Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Freaking virus!

Damn, and I was all set to reveal something that happened last week I have been too SHY to blog about and now the only active PC is hosed and it isn't even April 1 yet.

Deja Vu TV

I have this conversation with Gary at least twice a week.

We switch to the beginning of a TV show.

"AUUGHHH!" (That's Gary.) "It's a repeat."

"No. 'Previously seen on.' For decades, decades, they have started shows with clips from previous episodes."

"NO! I've seen this. Don't you remember that episode; it's the one where - "

And then sometimes he switches the TV to another station. It doesn't matter. I've tried to sit down with him and explain it, and he can even hear "Previously seen on ..." and "Coming next a brand new episode of ... " and he'll still cry "Oh no! I've seen this!" And really, he's a smart man. They should take up that bottom right corner with a bright red "NEW" the way CNN does with "LIVE."

He's smart. Really.

Giant cheeto to scale

Gary's PC is screwed so I'm back to the iPhone. I felt the previous cheeto photo didn't clarify the giantness of the giant cheetos (see your local shop n save).

Education on the Steel Drum

Unrelated: I woke up this morning and was fed pecan pie in bed. It was great.

 

But that has nothing to do with my struggle to learn the steel drum. Here's what e-How e-says (slightly edited for your screen):

 

Step1 Have a basic knowledge of music theory and percussion before beginning. 

Step2 Choose your first steel drum.

Step3 Purchase a guide book that has basic chords and tunes. The guide should also have an audio CD so you can imitate the sounds. If you can obtain a DVD, you can learn by watching the movements while listening to the music.

Step4 Set up the steel drum. 

Step5 Strike the drum with a stick.

 

Noooooo waaaaaaay. I've been doing it all wrong!.I mean, I have a basic knowledge of music theory, if by basic you mean pages 1-17 of Music Theory for Dummies. I was okay on Step 2, but then FAIL Steps 3 - 5. Fail! I skipped step 3, then I went ahead and recklessly jumped to steps 4 and 5.

 

This failure inspired me to pick up my guitar and play all the easy songs I stopped playing a year ago.

The Baby Cheesus

 

   

Piggy Bank

Gary was standing in the hall. I peeked at him from the bed. He was rubbing his round belly and saw me looking at him.

"Savings," he said, conspiratorially.

"Ohhhhkay then."

He continued, "When I go on my diet I'm not going to eat. I can live off this belly for six months at least, and that means I won't need to buy groceries."

"Ahhhh..."

"Money in the bank, baby."

Food Has Turned

I don't smoke, drink, or use drugs to modify my mood. I eat. I am not just a recreational food user. Butter on coarse bread sedates me; sausage and cheese hops me up.Chocolate is an excellent drug and legal in all 50 states.

Yesterday I was bored, and so was Gary, so we tried an adventurous drug: sushi. No eels, no hard stuff, just raw tuna and avocado and veggie roll with that seaweed they could make into paint tarps. (I found out too late last night you can ask ask them to replace the seaweed with a thin chewable rice-based substance.)

A few hours after we ate the sushi Gary and I were in bed. I said,eloquently, "I am going to die," and then I belched.

"I know! I feel awful! What was in the sushi?"

"I'd say raw fish."

"Maybe we have mercury poisoning." He burped.

We both felt miserable. I described to Gary what was happening in my digestion.

First, at some point early on in the meal the sushi splashed into my stomach acid and mutated into a sticky-rice based creature, much like Godzilla, only albino white. The curled tail kept the monster from moving into my duodenum and instead, the little beast slowly thrust its fist up into my esophagus. It got both arms up in there so far that my ears began itching from the inside. And there it sat, occasionally opening its maw until you could see the shiny raw tuna inside. Then it would belch out fire and I was compelled to belch it forward.

Gary said "Yeah! That's just how I feel."

So that was a bad food trip, and then after the day I had today I needed some bread and butter comfort. I spread my favorite butter-flavored butter from Denmark on a fresh hearty roll. After a few chews my body rebelled and before my brain could form the thought "rancid" my body had spewed the bread and butter into the sink, followed by retching, followed by vomiting. By then my brain had thought "Rannnnciddd!! Get it out! Get it out! Okay! It's gone. Bleah! Why are we still puking?" I'm better now, of course, so I just finished a chocolate croissant.

Still, two bad trips in a row. Bummer, dudes.

Sad News

I have never read more than a paragraph Sylvia Plath wrote. I know. I was busy going to church five times a week as a teenager, and I didn't want to hear anything about depression, which was at the time in my mind synonymous with "sadness." (Instead of its current synonym, "bat-shit craziness." You know, now that I've visited the dark alien place myself.)

So I was sad to hear today that her son committed suicide. It happened last week and was only reported today by his sister, who I hope is already on extra strength anti-depressants.

When I got in the car today and told Gary Sylvia Plath's son had died, Gary's reaction was the same as when I told the numbered friends Spalding Grey had died. "Who?"

Hi, I'm Larry, This Is My Brother Daryl Hannah, and My Other Brother Daryl Hannah

I had a nice phone call with an old friend Melanie. Melanie and I catch up every few years or so. It's nice because I get to see what some women can achieve when they have ambition and goals, of which I have none. It tickles me that Melanie seemingly has an interest flit through her mind then a few years later she has grants and awards all related to her new interest.

She said something pithy as I was havering* about how nicely things are going with Gary: "You have technology to thank for the success of your marriage." I had randomly mentioned:

The Laptop and how it allows us to have the constant sociopathic proximity Gary craves. (i'm reduced to sneaking PC time while Gary has bathroom time.)

The iPhone and how it keeps us from having interminable bickering arguments about who starred in Gigi ("Well, let's just ask the iPhone, shall we?")

The new Hi Def TV and how it caused us to rearrange the furniture so we sit elbow to elbow and can satisfy the physical contact I crave. Of course, my own personal technological devices have taken care of some of that stress.

Later that afternoon I was ritually healing my Scooba and wondered if the Scooba technology could be bringing us closer. I do see Scooba as a sickly little child that sings sad songs and requires constant care and attention; really I could just get out a damned mop and clean the floor with less effort; but it is a pleasure to take care of the little creature. And, unlike a child, I can just turn it off. And somehow setting it aside for a week cures whatever ails it. Also unlike a child.

This evening we watched Blade Runner on the latest new piece of technology, the Birthday Blu-Ray (hence the title of this post) and it made me wonder, how will this bond us? It is going to take us at least a week of going through the endless copies and re-mixes and cuts of this movie. And me with no laptop! I think it might be like those men who love women because they can quote baseball stats; I will be the only full-grown adult woman expert on this movie in the Midwest. 

* Just a little shout out for Les Dots Internationale

Birthday Dinner

Because I am now a S_______, I ignore a person's actual day of birth, so Gary's March 20th birthday passed with no other event than I watched the conclusion of Battlestar Galactica at his side and tried not to ask any questions given I have never seen any other episode of the show. I can report Gary was deeply offended by the ending they selected.

However, lavish birthday gifting happened the day before and today, the day after.

We visited the Maplewood Drum Headquarters and he got whatever he wanted, and I bought myself a steel drum. I tried to play it the evening and it made me appreciate my guitar much more. Still, I'm going to keep at it, because I know one day I will make that connection between the random noises coming out of the instrument and that thing they call music

At any rate, Drum Headquarters is right across the street from Acero, Catherine the Red's Italian Restaurant find, so we ate there for dinner. They have rearranged the menu.

 

And of course we went with the four course tasting. Are you insane? $25? Sure, there were small surcharges on some things, but we didn't have wine. Here's what we had:

Top - Crostini Fegatini (with Chicken Liver Mousse) - not a bad liver taste, but a good liver taste. I have never before tasted a liver product that didn't taste like dirt.
Bottom - Bruschetta of the day, which was bruschetta with caramelized onions, honey, and blue cheese. My first bite missed the onions and was just blue cheese and honey, but the next bite added the onions and it made total sense.

 

Then, my favorite of all of the courses, the second course. I don't know if there are usually second courses in Italy.

Top: Egg Raviolo - while we were waiting for them to open, Gary did some research and read on the Internet the Egg Raviolo was just voted one of the 30 best Dishes in Saint Louis and the Lamb Polenta rendered diners speechless. The Egg Raviolo did have happiness and comfort baked in.
Bottom: Lamb Polenta did not render me speechless. Mainly because I'm accustomed to more substantial polenta, I think. The yellow on the sides of the photo? That's the polenta. So Gary got that.

Then entrees - the lady at the next table was concerned that she didn't see normal protein on the menu "like chicken." Given that she didn't like red meat her choices were Cornish hen, seafood or "porchetta" (which really doesn't sound like pork).

Top: 5-Hour Slow Roasted Porchetta with Black Licorice. No, with fennel. Pork roasted with fennel for five hours really tastes like fennel. Gary kept sensing lemon. No. Fennel. Bleh. Fennel is second only to cilantro and is right above skunkweed on my list of vegetation God didn't mean for me to eat. Then again, they had made liver edible.
Bottom: Red Wine Braised Oxtail with Potato Gnocchi. Sadly, it was evocative of the Pot Roast Dinner at Bob Evans. I think Bob Evans serves this on top of potatoes, and this was on top of potato gnocchi, which is potato inside soft pasta, which was a distinction too subtle for my tongue.

Dessert!

Top: Panna Cotta ("eggless vanilla custard" - because the eggs would just have made it too rich? That ship has sailed, come back, docked, and been fitted with a karaoke bar.) Gary loved this; I was too busy trying to figure out the mystery ingredients - custard without eggs? Evidently it's cream, sugar, and gelatin.
Bottom: Bread Pudding with chocolate and nuts and hello, surprise, ice cream. Come to my digestive system. I don't think it was made with croissants, it seemed too hearty. In fact, it wasn't too rich. Evidently they start with the fattening stuff in Northern Italy and back off when they get to dessert.

  

If you go, ask to be seated in Brittany's section. Since she'd been so agreeable about allowing the photography and the toting out of bread, I asked her name again when we finished.

"Brittany," she said.
"Britney?" I thought, incredulous. "How do you spell that?"  
"Like the province in France," she tossed off, and I was all, awww, she thinks I know all the French provinces, which I don't, I only know that one and and perhaps one other.

She's mugging like this because the first photo made her look worried and afraid of us.

===========================================

And I tried to get a photo of Spunky peeking over the top of the table, but Gary forced her down to the floor, because we were eating all civilized-like.

Birthday Boy

Oh, hi there. I'm back. I woke up this afternoon healed. A Miracle! But what else would you expect from a God whose head-cold intercession is summoned by the in-laws who pray at this shrine?

 

Pretty impressive, no? It's a real shrine from a nunnery that made it into Gary's old room.

Gary is truly a saint. This morning he woke me up with "Can you believe my birthday is tomorrow?"

"What? Oh, no."

"And it's been my birthday week all week. And my birthday month all month."

Isn't that remarkable? First his Dad was sick then I got sick and he completely ignored the fact it was his birthday month. So of course tonight we went to Best Buy and he got anything he wanted on my dime. Of course, if he'd been buying for anyone else you'd never hear him say, "No, that's too expensive." I'll need to step out again tomorrow on his actual birthday and pick up something he can unwrap, and then we go cymbal-shopping on Saturday.

FINALLY I'm up for cymbal shopping again. Shopping and fertilizing and weeding and digging up the cutting bed so we can plant veggies in our soon-to-be Victory garden. Then in a few weeks the All-American Rejects and the next day the Good Friday Lobster Slaughter GNO. Ug, and before the LobSlau I have to take the Nativity down. Hot Mom did suggest since it's Good Friday I just move the Baby Jesus out of the manger and pop him right up on to the cross.

Sigh. Good to be back among the living.

Self-portrait at the macaroni grill

Sitting and digesting the italian version of chopped salad.

Well this is strange

My laptop works until I get into Windows. Then it blacks out. So the iPhone sends you this camo gnome.

Smelly Broads with Head Colds

I fell asleep this weekend in a head-cold stupor, the dead sleep that hits you right after you allow the snot run directly out of your nose on to the pillow while your mouth gapes open and dries out. I was watching CNN when I fell asleep. I must have been, because I've been waiting for days for some breaking news other than "Breaking News! People are pissed AIG execs got bonuses!" You'd think if you watch CNN for four days something would happen. At any rate, while I was asleep Mac found the remote and lay on it and I woke up to a show titled "Hot Girls in Scary Places." (Review here.)

If you are still curious after that title, the girls are hot (though one commenter on the review above says only two are hot, really, and that kind of makes the show's title just all a BIG LIE) and the place is ... well ... just kind of a dump. It's an old hospital. It doesn't scare me, but then again, I'm not a hot chick.

It was on E(!), and I looked for it on www.eonline.com but they aren't claiming it yet. I really wondered what other titles they had rejected, like, Whack Off to This Show or Chicks Who Will Make Your Penis Hard.

Logic

Gary and I were watching the Boost Mobile commercial with the pigs eating ham. Here is a still:

 

Gary said, shocked, "What is that all over the pig?"

"Uh, dirt? Pigs are dirty."

"That makes no sense."

I was expecting to hear "Pigs are actually very clean animals," but he said, "They would have cleaned up. They're eating with silverware in a nice restaurant."

And strangely, the more I look at the pig the more I agree with him.

Words, they Fail Me

I. Books

In my continuing effort to limit my reading just to Pulitzer Prize winners/nominees and US Magazine, I tried to read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. At least US Magazine is courteous enough to write in English. TBWOOW is at least 15% in Spanish. And it isn't like the Yiddish in the Michael Chabon book, at least that was limited to a phrase a page and you could skip it and look it up later.

"Palomo, you have to grab a muchacha y metaselo. Start with a fea. Coje y fea y metesolo! Hijo."

I go to Babelfish and oooooohhhhh, that means "Palomo, you have to grab to girl and meteselo. Start with to ugly. Ugly Coje and meteselo! Son."

Seriously.

II. Magazines

Gary has discovered that due to some magazine-delivery-screw-up the grocery stores in our area are selling magazines for $1.99. He came out of the bathroom today exclaiming, "This Cosmo magaine is great! Do you know there's a chemical called oxy-something that makes people stop wanting to have sex after they've been together a while?"

III. On-Line

Well, the one and only message board I follow has been taken down (in disGRACE!)*, so I have all kinds of free time now. The Twitter has handily filled in the gap. So, if you Twitter I'm out there, saying even less, if possible. Let me know if you want to communicate with my rapidly degenerating verbal brain lobe. I'm still holding fast against Facebook, though. My status reads "HATING FACEBOOK."

* Oh, and hey, if anyone wants to curse in the comments or use abusive language or criticize me I would like to encourage you. Those are my Terms and Conditions, fuckers.

Luncheon Pi

• (Just pretend I started this post at 1:59 on 3:14.)
• Lunch is GarySalad 2.0 - not as strong, a little richer (how I felt yesterday toting 40 pounds of Cream of Broccolli soup up two flights of steps).  Gary made me Special GarySalad 2.0 with avocado.
• Instead of a pain scale at the hospital they should have a reading scale. Are you too ill to read People? Well, you'll still live. Too ill for Life & Style? Last Rites. Currently I am too ill to read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I am at US Magazine levels.
• Lobster Slaughter GNO '09 will have lobster, porch wine, chocolate desserts, and Giant Cheetos.

           

The cartoon tiger doesn't give an idea of the scale. They are as big as your mouth. They are a choking hazard for children over forty. In 2003 Dave Barry did a whole series on the Accidental Giant Cheeto sold on eBay. I think it's okay to branch out from the classic Cheeto Puff, GNO edition, just for this occasion.

UPDATE: I just woke up and read this. I don't really remember typing this or hitting "Publish." I think it's interesting I didn't start off by saying "I have a dreadful sore throat and a mild fever." It all might have made more sense then.

Dinner Pie

I had my annual review today.

I had an entire French Silk pie for dinner.

Draw your own conclusions.

Were there tears? At the review? Of course. There are always tears at a review.  If it's a good review I cry because I hear no constructive criticism. (That was about 7 years ago, though.) If it's a bad review I cry from the feeling of wholesale failure. And frankly I always cry because I am being reviewed. Wrap me in brown paper, weigh me, and slap on a price sticker. Mene, mene, tekel u-pharsin.

What strikes me now is that since Mom is gone there are few people whose good opinion I care about. Most people are like blog trolls to me: Yes, I am self-absorbed. Why yes, I am lazy. Killing lobsters is not funny (even though none you said that)? Eh, well, I disagree. I have no friends and family? Once again, I am afraid you are mistaken. People are either right or wrong. If you are right, I already know it, if you are wrong, well, I dismiss you.

I think that's what threw me this time is I heard someone say something I didn't know, something true I hadn't berated myself for. I was unprepared.

The pie? Oh God it was a good pie. And Gary had half, really. And I guess at least my team leader will be prepared next time. Thank God I didn't actually sob, I was able to limit my outburst to long shaky breaths and tears in the corners of my eyes.

Does anyone else cry at reviews, good or bad?

Sob

Gary: I watched an Ideal Husband late last night
Me: Oh, I've seen that. Did you like it?
Gary: The ending made me cry like a baby.

I don't recall crying at the end of An Ideal Husband. It would seem Oscar Wilde's social satires do not tear me up the way they do Gary. (This has made me frantic to see it again, of course.)

Usually even tearjerkers don't make me cry. For example, all the other women watching Steel Magnolias were sobbing at the end, and I demanded, "Are you serious? Her doctor said, 'You will die if you have more children.' And yet, she has more children. She's stupid. Why are you all crying?"

Another example: Brief Encounter. Love that movie! What a happy ending! Lovers part ways and he goes back to his sickly wife and she returns to her enchanting children who want to go to the pantomime.

However, there was this one movie - I only saw the last eight minutes and I wasn't prepared. I Remember Mama. If you need a good cry in less than ten minutes, watch the end. You don't have to see the rest.

Oh, wait - that has to be on YouTube. Here you go. NSFW!

Yeah, that bank thing always gets me.

My Town Is Cool

 I saw this a few days ago at Secret Spineless Whine:

 

_________________________________

Yeah? You don't know where the fuck George is? Because I do. For the next month or so George is taking up residence in Saint Louis, Missouri, while filming a movie, and we will treat him soooo goood that boy will wander around Lake Como this summer sobbing, "Why doesn't this shithole have Gooey Butter cake? Fuck." (Fade from close up on George blinking back tears at the gelato stand to carefree George laughing merrily at Ted Drewes.)

Here's what I like: people on the coast trying to sneer at Saint Louis. Hey, you coasters. Suck my menopausal dick. Keep saving Darfur, George!

Send George a message in the comments.

I Have An Old Dog Who Loves Me - Guess Where This is Going

So, crack detectives, put these facts together.

1. My Dog is over 10.

2. He is fed a daily diet of Minute Rice, Bob Evans Turkey in Gravy, and Paws Kibble, except he hoards the Kibble for later.

3. His favorite place is on top of my head. Scared? Climbs on my head. Lonely? Climbs on my head. We're in bed? Climbs on my head.

So, lately, the dog has taken a fancy to bare-dog on bare-head action. His bare dog spots are a) his anus and b) his teat area. My bare head spots are essentially my forehead and face. If he is feeling secure, he'll just creep in by the headboard and jam his anus up into my temple. But, if he's distressed because of a storm he'll face away from the headboard, straddle my skull, and drape his teat area across my forehead and nose. My mouth is crushed by his chest, but he's so relaxed I don't mind suffocation.

But then I hear a little "pft" sound.

When dogs are young, they don't break wind. When they are middle aged they might break wind - and while you may smell it, you don't hear it. Now my old dog breaks wind every night. "Pft." In my HAIR. Several times. I imagine it's still a bad smell. I don't breathe a minute or so after the "pft."

Some mornings I really have asked Gary to smell my hair to see if I wake up with dog fart hair. He says no.

Fathers

Gary's Father

If I'm not around, Gary visits alone with his father, Ken, at the Hip Rehab Center (...makes it sound like Promises, in Malibu). And it would seem Gary's father casually drops into conversation little tidbits of information about his past, and then Gary repeats those tidbits in an incredulous voice. Gary repeats these conversations to me later.

Ken: "Well, when Harry and I were playing baseball - before he went to the Cardinal's farm team -"
Gary: "Your friend Harry played for the Cardinals farm team?"
Ken: "Oh, sure. He was a hall of fame pitcher. I was his catcher, and I tried out for the Cardinals but -"
Gary: "You  tried out for the Cardinals?"
Ken: "Well I didn't get very far. I had an E.R.A. of 350 - "
Gary: "350?"
Ken : "My throwing arm wasn't strong, though."

Then later:

Ken: "Well, you know I was racing midget cars with my sister before I went to WW2 - "
Gary: "Racing? Midget? Cars?"
Ken: "And then my sister called the army and said my stepmother had died, and so I came home from the war and my stepmother was fine, my sister just got wind of a big battle and wanted to be sure I was safe." (etc.)

So, anyway, this has led Gary to think he doesn't know anyone. Therefore, our conversation about my (technical) father, Jerry.

My Father

Gary: "So why didn't you get to know your father when he was alive?"
Me: "He didn't sound like someone I'd want to get to know. He was a drunk who broke Julia's arm -"
Gary: "He broke someone's arm?"
Me: "Yeah, Julia, my half-sister - "
Gary: "Half-sister?"
Me: "Oh, shut up, you know all this."
Gary: "I did not know you had a half-sister."

So, I'm thinking it's Gary.

Lobster Slaughter GNO Is 4/10/09

      Now Officially Wrong in 2 Religions

 

Not shown: Chocolate Cake and Porch Wine for Elijah.

Et tu, Walmart?

Does the religious right have something to say about this?

UPDATE: Oh, good, yes they do.

"'All of this falls in the category of the coarsening of the culture that does concern us tremendously,' said Charmaine Yoest, a spokeswoman for the Family Research Council, a conservative group whose causes include the push to adopt more stringent indecency standards for television. 'A lot of this stuff is just plain vulgar. As a mother myself, I find it very troubling.'"

I'm buying them and giving them to your children, Charmaine. No! Better! At the Lobster Slaughter I'm naming a condemned lobster after Charmaine. (So that would be ... )

UPDATE UPDATE:

CharMAINE LOBSTER ,,, someone must have gotten this ...

Lobster Slaughter GNO

Date: April 3 (because otherwise it's Good Friday AND Passover, and while I should eat seafood, Marcia fears her G-d might rain frogs on her.) I'll have lobster bisque on the 10th, Mom loved that.

Food: Recently deceased lobsters

Beverages: Drawn butter

Activities: Lobster Races. Last place swims first.
Also, Lobster Gladiators.
Perhaps a short film: Mac Versus the Lobsters.
Lobster Roomba Rides.
Lobster Hospice.
Then dinner.

Now all I need is a playlist.

B52s: Rock Lobster.

That's all I've got. Help me out. Plus, I need side dishes.

P.S. Don't judge me unless you've never eaten a lobster. I might even become a vegetarian after I get to know these lobsters.

About Done With Twitter

So, here's my brief foray into twitter. I'm about done with it. And no, that isn't my screen name. You have to read from the bottom to top to get the true existential nature of the twitter. Twitter will just break your heart.

 

Mock Lobster

Wilma hasn't been visiting her husband Ken much as while he rehabs his hip. "He's in a rest home. I just can't stand those places. It would be too much for me."

Karen, on the other hand, visits sunup to sundown. The family begs her to stay away since she has bronchitis. "I can't help it," she says, "I need to make sure they're doing everything right."

In both cases, they know what the right and rational action is, but in their culture, their depth of feeling excuses them. "I just can't take it." "It's too much for me." "It makes me too nervous." "It upsets me too much."

Of course, what makes me clench my teeth at night is that not only are they choosing emotion over common sense, they're applauded for it. Wilma, she just can't stand seeing her husband in pain, obviously she's so devoted to her husband. Karen, she can't keep her hacking coughing controlling self away from the surgery patient, obviously she's so devoted to her father. No one even thinks of saying, "Suck it up! Get over yourself and use your brain."

I know the thing that annoys me is that they consistently swing so far to the side of emotion in all emotion versus reason decisions. That would suggest I annoy them by swinging too far to the reason side.

(I tried to think of any recent reason-vs-emotion conflict I've had. Hmm. Anything I felt was emotionally "just too hard for me" but I still chose reason. Hmm. Then I noticed the Ghost of Mom in the corner giving me an arch baleful glance, a deadpan stare. Oops! Forgot about firing the doctor following her hospice because he wasn't on board with her death. Sorry Mom, forgot about that misery for a moment.)

My Mom swinging over to reason and denying emotions is as probably as annoying as the in-laws whining "it's too upsetting for me to visit my husband." The in-laws have been very quiet about my triumph of reason over emotion, but then again I haven't been bringing it up to them. The person I have been annoying is Marcia. I keep saying things like, "You know, it's been about a year since I killed my Mom" and she tells me forcefully I did no such thing. I reply, "No, if I'm honest with myself - " "NO. YOU DID WHAT SHE WANTED." 

Yes, I did, I know, and she was always very clear what she wanted. (I also almost didn't have medical power of attorney because she thought it might be "too much" for Gary.) And I think it's important when you do a thing you can face it without ducking, looking head on, unless that thing is looking in the bathroom mirror naked.

But, that embrace of reason and half expecting applause for it is probably just as galling as the in-laws admiring their own delicate sensibilities, I suppose. Still it is the way I was raised, and I think I'm going to symbolically thank Mom for it by doing the most clear-eyed, rational, indelicate thing I can think of: I'm killing something and eating it.

Just tonight Gary as we discussed where to eat, Gary said, "Why do you want to eat lobster? It's gross. You end up eating lobster ovaries and fetuses and cancerous lobster tumors."

I thought, yep, I'm having fresh lobster on April 10, and I'm looking that lobster in the eye and plopping it in the water myself. Because that's how we roll on the distaff side, and because I can picture the in-law women fainting at the thought. Gary, of course, will have to leave the house because it will be too much for him. I think April 10 will have to be Lobster Day, the day I embrace my extremes with as much self-love and care my in-laws do.

What Color Is Your Conditioner

I have tried to shampoo my hair with conditioner the last three showers. I caught myself this last time, and in response to the cursing, Gary asked, "Why do you keep thinking there's shampoo in that bottle? It's obviously conditioner. It's a white bottle."

"What are you talking about?"

"Conditioner. It always comes in a white bottle. The same color that conditioner always is."

I was distracted by trying to think of a joke that could take advantage of "conditioner" and "comes" in the same sentence and it took a moment to understand what he was saying. I argued then, of course, and told him he was insane, but is he right? Is he even partially right? I'm thinking he might be. It shakes me. He's been right about several things the last few days;in fact he's lately crowed, "Who almost has a biology degree? Why do you even try to argue with me?" in a disagreement about germs.

Are even the majority of conditioner bottles white? Is he right about that too?

So THAT'S What People Mean by TMI

You know, and I'm sure you do know, that I've never really understood what people mean by "Too Much Information." I am always on the hunt for information. How can you have too much?

I know someone who knows someone who had a prolapsed uterus, and I take comfort that someday when I get a prolapsed uterus, as I'm sure I will, that knowledge will assure I won't feel like quite the freak. Just as you will thank me when you get your various lumps and bulges on your labia. You are welcome, in advance.

I search for information from strangers too. I believe you people call it "eavesdropping," I call it "hearing," but whatever. I've found out the symptoms for four or five illnesses, I've discovered the importance of getting a lawyer when getting divorced, I've heard of two Saint Louis athletes who are unfaithful and not to be trusted just in case I encounter them in a sexual situation. This will not happen, but it's good to be prepared anyway.

I am pretty happy invading other's privacy in order to gain information, that's what I'm saying. So you would think I would put Steven Page's Twitter account in a bowl, dim the lights, get under the covers and glut myself, but it appears not.

At first, I thought, "how do I navigate this twitter thing?" then "ah, I see Steven can only tolerate 5 buckwheat pancakes at a time" and then "oh, look, I can go to the people he's talking to" and then "Hey this person sounds like his girlfriend" then "huh, his girlfriend moved the printer from the downstairs to the upstairs" then that's what sent me over the edge. TMI! I felt it! Just like you normal people! I ran like a frightened woodland creature and I haven't been back.

It was a little like when my boyfriend gave me a Playgirl in college. I went right for the centerfold (stupid articles) but I couldn't open it up. I curled the pages apart in slow-motion, so I saw head / feet. head-neck / feet-ankles, then torso / calves, then lower belly / upper thighs, then I put it away because I really felt like I was violating this man's privacy. You know, the Playgirl model. Who had posed naked.

So, I apologize to anyone who has been frightened off by my tales of cysts, vibrators, and bowel terrors. Of course, if you're reading this, you probably have no fear.