High Body Count Hair

 

I had to go on an Instagram diet because my algorithm thinks I'm a lazy fatso. I love a sarcastic meme too much; it became all I saw. Would it kill the algorithm to throw in a motivational quote once in a while or an Anne Geddes portrait of a baby sitting in a flower pot with a sunflower-adorned denim bucket hat on?

When I’m not scrolling, I pay more attention to the TV. I dove back into Real Housewives. Beverly Hills has tons of sad divorce energy. I still watch it, but I started Salt Lake City for some levity. This is my first time with these housewives, and they are such shit-talking lunatics I was sucked right in. 

The satellite friend, Britany, who was not-so-secretly fucking an Osmond takes a ton of heat from these ladies. They will all go at her like a pack of wild animals, and when she finally breaks down crying, they all gasp in regret, “We took it too far.”

When Angie told Britany she had High-Body-Count hair, I immediately grabbed a sticky note to write it down. What a gem. I don’t even care that my fancy hair is like Britany’s half-up, half-down, bump-it look. Those were just some golden words. 

At one point, everyone came at Britany in extreme spite for recording their conversation on her phone. I have no clue why this upset everyone so much since there was a fucking camera crew in front of them recording the conversation as well. But after they screamed at her till she cried, they all then chased her down and encircled her with hugs. This show would be a brilliant anthropological study.

It made me think about family, and how most of these women grew up in Mormon culture. Maybe it’s the obligation and commitment to family that makes them so blasé about cutting a bitch. They know it will blow over.

My kids bicker at times, and it is frustrating because they are so close and they have a deep understanding of each other. They are well aware of each other’s buttons and boredom, hunger, and displaced rage will initiate the need to make their sibling scream. When I told them they were best friends and would realize it when they were older they asked me about my siblings.

I told them how my older sister and I were mortal enemies throughout childhood. We called my sister on the phone, and she told them how I swung a plastic bag with a can of coke in it and let it slam into her throat. I must have been really pissed off, although I don’t remember what it was that made me go commando on her ass.

When we were in high school, my parents took us to Panama. It was a cultural trip, we didn’t lounge by the beach but explored the country. On a trip into the jungle to see an indigenous tribe, we learned about people who live off the land. The women wore a wrap of cloth around their waist and their tits hung free to the world, and the men wore a type of thong underwear. 

On the canoe ride into this place, my little brother and I got into a massive fight. When we stepped off the canoe and into this little village of huts on stilts, my brother and I were screaming at each other, and the fight ended with us picking rocks up off the ground and chucking them at each other.

With the changing world, I don’t even know if a place like this exists anymore. This was over twenty years ago. Although the trip sounds like something from Brave New World, our view of them was just as interesting as their view of us. I can’t imagine anyone was thinking, wow, modern life looks so much fun after watching my brother and I hurl stones at each other’s heads. Sadly, I should have walked away with a huge shift in perspective, but I’m ashamed to tell this story because all I remember are the boobs and butts.

The stories comforted my kids. The stories comforted me too; I don’t need to worry that they will grow up and not depend on each other. My sister is my best friend and my little brother is one of my favorite people to talk to, he’s fearless and works hard to achieve his goals. 

We learn a lot from fighting with our siblings… and watching The Real Housewives. A fight is just a fight. It’s okay to move on and not dwell on it because people are just the way they are, and they react at that moment. All you can do is look back and think, Okay, I probably shouldn’t throw hard objects at people when I’m mad.

My kids and I went to Universal Studios last weekend. In case you’re curious, the Mario Brothers ride is grossly over-rated. When we came home, Geoffrey and I caught up on his reality TV show, Beast Games. The dog was ecstatic that his family was home and Geoffrey and him wouldn’t stop kissing. G said, “Let the dog lick your face.”

Like a Westboro Baptist, I gave him a look of disgust and said, “I don’t believe in that kind of love.”

I love my dog so much, but he eats poop. I’ve seen him do it. I don’t want his tongue anywhere near my face. I have high-body-count hair, but it’s not that high.

Geoffrey knows my buttons, too. After he noticed I was repulsed, he doubled down with the dog. The only way I would stop this kid from making out with Max was by ignoring him completely. I had to break the diet for the moment. I picked up my phone and was bombarded by Instagram’s opinion of me. At least I had intentionality behind it. When G was bored of trying to get me mad, I put the phone down and watched the show.

Hype Girls

 

My sister’s kids eat sloppy joes more than anyone else. One morning, she was hyping them up with the prospect of their usual dinner, and they all started chanting, “Sloppy Joes! Sloppy Joes! Sloppy Joes!”

Giving the chant a variation, she changed Joe to Jose. It morphed once again, and they dropped the last syllable in Jose. Things went too far when her three kids surrounded her and excitedly chanted, “Sloppy hoes! Sloppy hoes! Sloppy hoes!”

When I visited her last summer, she rummaged through her kitchen cabinet, shocked to find she was out of Sloppy Joe sauce. She ran to the store and returned fully stocked with a bag of cans. It would get them through the week.

I tried to make my kids Sloppy Joes when they were younger, but they told me they didn’t like them. In Philadelphia, they couldn’t get enough of my sister’s. She explained her technique; it didn’t differentiate from my method at all. You brown the hamburger meat, drain the fat, and add a can of the sauce. Maybe it's the hype she serves up with the dish. It’s always been her gift. 

My mom does the same when making Mac and cheese for her grandkids. My mom is very hyped. Sitting through church with her is wild; she carries on a stage-whisper chat with her twin granddaughters the entire time. Most kids don’t want to go to church, but my nieces probably love it, it’s a real soirée. My mom gets it from her mom, my grandma, who is equally excited every Wednesday when she goes to lunch with her twin daughters.

I joined them over Christmas break. We went to lunch to celebrate my Grandma’s birthday at a casino. The mood was set when a purple balloon floated down from nowhere and landed beside my Grandma. After lunch, we went shopping at Marshall’s. I found the cutest red-coiled stuffed snake for my son. It’s the year of the snake, his year. I was pushing my cart and showing the snake to my grandma when I accidentally ran into a woman in the aisle. I was so embarrassed and apologized. My 92-year-old grandma didn’t notice, so I whispered, “I just ran into that lady with my cart.”

My grandma nodded, and I knew she didn’t hear what I said. I waited to repeat it outside so I wouldn’t shout about it in front of the victim. My Grandma said, “I thought you said you took the snake out of that lady’s cart.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” I said. 

And she said, “Well, I wouldn’t have cared if you did.”

She’s so sweet and such good company. I had the funniest dream: my grandma and I smoked weed together. It was one of those dreams that made me smile all day long. She’s even a hype girl on the astral plane.

I’m fascinated with stories about people lucid dreaming or going to “the astral plane.” Whenever I realize I’m dreaming, I want to wake up. Today I took a nap, and I think I was starting to do it, but it was like I shot way out into outer space. Then I was floating in a body of water and the waves were getting bigger until a giant one came over me. I then was lying in a bed in a room that wasn’t mine. I stared at the ceiling and heard Mickey Mouse’s Clubhouse theme song playing.

I woke up to no Mickey Mouse’s Clubhouse. My sister was home though, on the other side of the country. Her kids had a snow day. Maybe I projected to their house, but I wasn’t in the mood to hang so I just listened to their TV.

I don’t think astral projecting is for me. It reminds me of psychedelics, you don’t want your mind to go so far away that it doesn’t come back to its full capacity. I know a lot of health experts are major proponents, but to me, they are the worst people to endorse Schedule I drugs. They have robotic, unattainable levels of self-control, and they’re too narcissistic to see that 99% of the world is more freeform. 

Let's leave moderation to the psychopaths. The rest of us are looking out for the next party, like sloppy joes, reckless shopping, and chatting through church; all that fun stuff to get hyped up about.