Behind These Hazel Eyes...

I remember vividly the first time a guy told me I had bedroom eyes.  I was sixteen years old and working the front desk at Days Inn in La Grange, KY.  Now, until that moment, I had always considered myself "worldly." However, I guess I was still pretty naive, because I quickly asked him what that meant.  As he explained, instantly, it dawned on me that I had discovered my catalyst, the secret weapon I'd carried with me all those years and could work to my advantage in almost any situation...

I consider my eyes to be one of my best features.  They are very unique in that they are multicolored and change with my mood, underwear, and weather.  Most days, they are green around the outer circle, and light brown with golden yellow streaks around the pupil.  Eyes are a great feature on most anyone, really.  If you think about it, they pretty much stay the same throughout your life.  Seriously, they don't get fat, hairy, or require regular workouts to stay in shape...what's not to like? 

Everything imaginable and intangible (and trust me, some things ARE better left untouched) has passed before these eyes.  They've encountered breath-taking beauty, birth, death, pervs, deadly animals in the wild (got bear?), and WTF-ness abound.  These piercing peepers have shown me the ways of the world.  They've shown me the memories I will carry with me forever...some good, some not so good. 

As a wayward, rebellious teen,  I took off with a boyfriend cross-country when I was just eighteen in my '78 Trans Am gas hog (T-top, hood scoop, thank you very much).  My precocious mind (read, troublemaker) wanted to see what was out there; what was I missing?  Well, apparrently, a lot.  During our travels, we came across a pimp beating a tranvestite hooker in Omaha (yes, Omaha, NEBRASKA); met a guy named Brutus in Albuequerque who showed us the way to the San Jose; put new brakes on the TA in Oklahoma City where it was so stinking hot the damn jack quicksanded into the parking lot blacktop (don't even ask how we got that out, BTW); we slept in an abandoned ghost town somewhere in Texas where, believe me, EVERYTHING is much bigger; and had guns drawn on us in the wee hours after a complete overreaction (and misunderstanding) by corrupt Vegas cops.  Just to name a few...

These eyes have also seen gore at its best.  Such as the time when I was young and a kid my mom babysat for pushed me off of our front porch stoop and my left tibia snapped, ripping clean through my flesh (I'm squirming just remembering it). A particularly vivid visual memory that tops that, however, would be the time a couple of friends and I stumbled upon a satanic ritual lair (daytime and vacant - thank goodness).  Let's just say, we found out what happened to all the mysteriously missing black cats in the county (and a few other poor, unsuspecting animals). 

These eyes have gotten me both into trouble and out of trouble at the same time.  One of my earliest recollections of this phenomena, was the time when I was about six and my mom sent me to the corner store with a dollar bill to get a loaf of bread.  I trudged the couple Detroit-ghetto blocks, got to the store and saw something I had to have - a Marathon bar.  Of course, I only had a dollar, but I was six, so when I put the bread and the candy bar up on the counter, Akmar says, "$1.10."  He then proceeded to explain I did not have enough to get both the bread and the candy bar so I had to pick one.  Knowing my mom would go apeshit if I didn't come home with the bread (lesson learned from the year before), I begrudgingly went to put the candy bar back when it hit me - I would klepto the candy bar!  So proud that I thought of that all by myself, I not-so-discreetly (practically right in front of him) stuck it into my pants. I went back to pay for the bread when he accosted me then proceeded to yell into the loudspeaker, "Mohammed manager! Mohammed manager!"  Mo came a-runnin' and he was not a happy man.  They were both yelling and when Mo ripped the candy from my pants (it was halfway sticking out), I knew the gig was up (I was still a little slow back then).  I thought fast and hard.  What to do? What to do?  Then, naturally it occurred to me - start crying.  Though it never worked at home, I figured these guys might not be hip to that ploy.  Well shit, they were and now Mo was threatening the worst, most dreaded punishment of all - calling my mom!  Out of sheer fear, I stopped crying and looked up with the saddest, droopiest puppy dog eyes and begged him not to call my mom promising him I would NEVER, EVER do anything so stupid like steal again.  Worked like a charm.  He sent me skipping on my way, AND even gave me a piece of Bazooka bubble gum!

Over the years, I've honed my own "eye language." I have become attuned to reading others' eyes as well as sending messages with my own. One look can say a thousand words if it is read right.   For instance, when I make a mountain out of a molehill (rarely, but often), I can shoot the "Oh-shit-sorry-I-accidentally-kind-of-on-purpose-but-not-maliciously-on-purpose-just-didn't-want-to-remember-to-remind-you-that-you-forgot-that-you-promised-to-take-me-out-last-Saturday-so-now-I-can-sit-here-and-shoot-you-dirty-but-not-the-pervy-kind-of-dirty-looks" look.  Or, my personal fave, when I really, really, REALLY want something (often, but rarely) I can shoot the "God-I-wish-I-had-(fill in the blank)-because-even-though-it-wouldn't-necessarily-make-ME-happier-it-would-make-me-easier-to-live-with-therefore-would-make-everybody-else-happier" look. 

Believe me when I say, there are hundreds more "looks" that I have mastered over the years.  However, just like most people lucky enough to posess a superpower, I try not to abuse my gift. I will say though if you really want to understand me, look deep into my eyes.  They are truly, the window to my soul.

Ocean Commotion

When I was 13 we took a real vacation. By a real vacation, I mean it was just mom, dad and us kids (no dogs or grandmas) and a real motel! We drove the 15 hours straight (with only one bathroom break – tell me about it) to Cape Cod because dad didn’t believe in sleep. Naturally, my parents weren’t used to the planning part, so we had no motel reservations (not like Cape Cod was a HUGE resort area and it wasn’t peak season being July and all). Now this was back in 1984, so, of course, there was no internet. There were, however, telephones and even AAA offices that could have been proper means of securing said reservations. My parents liked to fly by the seat of their pants, I guess.

Nonetheless, we arrived extremely tired, crabby and beyond hungry (mom didn’t even make radiator burritos this trip – dad must have gotten a raise or something). Since we only stopped once in 15 hours, we survived on beef jerky, cheese puffs, and old jelly beans mom had scrounged from our months-old Easter baskets. There may have been SPAM involved for the others, but I don’t do mystery meat, so I voluntarily acquired my vacation anorexia. Of course, since we had been cooped up for umpteen hours, we all had to use the facilities so bad, we could hardly stand up. What made it especially bad was the fact that we drove up to a zillion motels on Cape Cod at midnight with no reservations only to be told there was NO room at the inn. Also, we were turned away at many because they told us they didn’t allow children (smart people). I don’t know if my parents were trying to sell us (wouldn’t blame them at that point) or if they were really serious, but I was starting to feel that familiar sense of dread come over me: I thought we might just have to resort to camping after all! Of course, we didn’t have our camping gear with us, but I knew dad was a survivalist (he was in the Vietnam War, after all), and he could probably fashion a tent out of a couple of mom’s muumuus, some duct tape, and some of that nasty, shoe-leather beef jerky.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen because at one of the last places on the cape, we found a room. At this point, my parents were desperate, so they conveniently told them that it was just for two adults and no kids, never mind that us kids were running around outside causing a huge commotion by the office looking for a bush. Dumb motel cryptkeeper was either deaf and blind or just took extreme pity on my parents. We got to the room and found a double bed – one - in a 10 x 10 room. Nice. My first real motel stay and I had to sleep on the freakin’ floor! Not to mention, the bathroom had no door and the shower perpetually trickled. So this was the luxury I had been missing all these years? Pffft. At least I didn’t see any bugs (yet).

We were all so tired that night; we pretty much just fell asleep in a heap on the floor. When we awoke the next morning, we went down to the motel office for the “free continental breakfast.” Well, they either saw (or heard) us all coming and put the good shit away, or they got away with calling moldy bread in smelly Tupperware containers, next to a fire-hazard toaster from the 1950’s, and equally stale corn flakes in equally smelly containers, breakfast. Mom tried to convince me that the fur on the bread was alright to eat since that is what they make penicillin with – but I knew (after consulting my PDR) that the mold had to be tempered before it was actually not dangerous. So I scraped the fur off the bread, and then it wasn’t so bad with cranberry marmalade.

After breakfast, we headed straight across the road to the beach. Gypsies on the loose! We had our 20 million (slight exaggeration – but not much) blow-up water toys that we lugged down with us, found a perfect spot and settled in. My sister Dara and I could not wait to get in, so we kicked off our flip flops and ran to the shore only to stop dead short of going in – ummmmm, there were crabs EVERYWHERE running around like they owned the place. Now, this was my first experience with the ocean, so I was all like, “What the hell are they doing here?” Nobody thought to warn me about this? Mom said if she had told me, I would have complained the whole trip down (boy – does she know me or what). I found no solace in the fact that they were supposed to be there. One thing was for sure, I was NOT going to risk losing an appendage to one of those fuckers. They even looked mean – just daring me to stick my bare toe in so they could snap it off. Of course, I did exactly what mom had predicted – I plunked down on the beach towel and pouted vowing to make everybody miserable since I sure was (only fair). After about an hour of mom lecturing me about how to make the best of it and since I was the oldest, my sisters looked up to me and they would go in if I did and we didn’t drive over 1,000 miles to just sit and look at the ocean. She didn’t much like it when I retorted that she wasn’t going in so why should I (which BTW – she used the lame excuse that she had to watch my baby sister who was playing in the sand).

Anyhow, I finally devised a plan (give me long enough and I can find a way around anything). I realized that if I wore my flip flops AND got on an inner tube – those bastards couldn’t get to me! Brilliant! My one sister, Dara (AKA Slinky sis) followed close behind me (little brat couldn’t come up with her own brilliant ideas, thus she mooched mine – welcome to my world). We got situated in our inner tubes next to one another and relaxed. Ahhhhh – the ocean wasn’t so bad after all. Once we floated a little bit away from shore (and I felt my ass was safe from getting snapped by a crab or other clawed crustacean), it was pretty peaceful and serene. I laid back, shut my eyes and relaxed. Apparently Dara did as well and we both drifted off – both figuratively and literally. I don’t know how long we were asleep, but I woke up to find we were out to sea. I could just barely make out the shoreline in the distance, we were that far out. I’m sure you’re wondering, “Where the hell were your parents?” That, my friend, is a question my therapist and I have yet to get the answer to.

Now, calm, cool and collected is not my cup of tea in deadly situations, so, of course, I reacted like any loose cannon would – in absolute terror. Naturally, I started shrieking to the best of my ability (a great survival skill I had honed through the years). Holy shit, I had just seen the movie Jaws and I knew how this shit went down. From the great white’s perspective, I looked like a juicy seal kabob and I envisioned a plethora of them swirling beneath me like the aquatic sea vultures they have proven to be. My next immediate fear was being completely lost at sea and getting marooned on a deserted island (although, Gilligan’s Island was one of my favorite shows). Then I remembered I couldn’t swim well and my inner tube was starting to look a tad deflated (like my hopes). As my eyes darted around in fear, I spotted Slinky sis floating nearby who had just been rudely awaken by my ear-piecing shrillishness. I paddled my arms quickly over to her and in a tender, sisterly moment, made sure she was OK. That felt weird. So once I realized she was fine, The Blame Game ensued (our personal favorite). She blamed me for falling asleep and I blamed her for blaming me (and then she said that I would have to be ugly Mary Ann while she would get to be Ginger since she had the red hair – that REALLY pissed me off). It took all of about 10 seconds of us screaming and smacking at each other before we started wrestling – in our respective inner-tubes - on the ocean – a half-mile from shore. Needless to say, the ocean-wave wrestling ended almost as quickly as it started – by both of us falling into the sea. Imagine our surprise when we fell and our feet hit bottom and we could stand up! Yep – all that time we were that far from shore and the water was barely up to our waist (thank God for low tide)!

As we trudged back to shore, we found mom asleep, baby sis with about three pounds of sand (and other unknowns) in her diaper and dad at the Galley Grub and Pub. Besides being burnt like a couple of lobsters (and left with abandonment issues), we were no worse for the wear. The rest of the trip had just as many colorful memories such as the day we went whale watching and I regurgitated my lumberjack breakfast over the edge of the boat right into the mouth of a humpback (to which the whole boat ganged up on me for doing, but it really wasn’t like I planned that and did they REALLY want me to hurl it on deck)? Finally, I witnessed my first guy-guy and girl-girl make-out sessions all over the city (apparently, had my parents researched better, they would have found that Provincetown has one of the biggest concentrations of gay population) so they had a lot of questions coming from their precocious Catholic-school youngsters. I came away from that trip learning about the importance of sunscreen (I blame my wrinkles solely on that trip), how the ocean’s tide works and that people who like people of the same sex are just as pervy as the rest of us (really, people – get a room).

The Truck Stops Here

When I was in high school, my parents made me get a job (guess they wrongly assumed it would keep me out of trouble). The local paper had advertised a job as a waitress at a nearby motel restaurant. I wasn’t even home from turning in my application when the motel had called to set up an interview (desperate much?). The next day, I went up for the interview and they offered me a job on the spot – only not the job I had applied for – they offered me a front desk clerk position. They outright told me that I was too smart (I was only 16 and a junior in high school) and overqualified for the waitress position (after all, this was Kentucky and I was still in school and had all of my teeth). According to my application, I was Albert Einstein – simply because I could read it and fill it out without any grammatical errors (plus, I didn’t sign my name with an ‘X’).


Believe me when I say, the front desk position wasn’t as glamorous as it sounds – unless, of course, you call dealing with crude, horny truckers captivating. Seriously, these guys had been on the road for days, and I could have been Cousin Itt (I sure wasn’t – though I did have a lot of hair) and they would have been pitching a tent. I got hit on so much that I could have fully funded my way through Harvard TWICE had I the loose morals they had hoped I had (with enough left over for a little red Corvette). Sometimes, too, those truckers were pretty relentless. As if when they were checking in wasn’t bad enough, they would call me from their rooms like I was a phone-sex operator. Granted, I did look like I was older than sixteen, but still, these guys were serious pervs. When they ceased to leave me alone, I would hook them up with one of the loose and toothless waitresses (although I never once got a finder’s fee).

One cold and blustery night, a particularly frisky trucker was doing his best to woo me back to his room when I got off of work. He all but jumped the counter while he was checking in to fondle me (luckily the sheriff and his fellow cops were almost always right around the corner from the front desk in the restaurant having coffee late at night – so I felt pretty safe). I good-naturedly told him I was a good girl (I sure wasn’t – but I did have standards). He offered me drugs (wasn’t into), alcohol (yawn), and money (I WAS into – but preferred to earn honestly - as opposed to easily). When the cops saw (they didn’t hear his suggestive commentary) he wasn’t leaving me alone, they sent him on his way back to his room. Well, jerk-off (what he should of done) wasn’t going to be stopped that easily. He wasn’t back there two minutes and he was calling and telling me everything he was going to do to me (like that was going to get me hot or something).

When I stopped taking his lewd calls, nasty-trucker-man marched back up front “pretending” to need towels. Well, this time of night, I was the only worker in the joint. Even the restaurant had closed, cops had gone, and all of the doors were locked. So now just the little “Check In” window was open. This made it extremely difficult for him to grope me, since the window was three-inches thick and bulletproof. I managed to get rid of him (no – I did NOT flash him) after several more minutes of haranguing. He disappeared into the darkness back to his room. Not two minutes later, I hear this EXTREMELY loud crashing noise followed by an even louder gushing noise from the back of the restaurant.

My first thought was, “Holy shit! This man just busted in through the back door and now he’s going to rape and murder me because I’ve spurned his advances one too many times! I should have just been bad and done the nasty and then I’d have my life (and a few extra bucks to boot)!”

My next thought was, “Holy shit! This guy is one horny bastard – maybe if I up the ante a little (or a lot) I’ll throw my morals out the window and save my life but to hell with my soul (the devil made me do it).”

Finally, it hit me and my fantastical mind – it wasn’t STD (Sex-crazed Trucker Dude) – it was so damn cold out (record cold temps for Kentucky) that a pipe had burst back in the now-closed restaurant. Of course, I’m there alone, I’m a common-senseless teenager, it’s almost midnight and the restaurant is quickly filling with water. WWRD (What Would Rhonda Do)? Besides panic for about a minute and 34 seconds (who’s counting), I called STD for help, naturally (hey – he owed me for harassment)! He was up there in about two seconds, shut off the main water valve to the joint (thank goodness, because I’d still be looking for it), and then waited with open arms (and a smirk) for an “I-saved-your-ass-and-this-motel hug.”

Lesson learned: many people do stuff for others out of the goodness of their hearts. Others do it with the hope of getting something in return. Others just don’t do anything. He fell in the middle since he certainly expected something in return. Nonetheless, I was happy to indulge him and he was happy with just a hug (however, he did throw in a slight ass grope). I guess we both got something good out of that situation…

I'm Not a Doctor - But I Play One

I’m kind of a savant when it comes to the human body. Seriously, I know so much about the human body that I dream of the Golgi Apparatus doing the sugar plum dance with polyribosomes and to actually fall asleep I will count neurons as they cross the synapse (works every time). Actually, the only reason I never became a legitimate doctor is because I can’t stomach the sight or smell of puke, shit or blood (plus, who needs all that money anyhow).

As far as I can remember, I have always been extremely enamored by the enigma of our bodies and the science behind it all. So intrigued I was, that for my twelfth birthday, all I asked for was a PDR (Physicians Desk Reference – but I referred to it as Perfect Doctor Rhonda). Amazingly, I did get it (albeit, a week late since my parent’s actually forgot my birthday that year) and I was so happy that I would spend hours on end geeking myself up reading that damn thing. I would drive my parents crazy (didn’t take much) because I was constantly going around the house diagnosing everybody’s problems. Whether it was dad’s gout, mom’s gallstones, Slinky sis’s missing cerebrum, baby sis’s nocturnal enuresis, or grandma’s tapeworm – I nailed it every single time. I think this pissed everybody off, because by the time they figured out I was right, they had already blown a small flea market’s worth of co-pays to the real doctors.

Nonetheless, I would have really strived to be a real doctor, except for the gore factor. That, and I was having too much fun just doing it as a hobby and annoying people with my self-taught intelligence (to think, people spend/waste hundreds of thousands on med school), that I never really considered it much. I did consider becoming a nurse since I had convinced myself that if I immersed myself in the blood, puke and shit, that I would somehow magically become accustomed to them and therefore they would not bother me in the slightest.

As it turned out, nursing school was somewhat of a breeze for me since I had pretty much taught myself all there was to know about everything I needed to know (I’m good at that - when I want to be). It was all fun and games until it came time for clinicals. That comes later in the schooling and it’s where you actually go and work in the hospital with live patients (hoping to keep them that way). Almost from the get-go I was thrown into the hustle and bustle of the med-surg floor (and so not glamorous). I was expected to administer medications, give injections, change surgical dressings, measure decubitus ulcers, you name any kind of shitty job – it was mine. The whole thing was like a light bulb going on for me ( kind of like the time it looked like the Frisbee was getting bigger and bigger, then it hit me in the face). It’s when the shit hit the fan…quite literally.

Despite passing out during countless surgical procedures (that didn’t go over too well with my instructors BTW), I stuck with the program, determined as hell to beat my squeamishness. I can’t tell you how many times I went in to observe even a simple hernia repair surgery, only to wake up with myself in a gurney with several of my classmates tending to me (as much as I like attention – I didn’t much appreciate ten pairs of eyes staring down at me – at least not in the pallor-as-hell state I was in). One lucky day, I came in and received my patient assignments. I went in to check on my first patient of the morning, and it quickly went to shit from there…

This woman had a new colostomy bag and my job was to assess the area for infection, measure the shit in the bag, and change, if needed (told you it wasn’t glamorous). As soon as I walked in the room, the whole thing just reeked of shit. Shit + more shit = instant nausea and/or vomiting on my part – and this was shit overload. However, I did my best to keep professional (this is where my acting skills really came in handy) and act all nursey. I get over to the lady with the bag (bag lady) and it doesn’t look right. Now this was my first live experience with a shit bag (at least the surgical kind of shit bag), but something in my fantastical brain told me it was NOT supposed to look like a balloon that had been blown up to the exploding point. It was at that point that the patient told me she was extremely uncomfortable and she had been up all night with horrible gas pains. I was afraid to touch the bag because it looked like a bomb that could detonate at the slightest touch, sound, or blink. Un-freaking-fortunately, bag lady didn’t have the same fear, because she reached down and grabbed the bag while she was explaining her discomfort, squeezed and twisted, and before I could back away – the fucker exploded. Let’s just say when a shit bag explodes – it does NOT do so gracefully. It went all over me, her, and even splattered onto the patient in the next bed (who was, thankfully, near-comatose asleep). Shockingly, I didn’t scream, rant, rave, or have a meltdown – I froze. I was afraid to even open my mouth for fear of what venture in (I know - call Ripley). Luckily, almost immediately, my instructor walked in to check on me and got quite the surprise since she almost fell flat on her ass in shit. In the whirlwind that followed, I was led to the HAZMAT shower and changed into fresh scrubs. I, however, could not cleanse the shit from my brain and began my quick descent into getting-the-hell-out-of-nursing-before-I-get-covered-in-shit-again.

Needless to say, I wasn’t cut out for nursing (thank God - for all parties involved), but I do greatly admire those that work in the medical field. After all, we need those people to deal with all of the blood, puke, and shit otherwise we’d all be in a world of hurt (and knee-deep in shit). For now, I’ll just keep saving people co-pays and offering my quack (but most-often undisputed) diagnosis (with a dash of sarcasm, when necessary). If only I could prescribe medication (legally), I’d be in business (at least as something more than a witch doctor…).

Meeting of the Fantastical Minds

I have several completely different people living inside my ginormous head (maybe that explains why it’s so damn big). These people include (but are not limited to); an OCD control freak; a Tourette’s-having drama queen; a flea-market-trolling, garage-sale going, traveling gypsy; the impulsive spur-of-the-moment decision-maker (most often chooses badly); a horny, rebellious teenager; and on occasion - a totally normal, rational person (yawn). These people together make for a colorful life (when they all get along, anyhow).

Take, for instance, my Obsessive-Compulsive control freak alter ego: that lady knows what she wants and will stop at nothing (except maybe a can’t-miss shoe sale) to get it. She is tenacious (bitchy) and will bite your head off if you so much as mess with the fringe on the pillows. She will also throw a hissy-fit (part of the drama queen is called in here) if you don’t do things exactly the way she wants them done. And, God forbid, you fuck with her mind – let’s just say hell hath NO fury than this woman scorned (she is the really shrewd one, after all). I wouldn’t be where I’m at today without her (poor example, I know).

The Tourette’s–having drama queen appears often since she is summoned most often by the other personas. OCD control freak (AKA freak) almost always needs her for a meltdown, spider-sighting (or other equally disgusting varmint), or for busting a fringe-messer-upper. However, drama queen can venture out all by herself at times. A good example of this is when she sees (a hottie), hears (Lady Gaga), or touches (insert imagination here) something she really likes – she will squeal, shriek or scream with delight. At times, she will also make an appearance as a simple eye-roll, sigh, or much-louder-than-necessary-sneeze. Then again, it could be a full-on panic-laden pissfest, shit-hit-the-fan, get-the-hell-away-from-me-right-now-before-you-lose-an-eyeball kind of drama that only a select few have been privileged enough to see. That lady keeps me guessing and certainly keeps me on my toes.

The flea-market-trolling, garage-sale-going, traveling gypsy is the tacky, cheesy (and a tad bit trashy) side of me. She will spend hours looking at nothing and everything all at the same time. What the hell is she looking for in these dumpsters that puked crap with price tags? She has no clue (story of my life), but she loves doing so and will do it any chance she gets. Perhaps she was born back in the 70’s and early 80’s when I was a youngster and would troll various flea markets for hours on end by myself while my dad would pile a bunch of shit on the hood of his car to make a few bucks. Funny thing was, we always spent more than we made and went home with more shit then we came with, so what did we accomplish? Nothing, except succeeding in making his house look more and more like a bad episode of Hoarders (and making friends with carnies and circus people during the off-season).

The impulsive, spur-of-the-moment decision-maker has waned over the years. She’s still there, and on occasion will pay me a visit, but she is more respectful of the OCD control freak and therefore, listens to her plan of action most often. However, there are times when she will get sick and tired of freak planning everything two in years in advance and sticking to a specific regimen, that she’ll overpower freak and do her own damn thing. If it ends badly (which is more often than not – buy the book for details, cheap ass), drama queen will inevitably step in for an all-hell-breaks-loose tantrum (don’t you love how they all intertwine?).

The horny, rebellious teenager is possibly my favorite doppelganger (hubby’s too). It needs absolutely no explanation since it is really quite self-explanatory. Seriously, I’m at the age where most women peak sexually (30’s and 40’s) so it’s not unusual (about the only thing about me that isn’t), but perhaps, most women don’t go around proclaiming it like I do. It’s not like I kiss and tell (sorry pervs), but I do have quite the passionate side and I’m proud of that. I’ve been called quite a few things in my life, but prude or frigid is not one of them.

Right about now, I know you must be thinking, “Wow - how the hell does she do it? How does she manage all of these completely different personas and still appear like she has her shit together?” Well, I must tell you, it has taken me years to achieve this perfect balance (jealous much?). A while back, I held my own meeting of the fantastical minds and I laid it all out for each one of them. I let it be known that since there were several of them living in just one body; we had to find a way to all get along. Not to mention, the meds work wonders. All kidding aside, life goes pretty swimmingly when you let your true self (selves) shine through…

Shook Me All Night Long

Back in October of 1999, when the hubs and I were still dating, we took a trip to one of our favorite places – Las Vegas. As a matter of fact, I was so sure Paul was going to pop the question to me while we were out there, I had already scoped out a cheesy Elvis/Liberace/Marilyn Monroe-esque chapel to elope. Unfortunately, he did not pop the question to me until later the next month when we were at Starbuck’s one night. When I had confessed that I had hoped he would propose to me in Vegas, he said he had considered it, but he thought that would be too tacky (Hello??? Didn’t he know me by then???).

Anyhow, it was a fun trip and, as always, a time to remember. Also, I’m all about the “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” mentality, however, some things are meant to be shared (just don’t ask me to share my bag of goldfish crackers). I cleared this story with my hubby before I posted, because I wanted to make sure it was okay with him if I talked about this one night in particular, in Vegas, dead of night (well, there’s really no dead of night in Vegas, so lets just say it was the wee hours of the morning), when I was shook all night long…

It was about three in the morning, and we had just gone to sleep. Visions of clanging slot machines were dancing in my head when suddenly, I was jolted awake by a tremendous rumbling/roaring/booming sound immediately followed by trembling/rocking/swaying motion. Now, as much as I would love to say it was action in the next room – it wasn’t. Paul and I were shocked awake at the exact same moment, however, we each had completely different reactions. His was somewhat cool and collected as he strolls over to the floor-to-ceiling 14th floor windows, throws open the blinds because he’s thinking, “If this is an apocalypse, I want a damn good view.” Really? In the mean time, we can hear tons of commotion up and down the hallways of the hotel and alarms are going off at an astoundingly shrieking decibel. No reason to panic, right?

Hell yes! Picture this, I immediately spread-eagle myself flat on top of the bed (since I can’t fit underneath), throw every cover, bedspread, sheet, pillow, towel and suitcase (I was/am delusional - like any of these are going to help save me if the building goes down) within arms-length on top of my covering-the-whole-bed body and scream louder than any damn siren that the building is going down and we’re all going to die! Paul retorts that I’m being a tad dramatic (me? never) and that it is just an earthquake and it should be over soon. Excuse me? I’m from the flippin’ Midwest (so is he, so why is he Mr. Know-it-all?) and we do not have earthquakes there (at least not any that can make a building sway and move like a belly dancer). Not to mention, people are in clear panic mode, so I was not the only one freaking out (but possibly, the only one screaming my sins so that God would forgive me before I died – BTW, I never did finish).

Seriously, in between shouting my transgressions, I was yelling that there was NO possible way that this building could move like this and NOT go down. I’m no fucking engineer, but when a building’s windows are almost parallel to the ground, you should probably start saying your prayers. At this point, Paul is on top of me shielding my body with his (I kind of made him since I figured when they found our bodies in the rubble, at least they’d know we were together – maybe). Paul said we should probably try and exit like it seemed most people were doing, but I was too paralyzed (except my mouth – that never happens), to move from the bed. Besides, where were all of those people going? Like standing outside the building when it topples is going to fare better? Christ, I’ll take my chances (gambler that I am) in a nice cozy, rocking bed before I take cover under a $4.95 all-you-can-eat buffet sign (or worse, next to one of those hooker/call girl/prostitute/it’s-all-the-same pamphlet-shoving-no-English-speaking-desperate-need-of-a-shower dudes).

What seemed like hours, was probably only a couple of minutes – but the rumbling, roaring, swaying, and shaking finally ended (oh, and the earthquake did, too). I gave Paul permission to get off of me and he turned on the TV to find out what the hell just happened. Boy, those news people work faster than Paris Hilton at a cocktail party. It was already on the air that Vegas had been hit by a magnitude 7.0 quake! Soon following, they were live on the strip and interviewing people about their earthquake experience. One lady was on top of the Stratosphere Tower when it hit (now that would have surely sent me over the edge – literally). Some people were already packing their bags and getting out of town (wusses). Seriously, it would take more than a near-death experience to get me to cut my Vegas trip short.

The aftershocks from the quake kept coming through the night and I never did get any sleep. Each time one hit, my shrieks lessened a bit until eventually, they were just faint whimpers (once I was convinced the building was made of rubber and could bend like Stretch Armstrong only to spring back into place). But really, who the hell goes to Vegas to sleep anyhow?

Look Mom, No Hands!

It’s no secret that I have given my mom more than my fair share of gray hairs and mini heart attacks. After all, I kept her on her toes and that keeps you young, right? Regardless, she looks back now and laughs, so it’s all good (she’s either forgiven me or blocked the worst shit out – plus, I get her really good Mother’s Day, birthday, and Christmas please-forgive-me-for-being-a-shitty-rotten-kid gifts to make up for it).

One of my favorite give-mom-a-heart-stopping-breathtaking-moment stunts I loved to pull was climbing to the tippy-top of the huge old oak tree in our backyard, poke my head out of the top, wave and yell, “Look mom…no hands!” Seriously, this tree was taller than our two-story house, and I could scale that thing better than any monkey. The funniest thing was that every time I did this, she reacted the same way: she would frantically try to look up the tree from the ground, yell my whole name (middle name included), then an obscenity or two, order me down this instant and threaten me with the paddle. I would look down at her from my perch and then start rattling the branches back and forth while I pretended to lose my footing and shout that I was going to fall and die right before her very eyes and wouldn’t she be so sad that her last words to me were so mean (I know, I ought to be ashamed). Inevitably, she would soften and beg me lovingly to come down. That’s all I wanted – attention and ambivalence (two things every child craves).

Attention-whore that I was (am), I was constantly trying to outdo my last feat. It was like I spent my days deliberately trying to concoct my next antic (I was shrewd, after all). These concocting schemes, of course, consumed a lot of my mental energy, therefore rendering me quite useless with other, more mundane tasks such as walking and chewing gum at the same time or even a simple bike ride. Mundane rhymes with insane and I don’t play that game (although I do like other games). I liked (like) to shake things up from time to time.

One time, I coaxed Slinky sis to try climbing the tree with me. She was the next oldest, so she was usually right behind me in everything I did anyhow. Partners in crime, her and I. Anyhow, she was little-miss-accident-prone (started with the Slinky and never stopped), but I never once had fallen out of that tree, so at first, I never thought that she would fall (I should just say I never thought). But then, I had a change of heart: “What if she did fall and break her neck? God, I would be in SO much trouble and probably have to push her around in a wheelchair FOREVER.” I couldn’t have that, so I offered to stay down on the ground while she climbed the tree, and if she fell, I would catch her. Nice plan. Brilliant. My best yet!

Needless to say, she didn’t make it but twenty feet up, before her clumsy ass missed a branch, and she came flying down. I quickly forgot the plan to catch her and watched her very un-gracefully fall and land smack on her back right at my feet. I stood in dumbfounded awe (I was/am good at that). She didn’t move, or even breathe, for a few seconds as she stared blankly up at me, and I back at her. My mind flashed to the wheelchair and how now she was going to get all the freakin’ attention just because of her incompetence (what a witch, right?).

It took a moment, but my right emotion eventually kicked in and I started to feel bad for her and bent to help her, when suddenly, she caught her breath and screamed bloody murder (she learned from the best – I taught her that), and pregnant-again mom came running. Slinky sis still couldn’t move, but she could sure rat, and she shrieked to mom that I dared her to climb up the tree and I taunted her until she would do it (just a little). Of course, I was busted because I was the oldest and should have known better, blah, blah, blah…

I knew the drill well: go sit in the middle of my room until my father got home. Funny thing was, dad was much more lenient than mom, so waiting for him was like a walk in the park compared to dealing with the momster. I actually had a lot of time to come up with some really good, believable stories while I was up there, too. I really should have been a lawyer, because I could (can) debate/argue my way out of just about anything – especially with him. He was putty in my hands.

In the end, Slinky sis ended up not being crippled, or even breaking anything (expect a branch or two on the way down). She was just being overly dramatic (don’t know where she got that), and wanted to be the attention-whore that day (week actually, she really milked it). I let her have it as I knew my turn would come again soon. After all, I’d had plenty of time to plot my next move…

Like a Band of Gypsies...

…we went down the highway. The Griswold’s got nothing on me (except maybe I don’t have an Aunt Edna). Seriously, my family vacations consisted of all of us kids piled on top of all of our shit in the back of the van with grandma and at least one dog thrown in the mix. Since my parents loved to travel, they took us on a lot of these trips. Of course, my parent’s were also cheap (they preferred to call it “adventurous”- whatever), so we ALWAYS had to drive to these exotic locales. No luxurious plane rides for us.

Since we spent a lot of time on the road, and there were no portable TV’s, DVD players, iPods (although, I did get a Walkman when I was about 14), or Nintendo DS systems; my parents made it their mission to come up with little, quirky, frequent stops along our journey to keep us from killing each other in the back of the van. Not to mention, I was very prone to car sickness (still am), so en route, I was almost always green. That alone, made us have to stop often - whether it be to let me toss my cookies on the side of a road-kill-laden road, or at least to dispose of the puke bag I had filled to the rim. Looking back, it really didn’t help that our van had no windows at all in the back (I’m sure that was by design, since my parents most likely didn’t want people or cops to see all of us seatbelt-less kids tussling around back there).

In my parent’s quest to seek out odd and unusual (appropriately fitting) kitschy roadside attractions, this often took us on some offbeat, wacky, and longer-than-necessary detours. Whether it was the largest statue of a praying mantis in Pennsylvania, the largest ball of twine in Kansas, the largest Rubik’s Cube in Tennessee, or the largest garden gnome in New York – we’ve seen it all (and then some). I mean really, how many kids can say they bought a shot glass from the gift shop at Dr. Bob’s House in Akron (where Alcoholics Anonymous began) or slept in a real Indian Tee-Pee (well, I didn’t really sleep, more like shrieked all night because something was always crawling on me)? Hell no, I wasn’t deprived.

These stops always ended up being a huge production, too (shocker, I know). Almost never did these weird and wacky places have a toilet near (or even within 30 miles) so we always had to make our own (TMI – shut up). The camper we were always yanking behind us didn’t have one either. Even though totally illegal, after hundreds of miles of dealing with us unruly kids, my parents would “let us” ride back in the camper for a bit. Talk about tossing cookies – riding back there was like being a lottery ball in one of those machines bouncing up and down and all around. It was a regular pukefest back there, but hell, we had fun. Never mind, that a couple of us needed stitches and had a concussion for part of the trip (at least we were quieter when we were passed out).

Also, since my parents were so damn cheap (our gas-guzzler-big-ass-camper-towing van got like two miles to the gallon), they were always trying to cut corners. Our “adventures” almost always had us kids, grandma (and at least one dog) sleeping in the musty-old-no-toilet-or-air-conditioning camper. Or worse, a TENT! While my parents got the plush, fold-out bed in the back of the crap-cleared-out-eight-track-playing-air-conditioned van. No matter how much I begged, pleaded, and promised to be nice to my sisters (fingers crossed behind my back), my parents almost never sprang for a hotel. Hell, I would’ve settled for a freakin’ Bates Motel (would’ve been less scary).

Not to mention, we almost never stopped at restaurants along our travels either. After about the third day in a row of eating frozen burritos heated on the van radiator, the novelty kind of wears off. Plus, it took me years before I figured out there was no such thing as “adventure milk” and that it was not supposed to be curdled or smell like vomit. There were also times when I caught grandma scouting road kill and I had my suspicions about dinner that evening. I also remember a trip when one of grandma’s dogs “disappeared” only never to be seen again…hmmmmmmmm. Of course, when in doubt, I never ate (that’s probably why I was skinny back then – thanks mom and dad!). When I got to be a teenager, I was finally seasoned enough to start squirreling away packaged snacks to smuggle into my bag for our trips so I wouldn’t starve. I was pretty slick too, since I never got caught and risk being forced to share with the other vultures that weren’t as smart as me to plan ahead.

Flash forward 20-30 years, and now I have officially turned into my parents (minus the roadkill, radiator burritos, camping and grandma). I only stay in hotels (indoor pool, room service, mini-bars, and separate kid's room are must-have amenities). I might cave and stay at a motel if it’s just a pit stop to catch a few zzzzzz’s on our way to the four-star. I do go to www.roadsideamerica.com before each one of our road trips and map our route looking for the wild and wacky things we can do along the way. After all, who doesn’t want to see the world’s largest toilet (BTW – you can slide down inside it – I gotta go)???

If You're Happy and You Know It...

Smile, laugh, dance, skip, sing, shout, and clap your flippin’ hands! I do these on a daily basis (sometimes all at once) and for some reason people think I’m nuts when I do (imagine that).

Why is it that when I smile, folks often think I’m up to something? After all, I don’t have beady little eyes, wear a flasher jacket (much), or a low-sitting fedora (head’s too big). I like to find people without a smile and give them mine - I’m charitable that way. However, I do admit, when it creates an awkward situation, it is kind of fun (hilarious, actually). Once or twice, a guy has jumped to the conclusion that I was flirting (correct), and thought I was into him (incorrect). I guess I should work on that.

Why is it when I laugh, people think I’m a lunatic? (I am – but not because I laugh). Never mind that I will burst out laughing in a quiet room from something that happened more than twenty years ago. Or, worse, I will laugh at inappropriate times, like when somebody takes a nasty fall or when a toupee flies off during a strong wind. I don’t do it to be mean – I honestly can’t help it. That’s just how I roll…

Why can’t I dance without others thinking I have special needs? My kids get especially mortified when I dance in the car, while I’m driving (but that damn Lady Gaga makes me do it every time). I guess also that it is not “normal” for a grown woman to just start dancing in the middle of the supermarket (if the tune is awesome, I just gotta do it), but who’s to say what is “normal”? I admit, I don’t exactly have rhythm, but I can bust a move (and a hip) on the dance floor when the song is right. These hips don’t lie, baby!

Why can’t I skip without everybody thinking I’m a freak? So what if I’ll start skipping down the aisle at church for no apparent reason (and possibly throw in a twirl or two)? Or, better yet, sometimes I’ll skip instead of jog in my full workout regalia (sweatbands and all). It sure makes people do a double-take twice and I love watching their lips mouth “WTF?” as they drive by. Seriously, it is feel-good exercise and why more people don’t do it, is beyond me (then again, most stuff is).

Why can’t I sing without people bribing me, threatening me, and throwing things at me to shut the hell up? I know I’m quite possibly the world’s worst singer, but who are they to put out somebody’s fire? If it hurts your ears - leave the room. If you’re in a car with me - I’ll let you out at the next light. If you’re on a plane with me - sucks for you (earplugs won’t help). Really people, choose your battles (like who gets the last damn Twizzler), and just let somebody sing their little heart out (instead of ripping it out).

Why can’t I shout without the masses thinking I have Tourette’s Syndrome? After all, maybe I do and won’t they all feel like crap when I am finally diagnosed by a real doctor instead of just myself. I do randomly shout things (expletives, usually – but don’t we all?) quite often. However, my hubby especially doesn’t like it when I yell, “Fuck me!” to the neighbor or, “Eat me!” to the mail man (although he doesn’t seem to mind when I yell that and the mail man happens to be a female sub). More often than not though, my shouts are shouts of joy. Just like long happy “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” sounds. As long as I don’t do those in the dead of night, or in the middle of our priest’s homily, I’m golden. My family and friends are used to it, and most common acquaintances are too.

Why I can’t I clap my hands without people thinking I’m a narcissistic cheerleader? Sometimes I clap when I find a box of cereal on sale. Sometimes I clap when I make it through Target without causing any crime scene tape to be brought out (and it’s much easier than patting myself on the back). Sometimes I clap for the fun of it. Anyhow, it is almost always to give myself props (because I never get any freakin’ trophies from anyone else), so, of course, I do it quite literally on a regular basis. Who are they to judge? Besides, what the hell should they care if I think I’m all that (and a bag of chips)?  They're probably just jealous anyway...

To be honest, I love doing all of these things (and like I said, sometimes all at once).  I'm an emotional, passionate person.  I can restrain myself when I need to, but I really don't want to all that much (and want and need are two different things entirely).  Besides, what fun is it to be a stick in the mud?  You only live once (at least that's what the ghosts tell me) and I really don' t give a rip about what other people think.  When my time is up, it won't really much matter what people thought or what they said about me.  Happy, crazy, freaky, different - it's all good.  The important thing is that they remember me...

Saying Goodbye To Life In the Fat Lane

In the last year and a half, I have lost about 90 pounds. During that time, my true persona has emerged. For many people who didn’t know me before I became heavy, they are meeting the real me for the first time, and they are quite shocked (perhaps I missed my calling as an actress because I had them all fooled). I haven’t changed now that I’m slimmer, but rather I had changed who I was while I was heavy, and now I am simply back to the old me…the real me. I was like a caterpillar that had been in a cocoon (a mighty big one, at that) for many years, suddenly set free to be the person I truly wanted and deserved to be (obnoxiously witty, sneeringly sarcastic, glass half-full kind of girl).


Over the years, I had tried every kind of diet. I was successful for a couple of months, lost some weight, but the diets always restricted too many of my favorite foods (carbs, chocolate, carbs, ice cream, carbs, sweets, and pretty much everything that’s bad for you), so they were not realistic for long term goals. I crashed, burned, purged, and regained. Pretty much the way most people who try to diet inevitably fail. Well, I hate to fail, dammit, and those big, fat (literally) failures got me more and more pissed – at myself (self-esteem took a huge nosedive, as well). I could do anything I put my mind to, but not lose the weight – all the weight – for good.

You see, I am really good at psychology and I’d known all the years I was fat, what my true problem (there is always a root problem) was, I just had no motivation to fix the problem. I kept avoiding IT thinking I’d deal with IT tomorrow or the next day. However, tomorrow turned into too many years, until one day I had a revelation: being fat sucks! So I set out on my mission to NOT diet (diet is a four-letter word, you know), but rather, to eat healthier, exercise more, and have realistic expectations. I took a laid-back approach in changing my lifestyle, and figured I would let the chips fall where they may (just not so much into my mouth).

My lifestyle change rule #1: NO food is off-limits. This includes cake, candy, and Pepperridge Farm Goldfish (the snack that smiles back). Just in moderation (like no more than twice a day…seriously). Just shoot me, stab me, hurl me off a tall building now if I could never have those again (or gravely pity the people who have to live with me).

My lifestyle change rule #2: NO calorie or carb counting. I suck at math and that is the last thing I needed to send me flipping off the wagon. If I have to use the Pythagorean Theorem to figure out if I’m “allowed” to eat something or not, I going to damn well eat it all (and its closest relatives).

My lifestyle change rule #3: NEVER use the word diet. That word is taboo, and has failed me every time. Call it power of negative suggestion, but when diets have failed me before, they will fail me again (trust issues). Besides, lifestyle change is tres chic and so haute right now.

My lifestyle change rule #4: Move more and often. I have never been a lazy person, even when I was heavy, I never sat around and watched TV while eating Bon-Bons (well, I did have some Bons-Bons, but usually while I was cleaning, organizing, working or cooking dinner). I know many people stereotype fat people as being lazy, and that infuriates me (because I love to prove people wrong – that’s my drug). I knew I needed cardio workouts included in my daily routine to get my heart rate up, thus promoting the fat burning I so desperately needed.

My lifestyle change rule #5:  Do NOT obsess about the number on the scale.  I made a vow to not weigh myself more than twice a month.  This rule came late in the game because, at first, I weighed myself too often and the weight bounced up and down like a rubber ball and just became a major source of frustration.  Now, I sometimes go a month or two where I forget to weigh myself.  I figure if my clothes all fit and feel good, than I must be on track and that's all I need to feel good.

My lifestyle change rule #6: Find the lighter side to life again - both literally and figuratively. Take things more in stride and try not to let stress determine when I eat (or what I eat). This is, and always will be the hardest rule to uphold, because like most women, when we get stressed our hormones immediately trigger that “go stuff your face with a bag of Oreos and it will all be better” response. I needed to wrangle those feisty pheromones (easier said than done) and put them to better use (don’t ask because I can’t promise I can keep it PG).

Now, usually I break rules (because I don’t like people telling me what I can and cannot do), but these are rules I can live with (plus, I made them up for me, so I would only be defying myself and that is so not cool). Naturally, living by these rules has yielded (almost painlessly) fabulous results. I have to say, I’m more fit now than I was in high school, and have skyrocketing energy (no drugs needed). I still eat crap from time to time, but I have struck a harmoniuos balance with my new body. When I do overindulge, I work out a little harder the next day (or days – depending on the damage), and try to eat healthier to compensate for that two pound burrito or (and) vat of buffalo chicken dip I devour.

It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this stuff out (or maybe it does, since I didn’t figure this out years ago). It’s as simple as calories in < calories out = weight loss. No magic pills, or special diet formulas are going to work for the long haul (believe me – been there tried that). Just simple, gradual changes will eventually bring results. Just don’t expect to have overnight results (like I used to – impatient person that I am). After all, I didn’t get fat overnight, so getting thin the right way was going to take some time. And so far, time has been my friend…

Grin and Bear It

Growing up in Michigan, we had easy access to Canada (almost too easy). My stepdad was an avid outdoorsman (other than that, he was a great guy) so any chance he could, he would drag us (with me – kicking and screaming) up into the vast Canadian wilderness. During our travels through civilizations, I would drool at the sight of the hotels, even motels, with their playgrounds and swimming pools and beg (whine) to stay there like normal kids (guess my parents didn’t think we were normal). Hell no, we had to be like Lewis and Clark and camp up in the foresty mountains, hunting and foraging for our own food. Mom didn’t even bring as much as a box of saltines. Warning: this story is not enhanced, or embellished in any way, shape, or form…

On one particular trip when I was about twelve, we made camp next to a little lake (more like a swamp, really) I was happy (not as bummed) because I thought at least we could swim. While everybody was helping settle camp, I took Slinky sis down to the water. Of course, it was extremely murky, so I wanted her to test the water (I wasn’t stupid enough to go first). She goes in for a minute and comes back out saying the water was fine (and since nothing took a bite out of her, I figured all was well). So I walk in and the water was great. I immediately got bolder and started to venture further out. However, I didn’t get too far from shore before I started to sink down into the muck at the bottom of the lake. By the time I realized what was happening, I had sunk down all the way up to my thighs. Luckily, it was loose muck, so I was able to free myself and get back to shore. When I walked out of the water, my sis said I still had mud all over me. I looked down and tried to brush the clumps of mud that were all over my legs away and they didn’t budge. Now, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the hell that “mud” was – leeches. They were all up and down my legs, just sucking the life right out of me. I thought it was the end, for sure, because there were so many that they could most definitely suck me dry before I could make the 150 foot walk to camp (because I knew all there was to know about leeches – not really or I wouldn’t have trodden into murky water). So I did what any melodramatic, drama queen, brat-of-a-kid would do – screamed bloody murder and collapsed to the ground.

When my parents came running, they instantly thought we were being attacked by mountain lions so my stepdad came with his gun drawn. When they saw it was just me with no less than fifty leeches attached, they chided me for scaring them (they should’ve been used to that by now). They were also mad because they said my earth-shattering screams probably scared away any bears that may have been in the area. That was all this entire trip, any trip, we ever took to the wilderness was all about – seeing an ever-elusive brown, black or grizzly bear.

Well, it wasn’t but a day after my leechfest that my parents got their freakin’ wish. We looked like the Beverly Hillbilly’s (meets Gilligan’s Island) as we all piled into our rinky-dink rowboat to check out the mystical land on the other side of the pond-swamp-lake. It was a cloudy, foggy day and the “other side” looked like it had never seen humans before. It was eerily overgrown, with just a strip of shoreline, and was so thick with trees that even Grizzly Adams would be afraid to forge ahead.

When we hit land over there, my parents told us kids to stay close to the boat in case we had to make a hasty retreat. Of course, everybody else listened (wusses), but what I heard was, “Go as far away from the boat as you possibly can because with one less person, it’ll be quicker to get away from any wild, starving animals that want to eat us.” I’m a wanderer at heart, a drifter, a dreamer; so I was at least a football field down the shoreline looking for driftwood, when I heard my mom whisper-screaming for me. I couldn’t understand what she was saying as she was waving her arms frantically, so I laughed because she looked hilarious. Then, I went back to hunting for driftwood in odd shapes. I had already found one that looked like a slice of pizza, a doughnut, and a jelly bean (hey, I was starving myself by this point since I refused to eat the rabbit stew the night before or the fish for breakfast). She yelled a bit louder the next time and by now I was getting annoyed that she was interrupting my daydreaming (I was pretending to be Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island and had tied my shirt so that it showed my flattening-by-the-minute-from-starvation belly).

When I looked back this time, everybody was in the boat and my stepdad was speedily pushing it back out to sea-swamp. My Gilligan fantasy was halted since my fear kicked in (finally) that I was being abandoned and would thus be raised by wolves (might not have been a bad thing). I started running as fast as I could. They were not getting rid of me this easily, Goddammit! As I was running closer, I started to yell-cry (I was good at that – still am) that they couldn’t leave without me and what kind of parents would do that, when they hushed me (they were good at that). Then they pointed to the trees. There stood the biggest grizzly bear I had ever seen (the only one I had ever seen – outside of a zoo). WTF? All these years they flapped about wanting to see a bear in the wild, now there was one (a huge one) in the flesh, and they were booking to get away?  Make up your minds already, people!

Of course, by now, the shrimpy boat was almost halfway out in the muddy water, so if I didn’t want to be this bear’s appetizer, I was going to have to brave the leeches once again (not like really I braved them the first time). I looked at the bear about fifty feet away gazing at me, then looked at my family floating away beckoning me, then figured the leeches weren’t so bad.

When I got to the boat, and all was calm, we sat drifting, watching the bear watch us. I don’t know why we figured we were safe at that point, because the water was pretty shallow, and I think bears can swim, so if he had really wanted us, he could have had us all. After a few more minutes of intense staring, the bear turned and retreated back to his habitat. Can you believe everybody was upset that he left? They wanted to sit and watch the bear all flippin’ day I guess. What a bunch of fickle fools…

Back at camp, we burned the leeches off of our legs, and I think granny turned them into soup. Reason being, the best name the adults could come up with for dinner that night was “mystery soup.” Now, I was no fool, so I knew that meant they weren’t telling us what was in there for reason. Nevertheless, I caved and ate some, therefore proving my mom’s theory that “she will eat when she’s hungry enough” to be true. That’s not saying it was good (it was horrid), but it was something and something is always better than nothing…

Of Mice and Me

Rodents and I don’t mesh, which is pretty ironic considering I work for one (Mickey - hey, at least I don't work for Spiderman because I can't stand spiders even more). They just don’t understand me, or, quite possibly, I don’t get them. It’s not that I hate them but, rather, I hate how they present themselves. They usually scamper out of some obscure place (mostly, under cover of darkness) when you least expect it. It is the element of surprise they covet and I absolutely do not. You see, I am a control freak and control freaks like things to happen when they want them to happen, the way they want them to happen. If I could tell the little mouse when to come out and how, we would have a splendiferous relationship. But hell no, they always have to scamper and scare and that, frankly, is what I cannot tolerate.

Mice, rats and I go way back. Growing up, our sand box and swing-set were situated (quite strategically) behind the shed in our backyard. Under the shed, lived a ratcoon (a rat the size of a raccoon – probably because it ate one) who I named Schnitzel (because he looked like an overstuffed sausage and food is always the first thing I think of). He had beady little eyes, long jagged whiskers and a foot-long bald tail. I can’t tell you how many times I was on that rickety old swing set and he would be shiftily eyeballing us from his lair under the moldy, dilapidated shed. I think he was secretly waiting for one of us to fall lame and then make his move so that he could harvest our flesh from our young, defenseless bodies (at least that’s what I thought in my fantastical mind). On one of the rare days he was actually brave enough to venture out of his hideaway while we were all out, my baby sister tried to crawl over and pet him because she thought he was a bunny. I, however, was onto him (being worldly and all) and jumped in to save the day and scare him off (all I had to do was show up), thus saving her from being swallowed whole (see – I’m not all that bad – BTW, I’m still waiting for my freakin’ hero trophy). I also have my suspicions that Schnitzel was involved in the overnight disappearances of our two pet bunnies, Oreo and Cracker Jack (food again).

Another time, when I was eighteen, some friends and I went camping. The cabin we were in was really not much more than a glorified picnic pavilion (minus the glorified) and all we had were sleeping bags sprawled out on the floor. In the middle of the first night, I awoke to a loud crunching sound right in my ear. In my weary, mostly-asleep state, I turned my head ever-so-slightly towards the sound only to be eyeball to eyeball with a rat gnawing on my hair (really can’t blame the poor thing for thinking it was a rat’s nest). Of course, I went from being mostly asleep to shockingly awake in like one second flat (it’s amazing what the human body can withstand, really) and my blood-curdling scream not only woke everybody in our makeshift-can’t-believe-this-even-qualifies-as-a-cabin cabin, but every person in the entire campground (even across the lake) and surrounding houses. That clueless little rat picked the wrong hair to gnaw and never even knew what hit him. Let’s just say, after that experience, I’ve never gone camping again, nor was I ever invited back (their loss – I drove every critter out of that place for at least the season – they should be begging me to come back, ingrates).

Furthermore, I must not leave out all of the cheese-stealing, get-their-rocks-off-scaring-people mice that have tormented me throughout the years. Honestly, I think they can smell control-freak, blood-cuddling screamer and thus, they like to fuck with me. It’s like there is a command center hub for them and they radio, “Cue the scamper” when they see me coming and the closest mouse gets the job. Its definitely one of the top reasons I detest visiting my parent’s farm in Kentucky. Those sadistic menaces are popping out everywhere down there. I know I should expect it by now, but I inevitably have to let my guard down, and that’s when they strike. I’m sorry, but the next time one strolls across the top of my bare foot, in the middle of the night, carrying a fun size Milky Way, the shit is going to hit the fan – AGAIN. Or, when a mischief of mice decides to spring out of a box of cereal at me (yet another argument for bringing my own food), the fan is getting hit again (this time with even more – and louder – four-letter words). Lastly, if they crawl on me when I’m sleeping, even if it’s just to play “King of the Hill” (or hills), all bets are off and that damn fan is coming down (nobody screws with my sleep).

As I said, I don't hate the vermin (strongly dislike), I just don't like how scheming they can be.  They are all cute and cuddly when they are caged and under my control.  Hell, I've even been known to pet one a time or two when they are properly restrained (and muzzled - me).  Yes, rodents of all kinds and I have quite a colorful past and I'm sure we'll continue to cross paths in the future.  Just as long as they don't try to nest in my hair, mess with my food, fuck with my sleep, or skitter out at me (basically, if I don't ever see or hear them), we'll co-exist just swimmingly.

Taming of the Shrewd

I’ve been called, by many people throughout my life, a very shrewd person. I don’t recall how old I was when I first heard this, but I believe I was quite young. I had no idea what it meant at the time, but it usually followed one of my epic stunts, so I always connotated it with something bad.

Throughout the years, as I heard it time and time again from teachers, other kids’ parents, and even my parents, I never bothered to find its real meaning, for I just assumed it was a nice way to say “imbecile” or “fuckup.” Imagine my complete surprise when I stumbled upon its actual meaning: astute, keen, sharp, calculating, conniving. It was like a weight had been lifted! All these years I had been being paid a compliment and didn’t even realize it!

Mind you, I guess I wasn’t very shrewd to figure this out years earlier, but looking back, I can totally see what these people saw in me. After all, I was almost always the mastermind behind every evil plot to prematurely gray my parents (or my friends’ parents). The fact that we got caught (some of the time) was almost never due to me, but it was usually due to the less shrewd parties involved.

Case in point, my friend Pam and I (dumpster divas) were always finding discarded porn magazines in the parking lot next to her house (everything I learned about sex, I learned from those mags – and cable). I thought the photo spreads (literally) were hysterical and that we should share them with the neighborhood. My plot entailed us taping them (eye-level) to everybody’s front storm door, ringing their doorbell, and then running away. Genius plan, right? Well, it would have been had my short, stubby friend been able to keep up the pace. She blew our cover by the second house. Again, I was sent home, by her overreacting mother all the while she was screaming that I was shrewd, obnoxious and a bad influence on her daughter.

Another time, in fifth grade, I rallied the class to make obscene baked goods for the class bake sale (those damn porn mags made me do it). Everyone showed up with cupcakes that had nipples, éclairs that resembled penises, and cookies with butt cracks. Never mind that we all (some with my help) also named our creations lascivious names like; tasty titties, penis pastry, cock cakes, and full-moon moon pies (hey – I was creative even back then – thank you very much). We were the first class to almost sell-out before the word spread and we were shut down (by jealous plain-cookie sales kids). As it was determined, I was fingered as the conspirator and trotted down to the principal’s office. I could only hear his end of the phone conversation with my mother as he told her that I was very shrewd and needed to be better supervised. WTF? Didn’t he know that you become quite worldly at a young age when you have a liquor store (that was the front for an adult book store) at the corner of your street and a strip joint the next street over (every kid's dream playground).

I was also very shrewd at the roller rink when I had a major crush on the hottie roller referee dude. I was only fifteen, but my hormones were raging out of control (not much has changed) and I had my sights set on him. The fact that he was a few years older than me and my parents would strongly disapprove, made me want him even more. The rink was crawling with scantily clad pretty young things all trying to vie for his attention so I hatched a diabolical plan to make myself stand out: I would fall – hard. Yes, I was willing to risk serious injury and/or dismemberment for a shot at this player (what the hell was I thinking). So, I got up a good speed skate, waited until he was within perfect jump-to-my-aid distance and hurled myself into the path of a gang of linebackers (actually, they were just really big girls – but each one certainly outweighed me by double). Long story short, four of the girls fell on top of me. Hard. I took a roller skate to the eye (harder) and ripped my brand-new Jordache jeans (hardest). I also found out that I can go without breathing for almost three minutes before passing out (which is how long it took Roller McDreamy to hoist all of the glamazons off of me). Needless to say, by the time he got to me, my eye had swelled up to about the size of a tennis ball, so I didn’t look like my cute, adorable self (but rather freakishly heinous since a tennis-balled eye slathered in mascara and blue eye shadow is so NOT attractive). Nevertheless, I faked a gimpy leg so that he would carry-skate me back to the “first-aid” room. He tended to my injuries, let me cry on his shoulder and despite my battle-wound, he still made my night (and a few nights after that).

Although I still consider myself to be very shrewd (and proud of it), I prefer not to use it (as much) for selfish gain, but rather for the good of mankind. After all, it is an excellent skill to have and to hone. Just like great wisdom comes with age, shrewdness comes with experience…and that’s something I have a lot of…

Pity the Fool

As I’ve said before, karma’s a bitch and I got quite a payback today from my mother, of all people. If you’ve read some of my past blogs, you will have a small sampling of just some of the hell I put her through during my childhood years. I guess she hasn’t forgotten because she pulled a doozy. Since she lives in another state, I got a call from her early this morning. She usually sleeps late, so when the phone rang just before 8:00 am, I was quite alarmed. Now, my mother is not a good liar (I must get it from my dad), nor is she dramatic (old age has mellowed her), so when I heard her panicked voice, I was even more concerned.

She went on to say that the farm they own was going into foreclosure (news to me) and since she had just lost her job (I already knew about that part), there was no way they could save it. She sounded like she was crying something fierce and through her sobs, she said that they owed years of back taxes as well and if they didn’t pay up, they would go to jail. Of course, I remembered that it was April Fool’s Day, so at first, I was not buying her story. When I called her on it, she got extremely upset and chided me for even thinking that she would make up something so heinous (I would make it up for a good prank and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree).

So, as she’s rambling on and on, her sob story became more of a reality. She asked if her and Ted (my stepfather) could come live with us until they got back on their feet. After all, she said Ted was getting too old to farm anymore and he really should retire. She was so damn convincing (guess she learned from the pro – me), that I finally bought the whole shit and caboodle. Then I was the one crying! Selfish as it is for me to say, I love my mom, but I was cringing at the thought of them coming to live here.

Don’t get me wrong, my stepfather is a nice, down-to-earth, good-‘ol-boy (and when I say down-to-earth – I mean, he always carries part of the earth around with him on his clothes, body, hair, you name it – a cloud of dirt follows him everywhere). When my mom first met him, his farmhouse (on a good day) looked more petrifying than any of the houses I’ve seen on the worst day of Hoarders. The man refuses to throw anything away. For this very reason, I always bring my own food when I visit (and Clorox wipes), and ipecac syrup just in case one of the kids eats something from the horse/cow fridge (or even the house fridge – there are live colonies abound in that thing). Needless to say, the thought of them moving in with us just rocked my world (and NOT in a good way).

As we wrapped up our phone conversation, I still held out a glimmer of hope that this was all an evil prank and my mom would come clean. However, we hung up the phone and she never ‘fessed up. Immediately, I called my sis (slinky) who lives near my mom and she corroborated mother’s story. She said that she’d take them in but since she is a single mom with a very small house, she just doesn’t have any room to spare. At this point, I’m shitting my pants (literally – almost) because one of my biggest nightmares is coming true (besides being seen with wild Bride of Frankenstein hair).

As I’m running around like a nut (per usual), trying to concoct a legitimate reason as to why they cannot come live here, my mind is flooded with ideas: maybe I can set the spare bedroom ablaze (no – too risky as to keeping it confined to just that room, plus, my stepfather might like it sooty); maybe I could fake a bout of anthrax (no - they have worse stuff than that trolling their refrigerators so that certainly wouldn’t scare them off); maybe we can pack up the house under cover of darkness and move to an undisclosed location under assumed identities (too covert – plus, I checked – we don’t qualify for the witness protection program). Anyhow, I never claimed they were good ideas…

About an hour passes, and just as I’m contemplating falling off the wagon and going out to get a triple Whopper, quadruple-sized fries, a super gulp (64 oz. frozen cherry coke), and an entire box of Ho-Hos (Ho-Hos fix everything) for lunch, the phone rings. It was mom. She couldn’t take it anymore and ‘fessed to the prank. She said she had intended to keep it going for a few days, but she was thinking about holy week (she’s a good Catholic – now, at least – maybe that’s where I don’t get it), and how even though she so owed me for years of delinquency, jokes, and riotous pranks, she just couldn’t keep it going. How sweet of her! Not! She, of all people, should know how I overreact and blow things out of proportion (just a tad). As idiotically impulsive as I am, she’s lucky I didn’t sledgehammer the walls down (I checked – we don’t own a sledgehammer and neighbor wasn’t home to borrow), or worse, paint the walls Steelers colors (no black paint to be found).

Little does she know that, she, with the aid and abetting of snaky slinky sis, would have been responsible for my food suicide (OK – it would have been my fault since I can’t control my urges, but they would have assisted in the suicide - and Kevorkian was guilty). All I can say, is they better watch their back…the day isn’t over yet.

Hairy Scary

Only a few privileged (or extremely unlucky – depending on how they see it) people know a huge secret I’ve been hiding most of my adult life. Even fewer of those few have ever even seen my whopping secret in person. However, only the fewest of the fewer of the few have lived to tell about it. It is such a burden to bear that I must come clean…I have freakishly naturally curly hair. We’re not talking a few nice little ringlets here either. It’s more like a Brillo pad gone bad – to put it nicely.

As a child, I never wanted for hair. I came bellowing out of the womb with enough on my ginormous head (see first blog post) to make all of the wigs for Elton John’s concerts. It grew and grew and was always very lush and plush. Extraordinarily thick, bodacious, and wavy it was – but never kinky or curly. I was the envy of most of my friends who had greasy, stringy, can’t-do-a-thing-with, limp hair. They would all go and spend big bucks on the ever-popular ‘80’s perms, only to have their hair be flat as a pancake by the following week. They had to wash their hair every single day lest they go around looking like they just fell into an oil slick. All the while, I only had to wash my hair every second or third day. Hair stylists told me to wash less frequently so as not to dry my hair out too much and I was more than happy to oblige. Especially since it took three flippin’ hours (give or take a few minutes) to blow dry my copious coif.

Not only is my hair bizarrely thick, but each hair strand itself is very robust (seriously – under a microscope, the strands each look like a tree trunk from the Redwood Forest). To make matters worse, somewhere around the age of 25, I awoke a curly-corkscrewed-frizzy-funky mess. Believe me, I thought I was being punked in that maybe somebody slipped into my bedroom in the middle of the night, rolled 1000 tiny rollers (for my mop it would’ve taken that many easily), left them on for a couple hours, then took them out right before I woke. At least that’s how it seemed in my fantastical mind anyhow. All kidding aside, my hair on a good day (which happened maybe twice) looked like Little Orphan Annie. On a bad day (most days), I looked like the Bride of Frankenstein stuck her whole body into a light socket, then got struck by lightening, then sat smack dab in the center of the tornado that blew through during the storm. All I know, is that somehow, some way my hair was a hot mess (minus the hot) and I set out to do something about it (and no, I did not shave it all off like I did my eyebrows – see old blogs).

I was much older and wiser (shut up), and having learned from the shaved eyebrows of 1984, I knew I could not react on impulse. Which, unfortunately, is in my nature and a damn hard habit to break (and when I don’t get a friggin’ trophy or prize for making non-impulsive decisions – makes it virtually impossible). Firstly, I went to the salon and spent a week’s pay to have it flatteringly cut (the stylist had to use garden shears) and professionally straightened. All for shit I tell you! Barely a week later, my mane was back to its frenetic ways. I could be wrong (often, but rarely – I’m not sure) but it’s quite possible that it had gotten worse (probably rebelling against trying to be tamed – I know someone like that). I went out and spent more money than I had (or care to remember) on lotions, potions, gels and creams (for my hair, sicko) to try to get a grip on my unruled mop. Every elixir promised to be the one and none delivered (not even close). I even did something I almost never do – I read the directions – thinking maybe I was doing something wrong (rare occurrence) on the lying-luxurious-hair-false-hope bottles of bunk. I was only left with half-used bottles of shit-is-worth-more shit and more-than-ever morbidly fucked-up hair (and people wonder why I have trust issues)!

Over the years and the many trials and tribulations my hair and I have endured, we have reached a mutual agreement. I have to give it the proper attention it deserves by washing, rinsing, repeating, conditioning, and deep conditioning. No rough towel drying (splits the ends), my hair must be delicately swaddled into a turban for approximately 20 minutes before the next crucial steps. Those steps call for brushing it ever so lovingly (with Michael Buble songs playing softly in the background), while pulling ever so gently, while blow drying it ever so slowly (painstaking, but so worth it).

After that production (believe me – it is), I pull out the big gun – one I cannot live without (lets just say if I was stranded on a deserted island – this would be the one thing I would take). My straightening iron is my tool of self-confidence, the one that keeps me from looking like Medusa (at least the hair part). This is not just any iron either – it is salon quality. It reaches a skin-scarring (ask me to show you my scars – I’ll show you) 500 degrees. It scorches everything in its path, but a few (hundred) barely noticeable (thanks to the skin grafts) burns are so worth all that bad boy has given me. It gives me the non-frizzy, non-curly, non-fucked-up hair I so desire (and deserve, dammit).

The only things I have to be careful of are swimming and getting caught in rain storms. I love to swim, but I must be able to afford the couple hours afterwards required to wrangle my coif back into a civilized state. Also, God forbid I get caught in a rainstorm and cannot access the proper tools, then almost immediately my hair (on my head) starts to air dry into pubic hair gone wild. I have been the butt (stop snorting) of many jokes due to this, so I try to plan accordingly (like never leaving the house if there is any chance of rain).

They say your hair is an extension of who you are, so I guess it is only fitting that my true hair identity is unruly, rebellious, untamed, and fucked-up. If that’s the case, then I’m happy. After all, at least I’m not bald…because then I’d be nothing…

Grandpa Got Run Over By a Bum Steer

If you have read any of my past blogs, you know I like to mix oldies (but goodies) in with new shit (to keep it fresh). Truth be told, I have enough oldies to fill a library (well, at least with the way I tell stories). As I have said before, as farfetched as some of these events may sound, I can assure you that they have all taken place to me, with me, around me and in my presence (and I was on my meds at all times said situations took place, thank you very much). As with all great creative minds, there may be some ever-so-slight enhancements made for the sake of the story, however. Seriously though, one cannot simply make this shit up (I mean, I’m good – but nobody’s that good).


I’m taken back to a day in 1984. It was a warm, sunny summer day and my sister Dara (Slinky sis) and I were visiting grandma and grandpa in Ohio. My grandpa was still recovering from open heart surgery two months earlier and my grandmother didn’t think it would be too much bother if just Dara and I came since we were the two oldest grandkids (I was 12 at the time and sis was 9). Boy, she must have had the beginnings of senility and forgotten what little hellions we really were. Seriously, in years past, we single-handedly were responsible for giving all of her highly valuable Madame Alexander collection dolls buzz cuts (not to mention mini skirts); we played bartender with the neighborhood kids (seriously) in the basement’s tricked-out bar (hey, we charged them – we weren’t stupid); and put a car-long gouge in the side of grandpa’s shiny new Cadillac (just to name a few). I guess grandparents can turn a blind eye to those sort of things (either that or the memories are just so horrid, they’ve blocked them out).

Anyhow, after dinner that evening, grandpa asked if Dara and I would like to accompany him on his nightly walk. After all, the doctors had told him he should keep exercising as part of his recovery. Since sis and I were too lazy to walk, we decided to take grandma’s adult tricycle and ride along next to him. I’m sure you’ve seen them before: they are just oversized tricycles and they have a huge basket in the back (that is most likely meant for groceries and packages of the like – but we always piled other kids in there). Now, Dara and I were totally enamored with this ludicrous monstrosity and we always fought (loving sibs, we were not) who would get to drive and who would be the passenger. I argued that since I was bigger, I should drive; especially since their quiet, serene (at least when we weren’t visiting), upper-crust neighborhood was extremely hilly and valleyish and there were no sidewalks. Lo and behold though, it never failed, Dara’s cries and death threats (I don’t know where she learned to be such a drama queen) would always win her the driver’s spot for at least part of the ride.

During the walk, grandpa was chugging along at a pretty good clip, and we were keeping up right next to him and sometimes even ahead. Every so often, sis and I would stop to change drivers and grandpa would keep power walking. At one point, when Dara and I went to switch to me riding in the back basket, we were stopped at the top of a hill. As I got in, I had a bit of trepidation because sis was not a very good driver and this was quite a steep hill. I begged her to let me just drive it down the hill and she ratted down to grandpa (who was almost halfway down at this point) and he yelled that if we didn’t take turns civilly then he was going to lock the damn bike up for good. Now, we couldn’t have that! Especially since we’d already butchered the dolls and dried up the bar (what would we have left?). So I hop in the basket, and sis starts going down the hill. Of course, we start gradually, but rather quickly the trike picked up some serious speed (I’m sure the 100+ pounds in the basket helped it along). Naturally, this sounds like it is going to end really badly (and it does), but I sucked at split decisions (and still do). Seriously, I would have bailed, but that trike was a truckin’ and there was concrete on either side of me, so I figured I’d ride it out. Bad choice, not for me – but for poor, frail grandpa. At the last minute for whatever reason ( probably residual brain damage from the slinky incident), before narrowly missing grandpa, Dara decided to turn the handlebars ever-so-slightly to the left (maybe it was my shrill scream), which, in turn caused her to plow right into AND over unsuspecting grandpa.

There was an incredulous moment of WTF-filled silence as the trike finally came to rest at the foot of the hill. We looked back at grandpa all splayed out in the street like some oversized road kill and instead of running immediately to his aid, we played the blame game. We bickered back and forth about whose fault it was and who was going to go to jail for killing grandpa. I pretty much decided, even though I wasn’t the driver, that because I was the oldest that it would probably be me going to the big house or at least juvey (being the oldest sucked for that very reason – I should always have known better).

In the middle of our favorite game, I saw a twinge of movement from grandpa – he wasn’t dead! There was still hope! I ran over to help but I was quite taken aback when I heard my grandpa utter some choice words that I was used to, but had never heard him say (maybe that’s where I get it?). I helped grandpa into the bike basket and rode him home. Grandma immediately drove him to the emergency room, where aside from some broken glasses, skyrocketing blood pressure, a three-inch gaping head wound (nothing 10 stitches couldn’t fix) , and a broken rib, grandpa was totally fine. Not so shocking though, the doctors wanted to keep grandpa overnight for observation (and probably peace and quiet). That, in the meantime, gave grandma time to get us back to our rightful owners.

Over the ensuing years, the incident was never spoken of again. It was forgotten just as all of the other wayward crimes we had committed. I hope that someday I can find a way to forgive and forget all the shit that is bound to come back at me (karma’s a bitch). One thing is for damn sure though; if I ever take a walk with my grandkids, they’re going to be in front of me where I can see them at all times…