at last, some context

I wrote a list of 25 “random” things about myself on a social networking site for all my “friends” to “see”.  I am posting it here with bonus items. So often I find myself wanting to write something down but realizing the story will make so much less sense than it would if I had at some point bothered to mention that time I accidentally went to a lesbian bar when it was full of naked dancing women because I thought “Revue Night” meant open-mic poetry. Without that kind of background it is often difficult to see what my point is. And so:

1)      The first 20 or so items I generated for this list were too X-rated, humiliating, or illegal to make the final cut. Consequently, I had to make two lists. I was plenty stoked about this, because a) I love lists, and b) I love dicking around writing stuff that doesn’t need to be written.

2)      I have a secret space in the corner of the internet reserved for stuff that doesn’t need to be written, including but not limited to lists of scandalous activity, stories about my ex-husband, and evidence that my parents were secretly huge stoners.

3)      I’ve come to suspect that I experience emotions in a way that is wildly disproportionate to the actual instigating experience. It’s all YAY! BOO! SOB! GRRR! with me, and sometimes the various emotions will combine in a way that is almost totally unrecognizable. It’s confusing to those I love and kind of a pain in the ass for me. 3a) I’m not sure I know how to properly use the word “disproportionate”.

4)      I have always been prone to crushes of colossal proportions. Given (3) this should be no surprise. I can’t even begin to think about the amount of time and money I have blown on crushes without feeling kind of sick: time lost due to swooning and weeping, and money lost to the delusion that if I buy enough pairs of earrings, that gay guy at 2 + 2 will suddenly become interested in a 14-year-old me.

5)      I have been in love either  0, 1, or 5 times. Maybe 2. My uncertainty in this regard is all a function of (3) and (4).  I think I’ve been in love at least once. In fact, I think I’m in love right now. Does being in love sometimes make you want to pull your hair out because your beloved will not stop babbling on about the proper way to execute a down block/a fascinating research idea/his pants? If this is consistent with “love” then I think I’m in love right now.  If we go with the most generous estimation of number of love experiences (i.e., 5), then I think I was in love for the first time in high school, and I still get slightly twitterpated when I think of him. Shhh. Don’t tell.

6)      Most of the nicknames I use for my children are food-based. My middle has the most nicknames, and they’re all ham-based: Hammykins, Hamtastic, Hamalamadingdong, Ham Sammich, and my favorite, Hambrosia. My daughter is Greenbean and Peanut. I’m still exploring names for the baby. So far my favorites are Porkchop and Puddin’.

7)      Nineteen to go! This is fun. Okay. I’m drinking rum as I write this list. Which brings me to:

8)      The older I get, the more profoundly socially phobic I become. If it wasn’t for social lubricants I would never leave the house. Think I have a problem? Suck it. You can call me Dr. Has a Problem.

9)      I’m way lippier in the written word than I would EVER be in person.

10)  I have a disco ball in my living room, and a chandelier in my dining room. The disco ball has an accompanying blue light that I whip out when I’m trying to set the mood for a party/orgy.

11)  Okay, I’ve never actually had or even been involved in an orgy. But there’s still time!

12)  I must confess that (4) is probably the reason I almost have a PhD in psychology. I had a wicked crush on my first psychology professor. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sprung on a man who I was not openly pursuing. That whole thing really blew up in my face, and yet I still love psychology. That’s devotion!

13)  I have received two formal marriage proposals. Both were on holidays (the first, St. Patrick’s Day, the second Valentine’s Day) and both came from men who were kneeling next to the bed I was in/on. WTF, proposing men? PS – One of these men was perched atop a pile a laundry. Double WTF.

14)  I had a tremendous crush (surprise!) on a really hot female graduate student when I was an undergrad. A friend once hypothesized that my X-Men power was turning ridiculously red whenever she came around. He may have been right, because I have yet to do anything quite as remarkable…

15)  Unless you count gestating tiny adorable X-Men with my Brain Scientist. Our oldest just turned four and is reading, doing math, and using words like “conscientious”. Our ten-month old is walking and starting to say words. It’s both freaky and charming.

16)  Ten more to go! I’m fine with watching movies I’ve never seen, but would probably prefer to watch the first two parts of the Godfather over and over again. Up until recently I had serious issues with the third film because of the whole Sofia Coppola thing. It was only on my last viewing that I was able to get past all the obvious flaws and really attend to the story. I have to say, I really love the way it ends.

17)  The crush mentioned in (14) caused me to pester my closest friend about going to a lesbian bar until she finally caved in. We went on something called “Revue Night”. I remember being so delighted that the lesbian bar had an evening devoted to poetry. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that “Revue Night” actually meant dancing naked women.  Don’t get me wrong – it was awesome and all. However, I will admit that a) I was flabbergasted, and b) it took me some time to find the right balance between looking enough to see the naked woman dancing OVER THERE and looking so much that the naked woman over there felt compelled to come over to dance RIGHT AT OUR TABLE, maybe expecting money or something.

18)  I also love watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy over and over again. I love the series, but I particularly love Eowyn in “Return of the King”: I AM NO MAN. That makes me teary and tingly every single time. I also cry every single time I watch “A Mighty Wind”.

19)  I always thought I wouldn’t be able to stand the pain of childbirth until I experienced an unmedicated transition on Pitocin while hunched over with an epidural needle in my back. To labor I say BRING IT.

20)  It turns out that I whisper when in a lot of pain, and when in moderately extreme pain I sing the Sesame Street pinball song: “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.” I never would have guessed.

21)  When my daughter was three years old she went on a field trip to a bowling alley. I was a chaperone, and when I was helping other children put their shoes on someone’s grandma decided to give my daughter a ride back to the pre-school without telling anyone. For fifteen minutes our entire bowling alley full of people thought she’d been abducted. That was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced, and if I can live the rest of my life being able to say that I will consider myself very fortunate. 

22)  I once made turkey for an entire third grade. Every year at my daughter’s school the third graders have a Thanksgiving feast. The year she was in the third grade lots of people volunteered to bring gravy and pie, but no one signed up for turkey. I couldn’t bear the thought of all those little eight-year-olds with sporks full of gravy and no turkey, so I bought frozen turkey breasts, thawed them over night, cooked them early in the morning, and hauled them to her school. Being eight months pregnant causes one to do some wacky shit. Come to think of it, the next time I was eight months pregnant I made her class Valentine’s Day cupcakes shaped like human hearts. They were red velvet and filled with red jelly and as frostingly anatomically correct as a baked good can get. They were fabulous and delicious and kept me up until three in the morning. That is only the beginning of the list of ridiculous things I have done for her. Further proof that children can turn you into a total lunatic.

23)  Only three to go? Okay. I have nightmares about being forced to skydive.

24)  When I am feeling particularly crabby I go here http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/sam  and wait. When the Brain Scientist finally happens by and offers an unsolicited opinion (which happens all the time), I click on the box in the upper left and try to look bad ass. Try it! It feels great.

25)  Wow. Last one. I have a feeling no one’s actually reading this by now and I am JUST FINE with that. Anyway, finally: I have a pillow named Tom Quinn. He’s a body pillow that the Brain Scientist bought me the last time I was pregnant. He is snuggly and plush and named after my favorite MI-5 agent. But hey!  I’m only on season 3 right now, so please don’t say anything about what’s to become of him. Right now my favorite joke is to offer to loan him to the Brain Scientist. I tell him he can flip Tom Quinn over and call him Zoe. Man, that just cracks me up.

26)  BONUS ITEM!: Every once in a while I have a day where I wake up and think that Ringo is my favorite Beatle. I’m not sure what’s going on with that. 

27)  BONUS ITEM!: I had a very difficult time calling this a list of random things. These things are not random. Further, they correlate in a way that makes me seem like a moody, horny degenerate.

such a fine line between stupid and clever

I am ready to punch Today in the cock.

Wait. It’s Tomorrow. I’m sorry, Tomorrow. I have no issues I wish to resolve by way of violence against your cock.

 ***

Today was awesome. Awesome right up until 8:30 pm, when everything went to hell in an exceptionally priced handbasket in the middle of the IKEA parking lot. It is Jimmy Page’s birthday. Early today I began a letter to Jimmy Page –  a letter in which I expressed my love for him, for Led Zeppelin, and for Robert Plant’s pants circa 1970. But goddamn it! I couldn’t finish it. I couldn’t find the words to ask Jimmy why he is dressed like a box of Tastykakes at their (Zeppelin's, not the 'Kakes') 1970 performance at Royal Albert Hall. Why? Because I am downright belligerent. I AM PISSED. Again the question: Why? That’s hard to say. I know what triggered this whole mess, but I can’t say with certainty what’s sustained it. Perhaps together we can figure this out. I will be Trixie Belden, and you can be my Honey.

First, Jimmy Page. If you are like me then you love Led Zeppelin. Love. I once knew (or know, or am) a girl who loved Led Zeppelin so much that when she received a most coveted  Zeppelin DVD for Christmas while pregnant, she tucked it away for a time when she was very much not pregnant and could  enjoy it to its fullest capacity. She saved it until New Year’s Eve when, after her son’s fourth birthday party, she and her co-creator shared a pot of tea and settled down sans children to watch Led Zeppelin circa 1970, totally stoked at the magical rock-and-rolliness of it all and what they were about to behold and still not at all expecting the magic which was awaiting them in the form of Robert Plant’s goddamn pants. It may have been the tea talking, but that girl swore those pants were made of nothingness and sex. And I’ve seen the pants – she’s right! Nothingness and sex, which is just about as good as it gets in Pantsville.

So anyway. Happy birthday, Jimmy Page. I love you.

Now, because it is Jimmy Page’s birthday, I decided to celebrate in an appropriate fashion by getting high (on life!) and going to IKEA. Being high on life, I also submitted a manuscript for publication and applied for a job, because I love Jimmy Page that much. The Junior Brain Scientist decided to celebrate by dressing up in his blue and white seersucker suit, complete with linen shirt and tie, and parading around IKEA like a tiny Matlock hungry for the sweet embrace of an exceptionally priced stuffed bird that might have been a flamingo. The Other Junior Brain Scientist (i.e., the baby? Who has no blorum name? Formally known as the person who came out of my vagina?) decided to celebrate by sitting affably in his car seat while we pushed him around the store and waved tiny pencils in front of his face. Finally, the senior Brain Scientist decided to celebrate by being totally cool for the majority of the day and then donning his dick hat right around 8:30 tonight when IKEA put a dog collar around our necks and forced us to smell the glove.

Things went to shit in the parking lot. IKEA has that kind of parking lot. Walmart has the kind of parking lot that inspires people to at long last pour out the gallons of old milkshakes they’ve been hoarding in their cars, which is why I don’t ever go to Walmart and only send someone there on my behalf that one time per child when I have a breast pump emergency at 3:00 am because the bride and groom have whisked off to “consummate” their marriage with my breast pump in their car trunk and I am hammered and still dressed up like a (very heavily disheveled) lusty Renaissance wench maid-of-honor who may or may not have been photographed in compromising positions. IKEA, on the other hand, has a parking lot in which families are destroyed, because who knew that if you put 25 items that are only $7.99 in your cart, plus two that are $40, you will spend way goddamn more than you meant to? Not because you are irresponsible. No. Because you aren’t. You go to IKEA alone and have a list and a budget and do not allow any impulse purchases unless it is an absolute screaming deal, and you don’t really do that very often because a deal has to be screaming at you in a Scottish accent, like Ewan MacGregor, and usually needs to be saying something about The Velvet Underground or quantitative graduate student moms being really, really sexy. And typically that does not happen! And so you do not overspend. But then you go with other people! Impetuous cognitive scientists. Tiny southern attorneys. Adorable babies made of tolerant buttercream frosting. Then one thing leads to another, and there are purple bath mats and – oh my bitter ironic god – some other stuff that I can’t even remember right now, and suddenly you are being implicated in overspending at IKEA.

But You didn’t overspend.

The Collective You overspent.

No big deal, right? Yes, you fucked up, you exceptionally priced toothbrush holder loving whore. And yes, your living room does have a dearth of lamps given its size. But still. Was anyone talking to anyone else about numbers? Who was in charge of addition? Why are you such an idiot? I mean, some of you have advanced degrees. Whatever. You can take something back. But not until after someone has unjustly blamed you and your carefully considered list for the foible. You will take a moment and examine the receipt and point out to your associates that some serious do-re-mi was laid out in an effort to properly illuminate the living room, a series of purchases which was not on your list and was IN FACT motivated by your associates! You will be slightly perturbed, but will remain collected. Unfortunately, very soon something will get all fucked up in the course of the communications and their accompanying emotions and you will get frustrated to the point that you are hunting through the re-usable bags! which are only fifty-nine cents! in order to find the elegantly designed, exceptionally priced item that can be used most efficiently to slap the self-righteous indignation out of the bozo driving the mini-van. And perhaps the bozo will issue lame apologies at some point once he gathers himself and stops being an idiot or notices that you are about to brain him with a LACK end table for which you are also not responsible. But by then it’s too late. You are already wickedly pissed and trying to engage in the skillz you were taught in therapy, but for some unfathomable reason the bozo is saying But WHY can’t you talk about this right now? That’s RIDICULOUS even though you have patiently explained over and over and over again that this is one of your skillz and please show a little respect when you are asked to shut up about something for a while.

Before you know it you are home, and things are being brought into the house. You calmly identify items that could easily be returned. But then –  then! – someone criticizes the CD rack you’ve just agreed upon and purchased and then claims they’ve NEVER liked it, but since they’ve told you that the last two times you were at Dr. Sveelgood’s Household Item and Opium Parlor and you still keep asking about it they thought they’d just give up and let you purchase the goddamn thing which will look totally out of place in the living room.

And that’s it.

Suddenly you’re asking they remove the big exceptionally priced metal shampoo caddy that they’d moments before placed in the shower. You’re planning on returning that! You are eager to continue your routine of picking up everyone's toppled bottles while you bathe and answer questions about socks and factor analysis! And when they ask just where you’d like them to put the shower thing – because the whole house is already such a goddamn mess! – you suggest that they put it up their ass. Reconsidering your words a few minutes later, you throw it in the front yard. The shower caddy, not the ass. And then you retreat to a bedroom where you nap with an innocent ball of buttercream.

Later you will wake up and rapidly consume the remaining half of the bozo’s bottle of wine. You will be alone. You will tell your troubles to a made-up friend inside the computer. You will long for a real friend. You will drink more wine. You will lament not being able to see your Jimmy Page Birthday plans to their conclusion.You will curse – fuck! You will curse all things Scandanavian – fuck! get out of the sixties, Ian! You will wish you were a Buddhist lesbian. Actually, you will wish you were involved with a Buddhist lesbian. Because of the whole desire (IKEA)-and-ignorance (CAN’T ADD)-at-the-root-of-suffering thing. And, you know, the tits.

 

hatched

Prologue:

It is morning, and we are nursing our hangovers and asking ourselves the age old question: Was that fifth martini really necessary? We are feeling sheepish, because we're wearing a combination of clothes that makes it perfectly clear that we might still be drunk. We are periodically weeping over a movie about talking cars. We are pathetic. Pa-the-tic. We recall many other occasions in which we have made questionable judgments with regard to alcohol, in both the procurement and consumption of. We intend to commit to electronic paper the story of the first time we obtained alcohol, and how that led to us nearly being suspended from school, but how it was truly someone else's bad judgment that time. We attempt to type the following sentence: I've been involved in many an ill-conceived plan. But this is how it comes out: I've been involved in many an ill-conceived man. The salt of truth rains down on the slug of our dignity.

***

I've been involved in many an ill-conceived man. Many of these weren't men at the time, but rather adolescent males who inspired me and members of my female cohort to hatch plans guaranteed to make us look ridiculous. Looking back now, I can't understand what we were even thinking. Here is a sample male:

I recently showed this to a ten-year-old child and was mocked.

Never in all the man plans did one fail as miserably as Plan JK. JK was an intelligent preppy boy (not our illustration fellow, above) who I developed a crush on around my junior year in high school. Plan JK: Defcon 5 strategies involved announcing to any and all that I liked JK, doodling his name in between the Smiths stickers on my pee-chee, and gazing at him through the window that connected our math classes. Had I not lied my freshman year and claimed algebra was too hard so that I could be moved to pre-algebra – I was afraid of two older boys in my algebra class – I might have actually been in the room with JK. Instead I sat next door, enjoying the mathematical stylings of Harley Potampa – which sometimes involved him drawing on his undershirt to make a point – and starring at JK as I developed Plan JK: Defcon 4.

            It became obvious to me that the reason I had yet to pique JK's interest was that I wasn't preppy enough. The solution? Wear my mother's clothes to school. My mother at this time wore a lot of crisp, pressed shirts from The Gap and owned penny loafers. These I gathered and began wearing with zeal. One day it was cutoffs, polka dot tights, and a Church of Elvis t-shirt, and the next day it was my mom. I pulled out all the stops, and began to purchase preppy clothing of my own, completely selling out my own fashion sensibilities.

            It still wasn't working. I was wearing preppy clothes – I was wearing the fuck out of them. Nothing. It was time for Plan JK: Defcon 3. I needed to actually interact with JK, but how was I going to do that? The answer was obvious: I was the photo editor for the school paper, and I could get him out of class to take his picture. Throwing aside all photojournalistic integrity, I convinced fellow newspaper staff members that we needed to do a center spread feature on the diversity of fashion styles at our school. We would photograph different students who had a "look". JK would be our smart preppy guy.

            I have no clear memory of the actual photo shoot. I can tell you this: it did not result in JK taking any interest in me whatsoever. My friend Kristin would later remark that never has anyone ever been less interested in another person. She probably told me this at the time as well, repeatedly, but I wasn't listening.

            Plan JK: Defcon 2 was met with similar failure. Kristin would drive me past his house on a regular basis – as in 6 times in a 15 minute span – after school. We would listen to the song The Darkest Blues by Stephen Duffy, over and over and over again, because it contains the following lyrics:

I can't forget you no matter how I try

I can't forget you no matter how I try

For every time I see you my heart dies

Every time I see you my heart dies

I am the one that you ignore

You are the one that I adore

Oh won't you come back again?

Nevermind that there was no coming back for him to do, as he was never there in the first place. The ignore and adore part struck a chord that was deafening, and I couldn't hear the rest of the song.

          Plan JK: Defcon 1 was really more about retribution for all my wasted time and money. It was simple: I selected the very worst photo from the fashion shoot to print in our center spread feature – the one where one of his feet looks freakishly huge. The rest were flattering, and featured him straddling a chair while using a graphing calculator. The one that was printed was not – it's just him sitting there with his legs crossed reading a book to his big, freaky foot.  I include this here, for all the internets to see:

Take that, JK. How do you like me NOW?