That's My Bix!

This is Day 14 of The Illness that Would Not Go Away.

Of course, I suppose I didn’t help it much by going out to the Bad Bar last night. I fared pretty well, all things considered, managing to dance and generally cavort until 1 a.m. Penelope finally wore her lace-up white shirt from the Hootchie Mama store with the lace-up pleather skirt (total cost of outfit: $14 I believe) and was the picture of hotness. Carissa, however, orchestrated a Hotness Coup with a purple shirt which had buttons that started dangerously low and a cigarette black skirt with a slit up the back.

I, on the other hand, had all sorts of wardrobe quandaries. I didn’t want to be Punk Grrl again, and last time I had the whole streamlined head-to-toe black with the rhinestone kitty collar thing going on. This time, I wore regular faded blue jeans (not low rise, not bootcut) and a black long sleeve t-shirt that did incredible things to my figure, paired with diamond stud earrings and two vintage deep purply-blue hair clips I picked up in New Orleans. When Esteban saw me in the outfit that morning (because I knew that I would be working late and wouldn’t have much time to get ready), he commented ‘Wow, you’re going to get a lot of compliments today’ which is almost even nicer than hearing him say ‘You look nice.’ Because that’s almost a given that HE thinks I look good. But to say that he knows other people would think so too? Best compliment ever. And he was right too’ I got no fewer than four compliments at work from random folks asking how much weight I had lost (the outfit was quite ‘slimming’, which was a word that two different people used) and at the Bad Bar, Carissa noted that my breasts were in tiptop fabulousness that evening.

There was a guy from my high school class there. I never really liked him, thought him a self-centered ass then and he did nothing to change my opinion last night. He kept impinging on our bar space, crowding our group further and further down the bar. I kept stressing to the folks on the end that they must be the book ends and maintain our boundaries. Finally, watching him so rudely push my friends to gain bar inches, I went down and sat quite firmly in the end bar stool, defying him to try that with someone who couldn’t be pushed so easily. I would not acknowledge his presence nor the fact that I knew him, which I think he was expecting me to do. I noticed that he kept watching me closely, however, noting how the owner of the bar (the bald bartender) kept giving me free drinks and how I knew the girl bartender and how I was with a huge group of friends. We were mainlining Pixy Stix and finally, the bartender just handed me the entire gigantic brandy snifter of Stix, Smarties, DumDums, and Sweet Tarts. Seeing that the prized candy cache was now out on the bar, he leaned over, sticking his hand in my face, and greedily snatched a fist full of Stix. He lunged again so I pointedly picked it up and offered it to him, saying ‘Would you LIKE some?’ He said ‘Thanks Weetabix’ in this way that was obviously to show that he knew me. I ignored it. I just wasn’t in the mood when they had been such asses all evening. He did it again later, walking through our crowd and saying only to me ‘Excuse me WEETABIX’, as though perhaps I hadn’t heard him say my name the first time. Then he waited for me to respond with ‘Do I know you? How do you know me?’ or ‘Oh hi! How’ve you been?’ I did neither. I simply stepped out of his way and continued to talk to one of my friends. When he returned, he lunged across the bar for the candy again, so I held it to him so he wouldn’t break it or tip it over and he said ‘Thanks WEETABIX!’ and I said very nonchalantly ‘No problem, Chris.’ Because I wanted to make it clear to him that yes, I recognized him and no, I wasn’t planning to pursue it any further.

It sounds really cold, when I reread that scenario, and I think that by now most of you realize that I’m, for the most part, a friendly person. Coincidentally, the last time I was at the Bad Bar, I saw someone else from high school and I went right up to him and said ‘Hi, your name is Guy I Never Hung Around With, right? And you went to Our High School?’ And that guy hadn’t recognized me until I told him my name and we had a very pleasant talk above the din of retro music and drunken giggles. But with Chris last night, it was like he recognized me from high school and wanted to make a point of showing that he remembered me, but he was too cool to come up to me and say ‘Hi Weetabix! Remember me from high school? What are you up to these days?’

Gah. Maybe I’ve been watching too much High School Reunion. By the way, do you not want to just slap that smug look off ‘The Gossip’ Trish’s face? And what the hell does everyone see in ‘The Player’ Dan? He looks like a Clinton.

In other Bad Bar news, toward the end of the night, I totally got hit on. By a girl. A very cute girl with a very nice body, but still a girl. She started talking to me at first, complimenting my hair and saying how cute it was. I thanked her and told her that I actually thought her hair was really cute too. There was much use of the word cute and I think it may have somehow been caused by my Tinkerbell underwear from Torrid that had “Mighty Cute” on the waistband. Then she explained that she had to keep it short because she was in the Army. And then we talked about the song ‘It’s Raining Men’ which was playing right then and I commented on how many men there were in the bar (seriously, it was like a man factory blew up and the Bad Bar was holding the fire sale) and then how it was in that movie ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ and she mentioned how she loved that movie and she thought Bridget Jones was so pretty and sexy and then I said ‘In the party scene, where she’s all dressed up like a bunny? Yeah, she’s quite sexy!’ and then I imitated the Breast Tug that she does with my own rather impressive Dayam!Bra and then the girl said ‘Yeah, I’d totally do her.’ Which took me aback, but then I remembered that Cari, Pen and I had jokingly been making kissy faces at each other all night and declaring that we wanted to make out with each other because we were all so very hot. And also, the fact that I am catnip for lesbians.

Then the song changed to something very danceable, so I started sort of dancing at the bar, because sometimes my hips wiggle independently of my brain, and then she began to grind and do that thing where you go all the way down to the floor and then all the way back up and she was very groiny and very looking at me in this way that made me feel as though I had suddenly become edible. So I leaned over to Penny and said in her ear ‘I think she’s hitting on me.’ And Penny wholeheartedly agreed. Then she went over to her group of guy friends and pointed me out to them, and they all looked at me in an appraising way, and then she came back and kept telling me about how she told her friends how she had just met the sweetest girl (which was me, apparently) and how I was just the sweetest girl in the bar and I was so very cute. Which, I mean, I can’t argue. I am exceptionally cute at times. And that I had the prettiest eyes. And for some reason, with that comment, I felt it was time to go to the bathroom, so I did. And her friends dragged her out of the bar to another bar shortly afterward, so we were spared from a Very Special Episode of That’s My Bix! Too bad, I suppose, as this is Sweeps Week. I could have perhaps kicked Friends collective asses. Or at least Everybody Loves Raymond.

The Throat Of Death And Misery is still kicking my ass quite heartily even as I type this. I managed through about four hours of work on Friday and then threw up my arms in surrender and whispered, ‘Home. Now.’ to my poor beleaguered coworkers, who had been covering for me for the past week, then went home and passed out in a drooling Vicodin cough syrup bliss for several hours.

The only thing I could manage was about an hour of Sims. They are on vacation right now, thanks to a windfall of $30,000, thanks very much to my rampant guiltfree cheating. I’m not even sorry, y’all. I took a page from Mopie and made a Diarist family. Everyone has exceptional jobs but poor little Weetabix Diarist. She’s a dog walker and just can’t seem to climb the canine corporate ladder, no matter how much she babbles into a mirror or makes friends or potions or wooden trolls, she still makes a paltry $160 a day. It’s a glass ceiling, apparently, in the dog walking industry. Whereas Genghis is doing quite nicely as a computer programmer and UncleBob is a secret agent for the military, both raking in $500 per day. Pete is a rockstar and Marn is apparently so important that I don’t even remember what she does but she brings in a whopping $650 and has to get up uber early in the morning. And even still Weetabix walks dogs for chump change. It’s a cruel world. I’ll bet she has a damn Sim degree that is going to waste too. That’s probably what those $2000 bills are that come every three days. Student loan payments for the Bix. So basically, I cheated because Sim reality was making me depressed.

Speaking of life imitating computer games, Ward and June are vacationing in Cancun for the next few weeks, thus the responsibility of watching their dogs falls upon us. But that’s a different entry. Because I’ve got pictures. Oh yes I do. PICTURES! Because some things you just have to see for yourself to believe.

Roughly 8 days after the inception of the Throat of Death And Misery, I was starting to feel a bit of energy, so on Saturday, I endeavored to do something about the many hampers of clothing that had been stored in the drawers of the waterbed. The plan involved plastic storage bins that would slide under our new regular bed (which, by the way, I so love. It does not jiggle. It does not burp. It does not leak. It’s lovely. Esteban, on the other hand, detests it for being cold and ‘unyielding’. After listening nicely to his complaints, I promised, ‘Well, dear, in nine years and 50 weeks, we’ll switch back to a bed of your choosing, hmmm?’. I think that is fair, since I had to put up with the waterbed, which was too soft and too wavy and too hot for ten years.) and possibly two smaller bins for the head and foot of the bed.

Thus, I declared I was going to run to Target as I needed the bins and some toothpaste. Esteban requested a case of soda. Fine. This is fine. I made a quick detour to my favorite little independent art store, as I was feeling the need for some lovely handmade paper for my Valentines cards. However, I was denied, as the art store was closing in five minutes and already I was in a mood where being rushed would make me cranky and unsettled. Well, ok, MORE cranky and unsettled.

I got to Target and proceeded to walk about in a delirium. Throughout the store, I was harranged by screaming children. Someone’s shoes were squeaking and it wasn’t mine. My nose decided that it wanted to try out for the Boston Marathon right then and started on a warm-up 5k run. I was sweating. *squeak squeak squeak* About an hour later, I located the bins, *squeak* but they were too large to fit in the cart, *squeak* so I set them on top and then pulled the cart in front of me, as I could not see around them. People walked in front of me. *squeak squeak* I did manage to find an acceptable tailored dust ruffle, which was nice, but apparently it was at the cost of my sanity.

I trudged with a thousand yard stare up to the check out counters and wrestled with the storage bins. The cashier placed them under the cart, but they didn’t really fit. However, they would stay as long as I didn’t jostle them too hard. With great trepidation, I navigated the automatic doors, certain that the sensor would not register until the bins hit the door, which would then loosen them from their precarious perch, however it was success! I wheezed a sigh of relief.

But then’ (cue ominous music of impending doom) there was the slight incline from the store down to the parking lot. I carefully edged my cart down the incline, only to watch as the two five-foot-long bins went skittering across the parking lot, the lids both taking off in the opposite direction. I scurried out to fetch them, defying the oncoming traffic to hit me and put me out of my misery. After retrieving them, the wind threatening to catch the bins and sweep me away like some kind of Rubbermaid Mary Poppins , I plopped them atop the cart and pushed it across the busy parking lot, with one hand on top to steady the load. I reached my car and put the two largest bins into the trunk, essentially filling it. I stuffed a few bags around it, but the five smaller bins (I also wanted to organize my shoes’ I’m a terrible overachiever) would not fit.

I wrestled the cart over to the passenger door, accidentally bumping the Ford Probe parked WAY TOO CLOSE to the Monte. Immediately, the air was filled with the cacophonous sounds of an Anti-Theft Warning System. Every head in the parking lot turned to see which idiot would be so destitute as to break into an aging Ford Probe. I managed to prevent myself from fainting by pretending that nothing was out of the ordinary and continuing to wrestle the various bins and cases of soda pop into the front seat through the door which could only open about four inches.

It’s a very good thing that I was in such a weakened condition. Otherwise I would have reared back and kicked that damn Ford Probe. Instead I uttered a curse under my breath that the driver would leave this mortal coil due to a collision involving a Chevrolet Celebrity and would have to explain the incident to St. Peter, that s/he/it died by rear-ending a Celebrity with his Probe.

But that would probably be too much to wish for.

And you already know that I forgot the toothpaste.

After something happens’something bad’I never know how long to keep writing about it. It’s so hard to segue from ‘really horrible’ to ‘look what silly thing Esteban said to me yesterday’. So today I will do my best.

Bryan’s wake was Saturday. It was one of the most heartwrenching things I’ve ever attended. I was mistaken on his age in the last entry’. He turned seven in late November. There were so many people there that there to say good bye to him. Even the coach of the Chicago Bears, whose name I can’t remember right now. I don’t know what was worse’. Seeing the balloons and the bouquets with Spongebob Squarepants, seeing the pictures of him hamming it up to the camera, despite a bald head and puffy face, or seeing him lying there in the tiny white box, hand on a duck Beanie Baby.

It occurred to me that it has been almost precisely three years since his initial diagnosis of a lethal illness. In fact, before anyone knew that anything was wrong, on New Year’s Eve 1999, Esteban and I spent the evening at his house, drank champagne from Bill and Sarah’s wedding crystal and played Prince’s ‘Party like it’s 1999’ on their kitchen boom box while he and his sister slept in the back of the house, bad cells multiplying even then within his little body. None of us knowing that two weeks later would come down the judgment that would change their family forever.

Saturday, pre-wake, I was listless and completely without focus. I attributed it to sadness, but it later became apparent that I was coming down with something in a very quick way. When it came time to hug his mom, my voice was completely gone and all I could do was whisper ‘I miss him and I miss you’ to her. In the last three years, her life has been pretty much devoted to fighting the disease with Bryan. So many other people came out of the woodwork and clustered around her, anxious to be supportive, that I backed away. I didn’t want to take her attention away from where it was needed. I hope that Sarah knows this, and I think she did because we both just stood there with tears in our eyes, nodding, knowing in an instant everything that had been lost.

I had worn a grey long skirt with a matching grey blazer, black v-neck shirt underneath. I was saving the Scully suit (all black double-breasted suit) for the funeral on Sunday, but by the time that Sunday came, I was completely taken out by my flu/cold thingy. I had been fully intending to go, but then I started negotiating with myself, talking myself out of things like taking a shower because I didn’t think I’d have the strength to stand in the shower. And then hating myself for being a weenie when that little boy had withstood so much more. But I literally could not drive a car, so pretty much was taken out of the picture.

Instead of flowers, my friend Heidi and I (along with two other folks whom I’ve since forgotten) purchased a memorial brick in memory of Bryan at the local zoo. Then, she asked if they could include a print out of the entry in the card for his family. I was very honored, and granted permission. If they mention anything about it, I am planning on directing them to the comments section of the entry so they can see all the lovely things you all wrote in memory of him. I’m sure that it will give them some bit of solace, knowing that he was sent on with the love of so many people.

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So now, I’m pretty much completely taken over by this flu thingy. I keep beating myself up about it. On Saturday, I refused to consider the idea that I was getting sick, but by Sunday I simply could not move. Today, my throat is one long road of yellow Men Working and Slow Proceed With Caution signs. As Drowning13 wrote once, there is a red light bulb lodged in my throat. I can’t cough it up. It hurts to even breathe. Even my beloved juice cure isn’t working, as when I drink it, it must take a detour at the esophagus and turn at the next corner for three miles, then baha it back over bumpy terrain before it can proceed upon its journey, burning my throat the entire time. I’ve spent the last two days in my University of Wisconsin sweatshirt, sweatpants and men’s grey thermal socks. I spilled tea and got some on the socks this afternoon but had no energy to scout out a fresh pair, thus, now they have tea on them. My feet are Blackberry and Sage fresh.

I did manage to take a shower today. In one of those rare moments of precognition, as I was gliding the razor over my Achilles tendon, I thought ‘Oh, don’t cut yourself, don’t cut yourself’ and then took a good size bite out of the back of my heel, which then bled for something like four weeks. I mean, not only did it bleed and sting for the remainder of the shower, but then also while I was out of the shower, drying off, brushing my teeth for the third time today (nothing like the taste of congealed snot in the morning) there were actual DROPS of blood streaming off my foot. Like a horror movie. The killer is in the shower, ma’am. And wouldn’t you know it, right onto my freshly washed bathroom rug. Like, I just brought it up from the wash on SATURDAY and it’s all bloody now. I complained over the phone to Esteban, in my froggy demonic voice and he consoled me and for once, I think he honestly understood my angst. Or has gotten really good at faking it.

I must be better by tomorrow because I must bring Mo to the airport in the middle of the day. And my work projects are completely out of hand. But that I will think about tomorrow. For now, more Dayquil, more Shakespeare in Love and more tea. And maybe a pair of dry socks.

Last night, I painted my nails while watching Buffy. They are now a retro silver color. I then dressed accordingly this morning to compliment my nails with my wardrobe (grey v-neck sweater, black blazer and slacks, best socks in the world, and the grey ass splinter pearls.) This is how people without children pass their time.

I have such issues with the maintenance of my fingernails. Certain colors are only acceptable at certain times of the year. I tend to do a French manicure or candy apple reds or obnoxious blue during the heady hot days of summer, but during winter, I enjoy deep blackish reds and subdued dark colors that contrast nicely with my pale winter skin.

I tried to change my mode last week, painting them a Barbie Doll hot pink and everyone thought I had fake nails. They were just too bright to be believable. Then I went back to the Mia Wallace Pulp Fiction Cerise Noire and now, the silver. I don’t understand where the silver falls into that logic, but it only seems right during the deepest darkest hollows of winter.

There’s just no understanding girls sometimes. We’re just weird. And apparently, overly concerned with how we look.

You know, that’s just winter talking, right there. The only time I’m a clothes diva is during the first five months of the year. After the Summer Slacker mode kicks in, I just do a double check to make sure that nothing unkind is exposed and then go about my merry way. When organizing my closet awhile back, I precisely folded and stored all of my plain solid color t-shirts. I had 37 and I suspect that some were stashed in other places or in the purgatory that is my dirty laundry hamper. 37 t-shirts. Think about that. 37. Three score and seven t-shirts ago, this Weetabix brought forth a clean closet. Ok, I know a ‘score’ is twenty years and I don’t have 67 t-shirts, but you know, I just might. It’s within the realm of possibility. It’s insanity. But it makes getting dressed really really easy, non? Summer slacker mode. But we won’t think about that right now. We’ll just ponder the philosophical ramifications of the color my next fingernail polish.

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When I was shopping over the weekend, I saw this incredible black leather DKNY tote bag, on uber clearance for $68, marked down from, like, two million dollars. I caressed the leather and wanted to smooth my face over it, but didn’t because that would just be weird. And it had a shiny little silver plate on it with the lovely letters DKNY on it, looking like glyphs from ancient peoples who loved consumerism (different than materialism’ because it sounds not as shallow) and spoke in clicking and shuffling noises that sounded like the cash spitting out of the ATM (dude, I love that sound.) So I was blathering to Jake who said ‘You bought the bag, right? Because don’t tell me that you didn’t buy the bag.’ No. I didn’t buy the bag. So last night, I actually DREAMED about the bag. It’s haunting me. I dreamed about the supple black leather and about how it makes every single outfit I own come alive. I dreamed about how it magically changed appearances and transformed into a back pack. I dreamed about how it was the Holy Grail of Accessories. I dreamed about how I found inner peace within its depths.

Yes. My unconscious mind is a tad overdramatic.

So today, I went back at lunch, with a hopeful heart and a pocket full of softly folded bills.

It’s gone.

In its place was a tote with shorter straps and no lovely silver DKNY plate, looking like it had been kicked around on the floor a few times. It was hanging there pleading with me to spend the $72 (marked down from 80 septillion dollars) like the ugly stepsister it was.

I bought a pair of sunglasses instead. To hide my tears, tears of what could have been.

Ok, so maybe the drama isn’t just limited to my subconscious.

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Esteban: I have had the worst farts today.

Weetabix:: Thank you for sharing.

Esteban: I mean, they have this intensity’ like’. (strains) ‘ ahhh

Weetabix: Oh

Esteban: Oh dear’ you might’. Um’

Weetabix: GAHG! (hides mouth in shirt)

Esteban: See? It’s foul.

Weetabix: Stob thad.

Esteban: Stop what?

Weetabix: Thad.

Esteban: Farting?

Weetabix: YETH!

Esteban: It’s gone now.

Weetabix: No it isn’t! GAHG!

Esteban: Ok, maybe it isn’t. That one really had a lot of green house gases in it. I think it’s all the juice I’ve been drinking. It’s fermenting in my bowels and’ and’bubbling up or something.

Weetabix: Your bowels do not make champagne. Jesus, I can TASTE it though.

Esteban: Yes. They are really impressive. I should probably be worried. There. It’s gone now.

Weetabix: And with it, any chance you had to mambo with me.

Esteban: Growlll.

Weetabix: Did the juice make you randy too?

Esteban: I’m always randy. Like father, like son.

Weetabix: Yeah, your dad is rather virile, isn’t he? That one time, under the water, when I saw sumptin’ sumptin’ I very much should not have seen? I think it gave me a spot on my eye. I’m surprised that you’re an only child.

Esteban: I’m not. My mother spending 36 hours pushing my enormous head made sure of that.

Weetabix: It’s a good thing, though. I don’t think I could marry a man with a small head.

Esteban: Why not?

Weetabix: I don’t know. It would be like little Pez Head on a regular body. Eessh.

Esteban: What about your next husband’. Henry Rollins’ does he have a small head?

Weetabix: No, I think it’s about the same size as yours.

Esteban: Yeah, but I’ll bet he’s got hair on his back.

Weetabix: Um’ as do you.

Esteban: Just in patches. The kidney warmers.

Weetabix: Yeah.

Esteban: (gets all macho) Just like the MALES with the SILVER!

Weetabix: What?

Esteban: (repeats with same gusto) Just like the MALES with the SILVER!

Weetabix: (looks at him like he’s insane)

Esteban: (breaks his bravado and looks concerned) You know’ like gorillas.

Weetabix: (falls forward, tears streaming out of her eyes) Bwahahahaha!

Esteban: (pouting a bit) The silverbacks are the leaders.

Weetabix: (gasping for breath) Stop it’ stop it’ please’ oh my god’ I can’t’ breathe’.!

Esteban: (farting) Ahhhh.

Weetabix: Oh god, I can’t breathe and now I’ can’t’ breathe!

Esteban: Marking my territory, baby.

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Dear Marti Noxon,

Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear in my last letter. Evil Dead Giles = Weetabix Kicks Your Ass.

Oh, and give the new Slayerette a cheeseburger or something. And a bra. Because her little mosquito bites were skeeving me out.

Seriously,
Weetabix

I haven’t gotten a regular decent night sleep in ten years. The reason? We sleep in a waterbed. Which is the second name the waterbed marketing team came up with, after Turbulant Vomitolounger was deemed too negative.

When Esteban and I moved in together, he insisted that we use his king sized water bed and put my birds-eye maple antique queen sleigh bed in storage. And because I am an eager-to-please kind of girl, I agreed. Because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Little did I know that I was signing on for ten years of back aches and dreams spent cast away on the open seas as my cohabitant tossed and turned, actually breaching his body up off the mattress during his nightly interpretational dance and collapsing down into the depths, sending me sometimes two feet ( I am NOT making that up) into the air and back down.

Esteban is a mover. He actually is rarely still. He needs to play with something at all times, be it a television remote, a screwdriver, a sharp throwing device, whatever. And at night, when most bodies are snug in their beds, having wonderful REM sleep and rebuilding those energy stores, it is more of the same. He fidgets for no less than half an hour. His feet are itchy. He must scratch them. One foot scratches the other. For a half hour. Like some overanxious cricket with a broken chirp. Then it is rehearsal time at the Bolshoi. The man is a human metronome. Right side, on the back, left side, on the back, right side, on the back, left side, on the back. Every. Fifteen. Minutes. Thus, all of my dreams while sleeping married sleep are only fifteen minutes long and have the average creative content of your standard episode of TRL. I have learned to cling to the side rail of the bed, pressed against it for stability, like the victim of a shipwreck clinging to a buoy in a storm. Like Chrissie Watkins right before she’s attacked by the shark in the opening minutes of Jaws. Except that Chrissie Watkins got to rest in piece (or pieces) after she was thrashed around. She didn’t have to go for another ride every damn night for ten years straight. One can only wonder what would have happened if he had not married a curvy round kind of girl who brought her own ballast to the bed. What if he were attracted to waifs? The poor little thing would have been bandied about like a rag doll and perhaps been catapulted from the bed. Goodness knows, he might at this very minute be incarcerated for involuntary manslaughter through improper use of a sleeping device.

When Esteban is not there, I sleep wonderfully. I am out. I wake rested and excited to begin the day. Likewise, the few times that we’ve been in hotels with decent beds, I’ve had magnificent sleep. My back doesn’t hurt. I don’t feel sore. I don’t feel as though I need a nap in the middle of the day. Life is good.

When we purchased the house six years ago, I had been adamant that we get a real bed. I was tired of’ well, being tired. Esteban’s mother decided that the answer to this would be to buy a ‘better’ mattress so as a housewarming gift, she purchased us a rather expensive waterbed mattress that supposedly was ‘waveless’.

Needless to say, the manufacturers of the ‘waveless’ mattress and I suffer a rather large difference of opinion. What is more, without going into enormous detail as it is not my nature to discuss this in the diary, but it has been discovered that there are certain marital acts that are not advisable on a bed that can be influenced by the ebbs and flux of the tide.

I’m talking about filing a joint tax return, of course.

And then there’s the fact that the waterbed is possibly making me fat.

You see, have you ever looked at exercise/calorie charts and been like “wow, if running for an hour expends 100 calories and I eat like 2000 calories a day and just sit around my cubicle all day and then watch Must See TV all night, why hasn’t my ass blocked out the sun yet?” Well, boys and girls, most of our calories are expended while we sleep, keeping us WARM. Which also explains why you are starving when you’ve been outside in the cold for any extended amount of time. And what do I sleep directly on top of? That would be a flat heater that burns my ass if the water level in the bed is too low. A heater that keeps the bed at a nice toasty 90 degrees or so. So instead of working against a thirty-degree temperature difference, your metabolism only needs to warm itself 8 degrees.

And I’m not even going to get started on the damn air bubbles in the bed. And burping the bed. Gah.

So a few weeks ago, I was changing the sheets on the bed and when I went to tuck Esteban’s corner in, I noticed that it was wet.

I promptly forgot about it, under the assumption that whatever was the matter, it was very possible that the mattress could feasibly heal ITSELF. And sometimes, if you forget about things, they go away.

This was not one of those times.

This time, I promptly put my foot down and said ‘No, no, no, I will NOT continue to sleep in this prop from 1978 pornos! We’re getting a real bed.’ We went mattress shopping and found that mattresses were considerably much more than we though they should cost, which was roughly 50 cents’ probably something like a dollar for the king sized variety. But after much deliberation, we made our very first furniture purchase as adults’ or, actually, I declared we were buying the one I wanted and then I went by myself to make the final decision and set everything up. Which is how things usually work around Casa Bix anyway.

Esteban then had all sorts of angst. Our bed was his bed before it was OUR bed. His parents purchased it for him after a growth spurt when he was 11 resulted in his feet hanging clear off the end of his former bed.

‘I lost my virginity in that bed!’ He moaned.

Note to my male readers: perhaps the 20 year service of a bed (13 of those spent romping with wife) should not be eulogized by waxing nostalgic over ONE sexual act that did not involve said wife. Sound like a good idea? Hrrrmmmm?

Tonight? Last night in the leaking Cherry Popping bed. Tomorrow night? I’m going to sleep for something like twelve days.

Note to self: find a way to distract Esteban from noticing that my wedding ring is behind the bed and has been back there for two years. Things to try: Star Trek, freshly baked cookies, dark imported beer, flashing my breasts.