I Cutted My Har

August 14, 2010

Big deal, you say? Indeed, for me, it is a huge deal.  You must understand.  My hair is my security blanket.  My binky, as it were.  I have had this here hair since I was naught but a baby.  I have A LOT of hair.  Or I did.  My hair is heavy.  It is thick.  It is was looooooong.  Always long.  It was my safety circle.  My happy place.  I could crawl inside it and no one could see me.  Cover my face, and I magically disappeared.  And the world would magically disappear.  

But alas, I woke up one day and realized I no longer have wont to hide.  Or disappear.  More importantly, I realized that I had a LOT of very heavy, very thick, very hot, very frizzy, very intrusive HAIR.  

So I woke up on Thursday morning and decided it was time.  It was time to grow up.  Move on.  I took a shower and washed it.  We had a little chat.  I thanked it for all it's hard work over the years.  It said it would miss me.  I understood.  I drove up the street to the groovy little salon with the black and white polka dots on the sign.  That's where all the ladies hang out, evidently.  I hadn't had my hair touched by a hairdresser in over 2 years.  

There was an unbelievable sense of freedom, and naivete, to be sitting in that chair and saying "I don't know what I want.  I don't care.  Locks of Love requires 10 inches to donate.  You better make this worth it.  Whatever happens next is up to you." And in less than 5 seconds, I lost 5 pounds.  More than that, I lost a friend.  I lost a protector.  Or did I lose a big, nasty barnacle that has been steadfastly adherent to my ability to emotionally mature as a woman?  Naaaa.....definitely not.  

I was very proud to hear the hairdresser lady tell me how healthy my mop was.  Of course it was healthy.  It hadn't seen nary a drop of hair dye, gel, or hair spray since my age began with a "2."  Not even a hairdryer.  Indeed, 'tis true.  If I had to be somewhere fancy, somewhere in which wet hair would not have been appropriate, my hair was washed hours beforehand, air dried, and brushed.  Nothing else.  

So, it was done. I sat in that chair for what felt like hours, feeling her hands running through what was left of my hair. Imagining all sorts of wicked trickery and funny business that must be going on outside of my peripheral vision.  Feeling guilty and a bit surprised at how little I really cared.  Eavesdropping on a conversation between a faceless lady with aluminum foil in her hair and the woman standing above her ripping her facial hair out by the roots with a pair of tweezers.  Mildly amused by the superficiality of salon banter.  Wondering if I'm actually supposed to be talking to the overly fake-tanned cougar who just broke out the electric shaver at the base of my neck. Deciding we probably didn't have much in common anyway.  

She seemed to be having a lot of fun keeping the chair turned so I couldn't look in the mirror.  Playing with my emotions, I'm sure.  When she finally put down all of her instruments of torture and hedge-clipping wizardry, I looked in the mirror and saw someone I had never seen before.  I'm almost certain I wasn't even born with hair this short.  My only 2 rules I voiced were No Pixies and No Bangs.  And those are pretty much the only rules she followed.  And now it comes to it.  A version of myself I can't quit wrap my brain around.  It's so different, yet altogether exactly the same.  It's me....but with short hair.  And it's pretty much that simple.  The only thing I feel I'm left with is a keen sense of humor about how exactly the same I feel.  

A Day In the Life (because you know you wanna know)

August 4, 2010

Since I know you're all just chomping at the bit to know exactly what it is I do all day, I've decided to humor your creepy curiosity and let you be a fly on my wall.  Either that, or I'm having delusions of grandeur.

9:00 am-  Mama wakes up.  Wash face.  Brush teeth.  Take vitamins.  Eat cereal.  Special K Fruit and Yogurt with skim Lactaid milk.  EVERY.SINGLE.MORNING for at least 5 or 6 years.  What can I say, I'm nothing if not a creature of habit.  I go through 4 boxes a week.....at least.

9:30-  Out in the garage pumping my guns and gettin' my sweat on.  Because when you're 4'6" and eat like a football player, somethin's gotta give.

11:00-  Tiptoe quickly through the house so as not to drip sweat anywhere and jump in the shower.  Depending on my shaving requirements, that's anywhere from 15-30 minutes.  I like being clean.

11:30-  Start a load of laundry and get the boys started on their school work.

11:35-  Remind the boys that "Call of Duty" does not qualify as social studies or PE.

11:40-  Remind the boys that texting their girlfriends does not qualify as creative writing.

11:45-  Flip on the TV to any show that has to do with somebody gettin' chopped up.  Usually, the ID channel or SyFy.  However, for the past week or so, the TV hasn't been flipped on until 5 or 6 in the evening.  Not sure what's up with that.


11:50-  Wire myself for sound with the Ipod-shoved-in-the-bra maneuver and start frantically cleaning the house and figuring out what's for dinner.  All this depends, of course, on exactly what I did in the 9:30 to 11:00 time frame.  Sometimes I get a hankering for some road marchin.  That includes throwing a 20-pound backpack on my back and walking the 4 miles up to Food Lion and back in grass/sand/softly packed dirt.  On those days, the house cleaning sort of takes a back seat.


12:00 pm-  Listen to one of the kids completely freak out with excitement about something like pyroclastic flows, event horizons, or whatever obscene comic book they wrote/drew and want to tell me all about.  Listen intently.  Try to bring up things they don't know about so they will go learn more and I can clean more.

12:45-  Chase the dog around the living room with the vacuum cleaner.  Because it's fucking hilarious watching a 12-year-old Basset hound hop around the living room like a rabbit with seizures.


1:00-  Start folding a load of clothes while singing as loud as I can to "Tainted Love."  Usually a kid will tap me on the shoulder with a disapproving look.  I flip him off and go back to singing.

1:30-  Quickly close the kids' bedroom doors so I can conveniently forget the toxicity that lies therein.  Glance into their bathroom to make sure nothing is growing in there.  Realize there is no toilet paper and they haven't told me they need any.  Wonder how long that's been going on.  Replace the toilet paper.  Wipe down particularly disgusting surfaces.

2:00-  Depending on what's for dinner and whether or not the boys need papers graded, I'm either starting dinner, sneaking a quick CSI episode, or grading papers.  Now, grading papers is an event.  Imagine 2 brothers, fistful of papers, and reputations to uphold.  They're both glaring over my shoulder and giving each other "In Yo Face!" looks every time one gets a better grade than the other.  If it's a CSI episode I'm diggin, that's usually interrupted at least 6 times by the phone, a hungry dog, Big Sarge calling to say "Have I told you how wicked hot you are today?" (which I am absolutely NOT complaining about), a kid asking for help on something they really don't need help on (you'd be surprised how often that happens), or some weird deadbeat-looking motherfucker ringing my doorbell asking if I want to buy meat out of the back of his truck.

3:00- Definitely getting dinner started by now or it just ain't happening.  Tying up loose ends with whatever the kids need my attention for, making sure school work is done and nobody's bleedin', fightin', cryin', or hasn't properly checked in if they're out with friends.  Maybe another load of laundry and an ear-splitting rendition of "Die Motherfucker Die."

4:00- Fabulous! I'm totally still alive.  Now, I get to sit behind my computer for 8 hours and type about dislodged G tubes, teenage suicide attempts, open reduction and internal fixation of spiral fractured femurs, and some guy faking appendicitis just so he can get out of jail for a few hours and have a hot meal and some morphine.  This will continue until midnight.  And it's actually what I'm supposed to be doing right now.  Dr. Lemme-Fixya-Right-Up is waiting on me to bang out some pointless verbosity about some guy's horribly calcified profunda femoral artery.


Every 30 minutes for the next 8 hours-  "Hey mom, come listen to me play the new song I'm learning."......"Hey, mom, Paul wants to know if I can go to his place tomorrow afternoon."......"Hey, mom, can I do some chores?  I need some money."....."Hey Aimee, I need some clothes washed for work tomorrow."......"Hey Sugarbear, wanna go do it real quick?"....."Hey mom, there are no towels in my bathroom!"......"Hey Sugarbritches, where's my cream cheese frosting I was hiding?"......and on and on it goes.....OR....they are all being absolutely quiet, happily doing their own thing, and I'm wasting my time typing shit on my blog.


12:00 am- It's freakin' happy hour, bitches!  Now, I get to clean up the kitchen, do my whole 15-minute obsessive face-washing/teeth brushing/pill-popping routine, fix me up a huge bowl of strawberries, frozen grapes, and an apple, and read the news for the next hour and a half until I get tired.

12:30-  Remind Jake that it was time for bed an hour and a half ago.  He doesn't need his guitar from upstairs in order to go to bed.


12:35-  Remind Andrew it was bedtime an hour and a half ago.  There is no way in hell I'm letting him sneak that soda into his bedroom.


12:45-  Go break up the impromptu jam session going on in one or the other kids' bedroom.  Listen as one kid tries to explain "But Mom, I was trying to go to sleep, but So-and-So won't get out of my room!" Nice try.

12:50-  Hear the dog whining and go check every room in the house to figure out which one she got stuck in when the door shut behind her.  Dogs can't open doors, they just whine like a bad set of car brakes.


12:55-  Really REALLY try to finish reading the news as my eyes begin to close on their own.


1:00-  Finally give in and go fall in the bed, forgetting to take my contacts out, trying not to wake up Sarge because he will roll over and drape his gigantic, muscle-bound arm on top of me and then I can't breathe. 


1:05-  Delicately try to remove a 15-pound arm off my rib cage.

1:07- Fail miserably and wind up getting pulled up against his sweaty chest while he buries his face in the back of my head and starts sniffing my hair really, really loudly.  (no really, this happens).

1:09-  Dog barks at the back door to go potty.  I attempt to escape the sweaty clutches of the hair-sniffer.

1:11-  Open back door and let the dog out.  Fall asleep on the couch until dog barks again.  Finally remember to take my contacts out.

1:15-  Fall back into bed and succumb to the fact that I will be sleeping up against the sweatiest, nakedest, leg-and-arm draping, hair-sniffing Geico caveman ever.  EVER. 


The End.

Full House Would Have Been An Awesome Show With Guns Involved, Anyway

August 2, 2010

Fast forward to 3:17

Fast forward to 0:47

I freakin' knew I wasn't crazy.....

Own It / Work It / Love It

July 31, 2010

This little idear is brought to you by Think Tank Momma by way of Daffy over at Batcrap Crazy.  And I like it.

I think I'm always way too quick to jump on the "shit I hate" bandwagon.  I'm much more comfortable with sarcasm, cynicism, skepticism, and disdain.  I think expressing positive emotions makes me feel uncomfortable because it makes me feel weak.  If there is something I love, it can be manipulated, taken away, used against me, or ridiculed.  Expressing negativity seems untouchable emotionally.  Because, theoretically, you don't care.  Theoretically.  The truth is, I do care.  About a lot of things.  I am weak.  In a lot of situations.  The things I value, I value so highly that taking them away would fundamentally change who I am and how I've always seen myself.

Sarge and I were talking today at dinner about IQs and IQ tests.  I made the statement that I don't think I'd ever take one or want to know my IQ.  The answer is simple.  And embarrassing.  If it were ever actually revealed....with proof....that I'm not nearly the genius I've spent my entire life convincing myself that I am, I'd be nothing.  I'd have no idea who I am or what I'm about.  Sad, I know.  But true.

So I guess that's what I'm taking away from this challenge.  There are things about myself that I need to own.  Things I need to just bring out in the open, lay it all out on the table, and say-  This is me.  I know it.  I am aware of my faults.  I am aware of my quirks.  I am aware of my obsessions and silliness and immaturity.  I know it.  And I own it.  And honestly, I actually like some of it.

So what's the deal?  Fifteen whole things I love about myself, love in general, or need to own up to?  Or all three?  How 'bout I just write some shit and be done with it?  Okay, good.

1.  My Kids-  No, I'm not the kind of mom who plasters her undying love for her perfect little cherubs all over facebook.  Nor have I ever in my life made the comment that "my kids are my whole world."  Because frankly, they aren't.  And they shouldn't be.  For anyone.  But in this moment of utter honesty laid bare for the world to see, I will say this. A part of my heart and my soul lives inside those two little freaks.  There has never been anything I have been more proud of and no one whose life I have been more honored to be part of.  The hardest thing I've ever had to do in my whole 33 years was to look at them on the day they were born and realize that these two little bodies hold everything that I am; that I am completely vulnerable in their shadow; that no matter how strong I seem on the outside, the love I have for them brings me to my knees.

2.  That Man Who Married Me- I don't know why he gives a shit about me.  I don't know why he loves me.  I don't know why he thinks all the crazy wonderful things he thinks about me.  For my part, he's my solid, my constant, my sanity, my reality.  He calls me out when I'm full of shit.  He tells me I'm gorgeous when I feel like a sloth.  He sweeps me off my feet when I feel nailed to the ground.  He hears me when I'm not talking.  He knows when I don't know.  He takes pictures of me in embarrassing positions while I'm asleep and then emails them to me while he's at work (true story).  He let's me be in charge when I need to be and takes charge when I don't.  He tells me I'm smart because he knows I like to hear it.  When I'm sad, he listens.  When I'm silly, he teases.  He does this impression of me that involves walking like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, waving his short dinosaur arms around and making bitch-tastic dinosaur noises.  Evidently, I'm a bitchy, whiny, growling, short-armed carnivorous reptile.  I can't think of anything more perfect. 


3.  LOTR, Star Wars, and Harry Potter-  Yes, these are also guilty pleasures that I don't gush over in public.  But now it's out.  So there.  The first time I read The Hobbit was in the 7th grade.  It was a paperback book I stole from the bookstore in the mall.  It was all over from there.  Of course, I had to go back and swipe LOTR shortly thereafter and can honestly say that I've read that book at least once a year EVERY year I have been alive since then.  My grandmother bought me a leather-bound collector's edition of LOTR one year for Christmas and it's falling apart.  I was disgusted that Tom Bombadil and Goldberry weren't in the movies.  I've read all the appendices.  I can speak a few words in Elvish.  I've read the Silmarillion.  It's so, so, so very sad.  I will never mention it again.  I covet my non-digitally-remastered VHS copies of the original Star Wars trilogy (the ones that Hayden Christiansen hasn't been spliced into).  I can almost quote the entire original trilogy by memory.  When Sarge is deployed, I usually watch them every Saturday.  My friend Bobby is the only one who knows this.  He laughs at me.  I stood in line at midnight waiting for the release of the Deathly Hallows.  I read the whole thing that same night.  I shall now go hang my head in shame.


4.  Body Piercings- If I didn't have kids and a husband with a rep to protect, I'd have holes in every square inch of my body.  As it stands, I am satisfied with my nose and tongue piercings.  One day I will reach an age where they look nothing but silly.  Until then, my next project is a medusa.

5. My Job- Because I want it more than I need it.  It makes me feel important and smart.  I don't have to leave my house to do it.  It's almost like watching House for 8 hours straight and trying to guess the diagnosis before the doc is done talking.  Sweet.

6.  Wikipedia- Okay, so I'm a self-described Wikipedia addict.  I could literally spend hours a day just sitting here clicking "random" over and over again.  I guess I just really, really like reading.  When I was a kid, it was shit like the back of the cereal box or all the copyright and publishing date stuff at the beginning of the textbooks.  Sometimes I'll read an article and get really interested in the subject and then go off on a months-long tangent reading everything I can find about it.  Currently, it's dictators.  I watched the execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu the other day on Youtube after spending about an hour reading the English translation of the transcripts of their "show trial" (after which they were immediately executed, like in a matter of minutes).  I'm nothing if not obsessive.


7.  Patchouli- Not sandalwood, not nag champa, but plain ole patchouli.  Say what you want, I don't care.  I wear it all the time.  I'm sure everyone thinks I smell like grandma's rocking chair, but they can suck it.  The shit's addictive.  Chris bought me some Victoria's Secret Dream Angels several years ago and I'll wear that for more formal situations, but otherwise, I smell like an old, creaky house on a regular basis.  Love it or not.  I've never been all that social anyway.

8  Working Out-  Because it makes me feel like a mother fuckin' superhero! When you've got a husband whose career hinges on his physical fitness, you either completely let yourself go because you know you can't compete, or you jump in there with both feet because if they have to pass the PT test, by god I'm gonna pass that shit, too!  I love sweating.  I love waking up the next morning with sore muscles.  I love wearing a size 2.  I can't think of any better reasons than those.  Oh, wait.  I love eating, too.  A lot.  Of chocolate.

9.  Chocolate, Cheesecake, and Raw Cookie Dough-  I'm dead fucking serious about this.  When it comes to these things, I don't joke around.  It's an addiction.  Another addiction.  I'm starting to see a pattern here.  This is also why I love working out. I went to Wendy's today and ordered a cookie dough Twisted Frosty with extra cookie dough.  Every time she spooned a huge soup ladle full of cookie dough into the cup, I think I had an orgasm.

10.  Fake Jewelry-  Costume jewelry, anything silver or white gold, colorful necklaces, anklets, sentimental things.  But no big earrings.  I hate big earrings.  I have images of old ladies with stretched ear holes flapping in the wind.  Can't do it.  I'm particularly partial to my bullet ring (that I picked out and Chris bought for me while he was in the Philippines) and my Crucian hook (which I bought while vacationing in St. Croix for our 15th anniversary.  I bought one for my mommy, too).  Love love LOVE Peoria stuff, Body Candy, and Fire Mountain.  Yes, I'm a low-maintenance girl when it comes to just about anything girlie.  Don't waste your time on diamonds or yellow gold.  That's my definition of pointless and tacky.  I would have been happy with a wedding ring out of a quarter machine.

11.  Horror Flicks- Another addiction.  I'm that dumb bitch who fell head first into the $5 bin at Wal-Mart and came out with this little gem of B movie ridiculousness.  I'm that twisted psycho who scours the internet for the most controversial, heavily banned, bordering on snuff-type stuff and then risks ordering from the most rogue and inexperienced Ebay seller from 3 continents away just to get my hands on it.  The Thriller On Demand channel is my friend.  Sheri Moon Zombie is my girl crush.

12. Talking- If I ever get my hands on that slut bucket of a 6th grade teacher who gave me 7 detentions in one day because I kept raising my hand to answer questions, I'll rip her hair out and make a voodoo doll out of it.  That's right, Mrs. Ramsey.  I'm coming for you, bitch.  In her defense, she was very pregnant and I was making that grunting "Me! Me! Me! Pick me!" noise.  But she's still a slut bucket.  And I still love to talk.  And know all the answers.  And make sure everyone knows I know all the answers.  Unless I don't know the answer.  Then I don't say a whole lot. 

13.  My iPod- When I tuck the cord under my shirt, shove my iPod in my bra, and crank that sucker up, I am Supergirl.  There's no mile that can't be run, no load of laundry that can't be folded, no hardened cheese that can't be scraped off a plate, and no linear equation that can't be taught. 

14.  Attention-  Yes.  I am admitting it.  I am an attention whore.  But like everything else, only in my own way.  I don't want to be the center of attention in a room full of strangers.  I want to be thought of.  I want to be thought about.  I want to be considered.  And wondered about.  And envied.  Or just liked.  Or hated for reasons that make me feel good about myself.  So there.  Now you know.

15.  Myself- Yeah, I pretty much do.  There are a few things that make me crinkle my nose when I look in the mirror, but for the most part I'm almost certain I'm the coolest thing on the planet.  So I'm a narcissist with a conscience and self-awareness of my faults.  But even my faults are kinda cool.  Sometimes I get down on myself, but then Sarge gives me this glare from across the room like he's oogling the centerfold of Playboy, and I'm once again reassured that my ass is his eye candy.  And I'm good with that.