of my chin and one on the tip of my nose.

It’s like the Bermuda Triangle of Ugly is happening on my face.

I went to Starbucks anyway. If Starbucks Guy didn’t want to flirt with me when I’m sodden and have the sign on Zoul on my face in acne, then he wasn’t worthy of my attention.

I drove up. Heard the flirty voice through the loudspeaker. Drove up. Positioned my suit so that it was flattering the girls and was greeted at the window.

By Viggo.

Starbucks Guy has left the building, people. I haven’t seen him in over a week. He’s quit, I’m just sure of it. The fates are aligning to keep us apart, me and Starbucks Guy. He’s at home, writing sad songs on his ukulele with lyrics like ‘Mrs. Esteban’ I loved her so’ she always got a Caffe Mocha venti to go.’

Some days I just shouldn’t get up.

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How sweet is my husband? Just as I was about to post this entry, he walked in the door with a bouquet of iris’ and white roses.

Because I had a bad day and he said I sounded sad on the phone.

Collectively now…. awwwwwwwwwww.

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FYI: Last day to get your answers in for the people who are competing for prizes.

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Pssss…. want to do me a favor? Pop on over to Levontaun’s Diary and beg him to update in his guestbook. I miss him and he makes me smile.