Sobriety Update

 

My sister and I were talking about our sober apps. My app is a tracker, and every morning I check in and read my inspirational quote. There’s only 30 unique quotes so they recycle each month. I could buy more, but I like my money too much. 

I told my sister I notice on Facebook a huge uptick in people from high school going sober. Maybe it just happens as we approach 40, for health and family, a realization that alcohol adds no value.

I’m lucky my closest friends are either sober or not big drinkers, but this isn’t my first venture into the land of dry bars, and sometimes when you quit there can be people who discourage the move, and in retrospect they make you drum your fingers on your chin, and think, “What the fuck do they want me to be such a sad sack for?”

My boyfriend doesn’t drink much, and when he does he ends up with a headache. I told him he should probably eat more bananas and he’ll be fine. I don’t know why I was pushing for him to keep up the good fight, if I started drinking vicariously through him I’d end up hating him like I hate myself when I drink. 

I told him, “I’d probably be able to handle alcohol if I gained 20 pounds.”

He said, “ I don’t think its worth it.”

“But I’d end up a B-cup!” I added with optimism.

He was probably thinking, “But, that butt!”

My butt would get gigantic. I’d show all those true crime enthusiasts how you actually catch a serial killer. Shove that big booty into some Lulu leggings and go running around the park. One of them will surely venture out of their molester vans parked along the park perimeter, trying to get their hands on that bouncing booty.

My current butt size is already attracting men who get dropped of at the park as part of their adult daycare. They probably have the same intelligence as the serial killers, but luckily didn’t have a childhood with a psychotic dad putting cigarette butts out on their face every night after he drank 18 Natural Ice. 

Unsuspecting at first, I just assume, what a friendly person, always waving and saying hello. And then we have an actual, “Hi how are you? You from around here?” Conversation, and one will go right into how they’d love to go line dancing together sometime, or I notice another one standing on the corner with a fishing pole going into a shallow mud puddle. I’ll ask him if he’s caught anything yet, and he’ll smile and say he’s waiting it out. I realized, the nice ones are childhood trauma deprived serial killers.

I tell my kids alcohol is poison. They’re predisposed to these horrendous genes, and I can name five relatives who drank themselves to death or let alcohol drive them into a major come to Jesus moment. I figure it will help the kids when they first dip their toe into it, that they realize getting black out drunk is not all it’s cracked up to. Luckily my daughter has inherited her dad’s IBS, and I think having a holy shit storm in the aftermath of alcohol will be reason in itself to reassess the pros and cons of binge drinking in order to get home before midnight.

My son, he doesn’t have that though, and he has the same problem as me, where he can go to crazy town, with the best intentions, and end up wallowing in the pendulum's back swing.

We went to the tennis courts at the park. He envisioned himself running about like Andre Agassi, and when reality didn’t match that image, he had a full blown, racquet smashing melt down. I was able to talk him off the ledge, but after more ball-chasing he sat down on the bench pouring his bubbly water over his head and agonizing about his inadequacies. There’s only so much, “This is your first time… Practice is all you need,” before I decided it’s time to close the spectacle down and head home.

As we were walking off the courts he was acting like brat, and jokingly, playing off what I’d seen him do moments earlier, I took my bubbly water and dumped it on his head. Terrible idea.

Both of the kids went straight for the jugular, and pulled their divorced kids card, telling me how little they preferred my company.

Defeated, I walked ahead of them to the car as people watched them trailing behind me crying and acting like I put cigarette butts out on their faces.

The next day Kiki had therapy, and when I picked her up, I nervously sat in the car thinking, “Oh lord, her therapist is going to pin point the entire reason were in therapy after learning about the disastrous tennis incident.”

I actually thought I should have implanted the seed of their general meeting discussion right before dropping her off, “Remember that time Shelly, your dad’s girlfriend, wouldn’t let you sit next to your dad at the restaurant 5 months ago, but you refuse to let it go?”

I didn’t have to because the first thing the therapist said when she saw me was, “Were just working on her stuck thoughts.”

I was relieved, grateful my daughter’s undying faith that no other person in this world will rise up to her status in her father’s eyes led her to fixate on this earth shattering incident.

My sister and I were trying to assess how we ended up with these shit genes, and I think part of it has to do with starting too young. Get right into the party scene and think it’s all about getting faded, as we used to say. This habit led me to think the intention of drinking alcohol is to black out, and then my consciousness is deactivated and some form of alien technology within me is activated.

I crave the abandon, the lack of control, and it starts at the very first sip when I think, we’ll see where this leads me. After a while my mind goes cyborg, and each face I focus on is categorized as either I want to fight you, I want to fuck you, or undecided. Seeing as how my best friends are all related to me, I’m a glad I quit when I did.

Because it’s always a good idea to blame your problems on your parents, I added, “Maybe it’s because mom and dad are yellers who liked to end their rant on a complimentary note, so it left us all with low self esteem and high self confidence. Leading us to think, I should hurt myself and have faith I will overcome.”

I’m a yeller too, and sober or not sober, I’ve got to constantly work on it. When the kids get into a tantrum, I unravel into a similar state of mania, and the three of us look like a motley crew of unhinged desperation. It’s hard though because once we get into a good rhythm and understanding, they go off to their dad’s for a couple days and we have to start all over again.

Everyday is not going to be like the days we sing to Meghan Trainor and dance like Freddie Mercury. Sometimes, I start the day with coffee and they make their way to the couch with a blanket and pillow, half asleep and complaining. In an attempt to change the subject, I ask them things like, “Do you think we have alien technology inside us? And it can be activated at any moment?”

My daughter fully takes the question in, and her jaw drops. However, before I can start on how we should meditate to activate our alien technology, G gets bored out of his mind by the ridiculousness and will likely punch me in my the butt, and ask why it jiggles so much. 

I look at him, and sigh, and then yell, “Hey, Alexa! Play Queen!”

It activates a good day.

Pranksters

The other morning I was heating up soup for the kids’ lunch and the smell made my stomach turn. I ran to the kitchen sink and threw up. My mind went right to, “Oh my goodness, what have I done!”

I remembered swallowing my Ladies multi-vitamin with black coffee on an empty stomach 15 minutes earlier, and rested easy. But a PMS mind doesn’t rest easy for long. The barf in combination with my complexion, that’s looking like Bill Murray’s these days, had me googling “Is it ok to chew Nicorette Gum while pregnant.”

I’m blaming the corona-masks for my zits. My face hasn’t looked this bad since I was pregnant with my daughter. Lots of women report bigger boobs and a pregnancy glow, I looked like I was carrying my baby in my butt and had a face like Freddy Kruger. 

Halfway through my pregnancy I walked into the elevator at work, and my co-worker looked at me and said, “You’re having a girl. I can tell because she’s stealing all your beauty.”

She was right! I ended up with a beautiful baby girl. 

My period came later in the day, so I didn’t have to worry about figuring out how I’d fit a pink baby bassinet in my closet. It does concern me, I’d have no acne indication if it were a boy, and his embryonic development would be getting a steady stream of nicotine from ten pieces a day.

Boys don’t suck beauty from their mom, I didn’t get one zit when I pregnant with my boy. I don’t know where boys get their beauty, but they do get just how to drive their mom crazy with a big smile on their face. This afternoon doing homework, he kept saying, “Mom, I have to tell you something,” and then get up to my ear and burp. He didn’t tire from it, and found it just as amusing the tenth time as the first, and by then I was swatting him away with the kitchen broom.

On YouTube he watched prank videos made by some kid. Not understanding what a prank was exactly, he walked out of my bedroom holding a pair of scissors and said, “Pranked ya!”

I yelled, “What have you done?” And raced into the bedroom, to see that he cut a hole in the fitted sheet.

I told him, “A prank isn’t destroying someone’s property, it’s a trick, like putting Red Bull in someone’s TheraFlu.”

I can just imagine him throwing a cup of juice against the wall, and shouting, “Happy April Fools Day!” 

After which, I drop the broom for a mop and scream, “Its freaking May!”

My daughter is so curious about the idea of starting her period. She is only nine. I get it though, she is ready for her super power, PMS clarity, to kick in, even though I can’t imagine how whack her mood swings will be. When we were talking about it, I started singing in a low raspy voice, “Girl, you’ll be a woman soon, blah, blah, blah.”

And she asked, “Who sings that song?”

Then I got a grossed out look on my face and said, “Some freaking weirdo.” And her and G laughed.

Later, my daughter took out her markers and gave me one of her tattoos. She made a big heart and inside it wrote, “Alicia, but my preferred name is Mom.” It took up my entire back. When G walked up asking what we were doing, I told him Kiki is giving me a tattoo and it says, “Alicia, but my preferred name is…” 

And he quickly finished my sentence saying, “freaking weirdo.”

I hid my face behind my hand because I had to laugh. I’ll probably get more zits from that. He’s figured out a way to make up for the lack of pregnancy acne. Of course.

Cleaning

 

My daughter is hyper focused on middle school and being able to navigate the social structures of cool kids and everyone else. She is mad at me because I told her she’s staying put in her Catholic school, and not because they stayed loyal to us when the entire world shut down, but because middle school is hell on earth, and the only thing it’s good for is setting a benchmark for how awful people can be. 

I informed her, “Anyone who enjoyed my middle school is in prison right now, or just getting out.” Middle school is when bullies have their time in the sun. Like some curious masochist, she doesn’t care, but lucky for her, I make the decisions. I told her “Enjoy the bubble of security I’m providing for you in lieu of driving a Tesla.”

I’m selling my house because I want to take the profits and buy a bigger house. While packing up our clutter I found a box of childhood treasures. My middle school photo album was cheery, but flipping through the pages I remembered what a smiley, brace-face, chubby kid I was. Like a non-threatening puppy to a miserable violent drunk, I had a target on my front and back. 

Our first weekend on the market, and my tiny bungalow is not as in demand as I thought it would be. I complained to my mom that I wasted a bunch of time packing all our stuff up, and she consoled me by saying, “At least you cleaned your house.” 

That’s true, but what about all the hours I daydreamed about my next house; a three bedroom, two bath, with a swimming pool and long driveway my coachman uses when pulling us in our horse and carriage (it’s a Tesla). That time is gone.

After the big house cleaning, my boyfriend and I decided to do a body cleanse. We were going to only drink green juice for two days. I can’t tell you how it turned out because we broke by the evening of day one, thinking the starvation would ruin one of our few weekend nights together. Earlier in the day we bought movie tickets and the neighboring Jimboy’s Tacos was too much to resist. After eating dinner, we had a special gummy for dessert, and it came on like a mack truck. 

What usually takes 45 minutes, only took 15. We walked to Hagen-Das after dinner, we’d already blown it, and I ordered an ice cream cone. Sitting on the bench, in the unfamiliar scene of a crowded pavilion, I knew I was high because I became uncomfortably paranoid I was licking my ice cream cone like some type of sex pervert in front of hundreds of people. 

After that eternity, we walked into the the theater and inconspicuously headed to concessions for a diet coke. I didn’t talk, I just stood there, reading the menu board for five minutes. Feeling the relief of getting to sit on a recliner chair in a dark theater, I quickly walked to the escalators, and almost flung myself down the stairs going in the wrong directions. Now, I can’t tell you if the movie I saw was good, but the dark room and eyes forward was heavenly.

The next day I woke up feeling clear. It must be how people feel after rubbing their face off on the carpet during a Ayahuasca trip. I googled, “Does marijuana cause brain damage?” I didn't see any reassuring search results. The supposed growth from my mind altering experience could be minimal. The eye twitching that developed from the mounting stress of having to follow my kids around with a vacuum cleaner disappeared. 

If my house sells, it sells, and if it doesn’t we still have a cozy bungalow. At least it isn't middle school. The greatest self-discovery is that I only like eating a gummy at home, when my boyfriend is next to me, so we can laugh to the TV for hours. And, of course, to only ever order ice cream in a cup.

Best Friends

I was thinking about the infamous line from Streetcar Named Desire, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” As a single mom, I can’t depend on the kindness of strangers because I have to always assume strangers are child molesters. Instead, I have to always depend on the kindness of my family and feel guilty for inconveniencing them and worry that my kids are being treated like cargo.

With a task list creating schizophrenic distractions, it’s hard to live in the moment while simultaneously keeping an eye on the prize. I decided to sign up for three classes this semester, and let me say, I definitely underestimated the amount of time I’d need to dedicate to these classes while working and being a mom.

Every Monday we go to little G’s tutoring. Kiki and I sit in the lobby, and as the two women who run the center go back and forth from the learning room to their office, my daughter likes to overshare all the details from her life. I appreciate her transparency, but her need to tell everyone about her “Divorced Child Syndrome,” can make me cringe. Although, those encounters pale in comparison to her calling me a racist at the top of lungs, after I gave her a made-up math test that had fractions on it.

If we weren’t in public, I’d have asked her, “Are you working for MSNBC now?” But instead, I explained to her what racist means, and if anything, I was being mathist. I should later warn her that the holy white saviors who are inept at contextualizing tend to be the quickest people to cancel because they are unable to live up to their own level of scrutiny.

I had to drop one of the classes I’m taking, and sadly, it’s child psychology. To be fair, we spent the first four weeks talking about genetic deformities, and it didn’t seem like we were ever going to get to a point where I’d find out what I’m supposed to say to my kids after they tell me they want their parents to get back together. After the instructor assigned a seven page paper, I withdrew from the class, figuring I should spend that time on the ninth draft of my screenplay.

I asked my daughter’s therapist how am I supposed to respond to their questions on mom and dad getting back together, because saying, “Astrologically your father and I have low compatibility, in all areas, not just sex and communication.” Just seems wrong.

Her suggestion was hardly a revelation, especially considering the cost of her expertise, but reassuring. Just keep driving it home, that it’s better for two people to suffer than four. Not really, but because they were so young when we got divorced, they need to be told that mom and dad don’t get along, and this is better for everyone.

The kids stayed with my parents last weekend. I maximized their time away, and feel like I’m back on track. As the kids pulled away in my dad’s truck, my daughter blew me a kiss and closed the door in my face, but my son packed up two garbage bags of stuffed animals from his room, and told me he will call every hour. My guilt compounded when his little eye balls filled up with tears and he said, “You’re the greatest mom in the whole world.”  I returned the compliment, and after they drove away, got to work. 

When they came back home, we had a wonderful day, without any nagging distractions. That night, they were curled up sleeping, and I gave them each a kiss and took a picture to add to my “sleeping beauties” photo album. I was reminded of another great movie quote, “A boy’s best friend is his mother.” From Psycho.

Sexy Annoyance

I didn’t like Queen’s Gambit. There, I said it! I could tell, within minutes, the show was written by men. The main character is not Emma Stone, but some other skinny red-head with fetal alcohol syndrome. She is a chess grandmaster whose brilliance is a divine result of taking copious amounts of drugs and staring at her ceiling. 

I understand that TV shows get to take some liberties, like Carrie Bradshaw’s weekly Village Voice column funding her Dolce closet and NY apartment, but I could forgive the unexplained wealth thanks to Samantha’s generous serving of dick-jokes. In Queen’s Gambit there wasn’t a counterbalance to the unexplained intelligence, and my tolerance was worn real thin by the repetition of close-up shots of pursed lips and doe eyed Not-Emma-Stone demonstrating she was thinking real hard. I actually screamed at the TV, “You’re playing chess bitch, not taking a selfie!”

The desperation for a diverse cast lends itself to some pretty cringeworthy recycled tropes. However, it was the childhood best friend character that made me move the box of See’s chocolates off my lap so I could get my notebook and write down her great line, “Fuck em’ if they can’t take a joke.”  

In case you’re wondering if the Queen’s Gambit is based on a real life woman, Google says no, but her mannerisms are taken from the racist hermit Bobby Fischer, so the show’s motivation of advancing female roles on TV bitters since they decided to just slap a vagina on a man. It reminds me of Ms. Monopoly, the board game adapted for young girls who prefer a business suit over a princess costume. I felt a burning rage after reading the tagline on the Ms. Monopoly box, “The first game where women make more than men.” 

**

My kids and I were sitting at the table doing our work, when they started bickering. Kiki turned to G and yelled, “YOU SEXY ANNOYANCE!”

I tried not to laugh. They picked up the word listening to Top Pop, but have no idea what it means. I didn’t know what to say, so I told her to be nice. I will figure out what to say if I hear it again because “sexy” is the last thing she wants to be screaming at the boys in her class who annoy her.

Kiki is a huge proponent of “Girls Rule, Boys Drool.” She takes in a lot of hyper-aggressive-girl-empowering content, but I have to remind her that it is sexist to say you don’t like someone because they are a boy. I advocate, ”Girls rule AND Boys rule!”

Then G chimes in, “No, actually Girls drool and Boys drool.”

Even though there's a lot of music about Girls ruling the world, reality is falling short at the moment, especially here in California where female dominated industries are shut down because of coronavirus. Construction is in full force, but hair stylists are being snuck in the back door. Local coffee shops and restaurants are closing down, yet Starbucks has a line wrapping around the block. The elementary schools are closed, but the NFL and NBA are underway.

Gavin Newsom is out eating Foie Gras while the children of California are acting like they’ve been eating paint chips. I can’t help but assume it’s strategic that women industries are shut down because someone has to keep the kids off the paint chips. High school and college students are capable of distance learning, but little kids cannot without assistance, and this should be prioritized over the National Football League. But I don’t know if it’s Napoleon Newsom or our country's crippling litigiousness because now we’ve opened the floodgates of liabilities that could keep everything closed forever. Everything but the NFL and Starbucks.

**

Back to Queen's Gambit and this Girls-Rule-the-World entertainment narrative. Maybe it’s manifesting a brighter tomorrow, the same way I have a “Harvard Mom” bumper sticker and my kids are seven and nine, but currently girls aren’t even ruling their own industries. If this were a TV show, a scientist would find the cure to coronavirus after getting eyelash extensions and her butthole waxed. There would be no need to demonstrate a culmination of knowledge through education and practice, rather the cure would come to her in a psychedelic daydream after eating mushrooms. 

In reality, we just have to wait this out. Even though women's jobs were the target of Newsom’s corona cure because there aren’t lobbyists protecting them by paying him, in a couple months the country will be vaccinated. The little kids can get back to school and everyone back to work. It’s going to be a long road to recovery for the economy, but at least we know, we will always have football. That's a really sexy annoyance!

Fancy Sweatpants

At work we had a fancy-sweatpants rollout. The sweats feel amazing, but I was still questioning the new line. I said to my coworker, “Whose buying $80 sweatpants?”

She confidently said, “Nobody leaves their house. This is what people want!” 

She was right, and we sold three pairs that day.

The only $80 sweat pants I’ve owned had “Juicy” bedazzled over the butt. These sweats didn’t have any message; “Fresh” across the front would be a price-worthy touch.

Yesterday, I wore a fashionable face mask. A statement mask, with a snowman’s charcoal smile and carrot nose. As intended, everyone found it to be delightful. But on my break, I went to the bathroom and pulled it down to reveal my nose looked purple and bloated. I was having an allergic reaction to the wetsuit material.

I came back to the floor carefully pulling down a fresh disposable mask to show my coworkers the disastrous outcome of my wanting to spread holiday cheer. I spent the next two hours pushing dreadful thoughts to the back corner of my mind, but they reared their heads often, “Now I have a wino’s nose without any of the wine... I look like Charles Bukowsi without the bravado… Hopefully we never stop wearing masks.”

I washed my face after work and was very relieved to see my nose returning to normal. My bathroom has the most uninviting smell from a Lysol toilet clip-on I bought thinking I wouldn’t have to scrub the toilet anymore. I scrub the toilet the same amount, but now it smells like it’s in a gas station.

After my kids’ dad dropped them off, he went on and on about how our daughter’s brilliance reminds him of himself as a kid. I looked at him nodding, and said, “Say something nice about the other one now.”

I take pride in my kids’ preference for my house, and because I was spared the pain of being the second choice, I took it all for granted. Lately my daughter’s trailing into daddy’s girl territory, I am trying not to be offended when she says to me, “I wish I were at Dad’s.”

I thought we could bond over baking and remembered a cake mix in the pantry. With my head all the way to the back of the cabinet, I screamed, “Someone stole our muffin mix!”

She yelled back, “Lemon poppy seed?”

“Yes!”

“We made that. A long time ago.”

I vaguely remember, maybe in that back corner of my mind, I can see us eating the cake.

I was trying to win back points when I asked the kids what they want for Christmas. It backfired when my daughter said she wanted a corgi or an iPad, since her dad told me earlier in the week he’s getting her the ladder. I had to tell her to think smaller.

My son said he wants Legos. Last Christmas he became increasingly frustrated when putting a Lego set together, got up and kicked the half built structure against the wall. I made a mental note, if I get him Legos this year, I’ll budget in the $150 visit to Dr. Renee, where they work on anger management by making a water bottle filled with glitter.

That night, after the kids went to bed, I sat on the couch reading, or staring at a smudge on the wall. When I reached the point of nodding off, I put the cat in the laundry room. I piled into the bed with the kids and had the same thought I have every night I get in bed, “Is the front door locked?”

I deliberated for a couple minutes, “I must have checked the lock five times… or maybe I didn’t check it at all.”

As usual, I carefully crawl out of bed trying not to smash someone’s leg or pull their hair, and I check the locks, possibly for the sixth time. I said out loud, “It’s official, I have checked the locks! The door is locked!”

I get back in bed, and go through things that I am happy about. That night, I started with my nose. I pull down the ankles of my sort-of-fresh sweatpants so my legs don’t get cold, and I think about getting those fancy sweatpants which aren’t so expensive with my discount. I could always iron a patch on them to give them a little more pizazz. 

The standing fan is on, muffling the natural creaks of the house that send me into high alert. The humming sound starts taking space, and I feel all my thoughts pressing up against the corners.

Goodbye, Alimony

 

The morning of English placement tests in middle school my mom told me to write my essay on Marcia Clark. We knew the topic was “People who inspire you” because my sister took the test the year before, and my cousin the year before that. I was in 7th grade, and even though I watched my grandma glued to the OJ Simpson trial on the news, and the verdict played on a TV rolled into my Spanish class, I could really give a shit about Marcia Clark.

But my mom is a very convincing person, and I thought she must be right, and if I write about this I’ll surely get into honors English. Unfortunately, I lacked my mom’s passion for Marcia Clark, and wasn’t asked to join honors English, where ironically, nine out of the ten students wrote essays on how they were inspired by their mothers.

A few years later I cared much less about school, and would ditch any chance I got, spending ridiculous amounts of time wandering around in the forest with people. One time I was on such a journey with my older sister, and she convinced me to help her collect garbage bags of pinecones, that we threw into her car and brought home because she planned to sell them on eBay, her reasoning, “Don’t you think someone who has never seen a pinecone, would want to see a pinecone?”

Elementary school seems to be much more fun-filled than high school, so I see where I lost my way. My kids are always singing songs that teach them stuff, like about pronouns, and so many assignments involve with a coloring portion. Little G had his self portrait project sent home because the picture he drew was not inline of the parameters of the project.

It took a lot of convincing to get him to draw a more realistic self portrait. After he went on and on about how he hates drawing self portraits because he can't make it look like him, I told him, “No one can actually draw a life-like portrait of themselves. In my entire life I’ve met maybe three people that can draw a realistic picture of themselves.”

As a kindergarten art docent, I know a thing or two about self-portraits, the teacher told me, “Have them avoid drawing teeth, and no realistic noses, they’ll all look like pigs.”

 After G went on about not capturing his essence, I said, “Draw a picture of your dad. They’ll never know the difference.”

So he made two green circles for eyes, a semi-circle for a nose, spiky brown hair and a big toothy smile, and we were able to get on with our weekend.

This week I got my last alimony check from dear old dad. It's hard to believe it’s been that long, but with the upcoming election, I’m reminded, it was shortly after Trump became president everything sort of crumbled out from under me; I got divorced, fell off the wagon, and left the college to teach high school thinking it would be more stable, and stopping my blog so I wouldn't get fired for talking to mature audiences on a platform where any audience can read it. 

After some time, I forged a new path. I started doing stand up so I could get my writing out there, went back to teaching full-time college, and after a good go at non-sobriety, I crawled back on the wagon.

I’m financially independent now, I teach at two colleges and I even have my retail job that allows me to have cute-ass-top-of-the-line-fashions at an affordable price. The retail job satiates a shopping addiction, but when I get overloaded with school, I usually think, I need to quit that job, it’s stressing me out. But it does make me happy to be around such beautiful clothes, seeing people shopping, and with colleges online, I shouldn't turn down opportunities to interact with human beings.

Currently we are not that busy, so sometimes I wander around looking at everything. I was shoveling through these bins in the markdowns section and found a package of metal straws. I had a terrible visual of this metal straw in my cup and I sneezed and the straw impaled my eyeball, and I had a footlong Indian-jones looking metal spear sticking out of my eye-ball. It was awful. 

But not quite as awful as when customers pull you into the dressing room with them and start undressing. It’s usually older women, who are way more accustomed to getting a proper fitting when they try on clothes. I usually talk incessantly and try not to look at them until afterward when I assure them they look like a hot-piece-of-ass in whatever they’ve put on.

Today I had a chunk of time I was able to write, but instead I watched a bunch of TV and ate an entire fridge. After I got my kids and we ate Panda Express, I decided to have a mature-audiences gummy and get to writing. I’m hardly the girl I was in high school, and knew things were in full effect when I tried to spell the word lackadaisical. I spent minutes on this, and spellcheck still couldn't figure out what I was saying, and eventually it made me laugh out loud. 

Things all do work out for a reason. Had I made it into honors English I might not have enjoyed that funny moment today.