A Propensity for Multiple...

...posts?  Can only mean one thing: procrastination!

More Than You Want to Know About Me

Usually my OCD manifests itself in counting patterns, counting dimensions on frames and cabinet doors in multiples of 4.  Often I count the pieces of fabric it took to construct a garment.  So if we are ever talking face-to-face and I appear completely absorbed in the story about the time your Great-Aunt Gertrude slept with Bonnie and Clyde at a brothel in Santa Banana...it is all an illusion.  I am counting the number of colors in your eye balls over and over and over...thus the compulsive aspect of my little condition.  Right is 15, left is 14.  Did you know that?  How can you stand being so NOT symmetrical?

My Dearest Dr. Fancypants and I frequently lament the extreme injustice of suffering with an Obsession and a Compulsion that really do not get us anywhere in the world.  It does not interfere with my daily life...unless you count the counting the lines on the road parallel to the direction I am travelling in the car which has me missing turns every once in a while.  Only being able to chew my gum between connecting lines perpendicular to the direction I am driving is harmless.  I LOVE buried fiber optic cable--no telephone poles to line up across a road.  Whew.  

But why can't I have the kind of OCD that leaves me with a spotlessly clean house or an empty laundry room?  Nope.  I am stuck tapping my teeth in the right rhythm to the point of wearing off the enamel.  

Wolfie, baby!

Mr. Joop,

Runway models are not sexy.  They are hangers.  And they do not qualify as Avant Garde when they all look like the same hanger.  Where is the boundary to push anymore?  Wouldn't it be MORE Avant Garde to put a woman on the runway who HAS breasts as this would contradict the accepted norm?  

IS Heidi commercial?  Yes.  Human too.  Unique.  And smart and funny and sexy.

But you seem to be a bit of a cliche, no?

still mean after all these years

I am nowhere near the first person to ponder the question: what happens to the Mean Girl when she grows up?  And I don't have an answer in general...but I know what happened to one of them.

She grew up and bought a house and had a beautiful child.  She got a great job doing exactly what she wanted.  And she stayed mean.

I ran into a Mean Girl from my past last night.  The trend is that I randomly run into her every couple of years.  I didn't know her as a teenager or a child.  We met as young adults at a venue where a group of us spent part of every day together.  And she had friends and people liked her.  She was funny.  She was brash.  She was biting.  And everyone took turns being bitten.  And everyone tolerated it.

And last night she was still biting.  Finding a way to insult through a "joke".  There was no one around to laugh at her witty comment.  There was no one but me and I was the one she was poking.  And when I didn't react she poked some more.  In the past I always assumed she could behave that way because people let her.  And last night I realized that there was a reason she developed those habits in the first place.  She was sitting there and I could see how little she liked herself.  That it didn't matter what a fantastic athlete she is or how smart she is or that she does good work as a lawyer serving the public.  The only tool she has for feeling good is to cut other people down.

What a great reminder for me as a parent that part of my job is to actively teach my children that loving yourself is a state of mind that exists beyond any circumstance.  It is a skill you have to practice to learn.  

I feel sad for her.  

Sad enough to never let her bite me again.

a little help?

We are just in the very beginning stages of planning a vacation home.  The lake lot is covered, but what to put on it?  And what does it say about me that I am starting my thoughts in the laundry room?  I think it says a second place has to be bullet-proof, easy to clean, and very well organized.  Let's be honest.  I don't clean the house I already have.  

I think I can eliminate closets and dressers completely with some careful planning.  I want a big laundry room with space for folding and sorting and....get this...putting away clothes.  I want an IKEA wardrobe for each of us and one or two more for guests.  Another one for house linens.  Another one for beach towels.  I want them all in one place, right in the laundry.  I also think there should be a 3/4 bath in there and a couple of changing stalls like lovely dressing rooms without the harsh lights and mirrored walls.  That way all of the mess gets left in the laundry and it is easier to tidy at the end of the weekend.  Stuff gets hauled right in there at the beginning of the weekend and put away (I hate living out of a suitcase).  Then washed stuff gets folded and put away right there or packaged up to return to civilization.

I have been fantasizing about my perfect laundry center for years.  Because I have this mental picture of a perfect space that functions seamlessly I am now having a bit of a problem.  I am sure there are drawbacks to the plan.  The biggest one is what if several people want to get ready all at once?  Solution: grab the stuff you need and go to another room.  But are there any other things wrong with my tidy Valhalla that your eyes can help me to see?

suburban mommy wants to know...

Ok.  Perhaps I am culturally illiterate.  Maybe just insensitive.  But I simply do not understand the wearing the pants under the butt cheeks thing AT ALL.  I am not a prude.  It is not a modesty thing.  Unless your bits and bobs are exposed I say anything goes as long as you are comfortable wearing it.  

And maybe that is it.  Maybe it is a display of confidence that says: "I am the sh*t.  I am so the sh*t that I don't care if you all can see my sh*t."  

But boys...you swaggering, handsome, young men...I don't want to see your dirty laundry.  I don't think the demographic of young ladies you are trying to impress want to see your dingy stained things either.  If you are going to take the step and make the statement then wash the skivs, and replace them when they start to look beyond their freshness date.

I am sure that I am on my soap box today because school is out and I was in the city getting sashimi grade ahi for dinner.  The weather is nice for February.  So nice that large men are wearing shorts and slip-on shoes and teenage boys are not wearing coats.  I was treated to many pairs of fat, pale calves (think Batali) and  skinny butt cheeks (not on the same individual!) in worn thin unders.  It is not that warm!  Not quite 40F.  I am feeling confused and in my confusion feeling tempted to start some unflattering rumors about the practice.  I think they should know that they are shuffling around looking like they have just been sodomized.  The low-pants boys, not the winter-shorts guys.  (Who, by the way, if they had a metabolism high enough to keep themselves warm enough to wear shorts at 40 degrees would not be that large to begin with.  My theory is they can get shorts roomy and comfortable without having to get them hemmed.  XXL waists are not easy to find with a 28 inch inseam.)

I didn't see the movie, but I read The Kite Runner.  I have seen prison documentaries on cable and know that I am not far off the mark.  What would it take for you beautiful boys to pull up your pants?  You must at least suspect that it makes you look like the bottom or the catcher or the bi*ch or whatever you want to call it.  And not by choice, either.  All the boys I know that choose that lifestyle are tidy and well-dressed.

the words I know, the tune I hum...

Whenever I hear the song Tiny Dancer by Elton John I like to pretend he is singing Tony Danza.  Like Elton had a crush on Tony from his Taxi days.  Like he was imagining Tony counting the headlights on the highway on his way home to Elton who had freshly pressed the linen sheets, knowing that his taxi driver man had a busy day.  Even better to picture Elton dressed like Donna Reed.

Hold me closer, Tony Danza.

See, now you can live in my head a little.  Enjoy.