Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

When An E-Mail Just Isn't Shallow Enough

Mom once showed me an article on the stages of a gardener: year one: annuals, year two: bulbs, year three: roses, year four: perennials, and so on.

There must be similar stages of Facebook.

I am now in the stalking old boyfriends stage. I know all of you went through this two years ago, but I am late to facebook, just I was late to sex and late to drinking and I'll probably try to nurse random babies off the street at ninety. But it's just so easy! And so painless. You just search, then you send a cryptic email, then you disappear. It's like playing ring and run. No consequences.

It has made me bold enough to go to what must be the next stage: stalking missing relatives. Technical Father had two children in his later (evidently drunken) life: Julia and Joey. Joey was institutionalized, and all I know of Julia is she had a baby boy with a distinctive name. So I'm thinking of ambushing Julia. I never wanted to make contact with her before, but Facebook contact is almost like non-contact. It's the middle-class version of "have your people call my people."

I don't have quite enough info to drop the "Hi. I'm your half-sister," bomb on Julia, but what do you think? When I think of people who search out adoptive parents, I always wonder why. It never occurred to me it might just be to see the reaction.

100 Days of LLLUUUURRRRVE

"I want to thank the American people for their support and their patience during these trying times. I look forward to working with you in the next hundred days, in the hundred days after that, all of the hundreds of days to follow to make sure that this country is what it can be."

That was romantic, there's no other way to put it.

UPDATED: A "House" Diagnostic Puzzle for You All

You are on Dr. House's team. Patient: Ellen S_______ presents as an overweight Caucasian white female complaining of:

• diarrhea

• nausea

• vomiting

One of you (probably the bi-sexual one, you know who you are), asks: "Swine flu? Does she have a cough?"

Patient wheezes, "I coughed once today at a big meeting, and it was so disgusting the entire meeting of 300 people stopped cold, including the speaker. It was a cough followed by a strangling hacking sound."

You, the team, write down "Cough." and ask, "How did you feel when you woke up today?"

Patient answers, "Achy. I was achy all day."

"What about the last few days?"

"Well, I slept a lot on Sunday. Saturday I got a lot done. I was hoarse Saturday morning, but I'd been screaming a lot Friday. Friday I was okay, only sleepy. "

"What did you eat for dinner last night?

"An entire container of Planter's Honey-Roasted Cashews."

"Anything else you can think of?"

"Well ... last weekend my right inner labia swelled up and then exploded."

You hear another team member mutter, "TMI" You ask, "Anything else..."

"No. Not really. You know I'm on immune-suppressing drugs?  FTY720?"

Someone else on your team writes that down.

House looks into the distance and then suddenly exclaims in wonder at his own deductive brilliance, "That's an MS drug! MS! It's MS!"

You say, "No, that's not it," because you are smart. (No one is ever smart enough to say this on House, they always say, "Oh, yeah, MS will cause your leg to atrophy overnight, or make your vulva fall out, or cause your bones to shatter." Then they will give you a lumbar puncture because that's so much easier than an MRI.)

"Put her on steroids! And interferon! And do a brain biopsy!"

"No," Foreman says.

"Hey," Becs interrupts, "Didn't I write this same post a month or so ago?"

"Yes," Dr. House snaps shortly, "But you don't have MS, so we can't do a brain biopsy. One final question. Does the patient have a fever?"

Cameron says, "Her temperature is 98.4" (This is trivia, but my temperature is always 97.0. I don't know if 98.4 counts as a temperature. Is it like a 100 degree fever in normal people?)

The Patient runs to the bathroom again, clutching her stomach.

So, you get to diagnose Patient Ellen. What is your diagnosis? The flu? The Swine flu? MS? Something else?

You have all the information you need to make a diagnosis. Leave your diagnosis in the comments. The answer will be provided tomorrow night. If you want to ask more questions, leave it in the comments, and if I take a break at work tomorrow I'll answer. Have at it!

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

UPDATE:

Suddenly Dr. House turns and says:

So, let's look at this chronologically Her right inner labia swells, no doubt painfully, and then explodes.That was the first weekend, and I think it's pretty obvious she spent part of the next weekend using her newly-recovered body part. She spent Friday night screaming, but she made no mention of a fight, let's just put it that way.

House wiggles his eyebrows lecherously.

So her husband gave her such a workout Friday she had the urge to clean the house Saturday, and then sleep all day Sunday. As you pointed out, Dr. Hall, she has some type of infection. But what type of infection? Becs, do you have an answer?

Becs looks unsure.

Anyone else? Anyone with MS? No one? She has a blad-der in-fec-tion.

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

Evidently my body has become immune to bladder pain, or else I drank enough fluid over the weekend and on Monday to dilute the uric acid and mask the pain. It wasn't till sometime late Tuesday when I went to the bathroom and said, "Ow! Oh! Oh, of course, I had sex. That's whats wrong with me."

And the cashews? I'm just a pig. This morning my temperature was down to 96.5 and I feel much better.

Conversations with Gary

I. 

"Eleven cymbals" he said suddenly.

"Huh?" I asked.

"You said I have NINE cymbals. I have eleven. Eleven that I've mounted, anyway."

"When did I say that?"

"On the blog."

So, correction: Gary has eleven cymbals. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

II.

I was in bed this morning. Gary was awake.

"Ellen, I've been thinking you might want to sell those Elton John / Billy Joel tickets."

I ran it through a few times because I was a little groggy. Then I said,

"Why on earth would I want to do that?"

"You know ... swine flu. And you on the immunosuppressants ..."

I wanted to laugh at him outright, bu he was being truly concerned. "Let's wait on that decision for a few weeks."

"It might be too late to sell the tickets, then."

"What about masks? I could wear a mask." Because I would. He'd make me take it off two feet in the door because he'd be embarrassed.

Then I started thinking,  I could wear a mask that reads OFFICIAL TOUR '09 FACE MASK $50.00 ...

or I could draw the KISS tongue on it ...

or "Flu in from Miami beach B.O.A.C."

or "Pigs! Rude, Vile Pigs!"

Reviewer Review

This is not a comment on the-former-lead-singer-of-BNL, but rather on a theater reviewer who wrote an article about him. I'm not using the actual name of the-former-lead-singer-of-BNL, because Spunky Labia, International Toe Porn Superstar, is a competitive bitch and she wants to stay at the top of the Ligit searches.

One of the things I read in this article this weekend: "It says a lot about Page as a human being that, during his evening from hell, his primary worry wasn't about his career or his future but for his children and how they were going to take the news."

Okay, I took this article with the proverbial deer-sized salt lick, until I got to that sentence. How low are the standards for raising children in Canada that they aren't the first concern of their parents? Isn't that the bare minimum requirement for being human? Instead of saying a lot about a human being? "I had my kids two years ago and I haven't cooked them for breakfast yet." "Why, that says a lot about you as a human being, eh."

If I were that reviewer's kids I'd be scouting out other daddies about now.

More cowbell

Spunky welcomes summer

Wild Animals at Night

I let the dog out last night at 2:30 am, and while I was lounging at the open door I heard a neighbor bellow, "Get IN there!"

Now, I've heard neighbors fight before. (My favorite line so far has been, "Me! Those magazines have nothing to do with you! It's about ME!")

This neighbor guy wasn't speaking to me, because he must have been two streets over. Still, he was so loud it seemed like he was right over the fence. He sounded like a wild animal, only louder. The person being yelled at was too far away; I couldn't hear a word that person said. (However, I can tell you, he or she was not IN there.) He bellowed, a moment of silence, he bellowed, silence.

"Get IN there!"
"" (Momentary silence.)

"NO YOU get IN there! NOOOOOOOOW!"
""

"Walk like a man  - THAT'S WHAT I DO!"
""

"You're an idiot! Get IN there!" 
""

(Inarticulate roar)
""

"Don't hit me! Stop hitting me!" Again, this was still the roaring man. My hand was on the phone, not that I wanted to protect him, but I was thinking he might go find a gun and the police might want to be in the vicinity.

But just then I heard a man with reasonable tone say, "Mutter mutter."

"Get your hands offa MEEEEE!"

"Mutter mutter sir."

Ah, "sir." The police were there. After a little more muttering, Roaring Man and Mutter Man went inside, hopefully without the person who would not "get IN there."

But I have to wonder, did the police help the situation, or was it worse after they left? Or, as it occurs to me, were Mutter Man and Roaring Man actually Good Cop and Bad Cop? And "get IN there" was short for get in the vehicle, Ellen's innocent neighbor? I don't know. Would have been pretty funny if I had called the cops on the cops.

Facebook versus my Self-Esteem

It began with this:

 

I rolled my eyes. "So, Facebook, you have my age and you assume I am wrinkled." As we know, obese don't crease, and I never tanned or even went outdoors, so I let this roll right off of me.

Facebook said:

"I like her glasses," I told Facebook. "Is that Julia Roberts? She has a great smile."

Facebook sensed my vulnerability. It smoothly answered:

"Hey. Bite me." I said aptly, and refreshed the page. Middle aged women have dim teeth. So what? Facebook hit back with wrinkles ...

 

... and then just a generic, "You MUST hate yourself, you're old."

 

"Oh. And fat," Facebook continued.

"Back off, Facebook," I snarled. What was next? "WORRIED ABOUT YOUR CHINS?" "IS YOUR PUDENDA SAGGING?" "DO YOU SMELL LIKE PEE?"

Nope. Here's what I got today, not in an ad, but in its own modular window:

So, Facebook, you are going to end up like MySpace, useless and unloved. Do you want to be all young and cute like Twitter? You can be! With this special ingredient cream invented BY A MOM.

Things That Make You Say "I'm done."

All of the following will make me turn on my heel and give no further consideration. I will stop reading, stop watching, put it aside, move on.

Chase scenes

Non-fat

Drop D tuning

Tumble-dry low, press with a warm iron

Stayed tuned for a new music video from

Fat Grams: 30

Starring Adam Sandler

Topped with fresh cilantro

Jerry Bruckheimer presents

slim-fit

Congratulations, you are the 1,000,000th

"Hello, Mrs. S______? I'm Todd, and I'm with the [Republican\Democratic] party."

Ages 2-8

stress-relieving antioxidants

You may have already won

Next week on a new [House\Monk\Desperate Housewives]

Bring to a boil, stirring constantly

! (Urgent email)

End of the World!

Or least it looked like the End of the World when I drove home tonight. Those were the weirdest clouds I have ever seen. Ever. Saint Louisans, back me up.

At about 6:00 I was headed over the river and was a little freaked out by the cloud combinations.

On one hand, there were finely etched detailed Mountainous clouds overhead. Clouds that looked liked they'd been struck from a silver nitrate print, then colorized.

Then there were clouds that looked like some angelic civil servant had seen the pretty clouds, decided they were pornographic graffiti, and painted over them with some cloud whitewash.

It was the most striking as I looked down the river valley. Of course, I was tooling along at 60 mph, and I wasn't going to stop to take photos. I really should have, because the photos I got when I stopped at a light don't give you the whole picture.

Mentally stitch these photos together into a vista of detail clouds with scribble clouds on top:

  

  

Susan Boyle / Paul Potts

Last year, the big internet sensation from Britain's Got Talent was Paul Potts, the cellphone salesman who sang opera. If you didn't see it last year, go see Paul Pott's performance. Or, if you really liked Susan Boyle, this year's big internet sensation, go see Paul Potts, because it's the same story.

It's a good story, don't get me wrong. It has the average looking protagonist, no one expects anything out of him or her, and then to our amazement beautiful music comes out of our hero's mouth and we cry.

I cried at both of them, but not because of the singing, or the joy of humanity, or any other reason than: those are fabulous songs they sang. You could have Dick Cheney sing those songs and as long as he could hit the notes I'd probably cry.

I'd point to the lyrics, but I never knew what the lyrics meant to Nessun Dorma meant until I looked it up today. Now of course I want to learn Italian so I can follow opera.

(An aside, speaking of new skills, today I began learning to finger-pick my guitar. And why? Because last night I had a dream in which I learned to finger-pick my guitar. Very helpful to have my subconscious make my plans for me. I must remember to put myself in the path of various celebrities so they can offer themselves to me.)

Also, who wouldn't cry at these lyrics, though I admit they sound better coming from a 47 year old than from Dick Cheney:

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living,
So different now from what it seemed...
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed...

I'm not sure, but I think the rules on BGT require you to perform a song, unlike AI, which tests your song choice in a lot of genres. So I say what we need now is a show with a variety of cellphone salesmen, spinster church volunteers, Clay Aikens and Dick Cheneys singing nothing but soaring Puccini and Andrew Lloyd Weber tunes. Then we can pick what song we like best, because that's the biggest appeal to me with both those performances.

Trivia Night

Went and played trivia with work friends to support the local PTA. Everyone at our table made me belly laugh at least once.

Karla learned a third language: pig latin. The joy on her face when she said, "Y-may? Ame-nay? Is-ay? Arla-Kay!" was precious.

Kelly also knew the name of the most popular coffee chain in Canada, so I can't really thank the BNL fans for that point.

Anne was right and I WAS WRONG, which equalled minus-one point for our team. The question was: "Bah Bah Black Sheep was the working title for what popular book and film?" "Gone with the Wind!" Anne said. I said "No! Tomorrow is Another Day was the working title." Wrong answer. On research, it seems Ms Mitchell also discarded Not in Our Stars, Bugles Sang True, Milestones, and Jettison. ... Jettison? 

Marcia, in answer to "What is the state fossil of Missouri," answered "John Ashcroft." She also heard the theme from Chariots of Fire and began running in slow-motion immediately.

Fun night. Have to do it again. Especially if there are Sea Salt Brownies from Trader Joe's.

Still, I have a question. Let's say you are at trivia night, your team ends up woth an 87, and two other teams are tied with an 89. Are you in second place or third place? I say two people share the top spot, so your place is second. Others say second place is unoccupied and your place is third. These people are whores. Smart whores, sure, but whores.

UPDATED: I Can Always Find Drama

The bright spot of my day? I was watching Mystery Diagnosis and I totally  called it. I knew the patient had hemochromatosis the minute the guy got a winter tan. I did a little couch dance when the doctor made his big reveal. "Wooo! Hemochromatosis! I win!" Of course, the Big H runs in Gary's family, that's how I know about it. (He was tested. He's safe.)

Anyway, for a while the day was shaping up to be pretty dull, but then medical drama stepped in again. Fingolimod and Me reports that someone on our clinical trial drug got Hemorrhaging Focal Encephalitis. Don't try and google it; I think it's three random words strung together. I don't think doctors shrug, "Oh he got a touch of HFE." 

Little bloody dot of infection in your brain. Hemorrhaging Focal Encephalitis. Bah.

Not like real encephalitis, the encephalitis we worry about here. Yes, my town has a form of encephalitis named for it: Saint Louis encephalitis. So, take that Denver. Suck it, Toronto. Envy us, Auckland. I was surprised to read that the big outbreak was long ago in 1933. I remember hearing about an outbreak behind the Ted Drewes on Chippewa a few years back. That might have been West Nile, though.

So, surprisingly that news cheered me up, That is how boring my day was. At risk for Hemorrhaging Focal Encephalitis now? Just a touch of drama, that was all I needed.

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

Drama Update: Non-Saint Louis Encephalitis vials stolen: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/22/missing.virus.sample/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

My Meme Maybe

There are no new memes. I'm sure someone's created this already, but after I heard Gary shriek "The COUNTER was BLACK with ANTS" three times tonight I realized he never says "covered with ants" or "more ants than you could roll over with a rolling pin" or "a constellation of ants." I started to think about phrases I associate with colors. So, I give you the Roy G. Biv meme.

Blood Red. All reds are blood red to Gary's eyes."Then you pass the house with the blood red door." "She was wearing these heels, they were blood red." And it can be any shade of red. "That plum you are eating is blood red!" We do always buy blood red cars, though.

Little Baby Oranges. Gary's become a Tangerine Snob. (Great Bands of the 60s.) He chastised me for buying the ersatz Clementine "Cuties" tangerines when the legitimate wooden-boxed Clementines were at the Other store. (I imagine they are tangerines; we didn't have Clementines growing up. I think they might be mandarin oranges under an assumed name.)

Yellow-bellied. During his big farewell speech when I was seven, Technical Father said we should always remember that anyone from Missouri was "yellow bellied." I had lived in Missouri for two years by then but I hadn't seen anyone's exposed belly so I took his word for it.

Gary Green. The rest of the world calls it khaki green; it's the shade of green of every pair of Dockers Gary buys. The size may vary but not the color. For a while he had a few Gary green shirts, and they matched his Gary green jacket, but the constant is the Dockers.

Blue-gray-green. No one has asked me what my favorite color is for years, BUT BACK WHEN PEOPLE CARED it was always "blue-gray-green, because that's the color of my husband's eyes."

Indigo. Yeah. I think Indigo is just here because they needed a vowel.

Violet Femmes. When I was at UMSL in the early 80s this band called Violet Femmes came and played at the Student Lounge a few times. "Violet Femmes. What a pretty name," I thought, and I always meant to go but I never did. One day I realized the name was "Violent Femmes." "What a creepy name," I thought and then I never went.

Feeling Fiesty and Japanese

I correspond by email with someone who overuses the Urgent flag. Her messages are never, ever urgent, no more urgent than anyone else's, anyway.

So today I had a bit of bad news for her.

And I marked it Urgent.

It felt so good. So good it needs an haiku.

Your urgent emails
Ricocheting back on you
Petarded hoisting

(*bows*)

UnderDog

Mac the dog gets me out of bed every night so I can let him go outside. I have found I can do this and not actually interrupt my REM cycles, and even go a little "outside" myself if I am so inclined.

He has a particular bark he uses to summon me. He jumps out of bed, barks, I get up, and he leads me out of the bedroom and to the back door. However, every few weeks, he'll bark, I'll shuffle, and just when I'm heading down the hall he'll spin back into the bedroom and wait for me to notice. He ducks behind Gary's side of the bed. I say "What the fuck, dog?" and that is his signal to go under the bed. He pops out from under the bed on my side. If I make a move then he ducks under the bed again. He looks like he's a muppet in an "Under" skit.

"Unnnnder...Not under! And noooww I'm ... under!"

"Screw you, dog. I'm going to bed."

This AMAZES him. ("Bed? But we are playing 'Under!'") He sits stunned and then goes back to square one, the demanding bark from the floor, then the pointed "under" demonstration. ("Look! I'm under! Now I'm not under. Don't you see?  DON'T YOU GET IT?")

Then the second stage of UnderSpiel is when Gary is awakened by the dog's more insistent bark. ("UNDER!") Then Gary starts barking. "Dog! What the Hell! Stop it! Shush! Jesus! Go! To! Sleep!" on a loop for half an hour. I can sleep through the dog bark, but not Gary's.

Happily, Gary discovered the end game of Under. It worked once, then Gary replicated the result last night.

1)  Gary gets the twin mattress of the guest bed.

2) Gary drags it into the bedroom.

3) Gary hurls it on to the floor next to the bed.

4) Gary lies down on the twin mattress.

5) Dog instantly jumps up into bed with me and goes right to sleep.

Warning: Eight Lobsters Were Harmed In the Making of This Post

Before LobSlau, Gary ran to the store like he always does at the last minute before guests come. If he had been invited to the Last Supper, he would have been panicking at the grocery. "How many guests? 13? 16? 20? 20 fish then. Do we have enough wine? Jesus might not want to make more. What about soup! WE HAVE TO HAVE SOUP! And Thomas is bringing cake but I doubt everyone will want that type of cake we have to have a variety of cake, and enough so all 25 people can have a serving!"

He did scream when we opened up the lobster box, but then so did I.

At first we didn't know why this lobster was puking up frothy bubbles. (WARNING: GRAPHIC LOBSTER VIDEO BELOW MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN)

Come to find out lobsters get motion sickness. I didn't read the research myself. Gary said googling "lobster vomit" just brought up hits on food poisoning. (He was anticipating "Lobster Vomit" would hit band names. If anyone from the Slaughter remembers the title for Lobster Vomit's imaginary first album I would love to know.)

The motion sickness came from the FedEx ride, not from the Roomba ride. The lobster on the Roomba first held on tight for the big initial donut and then the Roomba headed for the couch. Fast. Just enough time for me to estimate the clearance the lobster would have needed - oops. Not enough clearance. The lobster sheared off like the top of a semi under an overpass. Oh, stop wincing in sympathy. Fine, he was fine.

I tried to work up some hostility toward the lobsters by accusing them of drowning their children, but people seemed quite happy to let them die for no good reason. Hot Mom, however, did try to bond a little with her selected lobster. She got all maternal and pointed in Vomit Lobster's face. "Don't you DARE get my lobster sick."

Here's something else I learned: I am a crappy hostess. .75 asked for some water. I pointed at the cabinet. She went to the cabinet and said plaintively, "I can't reach the glasses." I got her a glass, and I think that was the last thing I did. Marcia cooked lobsters 2- 8. She might have pithed them first; I don't know. We were following the instructions from the lobster company and they said nothing about that. They also said nothing about pulling the lobster out after a minute because you forgot to snip off the claw bands. I did that with the first lobster. That was regrettable.

Anyway, another thing I learned is that fresh lobster is really really sweet. I would have said fresh "Maine" lobster, but while the company is in Maine the lobsters are clearly marked "Wild Canadian." And then I thought, "Well I like everything else Canadian, and it's not like they have zip codes in the ocean."

The in-laws today begged Gary to stop talking about the lobsters. No one wanted to see the puking lobster video. "We're animal lovers!" Wilma said, chewing on spiral-cut ham and hard-boiled eggs, "We don't want to think about that."

So, at the Slaughter I thought about that, and I made my friends do all the work while I was "hostess," as Mom always did. (Mom's friends sent a nice note on the anniversary of her death.)  I decided what to do with the rest of the ashes: they are going on the graves of her family.

Next GNO we kill and pluck a chicken.

Keep your eyes on the Lord

Skeleton and exoskeleton

H0t M0m sucks Deity

This is my body and my blood

Eat of me. Here's a spoon.

Ride em Jesus

When Lobsters Attack Deities

Lobsters slaughtered

Jesus on the Cheesus

And so I said "pick up another bag of cheetos"

Gary visits the store for one o' cheetos.

The Lobsters Have Landed!

I totally spaced on the All American Rejects concert

Like for reals

(This place was packed about 2 hours later.)

Should I Go to Sleep?

What time is it in Somalia?

Because right now, pirates have control of an American container ship. PIRATES. I was at home today and was surprised to see they actually covered other stories. The captain offered himself up to the pirates to keep his crew safe. Captain Spartacus!

Now an American warship has traveled to Somolia and is reportedly just hanging out waiting for the sun to come up, when they'll ... what? What? Pay the ransom? Throw a big net over the lifeboat? Hide in the containers?

I've been known to stay up all night for news. The miners who were found alive. Princess Diana's death. 

I just checked. It is 8:32AM in Somalia. There should be an update!

Sara's Gone

Sara's gone. Sara almost made you want an artifical leg, just so you could use her helpful tips to avoid "socket farts."

She put water-absorbing body parts in jars and took unflattering photos of herself. And if I ever do lose a leg or get cancer or, fuck it all, both, I will know how to behave.

I have more of Moving Right Along to read, but these posts are what made me love her.

Proof They Have Computer Access in Heaven

I was avoiding Mom's taxes because Turbo Tax would ask if the person these taxes were for was deceased.

This is the screen you get after you click "Yes."

Things I Learned At My In-Laws

My brother-in-law can booty-pop like Beyonce.

If you apply for a job working with physicians and the ad says "Master's Degree required," don't believe it, because,  "You don't need no Master's degree to work with no doctors."

Be sure to say you are "working on" your Master's degree.

Kinoki Foot Pads are a great gift. "They must work because they have green tea in them." They remove toxins! (It's got electrolytes.)

Audio cards that fart can make my sister-in-law laugh until she cries, especially if no one else is laughing.

If a 25 year old went to visit Pakistan when he was 6, he is well-traveled.

Saint Louis Bread Company now delivers, and we know this because God Himself put a flyer on the in-laws' kitchen table right before they found they were to have visitors. God mass-mails in mysterious ways.

There is some woman who has made a filthy, filthy commercial for Hardees. She eats a hamburger and lifts her skirt up too far. "It is disGUSTing!" "It made me SICK!" "I almost THREW UP!" "I would never eat one of those hamburgers! It didn't even make the hamburger look good!" Gary found it on YouTube as soon as he got home.

Big Red G

...has a CD on iTunes. I work with guy on the right.

Gary astonished me - he went, he drank, he listened, he liked, he stayed till last call. So, no higher praise for Big Red G. I liked it too, but I was inclined.

Lookit

Look, it's Christy of CasaChristy and Rachel from the cruise and they got me a SKULL which has a hinged jaw what could be better? All because I came and ate pizza with them and mentioned my labia at least twice.

The Future

What I'm Looking Forward To

A friend's band, Big Red G, is having a CD release party and playing at Ten-Mile this weekend.

All-American Rejects concert.

LobSlau next weekend (moved back to the actual anniversary to violate of the Laws of Moses).

Billy Joel / Elton John concert.

Coldplay concert. (Woo! Thanks .75)

The market going over 8,000. It gets a little crazy at work at 3:00 Central Standard Time nowadays.

What I'm Not Looking Forward To

Doing the taxes. Usually the taxes are done by now, but this year I have to do Mom's too. Of course, I do Mom's every year, but this time I can't turn to her after that question on TurboTax and say, "So, are you deceased?"

Cleaning the house. Well, the house is clean, just I haven't taken anything down to the basement since the end of January.

The big in-law blowout birthday. There's going to be a magic confluence of the birthdays: Gary, his sister, his mother. This one should be interesting; the in-laws have all been fractious the last few months and now everyone's face will be at the table and I'm anticipating friction.

Good, good, more in the "looking forward to" column. Must be spring.

Just Not Myself

If anyone ever asked after my mom's health, Mom would reply, "Just my normal abnormal." She hadn't been normal since she was 13 and got polio, so she couldn't say "I'm fine." For a while she changed it to "Status quo," but "normal abnormal" sounded less pitiful.

Evidently I'm normal abnormal myself, just mentally, not physically.

Long ago, in my early thirties I had a normal mind. Then the MS nibbled away a few choice chunks, threw off my brain chemistry, but I recovered, survived I suppose, and thought "I'm never doing that again." I came through after three months of excessive guilt and constant tears without any medicine and seemed to go right back to my old self.

Then, a few years later, when I realized through my tears I was responsible for the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (yes, that was me) I went and got myself some druuuugs. And I felt normal. Because I knew what my normal was. And I suppose the MS probably kept nibbling.

When I caught that cold two or three weeks ago, I was almost out of the depression drugs. "I'm almost out, better keep about four back and space them out." Then I put the bottle in the car, got the cold, couldn't find the bottle, found it, took it in to be re-filled, never picked it up. And I never took my last four pills that two weeks, because then I'd be out and officially off the meds.

A little 'medication vacation.'

This is why I found out last week that my new baseline, my new normal-abnormal, is 'Constant Verge of Tears.' All Tears, All the Time. I still laughed, but often right before I started weeping. Before this month I could tell myself I was normal, I just took the meds to keep myself from sinking into depression, now I know I'm depressed and take the meds to cover it up.

It's a disturbing distinction. Take hygiene for example. I want to just be myself on the weekend? No makeup, no bra, no bath, stinky pajamas. Just me, baby. No artifacing my face up. Gary seems to love me just fine without the fakery. I've always thought I apply anti-depressants the way I apply makeup; I'm a little blotchy so I paint over it. I don't feel a little blotchy now, I feel like I have impetigo and just "me being me" would be as disturbing as Michael Jackson sans makeup and veil.

Mom stopped dressing to hide her normal-abnormal body when she was in her fifties. "Why bother? People can just get over it." That's how I  feel now: it would be so great to go out in my smelly pajamas, sans makeup and medicine, and just jump balls-out from the end of a pier and have a nice semi-psychotic episode talking to sharks and furniture and taking the blame for the economy. Because at least I could be myself.

But yes, I did promptly go pick up the medicine when I realized why I was crying all the time (and ironically, War on Drugs came on while I was driving there; thank you for the great I Told You So, universe).