Cascada, an artist whose name I didn’t bother to learn when I first heard this song specifically because it’s a standard pop song and won’t matter in 6 months anyway … which yes, sounds superior and snobby. I have to sound that way no matter how I sing the song to myself in the elevator, because I was a music major. It’s a requirement. They make you swear it on a music theory bible and everything.
Anyway, have you ever listened to this song, and really listen to the lyrics? I think she’s trying to warn us of something.
Evacuate the dance floor!
I’m infected by the sound!
Stop! This beat is killing me!
Hey, Mr. DJ, let the music take me underground.
Obviously by that last line in the chorus she’s given up and decided she may as well die happy and dancing, because no one is listening to her pleas for assistance.
In case you don’t plan to waste precious minutes of your life watching that video, and to help you understand the critical nature of the song, I’ve created these illustrations for you. It acts both as a warning AND a synopsis. TWOFER!
Ever since I had kids, my bladder and I are NOT friends. It doesn’t matter how many fucking Kegels I do, it’s like my bladder control left the premises when I birthed Cupcake. Just up and walked out. What, you want examples? Well this blog has no purpose if not to sometimes embarrass me and subsequently amuse you, so here we go….
1. If I cough unexpectedly and my bladder is not empty, I will likely pee my pants a little bit. This happens everywhere; car, work, home, in bed, or even during sex. Yes. I know. FUCKING EW. I can’t help it.
2. I went walking around the building parking lot last Wednesday with my coworkers at lunch. I thought it was going to be a leisurely stroll, but I get out there and my CRAZY friend O whips out a pedometer, throws on some running shoes and says “10 laps, GO!” and starts speedwalking like the hounds of hell are at her heels. HOLY HELL. I made it one lap, but I had to pee, and I knew if I kept walking that fast I WOULD. I just couldn’t hold it in and exercise at the same time.
3. As I was driving home on Friday night from my design meeting with @workingmomfence (Kami), I had to pee. Badly. I had consumed most of an iced grande skinny vanilla latte (if I can’t exercise, at least I get them skinny… right?) and I hadn’t thought to pee before I jumped in the car. I stopped at ANOTHER Starbucks to get my husband a coffee and pee, but it was occupado when I got there. I was waiting outside the door, trying desperately not to pee myself or end up in the emergency room from a burst bladder, when the door opens. I turn in relief, prepared to rush inside, but I am confronted by the tallest man I have ever seen, wearing full on rollerblading gear. Rollerblades, helmet, knee & elbow pads, reflectors.. the whole nine yards. I was too shocked to laugh, thank God, or I definitely would have pissed myself, but instead I picked my jaw up off the floor and rushed into the bathroom. I almost didn’t make it.
4. I was in the bathroom a few months ago when the phone started to ring. I was peeing. My husband was at the ER with my sister at the time, so I assumed it was him. I panicked just managed to stop my pee stream in order to run to the phone. Unfortunately as I started to run (pants around my ankles, mind you) I couldn’t keep control and I peed. All over my legs. And my pants. YES. I AM ACTUALLY WRITING THIS ON MY BLOG FOR YOU TO READ. It was my husband calling to say he was on his way home, everything was fine. At that point, I didn’t bother to go back to the bathroom to pee and just jumped in the shower instead. *sigh*
And on that note, I think it’s best I stop, don’t you?
If I were a Ninja Mom, I would never forget bags at the grocery checkout. Ninjas are very observant.
Ninja Moms never have to be Yelly Moms, because no one fucks with a Ninja.
A Ninja Mom always catches the baby when she tries to walk off the couch, because she started walking too early to have enough sense in her head that walking off the couch = OWIE.
If I were a Ninja Mom, my husband would never question my judgment. If he did question my judgment, it would be the last time he questioned anything.
A Ninja Mom is always slim and sexy, no post-baby-pooch and certainly no watching my carbs because it’ll go to my hips.
Ninja Moms never have to worry about getting fired, because Ninja Moms are always a minority. And highly litigious.
A Ninja Mom never gets caught up in Mommy Wars, because other Mommies would never dare brag in front of a Ninja.
Ninja Moms never stutter when trying to order a drink at Starbucks, because Ninjas speak many languages. Even Starbucksese.
A Ninja Mom would never worry about raising teenage girls, because she could stalk and kill any potential suitors.
Ninja Moms get great discounts everywhere. It’s even better than AAA.
I am a ninja. My piercing gaze strikes fear into your heart.
What’s that? You think I’ve lined up all these guest posters in order to avoid writing original content on my blogbecausethey are funnier than I ambecause I”m lazy because I’m good at sharing? Why thank you! Today’s guest post is brought to you by Chibi, whom I love, and admire, and she made me a HANDMADE card. And mailed it to me. It was awesome.
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A guest post? Oh… Uh… Well. I’ve never done one of these before. I’m feeling a little nervous. *smooths back hair* *adjusts shirt* *twitches* Please be gentle! (Seriously, though? Mommygeekology is likely the only one I’d willingly give my guest-posting cherry to. And that is FAR more awesome than it sounds, trust me.)
Boobs.
We all have ‘em (yes, even the men-folk, although I think they’re what we call “moobs” in polite society): big ones, little ones, perky ones (bitches), saggy ones. They’re both a blessing and a curse. They give sustenance and pleasure, both physically and visually. But they can be a pain in the… tit sometimes, too. Like that time of the month when they’re so bloody sore and somehow manage to attract every. single. elbow/corner/wall/car door. within a 20-mile radius.
This? Is not the time for monkey business where the girls are concerned.
Case in point: my other half.
He’s an awesome guy: kind, considerate, loving, strangely turned on by me, and LOVES mah bewbies. One night we were lying in bed talking when, out of the clear blue farking sky, he leaned over – quick as a wink! – placed a hand on either side of my left breast, yelled “MAMMOGRAM!”, and CLAPPED.
That’s right: he SLAMMED my hormonally-tender breasticle between his big, meaty, man-paws. And then he laughed. Like it was funny.
Once I caught my breath and my eyes stopped watering, I looked and him and hissed “WHY did you DO that?!?” He looked like a deer caught in the headlights with his eyes as large as saucers – he knew by the spittle flying from my mouth the intensity of my voice that he had done a no good, very bad, awful thing. “I-I thought it would be funny?” Yeah, NO. After I explained WHY it wasn’t funny, he told me that he didn’t realize my fun bags weren’t having fun that week. I told him in no uncertain terms to NEVER do it again, regardless of the time of month. NEVAH NEVAH NEVAH.
I’m hella busy, yo. HELLA BUSY. So, I am enlisting the help of some of my fave (old & new) bloggers to fill up my space and give you interesting, fresh content here while I’m off banging my head against a wall. Or doing WordPress Design. It could be either. Or both.
First up is Kisha, who blogs at In Through the Out Door, a site I just recently discovered (and now subscribe to) via Girl Talk Thursday. She offered me the choice of writing something serious, funny or risque, and OBVIOUSLY I picked risque. Oh, and put down your Diet Coke before you get to the end, your laptop won’t appreciate the spit-take!
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Dudes. I am SO excited to be here, guest posting for my chick Mommy Geekology. I love me some geeks…my hubby is an electrical engineer, and actually has said, out loud, “You can’t spell Geek without EE!” He is so lucky he makes a lot of money, seriously.
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I was a late bloomer. That may be surprising to those who know me, considering what a slut I am how sexually open I am. But I didn’t start messing around with boys until my junior/senior year of high school, and didn’t lose my virginity until I was 19.
The first guy I was with was my first everything…you name the base, he was the first to round it with me. And since I wasn’t much of a porn fan, I had a VERY limited knowledge of the male anatomy. I knew what it did, and how to make it do what it did, but that was about it.
Because of this limited knowledge, I was unaware of what was considered small, and what was considered large. I did know, however, that my boyfriend liked to receive oral and that I was basically a head goddess. I could deep throat that thing until the cows came home. I just figured I was born with a natural talent. Some people are singers, some people are athletes, some people are exceptional at giving head. Whatevs. Whenever we’d be getting really into it, he would always say, “take it all, baby, take it all!” And I would be thinking, “oh yes I will because I am AWESOME!”
Fast forward a few years. We broke up, I was ready to sow some wild oats and basically get my slut on see what else was out there. I went to a bar one night, picked out a dude who was to my liking, let him get me drunk, then took him home. Rawr. We get in the bedroom, clothes start coming off, I unzip his pants and my chin drops to the floor. ”Holy shit, that thing is huge!” I exclaimed. Looking back, it was probably only a bit above average, but compared to what I had been broken in on…wow. Not only did I give him an ego boost he still probably carries around to this day, I gave myself a jaw ache for the ages.
After confiding in some girlfriends, and whoring around some more doing some research with cute boys, I finally had enough data to come up with a baseline. Boyfriend had been tiny. Pitifully tiny. Three inches tiny. Oh man.
Of course when I met Husband, I told him this story. Because nothing makes your current man more secure than telling him how pathetic your previous men had been. He laughed, said he wasn’t surprised, and me and his python effed for hours. Fabulous. And it turns out I am a head goddess even with normal sized men. Yay!
So Husband and I get married, and we came back to my hometown for a visit after the ceremony. We end up at a bar with a bunch of my old friends, including Boyfriend. I think Boyfriend was still a little butthurt over me marrying someone else, and has always been the type to show off. So he comes over and buys the whole table a round of shots, and asks Husband to make the toast. Husband raises his shot glass and says, “Take it all, baby. Take! It! All!”
Thank god he said that before the shot was in my mouth, or there would have been duck fart sprayed all over everyone at my table. And yes, not only does he have a big dick, he’s got the sense of humor to match.
I believe that getting your bitch on is part of the human condition. That’s why I just couldn’t pass up this Girl Talk Thursday topic – Pet Peeves.
Here’s a short (ahem) list of mine:
Breathing Very Loudly: If you didn’t just participate in a foot race, I should not be able to hear you breathing from across the room. Stop it. Stop it now. I would rather see you passed out from lack of oxygen than hear you breathe like that even one. more. time.
Related: Breathing Very Loudly WHILE Eating: This is even worse than just Breathing Very Loudly. Unless you just hunted and killed your meal after nearly starving to death (without stopping to cook it, because that would have given you a chance to catch your damn breath), you need to stop. So unless you are Breathing Very Loudly While Eating With Blood Dripping Down Your Chin, it’s unacceptable.
Almost Putting Things Away: If you got up off your fat, lazy ass long enough to pick up your glass and walk it over to the kitchen, don’t you dare put that next to the sink on the counter. You either put it in the dishwasher, or IN the sink. If the sink is so full of dirty dishes that you cannot fit it into the sink, then guess what? IT’S TIME TO DO SOME FUCKING DISHES ASSWIPE.
Related: Almost Putting Away: groceries, toys, toiletries, laundry, papers to be filed, etc etc. {yes, I am totally guilty of most of this. And it pisses me off when I do it, I don’t need you doing it too, ok buddy?}
Yawning Without Covering Your Mouth: This is not your annual physical. I am not your doctor, nor your dentist, nor your prey. Cover your damn mouth when you yawn, I can see all the way to your tonsils and it’s just indecent!
Arguing About “Over” or “Under” re: Toilet Paper: Who the FUCK cares? Seriously? Is your life SO MUNDANE?! {not YOU, of course. I can understand why YOU care.}
Nicknames When You Don’t Know Me: Don’t nickname me. You don’t know me. And if you continue to call me whatever stupid nickname you’ve chose, you never will. Possibly because you’ll spend the rest of your days in a coma.
Wiggling Your Toes Within My Line of Vision While I Watch TV: Yes I know this one is a little insane. But if you are sitting on the couch next to me, and your legs are crossed such that your foot is next to me, please do not wiggle your toes. It’s all I can see and it’s driving me fucking batty.
Breathing On Me: When you breathe on me it makes my soul shrivel up into a tiny, wrinkly, crushed version of it’s former self, and that allows me to do horrible things to you. Don’t breathe on me.
Related: Breathing On Me While I Am Trying To Sleep: I cannot sleep if you are facing me and if I can feel your breath on my face. It will keep me awake. Please turn the other way, I like to lay facing this side.
Exemptions: Breathing On Me While I Am Trying To Sleep If I Gave Birth To You: You are adorable. Breathe where ever you want. But stop kicking me, you little fucker, or I’ll shove you off the bed.
Not Calling When You Said You Would: I understand, life gets in the way. But if I expect you to call and then you don’t, my mind goes bad places and I start to panic and consider calling hospitals and patrolling the dark alleys to find your rotting corpse. So call me when you say you will, OKAY?! ::crazy eyes::
Catty Behavior: Everyone hates high school for a reason. It sucked, everyone acted immature and petty, and you weren’t as cool as you wanted to be. Yes, I understand that the blogosphere brings up all those emotions that you repressed after you got to college because you wanted to be more adult. I don’t care. Repress them again, go to therapy, whatever. Just stop sniping at each other, ok? We’re all human, we all fuck up, we all have our own issues. We get attitudes, we make rude comments… Do Unto Others, y’all. Just be nice.
Touching My Eyebrows: Don’t touch my eyebrows. It’s a thing with me. And don’t touch YOUR eyebrows while I’m looking. That’s a thing with me, too.
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Runners up:judging my list of pet peeves, reading over my shoulder, not saying please and thank you, leaving your shopping cart in the middle of the grocery store which makes me wonder whether I can take it or whether you’ve left it there for a reason, leaving your shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot so I hit it when it’s dark and scratch my car, leaving your shopping cart in the parking lot in an open space which means that a) I can’t park there or b) I can’t pull through YOU WHORE, obvious twitter ads filling up my twitter stream all the time don’t you ever tweet ANYTHING else?, following me on twitter and then not accepting my follow back request because you are protected, MySpace just as a general rule, people who want to purchase something from me on Craigslist as a general rule, overuse of hashtags, using IM/Twitter speak in a real conversation (i.e. SAYING “lol”)
I’m calling this a “Green Post” because it’s been recycled from my old blog. One of the challenges of the Mominatrix #sexualrevolution was to do a little down-low landscaping, and I thought I’d share one of my experiences with waxing. This is supposed to be funny, so LAUGH DAMMIT.
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I understand that there are some cultures where body hair is accepted, even admired. There are cultures also that demand that women or men remove all or parts of their body hair, either as a religious rite or simply because it is culturally unacceptable otherwise. I tried to do some research on this, but have you ever tried doing a Google search for pubic hair and cultural perspectives? Yeah, don’t. Or turn safe-search on.
Anyway, other cultures aside, my own personal preference is to be clean-shaven – pretty much anywhere that I can be. I love the hair on my head But I also keep that short. I don’t like long hair. Hubby had long hair before we met. If I had known him during his goth or subsequent quasi-goth stages, we would not have dated. When we did meet, he had a nice military haircut. Totally acceptable and attractive!
My reasons for wanting to be hairless “down there” are numerous, from simple to upkeep, to cleanliness, to the “eww gross” factor during oral… the list goes on. No landing strips for me, either. Not a fan. It looks funny, to me. And it’s more upkeep! I’d have to trim and shave. I think that’s asking a bit much from a girl who doesn’t even get to shower as often as she’s like. (Aren’t you glad that you only know me virtually? lol. )
So, with that oh-so-essential background information, my candid account of getting a Brazilian wax while 7 months pregnant last Saturday follows:
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The spa room was very nice. There were nice fresh sheets and towels on the table in the center of the room. The walls were painted in calming earthy tones, and soothing music played in the background. There were some nice iron scrolls on the walls, a hook and hanger for my clothes, and a display of creams and lotions. I had just come from getting my hair cut and my maternity massage, so I was relaxed and feeling sexy and fun and flirty. The clinician, Rachel, offered me a drink of water or some tea. I politely declined – I think that peeing on the woman clearing out your bush is rude, right? I’ll be honest, I’m fuzzy on the proper protocol during a Brazilian wax.. but I think peeing on people is out unless you’re filming a crazy porn or something.
Rachel, by the way, is absolutely gorgeous. Long, dark, curly hair, big big eyes with long lashes, little cupid mouth. It was almost a little insulting how pretty she was. I mean c’mon. If I’m going to have someone staring at my vagina for an hour, I’d rather that she be less attractive than me. If she’s going to be more attractive than I am, and she’s looking at my vagina, she better not be down there to give me a Brazilian.
(Whoops, just outed myself. Bisexual, anyone?)
So, where was I? Oh yeah. Gorgeous girl, first Brazilian wax, 4 months of growth because I can’t reach my own hoo-hah and a huge pregnant belly.
She told me that I could hang my clothes on the hanger and get up on the table, she’d be right back. That’s right folks, she left while I undressed. She also left while I dressed, at the end. How weird is that? I mean, it’s not like she wasn’t going to see it anyway!
Then again, after I had stripped and gotten up on the table, I draped a towel over myself. Even as I arranged it to keep my bits from showing, I questioned why I was bothering. I mean, she was going to be getting up close and personal. And yet… it would have felt so weird to leave it all hanging out!
So when she comes back in, I’m lying on my back, wondering why they didn’t bother to drywall the ceiling because those dated ceiling tiles are really unattractive to look at, when she pulls my leg to the side and plops some sugar-lemon gel on the area with a little spatula. No “How do you do, let me grab your leg here for a sec.” No “How about dinner? A movie? Sex in the back of my conversion van?” Not even a warning “Let’s go!” Just flip the towel aside, grap the spatula, plop the wax and hello, pain. Let me tell you – that gel is hot. And when it catches on the little hairs, it hurts a little. But I thought to myself, so far, so good. This’ll be quick and dirty. It’l hurt, but then I’ll be able to go, and I’ll never have to look this beautiful woman in the face again. Then she grabbed one of those little waxing strips and laid it on the gel. No problem. Then she took her whole hand (gloved, thankyouverymuch) and rubbed the strip down with significant pressure. Let me just say this – not so much a problem on the bikini line area. Totally strange when you get to the “inner” area. I was really, really glad that I wasn’t going to have to see her outside of this context.
Then she started talking to me, asking when I was due, did I have any names picked? I thought it was a little weird, but figured that she was curious and maybe trying to get her mind off of the task at hand (literally….)
I was right in the middle of telling her that I was due on ((RIP)) ((internal scream of surprise and pain)) November 4th, but that my daughter was ((RIP)) ((oh good lord that burns)) about 10 days early, so ((RIP)) ((I bet I’m as red as a tomato down there right now)) this one might be an October baby. With every bit of gel applied, she would apply the wax strip several times and rip, rip, rip away.
I was horrified at the pain. It burned. It hurt. It ached. It was sharp, and tingly, and there was nothing good about it, no way. I had heard that some women like to get this done. I think that whoever told me that was mistaken. They probably said that they like it as much as they’d like an ice pick to the eye. Or they like it as much as they’d like to swallow burning coals. Or that they like it as much as a visit from their mother-in-law while potty-training their first child, who happens to have diarrhea.
But I had started. And I figured that as long as I could just sit there, deal with the pain, and get it over with, I’d be fine.
But no. Rachel was seriously chatty. She would ask me about how I liked living in B-town, and whether I liked it more than BL-town versus N-city, and how her boyfriend wanted to live in B-town but she wanted to live in N-city even though the commute would be worse, etc etc. Every so often, she’d pause, and squint at my lower half. I’m not sure if she was puzzled, or strategizing, or what. It was all very surreal and strange, and somewhat awkward.
It went on and on. This is not a quick process – it took 50 minutes to get everything.It was a pattern. Apply wax, ask a question, furiously rub on waxing strip, wait until I started my answer, RIP. I swear, she was doing it on purpose. She probably got some sort of sick thrill out of seeing whether she could get me to scream in the middle of my answer. (I’m proud to say that I did not! Though there was much wincing, pausing, and flinching)
I tried to rationalize the whole experience and say that it was good practice for childbirth. I mean, pain at intervals lasting for 30 seconds to a minute (oh, the burning!) while maintaining conversation with the people around you. Because that’s totally how we all imagine our birth experience. Discussion about politics and complex science while also bringing life into the world, without any pain medication. I mean, that’s what my childbirth plan reads…. yeah.
The worst part was the end, though. I had told her that I wanted everything – even the wayyy back – gone. She tells me that the last part is the least painful, don’t worry, and if I could get up on the table on my hands and knees and arch my back, that would be great. (Oh, how many times have I heard that? “This won’t hurt a bit, now bend over… ) So, with my big ass and my pregnant belly and my ridiculous stretch marks, I got up on that table and posed like I was asking Hubby to do it doggy style. My stomach rested on the table. My back was arched, my ass was in the air, and she says to me “That’s great.”
Oh goodness.
So she applies the gel and gets the strip, and right after she pulls the strip off, I start to giggle.
A word of advice: the next time that you’re in a table, ass proudly displayed in the air, while someone removes the hair from your body using a spatula, wax, and some cloth strips, do not giggle. It’s weird. It puts a strange mood in the room. No matter that you quickly, VERY quickly explain that you’re just thinking about how funny this will be to tell people later, and that you’re thinking of getting an at-home wax kit so that your husband can see how it feels to have the hair brutally ripped from his body, or that you know it’s totally inappropriate and you’re so sorry you don’t mean to giggle but you just can’t stop…
It’s weird. And for the last few minutes of that waxing session, there will be a silence in the room, like a thick, wet, flannel blanket, dampening everything. And you’ll still be stifling giggles.
Needless to say, I’ll be back in four weeks to get it done again. (That’s right, go back and read that sentence again. No typos, I promise.) (It lasts four weeks!) (And Hubby is paying!)
Christmas has come and gone, and though we didn’t have anyone up to visit*, I can’t enjoy a quiet family holiday without the house being clean. The piles of stuff sit in the back of my mind and nag at me until I start cleaning, and obviously that sort of ruins the Christmas Family Moment.
Thus, I found myself the weekend before Christmas preparing for a week-long bid to get our home clean.
Me: We have a 1200 sq ft apartment, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Right? Universe: Ha! Ha ha ha! Whoo! Oh Lordy that’s a good one. Heh heh. You foolish woman.
Yesterday I went ahead and picked up a bunch of necessities before the big storm hit. We’ve got a nice little weekend nor’easter here, and it’s already 10 inches high out there, still falling fast. I hit up the Target, and $260 later I had groceries, a bunch of cleaning supplies, a new winter jacket for the baby, new gloves and hat for the big girl, and a few other miscellaneous items. Not bad, I thought. Among my purchases were a bottle of Resolve carpet cleaner spray, and Resolve carpet cleaner powder. I picked up the powder because it was for large areas of carpet, and it involved some scrubbing with a brush, which I figured meant that it would get all the nasty nastiness up and un-ground from the carpet.
I got home, read ALL the instructions, and picked a spot of the carpet to work on. Per the instructions, I covered the carpet thoroughly with the powder and got to business with my scrub brush. I could see it getting cleaner! I don’t know if it was the fumes from the cleaning chemicals or the joy of getting rid of the ground up Oreos, but I felt elated. Hopeful. Thrilled, even!
I look back at the instructions. I need to wait 20 minutes and let the stuff dry, then vacuum it up.
Me: That seems easy! Universe: Ha! Ha ha ha! Whoo! Oh Lordy that’s a good one. Heh heh. You foolish woman.
20 minutes later I start up our little Shark Roadster, 5 years old, to vacuum up the powder. I get a square the size of the vacuum brushes cleaned before I lose suction. The canister has to be emptied. I take care of that, noting how much the powder really clogged the hepa filter! I continue vacuuming. Another 12in x 2in area is cleaned. Clogged again. I empty the canister and realize this may take a while. I start again and as my husband walks behind me, the vacuum stops. I figure he knocked the cord out. Nope, cord still in the wall. I push the on/off button a few times. Nothing. It feels hot. I call for DaddyGeek. He checks the fuse. Nope, that is fine.
We wait 20 for it to cool down and try again.
Nothing. It is completely dead.
So now my carpet is covered in a thick coating of deadly chemicals of death, and my vacuum is dead, and I have two small children bursting with the joy of Christmas coming. We have to lock the kids in the bedroom and try and feed them snacks and entertain them with movies while my husband goes out in a fucking Nor’Easter to get a new vacuum less than a week before Christmas because the Universe hates me. (See above)
In the end, he gets the vacuum, he doesn’t die on the icy roads of death, my children don’t die on the deadly carpet of death, and I got to play about an hour of mindless Facebook games for an hour in my warm cozy house while the kids were ensconced in the bedroom because I’m a good mother, I’m keeping them away from the deadly carpet of DEATH.
The new vacuum is awesome and quickly cleans the mess without any trouble. That one section of my carpet looks great. Unfortunately that makes the rest of my carpeted apartment look like complete ass, so I must now go purchase stock in Resolve.
I am burning out. I need to find a balance between home, school, work, other work, kids, cleaning, laundry, relaxation. I can’t find it right now. I can’t find it right now, and I am burning out.
Three times in the past two weeks, I’ve just gone straight to bed as soon as the kids were asleep. Note: that’s unlike me. I like to stay up and do a little something. The problem is that it’s not that I didn’t have anything to do. I have plenty to do, too much to do, and I keep taking on projects. I am hooking a fucking rug as a Christmas present for chrissakes. WHO THE FUCK HAS TIME FOR THAT?!
Part of it is the holidays. Part of it is just the regular ebb and flow of life.
Regardless, I still need to find balance. I need to stop jerking around to each part of my life, trying desperately to complete a task before I am pulled away again. I should be doing other things than blogging right now but I’m exploding. I need to get some of this out.
I need to breathe. I don’t feel like I have time to breathe. And when I find time, I don’t feel like I have the energy.
How do you do it? How do you balance? What do you have going on in your life? Write me a book in the comments, I don’t care. I want it. I need to know how you’re managing. Or not managing. I don’t want to be alone in this struggle.
Sarah and I stood around the piano in the chorus room. Blue lockers lined the room; we each had one of the coveted lockers, a status symbol in the music department. Our lockers stood next to each other, shoved up together. We were best friends, so why did I feel like gritting my teeth every time I stood next to her? The worn black lacquer on the grand piano was familiar under our fingertips as we leaned against the edge and rehearsed for the upcoming performance. I’ve always found the curve of a baby grand sexy. I wanted to punch her in the face.
We had been practicing for weeks, readying ourselves for the big Spring Sing performance. It was one chance every year for everyone and anyone to shine. Performing was nervewracking, but it was a chance to really show off your pipes, your stage presence, your talent. We were to perform a duet “Sing!” from A Chorus Line. Two parts comedic monologue, one part sung, it was hilarious and surprisingly challenging. The week prior we had finally begun to really get it together. It made sense for us to perform a duet. We were best friends. It made sense, but I hated singing with her. I should have said no.
One afternoon, in her typical dramatic fashion, Sarah decided she wanted – nay, needed – to switch parts. She didn’t want to do the sung part anymore. She wanted the monologue. I doubted her ability to learn all the words – the performance was in less than a week! – but she insisted. Fine. One more nail in the coffin of our friendship. I sullenly agreed, and we reversed roles. I failed to be surprised. Sarah was not a great singer or performer, but she did manage to do one thing with ease – drama.
Fast forward.
The night of the performance, we were ready. Sarah and I stood side by side in the wings, waiting for our cue. I leaned against the curtain pulley and inhaled the scents of the backstage. A little musty, a little heavy with makeup and perfume and nervous sweat. Sarah wasn’t wearing enough deodorant; she always under-applied. I thought about our duet coming up, and nursed the little angry part of me that said we should have stopped being friends years ago. It was our Senior year. I only had to make it through a few more months, then I could be done with this sham. She always took more than she gave.
The piano struck our opening chord and we strutted out onto stage, blinded by the bright lights, blissfully unable to make out faces in the crowd. The stage always seems more expansive as you walk across it. From the wings, it seems manageable and from the audience, practically minuscule, when compared to the experience being front and center, traveling with your heart beating so heavily in your ears you can hardly hear the harmonies. I tried to swallow my anger as she prepared to perform the part that had originally been mine.
I could hear Sarah beginning the monologue, breathless and slightly nervous, but it worked well for this performance. At my cue I sang a note, then another, then one more – the vocal part of the song is challenging because you have to pluck the notes seemingly out of thin air and let them hang there with nothing else to support them. It’s perfectly right or glaringly wrong. I thrilled in it. Being on stage was invigorating – anything is possible.
We walked through our carefully choreographed stage movements, and then Sarah faltered. She forgot a word, then two, then a line, and I couldn’t hit my notes, the timing was off, the choir teacher couldn’t modify the chord progression fast enough to catch her mis-steps…. We stopped. We stood on the polished, shining wood of the stage and stared at each other, glancing down in the pit at our choir director as he marked time with basic chords, and we realized we couldn’t continue. We were too far gone. We’d have to start over, we couldn’t start over, we were on stage… hundreds of our peers, teachers, family, friends. We stared at each other.
I stared at this girl whom I’d known for most of my life, and all of my school years. Through grammar school, elementary school, middle school and now high school. We had been inseparable. I stared at her mousy brown hair and her too-small eyes, now reflecting the panic and fear in my own, and I burst out laughing. We laughed.
We laughed. We laughed, and laughed, and slapped our knees and gasped for breath and forgot that we even had an audience. We couldn’t stop, not for anything. We stood on that stage, and bent over and held our stomachs and laughed so hard our faces might shatter into pieces from the strain of it, and then we finally limped off stage.
We made it to the wings, still giggling, laughing, chortling, chuckling, as the reality of what had just happened dawned on us. We had just completely fucked it up. We failed. We failed, and then instead of finding a way to recover, or exiting gracefully, we laughed ourselves off the stage!
From the other side of the curtain, hastily closed by stunned stage hands, there was first silence. Then a small titter of laughter spread across the crowd. Then from the corner, a smatter of applause. It spread, and grew, and within moments the entire audience was cheering and whooping and laughing, not at our failure, but because they thought it was all part of the act.
We had fooled them.
We had fooled them even as we fooled ourselves into thinking that perhaps our friendship wasn’t dead, after all.
———————–
It seems I am destined to write about my embarrassing moments. Soon, I’ll be writing about the ways I’ve managed to get all red-faced on Girl Talk Thursday, too! Today, though, my post is prompted by a new little project – one that warms my heart and excites me all at the same time. A challenge to write.
Oh, and put down your Diet Coke before you get to the end, your laptop won’t appreciate the spit-take!
But I also keep that short. I don’t like long hair. Hubby had long hair before we met. If I had known him during his goth or subsequent quasi-goth stages, we would not have dated. When we did meet, he had a nice military haircut. Totally acceptable and attractive!
Just ... no. {Wardrobe malfunction}
Excess
