Wednesday, December 11, 2019

That Cee Lo Green Song




"What was that?!"


George lost his TV privileges after he shouted that Cee LoGreen song in response to my telling him to put the salami back in the fridge, were eating dinner in 5 minutes. It was the tone of how he said it, really, that set me off.
I explained to his dad about the foul language outburst, and he asked where he could have heard that.
“I have no idea,” I replied.
I didn’t feel like explaining a real rough scene that went down in the parking lot of KB nails after I refused to let some bitchy man take out his shitty day on me in the form of a lesson on merging lanes. To defend my honor, and demonstrate the opposite of being bent over, I angrily recited that Cee Lo Green song, using the wrong tone.

Their dad suggested I stop letting them watch Jumanji 2 because it’s PG-13, and giving them bad ideas. I informed him that the most offensive word said in that movie is “penis” and that our kids have the inclination to run around the house after a bath like they’re working their way through medical school without having to take out any student loans.
And to even up the blame game, I reminded him that Kendrick Lamar offers up a nice well of colorful language.

My daughter’s class voted for the “Good Neighbor.” She told me who she voted for because she’s always nice to her, then said, “I’m not always positive so I didn’t get chosen.”
I’m glad she’s realizing that crumpling up her paper, and screaming, “You hate me!” at the teacher isn’t a productive reaction to not completing her morning work on time.
I said, “It’s ok, you’re working on it.”
I suffer from extreme optimism. It’s off-putting to a lot of realists who chalk up my positive Tony Robbins motivational quotes as being dismissive or my being a lousy listener. I guess those disgruntled nonpaying customers will find something else to fester on after reminding me that my cheerleading isn’t necessary. There I go again, with the compulsive silver lining.

Staying positive takes work, and it usually involves exhausting myself of all pent up energy by running every morning. Now that it’s raining I am back in the gym. I listen to music, but instead of looking at trees and clouds, I have to watch Kelly Clarkson entertain a wild bunch of enthusiastic adults who look like their about to have an aneurism with every back and forth comment between Kelly and her celebrity guest. It’s like Sesame Street for adults and I endure nonstop embarrassment from the scene by loudly commenting and cringing at the TV like I'm the only one in the room. Everyone has head phones in, so I can’t look crazy.

Of course, I’ll get some looks, but I practice what I preach. After my daughter voiced her distress about having knee jerk negative reactions, I told her, “You can’t worry about what other people think about you! You’re always getting better, even when something bad happens.”

Then we made cookies and listened to Lily Allen.





Sunday, November 17, 2019

American Girl


            With Christmas nearing, I asked my daughter what she wants, and she listed loads of accessories for her lovely Mary Ellen doll. American Girl Dolls exist so upper middle class whites feel as if their daughters have minority friends, like Kaya, whose back-story is as impressive as my great-great-great Grandmas.
            My mom said they called her Grandma Hatchet. It was a much less caring time. She was a Cherokee Indian who walked the Trail of Tears; the US government has documented it. She worked as a prostitute and didn’t speak a word of English.
Or so we thought. My mom did her 23&Me, and it sent shock waves through the family to learn we don’t have any Native American in us. So Great-great-great-grandma Hatchet’s story has us all at a loss. The most probable explanation being she was a grade-A dummy, taken in by one of the most marginalized groups in America, selling her metaphorical kitty at less-than-market value.
It’s not all bad; she did get a kid out of it. A son she named King. So I guess she did know one word English. There is a slight identity loss, like now that were not 1/64th Cherokee Indian, we have to take more personal accountability for our alcoholism.
Talking with my mom on the phone, she starts spilling the tea on my relative switching from wine to vodka to cut calories. My mom said, “That’s a bad idea because of our Indian blood.”
“Ummm, mom. I don’t think you can say that anymore.”
She made it seem like that was up for debate.
I guess taking down my massive dream catcher is up for debate too because I didn’t buy it to be ironic. My Cherokee affectation was already on questionable terms, as I wasn’t even close to qualifying for Indian casino payouts, but I just like the style so much, I’m drawn to it and willing to slightly steamroll.
A friend played Nick Cave’s “Stagger Lee” and my ears perked up when he said Bucket of Blood. “Oh, how lovely, he’s talking about my old stomping ground,” I said in an English accent because I like to do that sometimes. With the mention of Lake Tahoo, I continued in my accent, “Does he live in Northern California?” Then I offered my guest a cuppa.
It doesn’t matter where Nick Cave lives, he is doing late 1800’s Northern Nevada better than people in the late 1800’s Northern Nevada.

I went to the mall to return a hat I bought. The sales lady asked my reason for the return, and I let her know, “Temporary insanity. I realized I don’t work at The Blue Oyster in Police Academy.”
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I will be at the mall a lot over the next two months. I started a seasonal retail job because of the long teaching break and my kids being away Thanksgiving week and the week after Christmas. The best anecdote to looming mental health issues from too much isolation, the human connection, and there is no better way to participate in the physical social network, than Black Friday! In addition to avoiding the mean reds, I get an amazing store discount. Imagining all the retail benefits, well, that confirms what my genetics won’t, I’m 100% American Girl.

Nice shirt, Becky


Monday, November 4, 2019

Lorena's Morning Vibes



I watched Lorena on Netflix. It’s a four-part series on the Lorena and John Bobbitt trial from 1993. The first part is full of comedic undertones as police are interviewed about the incident of Lorena chopping off John’s penis. Initially the cops went to level ten, and theorized she swallowed the chopped off penis, which made me think, “There’s no way someone could SWALLOW a penis!”
But then there is a picture of said penis, and I realized, “Well look at that!! That’s a penis that could be swallowed.” It looked like the last bite of an Aidells smoked chicken sausage.
The most knee-slapping moment is when the investigators go back to the field where they miraculously found the tiny nub to take a photo of the location where it was discovered. The picture is a long-shot of a man standing with him arm outstretched and his finger pointing down.
Another detective talks about Lorena’s interrogation, and how she said, “He always has an orgasm, and I never get to have an orgasm.” And as the first part of the series wraps up, a snip from an interview with Lorena propels the idea that she is a dick-cutting-off-maniac because she falls back cackling after acknowledging her act. However, over the next three parts, it becomes crystal clear John Bobbitt is a delusional, fame-seeking, abuser who should have his penis cut off again.

I’ve had my kids for the entire month of October, and it feels a lot like when I was married. No more staying up till midnight and watching TV and texting, I find myself laying right in between the two of them and falling asleep at 9. When we get home in the evening it’s marathon time; homework, dinner, packing backpacks, laying out clothes and reading, jammed into two hours. I wake up early to get some meditative time before the day starts, but spend it laying under a hello kitty blanket on my couch drinking cup after cup of coffee. The key to consuming gallons of coffee in the morning; creamer, it makes it chugging temperature. I manage to have alone time in my office, but I have to work, so it’s not truly a moment worth relishing.

A creature started scratching under my house two weeks ago. Initially, I thought it had to be a daemon clawing itself up from hell and though my heater vent to kill us. After some deep breathing, the most sensible conclusion came to me; a rodent is under my house and is trying to fraternize with the kitten.
My neighbor found last month full of opportune times to let me know I don’t water my grass enough, and that I have a hole in my particle board fence. I decided to confound his list by telling him about the creature under my house, and then he pointed his finger to my crawl space, describing their ramshackle condition.
A gross smell took hold a week ago. Initially, I thought it was strange that a bag of cut and washed Jolly Green Giant broccoli was stinking up my house from the crisper drawer inside the fridge. After some really shallow breathing, the most sensible conclusion came to me, a rodent under my house, trying to fraternize with my kitten, has died. Call pest control was added to my mental to-do list.

My November horoscope confirmed this month would be a lessening from the slog of October.  Were four days in, and the smell has gone away, so there goes that to-do item. It’s like the rodent was never here. Because of daylight savings, I put my kids to bed at 7 o’clock, and I’m having some personal time. And in a few days, we’ll be back on our usual family schedule. It would be nice if I planned to use my upcoming free time to tackle some home improvements, but I will likely dedicate that time to watching Netflix mini-series and taking long daytime naps.

Lorena, she must never have a bad day. Every day is a good day since she took the time to cut some dick out of her life. After October, I commend all the full-time single moms, and all those non-single-moms who still do it all. You’re horoscope might predict some break on the horizon, but if not, that to-do list sometimes has a way of taking care of itself, and try to catch Lorena. Spoiler alert: the good guy wins.

Sunday, October 6, 2019

Fashion Forward






I’m the most fashion forward when I’m packing a suitcase for vacation. For some reason all the clothes I neglect during my everyday life lure me into believing I will have a completely different attitude about them when I’m in a foreign land. Big shocker, whenever I get where I’m going, I unzip my suitcase and regret every packing decision, and I have to spend the entire week in the least adventurous outfit, egg-shell culottes and a hot pink crop top with “Barbie” across the chest.
            I went on a cruise in April, and found myself in the usual predicament of accusing my 12-hour-before-self of being a masochistic saboteur, who took pleasure in my having nothing comfortable to wear. I couldn’t even rely on making a bathing suit everyday wear, because the sun crept behind the clouds the day we set foot on the boat, and our ride along the Pacific coast into Mexico had the grey chilliness of a February afternoon in San Francisco.
            I was forced to wear the weird clothes I bought off Amazon at 1 am after looking at over sexualized Instagram models and boring Pinterest lifestyle bloggers. So I put on a bandeau halter-top and some neon bike shorts and took part in the cruise ship initiation, hitting up the buffet line. I decided I wasn’t going to drink alcohol on the cruise because of a really bad scene the weekend before.
            I went to San Francisco with the guy I was seeing. On the drive down, I knew it was going to be a bad night because the sight of him was making me angry. I decided to put a cork in my emotional buildup by drinking a million beers, so eventually my conscious self went to sleep, and I let the hired hand within me take care of verbally murdering this person I shared a bed with every other weekend. The drive home from San Francisco in the morning was dreadful. I felt terrible, and wanted to fast forward to when this time was just a speck. I said to him, “How about you just punch me in the face, and we call it even?” He didn’t take me up on the offer, he was relishing too much in his power. Needless to say, we broke up, but not for another two months because it took me some time to crawl out of that shame hole I fell into.
            Lucky for me, I don’t need alcohol to embarrass myself, and on my sober cruise ride I found a great opportunity to insert myself into a situation where I had a theater size audience, because we were in a theater waiting for a show to start. An entitled Southern socialite plopped down into the saved seats of a young family. The young woman quietly pleaded for the lady to move from the seats, but the old sourpuss continuously waved her off with a flip of her hand.
I took it upon myself to defend the honor of the woman who was doing a piss poor job of working up the gusto to call the seat stealer an asshole hemorrhoid. After shouting, “Hey Lady!!” I noticed all the young kids surrounding us.
Following that up with some variant of, ‘Move your bitch ass,” was not going to work without making me seem worse off than the seat stealer, so I shouted in an overly emotional voice, “You are being so mean!” My parents looked at me horrified, probably wishing I was drunk, and so did the 30 people within this circle of extreme social awkwardness. Thank god my parents love me no matter what stupid shit I do because after my outburst of caring too much, I slowly sat down and dusted off my acid washed jeggings and straightened out the beaded fringe on my Miley Cyrus belly shirt, and we all looked ahead like the minute before was a distant memory.
            My interjecting was ineffectual. The lady didn’t move from the seat. For the remainder of the cruise I couldn’t escape her. I frequently saw her, and not in the most becoming ways, usually balancing four desserts and a pizza I planned to eat while watching a movie next to the dirty disgusting pool my kids played in.
            Infatuation is an STD, and the remedy is the eventual unveiling of the person who passed it on. Scars from embarrassing times also vanish. I don’t really think about the beginning-of-the-end in San Francisco or my unsuccessful attempt at being the morality police. These moments add up to nothing in the infinite space of people that genuinely love you. In the words of the young philosopher, Miley Cyrus, “Forget the haters because somebody loves ya.”  On that note, I’ll start dressing how I see myself on vacation because it really doesn’t matter. Not even the tiniest bit.


Barbie crop top exists