It Really Makes Me Not Take Potties For Granted, You Know?

So yesterday, Babygirl and I embarked on a potty training adventure.

The background:
1. She's had a potty chair AND a potty seat for MONTHS now.
2. She always would sit on either one but nothing actually ever...descended into the potty.
3. She likes to tell me that she's pooping right before she actually does.

After a quick grocery shopping trip, I hid all the diapers and accompanying diaper-stuff in my closet and offered Babygirl some big-girl underpants (which she has worn and peed through many times before yesterday).

She wore them and asked for a diaper multiple times (to which I said, "They're all gone - go look!" and since she couldn't find them, she believed me).

At the end of the day, she had peed on the floor twice but in the potty three times with - get this - some poop in the potty to boot.

AND THEN (this is the real kicker), she slept all night in panties and woke herself up around 3 to go pee again - needed some help since she was half asleep, but I was wildly impressed that she actually woke up and recognized the need to get out of bed and go do this since she's never had to before.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that it sticks...

I Was (Thankfully) MeMe'd!

Thanks to Kara for tagging me because, honestly, I had nuttin' to write about today.

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Getting ready to come to college (wow, it seems a lot longer ago than just ten years!)

What were you doing 1 year ago?
Starting my second year in my job and finally stoppping my weight loss. At some point, you've actually lost enough...

Five Snacks You Enjoy
Cheese of any kind at all. You name it, I adore it.
Peanut Butter straight out of the jar. Preferably a brand-new jar.
Popcorn
Olives
Reese's Cups

Five Songs That You Know All The Lyrics To
It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - REM
Cannonball - Brandi Carlile
Million Faces - Paolo Nutini
Gimme That Nut - Eazy E
My Favorite Mutiny - The Coup

Five Things You Would Do If You Were a Millionaire
Pay off my credit card debt
Pay off my car loan
Put enough money in savings for Babygirl to go to college
Buy a house
Buy this dress

Five Bad Habits
Well, masturbation is right up there, but I don't think it's bad so much as "bad"
I pick my cuticles
Spend money I don't have
I complain a lot
I constantly say I'm going to get together with people and then I never do

Five Things You Like To Do
See the first item in the preceding question
Read
Knit
Rollerskate
Eat

Five Things You Would Never Wear Again
Maternity clothes (these tubes are tied, my friends)
Roll-down socks
tapered-leg jeans
Keds
Scrunchies

Five Favorite Toys
my iPod
The thing(s) I keep in my underwear drawer (these are #2, 3, and 4)
Knitting needles

Five Things in your Refrigerator:
Milk
Soothing Eye-Cover-y Thing
Vermouth
Olives
Cheddar Cheese

Five things in your closet:
Wrapping paper
Porn
Shoes I don't wear anymore
My cat, quite often
A lamp I don't use

Five things in your purse or backpack:
Wallet
Phone
iPod
tampons
camera

Five things in your car:
Elmo phone
Stroller
Phone charger
Napkins
A box of Babygirl's old clothes

Five things in the world you want to see before you die:
France With Someone In Particular
Babygirl grow up to be happy and healthy
A breakdancing chicken
Laura Ingalls Wilder's house
A President I believe in

I tag: A Certain Princess

Sometimes "Still Dirty" Takes on a Whole New Meaning

Yesterday, in an attempt to remove what must have been six or seven hundred pounds of stray cat fur and cheerios from my apartment, I got out the old vacuum cleaner.

While it did a fairly passable job on my carpet, I really felt that the vaccuming could be, well, better.

NB: Here's where I turn into my ex-father-in-law, who could be counted upon to liven up any party with a tale of cleaning out his alarm clock. He was a dear, sweet man, and since I'm about to do the same thing to my audience, I can't exactly make fun of him for it.

So I said, "Hey, BabyGirl - wanna see something gross?" and of course, since she's my daughter, she absolutely did.

However, I can't even begin to describe to you the horror of what then transpired. I have only ever emptied the "dust" container - I've never cleaned the filters or the wheels thingy on the bottom. When I went to investigate the latter, I discovered enough hair (HUMAN HAIR) tightly wrapped around that spinny thing that had to be CUT OFF with scissors to make a wig for a small child. Even I was horrified, and it takes a lot to horrify me.

So I cleaned out my vacuum entirely yesterday, discovering layer upon layer of yuck. I just want to know what I've been doing on my carpet for the last year to make it so unbelievably filthy. Or then again, maybe I don't.

I Know, I Stink

Life has SERIOUSLY gotten in the way of my good, quality blogging lately.

The updates, in brief:
1. Stupid motherfucking raise finally got approved, effective August 1 (no retroactive pay for the work I've been doing for 6 months) and I won't see it until Aug. 31. Not grumbling about it, I'm incredibly pleased. However, the 4-month process it took to get the damn thing has effectively broken my spirit and basic willingness to believe that human beings are generally kind to one another, even professionally.
2. My office computer got the world's most impressive virus on it, forcing me out of commission for three days solid. My only saving grace was a laptop whose internet browsers closed constantly and on which I was able to only barely plod through the most immediate of my work (to say nothing of my regular blog-reading and -writing).
3. We begin practice at our new rink on Sunday. Needless to say, I'm utterly stoked to fall down on brand-spanking-new wood.
4. I am house-sitting for my brother and Babygirl has managed to nearly impale herself on the corner of a coffee table in her zest to go to bed. Seriously. And then, once we got her in bed, she refused to sleep. So I am in the same room, typing frantically (which I'm sure is not helping the sleep situation) and listening to her sing to herself.

Also, I am exhausted from all kinds of craziness, but I hope to not be quite so irregular in my posts in the future. I'm fibering myself to get the crap out, so to speak, blogularily.

Rolling. Sort of.

So Babygirl has wanted skates of her own for a long time. I'm no fool; 2.5-year-old + wheels = yeeeouch. So instead I knit her a pair of rollerskate socks. These were originally going to be baby booty gifts for a pregnant rollergirl, but they came out a little bigger than I intended, not to mention the fact that Babygirl, once she saw me working on them, kept yelling, "My wollkeets! My wollkeets!"



This is blurry because she was in motion, skating, obviously.

Help Me, Blogfans, You're My Only Hope!

Okay, I would've written something vastly entertaining this morning, but my computer has been invaded by a pop-up monster that I can't get rid of. Pop-up blockers are on, but this is a fucking monster that's been installed in my control panel.

The proof?



See that fucker? "Run Advertised Programs"? I know that's the culprit. I can't uninstall it or delete it. What the fuck?

So. I turn to you, my dear internet friends who might hopefully be smarter than me. How the fuck do I get this off my computer?

Oh, and before you start accusing me of looking at porn on my work computer - while this has certainly been known to happen in the past, it hasn't happened any time recently at all that would account for this. But really, does it matter? I suppose this kind of problem is electronic karma for e-sins past, but I still want it to go away.

Until the Dust Settles

My office is undergoing some seriously needed renovations this week (or is supposed to be - I refuse to believe this is happening until the men in hazmat suits show up to remove asbestos, like they're supposed to). I have been relocated temporarily down the hall to my old boss's office, which is rather nice. Also, it has the added bonus of getting me mostly away from colleagues that I have to deal with on a too-intimate basis, in my opinion.

One habit of the office I inhabit regularly is to gather around our main table and have coffee together for an hour in the mornings. I don't like this. I don't like it because I have nothing to say about last night's episode of "Dancing With the Stars" and frankly, it wastes perfectly good time in which I could be blogging. Seriously, I have never needed to actually watch any reality programming in my entire life because my coworkers recount every. single. episode. of. everything.

So I'm hoping that my move for the next week or so will result in some wildly interesting blog posts for a change.

Just When I Thought I Had Nothing to Blog About

Oh, Jon Bon Jovi, how I feel for you!

I can't tell you how horrible I feel that this is happening to you. Really. It's tragic. I mean, the only thing worse than Mijovi Energy Drink would be Yourjovi Energy Drink or (god forbid) Ourjovi Energy Drink.

And I thought my life had problems. I stand totally corrected.

Goodness of Vacations Can Be Measured in Just How Many Waffle House Stops You Make

For the record, I did 3 in 3 days.

Staycation

So next week, I have a vacation. Babygirl is with my baby daddy and I don't have to go in to work. I don't have to be anywhere except derby practice on Wednesday.

I am utterly lame in that I have nowhere to go and no money to go nowhere with and no one to go nowhere with no money with.

I won't have internet access to update you on my nothingness. My camera is broken, so no pictures of my nothingness.

This is going to be GREATEST. VACATION. EVER.

Actually, I woke up this morning thinking that on Sunday night, I might pile into my car and just take off in any old direction. I might come back. Then again, I might not.

Celebratin'

You know, I never cared too much about the birth of our nation. I mean, don't get me wrong - I'm thrilled to have had the good fortune to be born in America - but I can't say I get all weepy when Kroger starts running commercials that manage to both salute our veterans and announce a special on seedless grapes in the same 20-second spot.

Since being on my own, I've revised my own understanding of what the 4th is to me. Get ready, folks, cause it's wildly frivolous (and you've come to expect that of me, no?).

You see, everyone I know likes to celebrate the 4th of July with outdoorsy things. Picnics, barbeques, parades, swimming pools, state parks. Hell, when I was with my ex, we had an annual tradition of taking a picnic lunch to a local park on the fourth.

But I no longer have to live a lie. I can finally, finally be true to myself.

Because, if I'm being honest with me, I hate:
outdoors
heat
bugs
sweat that doesn't result from illicit encounters
poison ivy
plants that look like poison ivy
rocks
dirt
hiking
picnics
state parks
grass tickling my ankles
worrying about ticks
sun

Oh, yes. I know how bad that list looks.

I will be at a parade briefly tomorrow, but it's only because I'm actually in the damn thing. And my hatred of parades doesn't extend to situations where I get to wear rollerskates and look cute.

But because I'm just me now, I can (after the parade) celebrate the Fourth of July the way Little Baby Jesus intended: inside in my dark, cavelike-apartment in my panties with the A/C cranked, drinking chardonnay from a box, and eating brie without any accompanying crackers.

All The Difference in the World

Having two TVs in my apartment now means that I can watch "Gale Force" in all its Treat-Williams-y glory in my choice of rooms.

My Life is a Table

Every now and then, I get the urge to move. Move myself, move my body, move my life.

And since I know that it's not exactly practical to pick up and start a new life in Wisconsin, I respond to that urge in any number of ways. I buy a new outfit I don't need. I get a tattoo. I clean my office. I exercise. Occasionally, I move my apartment around, though there's barely room for the small amount of crap I have to be reconfigured in new and interesting ways.

Last night was one of those nights.

It started with a TV that I am "TV-sitting" more or less indefinitely from work. It's a huge TV and comes with a DVD player. I have at home already a very tiny TV that everyone I know laughs at, but that I think is helping me to develop keener eyesight as I squint to make out what those crazy kids from "Hell's Kitchen" are doing on a screen half the size of a postage stamp.

So I moved the tiny TV to my bedroom and put the massive one in the living room where I could instantly begin worrying about it falling over and crushing Baby Girl to death in a tragically ironic meeting of materialism and mass media and gravity.

But I digress.

The point is that this new monster in my living room made me feel antsy. Unsettled. The way I've felt in most aspects of my life, lately, now that I think about it.

And having no money for a new tattoo or an idea of what to permanently stamp myself with this time, I decided to move furniture. Not even a lot of furniture - just one piece, in fact. This may not seem like that big of a deal, but it symbolizes a lot, I think.

I pushed my dining room table up against my kitchen wall so that there's only room for 3 seats at it. I set it up as a desk. I put my little book-a-day calendar on it. I put my French workbook and flashcards on it. I put my little "pen pot" on it. I put my iPod dock on it to await a new baby iPod that I'm hoping the iPod stork will bring some day. I put a space on it for the new baby laptop I'm hoping the laptop stork will bring some day. I put my work in progress on it: articles I want to write, articles I want to read, books I need to do my research on. I put my bills to be paid on it.

If you're thinking that this maybe leaves no room to eat on, you're absolutely correct.

This slight change in the Space That Is Dirty Girl says these things:
1. Baby Girl and I are just going to eat at the coffee table from now on, since she loves eating there anyway (and I don't turn on the TV - I think she just likes her little chair that is just her size at the low table, and I like sitting on the floor, and who gives a fuck where we eat, anyway? She still gets her veggies).
2. I never have anyone over for dinner. I love to cook and I love to cook for people, but I just don't currently have the kinds of relationships with other adults that allow me to make dinner for them and use my matchy-matchy placemats, as much as I'd like to.
3. I have designated a space for me to exist in outside of my relationship to my child or to the TV or my bed (though I wouldn't mind fucking on my newly-defined desk).

It already works great, by the way - last night, I balanced my checkbook and drank a martini on it.

It's Not My Birthday, But I'm Dressed Like It Is

Last night, on a whim, I slept au natural.

I don't usually do this - it's too distracting, for one thing - and it just usually never occurs to me.

I have no idea what brought this on, but I was struck by the fact that one's one squishiness is much more readily apparent when one is lying on that squish and every slight movement makes the squishy...well, squish.

I've come to the conclusion that sleeping in the buff is overrated unless there's a second party in my bed. But maybe that's just me...

Dirty Girl's Hierarchy of Needs

I often feel like my life is just breaking down around me. Not in any huge psychological way, but in a largely physical way.

My digital camera has been on the fritz for months now - it appears to be frozen with a cache full of pictures of the back of my head as I attempted to get a clear shot of my true hair color without actually showing my face. I haven't been able to take pictures or mini-videos of Baby Girl for weeks now. Every time she does something cute, I'm reduced to screaming, "Wait! Wait! Please, just put it on hold and come back to it in a few weeks when Mama's raise kicks in!"

But even worse than that is my iPod. I've had my iPod for about three years and have loved it. It gives me the energy to work out. It makes me feel like I'm living in a musical. But it happens to be dead. It's long past the repair stage of the game - I'd pay as much to buy a new (nano)* as I would to fix up my 30G (that I don't really need 30 G of).

But I have no money. I am negative broke this month. I also need to place an order for new contacts, I need new bearings for my skates. I could use some new pants to fit my ever-expanding derby butt.

But apparently, my needs don't fit the typical need structure. I'd be perfectly happy starving to death under a flimsy piece of cardboard outside the public library downtown as long as I could listen to Afroman's "Because I Got High" while I wasted away.

So I may be laying out money I don't have very very soon for a product I absolutely, without a doubt, need.

*I'm facing difficulty in purchasing said iPod. Since I work at a university, I should be getting the education discount, which, despite all my technological savvy, refuses to show up on the order page. I've talked to customer service, removed all cookies from my computer, tried everything. No discount to which I am entitled. Oddly enough, our campus also has - and I'm totally serious here - a vending machine that dispenses iPods. While I have some major concerns with sliding my credit card into a machine for what is a Very Expensive Metaphorical Bag of Doritos, the lure of having my new iPod in time for my noon workout is very, very strong indeed.
**Update: Apple no longer allows the education discount to apply to iPods. Fuckers.

Second Coming

Recently at work, an email went around encouraging us employees to explore "Second Life" - a gi-normous virtual community in which people play and work (and apparently can earn real money, too).

The object seems to be the same underlying many people get involved in online communities: to be themselves as much as they can be without the burden of preconceived notions or prejudices. People can and do reinvent themselves or (in my opinion) tend to become more themselves when they are understood as people in terms of their own creativity and their power to express themselves largely through the written word (or at least a doctored version of it...lol. ;) TTFN!).

I'm all for it, of course. I'm a little confused as to why my boss is essentially encouraging me to play on company time, but hey, whatever!

The big problem for me is not reconciling the "why" of this with the apparent fun of it. No, it's a much more "me" problem: hair.

I've created a self in Second World. But I don't understand me. Or at least, the appearance-building side of me. You see, my virtual self (who I can dress and make up and create a body shape for)(not at all unlike the Sims, a game I enjoy purely for the way it speaks to the 11-year-old-girl-need of mine to be a fashion designer and interior decorator) looks okay. But she doesn't have all of her hair. I have no hair on top at all. Some minor digging into the subject has told me that hair "comes" in two pieces in Second Life - you have to get some Second Life money and then buy more hair if you want it.

This, in my humble estimation, is nuts. Or maybe it's a way to recognize newbies - we all have half a head of hair until we find some way to get some money (and you can't prostitute your e-self on this, unfortunately. That would be the easiest way, I'm thinking).

I'm not convinced my boss wanted me on this to have me sit around playing with hairstyles all day, but it's a great diversion....

Might As Well Be Me

I've never been a lottery kind of a person. I'd rather have my dollar than a piece of paper with the chance to win millions printed on it.

However, I work in an office that collects money weekly for lottery tickets. And while I feel certain that me staying out of the pool pretty much guarantees that they'll win at some point, I have a hard time doing so. Every week, they get two dollars out of me and every week, we lose money. I swear, I could be drinking beer with that money!

All of that said, this didn't stop me from buying a raffle ticket in the lottery's newest game where they sell a pre-set number of tickets and the draw for prizes - the odds are actually a lot higher that you'll win something. Of course, you pay $5 instead of one for that privilege.

Can you imagine what my blog would be like if I actually won millions of dollars? Every day, you'd tune in to read about:
1. My new dresses
2. The wine I'm drinking
3. My new house in which I would hopefully be fucking in every room before I every put a stick of furniture in
4. My new furniture on every piece of which I would hopefully be fucking once I'd christened the bare rooms
5. How many bon-bons I'm eating
6. My new rollerskates - maybe a different pair for every day, like days-of-the-week panties
7. The things I do to fill up the long, long days of not having to work
8. The daily massages I would receive from a lanky Eastern European fellow named Sergei
9. All the fancy pens (Pilot Dr. Grip Gel) money could buy
10. The thousands upon thousands of books I would be buy and read and then, because throwing them away would be wasteful and keeping them would be impractical, I would store in the bathroom to tear out a page at a time to use as toilet paper.

Man! That would be one sweet life...

My Heart Is an Unripened Strawberry

Note to Self

Dear Dirty Girl,

Do not watch any more ABC television in the evenings, unless you want to go through an entire box of Kleenex and a jar of peanut butter.

Best Wishes,
Yourownself

Dr. Feelgood

Some people think I don't go to the doctor when something ails me because I'm a tough kind of a girl. I'm sorry to have to admit that it's because I have had reaffirmed for me over the years on a regular basis that I am the queen of the vague diagnosis and subsequent vague treatment.

This Saturday, our league decided to do a land workout instead of a skating one on Sunday. We ran, did lunges, squat-walked, skipped, ran backwards, and sprinted. We stretched before and after and I felt fine (even to the point of thinking I hadn't gotten that good of a workout). Then I woke up Sunday with sore legs. I thought, "Okay, so it was tougher than I thought." I started to do chores around my place and, when I'd take more then five steps in a row, I felt like someone was hurling a rusty pickaxe through the heel of my foot.

I was beginning to Doctor Google home treatments when I remembered that I am something of an athlete. This was no time to self-diagnose. Plus, my foot really hurt like a bitch when I walked on it.

I went to an urgent treatment center, where I waited for three hours to be diagnosed with absolutely nothing. I was instructed to load up on ibuprofin and told to ice the foot when it hurt. The doctor seemed so intrigued by the fact that I played roller derby that she seemed mostly unable to comprehend that whatever I had done to my foot had not actually occurred whilst skating. So I'm sitting here with a still-ouchy foot and and an economy-size bottle of generic advil.

This is why I don't go to doctors. The only time I've ever been conclusively diagnosed with anything was when I was pregnant with Baby Girl, and even then, I was certain the doctor was going to tell me, "We're pretty sure you're pregnant, but it really could be a variety of things. Why don't you go on home and take it easy for 8 or 9 months and we'll see if it clears up on its own."

Sometimes It Would Serve Me Well to Remember I'm Dealing With a Toddler and Not a Frat Boy

The Scene: My Bathroom, This Morning...

Dirty Girl: Baby Girl, it's almost time to go. Go get your shoes.

Baby Girl: No, you do it.

Dirty Girl: No, they're your shoes, you do it.

Baby Girl: No, you do it.

Dirty Girl: No, I asked you; you do it.

Baby Girl: No, you do it.

Dirty Girl (getting completely exasperated): Oh, yeah? Well, your mom can do it!

Guess I lost that argument.

Some Mornings

You log on to blogger and think, "Damn! I should've come up with something to write about last night!"

What do you want to hear about, folks?

So Afraid to Break the Rules in All the Wrong Places

Well 1 out of 3 ain't bad. The derby drama is rectified, mostly because, yes, you have drama when you get a bunch of women together but you also have a lot of ability to listen and be mature. Women can fix women more easily than they can fix anything else.

But my other stuff? Well, it's all in limbo, folks...but it got me thinking. Okay, so I haven't stopped thinking about any of it for months and months and months now. But I am moved to write about it today in the context of acceptability.

So much of what we do in life is dictated by other people - we do things we don't want to, that aren't us, that we shouldn't - because someone else came up with the dictum that it should be so. When I ask for a deserved raise, I get the run-around because that's what the workworld is like. But when I am expected to shut up and go away because I'm young and a woman, that's because someone somewhere down the line perpetuated the idea that women can't push. And to push would be dangerous for them professionally.

I, for one, am getting tired of feeling like I have to be a certain way because other people think I should. Fortunately for me, I don't actually act on that feeling - I'm me these days, unapologetically.

What do you all do to break the "rules" that you just don't feel bad about?

Oh, To Be a Canuck, For Reals

I wrote this out last night, long-hand, while Baby Girl and I were out for dinner (entirely an unnecessary expense, particularly considering yesterday's post). And so:

**********************************************************************************
I'm overhearing the weirdest conversation. I am in O'Charley's with Baby Girl and the waitress we always have is at the table behind us. She judges me with her eyes when I order beer, more so when I ask for the second beer, though she has no way of knowing that I live about 100 yards away and that we have walked here with the shorter of us in a stroller.

Anyway, she is having a conversation at the table behind Baby Girl about going to Canada - she's leaving next week [non sequiter: Aretha Franklin is singing, "Think, think, think about what you're trying to do to me..."]. I don't know if her move is permanent (God, I hope so), and she's saying, "Healthcare is free. I could be a millionaire!" The people at her table seem to accept this with knowing head nods. I'm not sure what they're nodding at.

I know that healthcare is free in Canada, but I'm not sure that means that Ottowans are, as a matter of general course, driving Miatas all over the tundra.

Anyway, the fact that she's leaving (and obviously leaving this job, which is this only means through which I interact with her), means that I can stop saying loudly mid-meal, "Hope you're ready for a quick walk home, Baby Girl!" so she knows I'm not strapping my daughter into a carseat to drive her off in a drunken joyride while I, all the whilst trying not to get unintentionally ass-ba-joinked by the gearshift of my Corolla, simultaneously smoke crack and get fucked by a dark-haired boy with brown eyes and a crooked smile in full view of her before we all plummet to our deaths off the side of the Grand Canyon, which is nowhere near here.

This waitress never seems to notice that Baby Girl eats her broccoli, slowly and carefully, but entirely, while I drink two tall Amber Bocks and write tomorrow's blog entry on the back of - what is this? Huh. An invitation to reestablish my dental insurance - an invitation to reestablish my dental insurance. She's off to Canada, and I'm due to have a (hopefully) less judgmental waitress - maybe one who will throw a shot of whiskey in with my beers, just cause.

I mean, anyone who's watched my daughter scream at me, "NO TALKEE ME, MAMA!" (I swear, she's so not PC, doing her toddler-ethnic-minority-voice) knows that I'm fucking entitled to that boilermaker. And now that Baby Girl just blew a kiss to me and accidentally in the process spit a mouthful of partially-chewed-up broccoli in my direction, I feel I'm multiply entitled. I'll still take that green, smelly kiss, of course.

And, if she's off to the land of the millionaires and Alanis Morisette, my waitress can at least share the wealth before she departs...

What's In Your Wallet?

Divorce is seriously expensive. Not only do you have the cost of lawyers and setting up your own home and (in my case) buying a dependable car over the piece of shit that got handed down to you like everything else you've ever owned, you pay for the things you indulge yourself in to make yourself feel better: little black dresses, vodka, knitting supplies, rollerskates.

After a bit, that catches up with you. I have not used my credit card since October except for my $15 monthly Netflix charge. My credit card lives in a tin box on top of my refrigerator (please don't come over to my apartment and steal it, dear readers. There's so much more in my home that I'm sure is more worth stealing: my painting of Bea Arthur, my broken closet door, my stained blue armchair that's covered in cat hair) so I won't be tempted to use it in a moment of weakness at something not worth it, like a pretzel from Auntie Anne's at the mall.

I have been working hard to pay off that debt, though it's slow going.

Apparently, the nice people who own my credit card have begun to notice this. For the last two months, I get mail nearly daily from them. It's clear to them I'm trying to break up (if you ever watched the British version of "Coupling," then you'll know what I mean when I say that they're the unflushable...), and they're not happy about it.

First, there's been the accusations that there's someone else; 75% of the mail I get is them trying to lure me back to using them by offering fantastic rates on transferred balances.

Once it became clear that, no, I just didn't want to be with them, they broke out the big guns - free return address labels. A whole six free return address labels (and frankly, I think it's deceptive for the envelope to read "Free Gift Inside" for six stickers)! When THAT didn't work, they began to send me blank checks that I can write my own amount in for and deposit into my checking account (which I actually use, and it's clear that not only is there not another man in this relationship, I've switched sides and gone over to ladies-only) because It's Just Like Real Money!

Let me tell you, it's never just like real money. And don't worry, Credit Card Peeps - I promise I'm coming home to you after I pay you off completely. It just might be years before that happens.

10 Things That Are Still Good

1. Brie
2. The fun of cleaning out my ears with Q-Tips
3. Getting into my car after it's been in the hot sun all day and feeling that awesome dry heat for 5 glorious seconds before it makes me uncomfortable
4. Baby Girl
5. True Mom Confessions
6. The lyrics to "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You"*
7. Making out in stairwells
8. Flip-flops
9. Rollerskating
10. Mix CDs that people make for me

*I needed the shelter of someone's arms, and there you were...

Aw, Now Ya'll Done and Made Me Feel All Loved

Thanks, kids. I appreciate everyone's kind words...

You'll be relieved to hear that I played hooky from derby practice last night (Hi, ladies! Sorry I skipped! Not really!) and bought fauxshi (the sushi made at my local grocery store) and a great bottle of wine and then stayed in, ate, drank, and sat in the hottest bath I've ever drawn and read in this month's Cosmo how to have better orgasms and more of them (advice, I'd like to point out, that I don't actually need).

I cleaned my apartment a little - cutting down on clutter literally is good when you can't clear the shit out of your head. I took out trash. I watched "The Next Best Thing" on TV - and I typically loathe reality TV, but my dislike apparently doesn't extend to shows involving bad celebrity impersonators. I had a very bizarre dream (stress-induced, no doubt) about living in a house where someone had killed their whole family - apparently, I was sort of Jennifer Love Hewitt (just call her "Love") in Ghost Whisperer. Understandably, I didn't want to live in the house.

Don't worry, this blog isn't about to become the forum where I tell you what I dreamed last night. No one has the right to make other people listen to what they dreamed the night before except spouses; in fact, this might be the only reason I can see that is a really truly good reason to get married.

Anyway, I'm keeping on keeping on. What else can you do, right? It's all just life...

Misery Loves Company

Something I've struggled with in my many, many years of blogging is how much to share. Not in terms of explicitness (obviously), but in terms of the bad shit. When I'm having a clunker of a day, do I come on here (or my old blog) and just lay it all out?

I see the purpose of blogging as largely for entertainment value - is there any entertainment to be had from the fact that, on top of all the other crap going on in my life right now, I lost a much beloved flip-flop last night to a raging river where my parking lot used to be in a mad dash to my apartment office to pay my nearly-late rent in the middle of a monsoon? Okay, so maybe there is some entertainment to be had from that.

So I want to come on and be like, "Guys, I just don't have it in me today to talk about my proclivity for bedroom toys that come in cute colors and buzz...I'm having a shitty day." But where's the fun in that?

I am dealing with some drama with rollerderby right now; not only am I not a drama-person, I find it alarming that a sport that involves wearing rollerskates and stripey tights can even have drama in the first place.

My love life is fucking miserable because of someone I adore so much that I wake up in the middle of the night unable to breathe because I'm so in love, constantly devastated, horny as fucking hell, and - oh, yes - in love. Today is not the day for me to share the details on that situation; suffice it to say that the person in question is absolutely perfect, wonderful, and amazing.

But the icing on the cake is that the person who verbally okayed my promotion two weeks ago is now trying to weasel out of it. I am doing everything I can to make it happen, and I have confidence in my ability to do so. But I am crushed every day at work by the disrespect for the work I do and the presumption that it's okay for superiors to use the fuck out of me as an employee.

So, yeah, I'm having a shitty couple of days of it. It's not entertaining in the slightest. I know all of it will work itself out, and it's not in my nature to be depressed long-term when I know things will eventually be better. They will be, and that's okay. But today, folks, I'm giving myself permission to sit here with the grumpiest face on I can possibly muster and feel sorry for myself. So there.

I Own More Little Black Dresses Than Anyone Possibly Could Use in a Lifetime

This morning, I dressed for work with especial care.

You might think it's because I have something important planned for the day, something where it's important for me to look good.

We're holding interviews for our receptionist job at work today. Now, I have no idea why this moved me to look good. Three out of our four interviewees are women (middle-aged women, too, I suspect, who probably are not going to be attractive in the ways that I find women attractive [although, to be fair, maybe someone will suprise me - I guess I shouldn't presume they're not going to be hot]) so it's not likely that I'm going to be trying to find a date in the group. I'm not in the hot seat myownself today, so it doesn't really matter how I look...

No, I suppose that in some bizarre place in my mind, it's important that these people come away from the interview today with the sense that our workplace is full of supermodels. Well, that and the fact that it isn't unusual at all to walk into our office and find one of us who shall remain nameless but whose name rhymes with Birty Birl on rollerskates.

It's Not Even 9 a.m...

And I'm utterly exhausted.

I got plenty of sleep last night. It's just that in the two and a half hours I have been conscious, I have argued with Babygirl about whether or not is was necessary to wake up at all (it was), whether or not a very sopping wet diaper needed changing (it did), whether or not pants were absolutely crucial to one's attendance at school (they were), and whether or not shoes needed to be on the right feet (actually, I gave in here. What do I care if she insists on wearing them on the wrong feet?).

Oh, and then I wrapped up a morning of stellar parenting by letting her eat a baggie of potato chips at 7 am in the car on the way to daycare after a very heated argument about whether or not I could a)look at her or b)talk to her. I don't know who's in charge of paychecks for motherhood, but someone seems to have forgotten mine this month.

Pomp and Circumstance

I head home this weekend for my younger brother's graduation. Due to some late babymaking on Mama Dirty Girl's part, I have a half brother who is 10 years younger than me.

I have been to so many graduations for immediate family members in these last 10 years that it's starting to get silly. of course, the first one I attended 10 years ago was my own, from my tiny high school.

So if I think back to me 10 years ago, I'm mostly amused by what I thought would come next. I'm not sure I ever had a realistic idea of what college was going to be about, but boy, was I ready for something (with my native-american-styled bone choker and froggy backpack in tow).

I know you think I'm getting ready to reflect big on the last decade of my life, but it's just not headed that direction. No, I'm thinking about the heat and the bordeom. I return to the scene of that particular graduation with not so much nostalgia as a more well-developed sense of just how long these things drag on, even with tiny graduating classes...

Now We Are Two

Babygirl has hit the terrible twos, finally, after months of actually being two. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she just now got moved into the two-year-old class at daycare. She's come into her own.

She spent a thirty-minute car ride last night alternately singing, "The driber on bus MOOB ON BACK! MOOB ON BACK! MOOB ON BACK! Driber on bus MOOB ON BACK! All fwoo toooooown!" and yelling at me, "DON'T TALK TO ME, MAMA!" To which I responded with a very motherly, "I didn't want to talk to you anyway!"

I swear, our mother-daughter relationship warms the heart...

Revolting Picture Ahead Alert!

I adore rollerskating. Even when my knee pad slips upon impact after I get sent to the floor by an opposing blocker.



Even when I pull down my knee sock after coming off the rink to discover that the skin that was formerly attached to my knee is now attached to the inside of my sock.

Good times, people. Good times.

It's Nice to Know the Bits Are All in Order

I went for my annual cootchie checkup this morning. You'll all be relieved to know that Dirty Girl's ownpersonalcootchie is alive and kicking. Well, not literally. I mean, what a fucking terrifying image!

I didn't see my normal gynecologist (which was too bad, because I had a question all ready for her about female ejaculation [aka "squirting"]) - instead, I saw the "other" gynecologist who was the one to deliver Baby Girl two years ago. Of course, she sees a lot of ladies' cookies in her line of work, so it wasn't a shocker to me that she didn't really seem to remember mine. In any case, she also looks like she's 12, so I didn't feel right about hitting her with a sexually subversive question, whether or not she'd been trained in Cootchie Doctor School to answer such queries.

Everyone who knew I was headed for this appointment this morning kept saying, "EEP! Sorry about that!" and I don't understand this. I would SO rather go to the LadyDoctor than to the dentist. I laugh in the face of a speculum, really. Assuming speculums (specula?) had faces.

Well, at least that's one thing off the to-do list for the year (picture Dirty Girl slapping her hands in the international gesture for self-satisfaction at a job well done).

Quarter to Four in the Morning, I Ain't Feeling Tired...

I know most people shower in the mornings. They need the shower to wake up. They like to think they are at their most presentable when they bathe immediately before seeing other people. They consider the shower a crucial component of their morning routine.

I'm a nighttime showerer. A nighttime bather in general, really. I mean, I have a limitless capacity to sit in a bathtub for hours, drinking martinis and reading. Occasionally, I go all out and bring my laptop in so I can watch movies while I take baths.

Obviously, all this doesn't work for a shower, but I still get scrubbing bubbly in the evenings...I could blame it on Roller Derby and say that honestly, after two hours on the rink, I would turn into one ginormous pimple if I didn't shower right after.

But the real reason is pure - well, if not vanity exactly, certainly a Narcissus-like trait.

I usually bring my iPod stereo dock into the bathroom with me (you know, to pass the time while I unsuccessfully attempt to make my hair look like something other than the insane yellow rat's nest it is), and when I get out of the shower, all smooth and wet and sleek, I feel sort of like a seal. A dancing seal.

I am a shitty dancer. But when I get out of the shower, anything seems possible. I usually only get halfway into jammies (putting on a pair of men's boxers) and I let my hair stay wet. And then I dance. Topless. In front of a mirror.



So it's not a Vegas showgirl moment for me, despite the on-display tits. Things...jiggle. I'm covered in bruises ranging from the size of a dime to the size of a bagel from roller derby and the occasional illicit encounter. I have a love/hate relationship with my nipples, more often on the hate side of the scale. My wet hair is undeniably electric canary yellow. But there's still a huge sense of satisfaction to be had from the freedom of admiring the stuff I do like - I like to watch my arms and shoulders and my back and occasionally, I get so pumped, I even have a rare spurt of affection for my little belly.

Really, I think if more women danced semi-nude on occasion just for theirownselves, they might go a long way towards fostering much-needed true body self-luv. Am I right?

Freaks Flock Together and Make All the B-Boys Scream

I've been going to the gym a lot more lately to both increase my endurance for Rollerderby and to tone my abs so that my bikini (only the second one I've ever owned in my life) isn't laughable.

Many of you who know me know that I have a strange relationship with the gym. I like working out, and I like checking myself out in the mirror. I also like when I notice other people checking me out, and frankly, I check other people out. For all that eyeballing, I don't want anyone to actually talk to me.

There's this one guy there who must be 100 years old who hits on me every time I'm there. Okay, so he's not 100, but he's got to be at least 54, and 54 is damn close to 100, am I right? This particular fellow is annoying largely because he always indicates that I should remove my earbuds (usually when I'm listening to The Coup and I'm in the middle of breaking the rap down in my head [I sound so GOOD when I rap in my mind]) to listen to him yammer while I'm trying to get my sweat on. Being frosty hasn't worked, ignoring him hasn't worked (he simply taps my arm to get my attention).

I have a friend who has begun to go to the gym with me, and while I'm happy about this for many, many reasons, one of the biggest is that he's helpful in keeping the riffraff away. The friend has Okay to Touch Dirty Girl priveleges, as well as an impressive command of very deliberate eye-rolling. This means that if someone (like Annoying 100-Year-Old) is trying to talk to me, one touch on the the back from my friend sends all kinds of confusing signals about my availability. Then I get the added bonus of openly laughing at eye-rolling immediately after.

If you think this is cruel of me, don't blame me. I recently got "Dangerous Liasons" via Netflix, and it might be bringing out my inner demons. Okay, so the inner demons might have already been "out" but I'm sure the charming horror that is John Malkovich as Vicomte Sébastien de Valmont isn't helping my niceness...

Sadly, You Can't See My Girly Bits

Photo (c) Ann T. Pathic

I'm fairly certain this occasion marked the beginning and end of my high-powered modelling career...

Smashin' Fashion

Okay, I don't have pictures yet. But I should say that the fashion show went swimmingly. I only had two dresses to model (some girls had 5 or 6), but neither was a dress I tried on in my fitting.

This wouldn't have necessarily been a problem except that one dress was completely see-through. It looked nice on the hanger - when I looked at it, I could see through both the front and the back of the dress to the back of the of the dressing room. When I put it on and showed one of my fellow rollergirls, she said, "Oh, it looks great! I really like the flowers on your panties!"

So I had to go out in direct sunlight and just let people look at my tits and my panties and, when I turned around, my ass. Good thing I have a cute heinie.

I'll share pictures when I have them. Hopefully, at least one will truly highlight my brief stint as a peep-show nudie girl...

It's Stanky Stuff

Babygirl has a stuffed monkey that used to be mine that I only found in a box a few days ago. Since she is obsessed with "Curious George," her head nearly exploded with the excitement of this stuffed animal. She promptly named him Dorj. Dorj has velcro hands you can use to clasp him around your neck so that you can carry him without using your hands (and you know, when you're a toddler, it's useful to have a monkey doll who hangs onto you, thereby leaving your hands free for important things like clinging to your mother's legs and begging to be picked up and held while she's cooking your dinner on a very hot stove). Dorj's felt eyes are also permanently closed and he has a satisfied grin on his face, making him look oddly postcoital for a stuffed monkey.

Last night, we had to drive around doing errands, and Babygirl brought Dorj along. I was listening to my music - and I'm a bad parent because I don't censor what I listen to when she's within earshot - and the Black-Eyed Peas "Smells Like Funk" came up on iPod shuffle. Now, this song is killer and nasty. It's seriously bumping. I have to give you the lyrics here so you know just how nasty it is:

Yeah, that's Funky (Funky)
Yeah, that's Funky (Funky)
Yeah, that's Funky (Funky)

If it smells like Funk it must be us
The Funk Funk full foul stinky it's stanky stuff
If it smells like Funk it must be us
The Funk Funk full foul stinky it's stanky stuff
If it smells like Funk it must be us
The Funk Funk full foul stinky it's stanky stuff
If it smells like Funk it must be us
Cause nobody's Funky as us, Cause we keep it Stinky (Stinky)
We keep it Stinky, (Stinky)
We keep it Stinky, (Stinky)
We keep it Stinky, (Stinky)
Stinky, Stinky, Stinky,

The Funk phenomenon, we Funk you on n' on
There's no need to hold your nose,
Cause this pong sing like a rouge

Big booty Funk, Toe jam Funk,
Underarm Funk, like you headlocking a Skunk'
Reeking like diseased athletes' feet,
The stench didn't come till after this beat
Smellin' like drawers no weezin no pause
Put your hand up on the speakers get smelly ass paws
You know we was coming before we entered the door
Cause you could smell the rhyme when we was walking down the hall
We bring the Funk worse then a wet dog
Stinkin' like fat ladies shittin' out Logs
We drop enough shit and keep them toilets clogged
Keep the people jumpin' like them Bullfrogs
The first one who smelt it ain't the one who dealt it
Black Eyed Peas keep the scent blind like delta
Funky like onions you fryin' (Sure is Funky) girl you ain't lyin'

Yo' you Funkin' with the Funk family
The non fabricated factual faculty'
We formulatin' up in a factory
Focusin' on the energy' of fluid flow free'
We flawless, everything is for free
We flourish and we flaunt our flavour freshly, huh'
Can you believe we flip the frequencies and
Freak MCs they leave all frantically but
Our intent is ought to be friendly but
They fightin' when we start the freestylin' frenzy
I conk up ya' flat till your girlfriend beef
Fillin all anatomy, bringin' me flattery, huh'
She'll be diggin' these rhymes that ease beats
Like cellulite lyrics so flabby
We bring the funk to your festivities
If you think something stank then it must be the Peas!

If it smells like Funk it must be us
The Funk Funk full foul stinky it's stanky stuff
If it smells like Funk it must be us
The Funk Funk full foul stinky it's stanky stuff
If it smells like Funk it must be us
The Funk Funk full foul stinky it's stanky stuff
If it smells like Funk it must be us
Cause nobody's Funky as us, cause we keep it Stinky
(Funky, Funky, Funky, Funky)

Cellulite overweight stankin' MCs
Stench smells so strong it's unsanitary
Cause you can sense me a mile away so Chanky
With the jungle Funk sound from Serengeti
Meaty, Fat, Nasty like miss Fat booty's tights
Gettin' dirty like mudfights and dirtbikes
Turning these drawers black they used to be white
And we shitin' on these tracks that you gonna' need to wipe
The odor's so contagious that it shows up in your dream
Man you could pick me out like food in between
Your two front teeth cause you be lackin' the streets
We got beefy ass beats that we bumpin' in the streets
We so nice n' sweet like steak box n' feet
Sour underarm Funk you ain't washed in a week
And man we be reekin' every day or weekend
We could all bounce to the Funk and the season

Haha haha
Yeah that's Funky,
Yeah that's Funky

Every smell is of a porker
then you know it got to be nobody other than Apl, Will n' Taboo
Cause if you know that if it smells like Funk then it must be us
If you smellin' Fat Funk then it must be us
If you smellin' something Funky
then you know it got to be nobody other than Apl, Will n' Taboo
Cause you know that if it smells like Funk than it must be us
If you smellin' elephants than it must be us
If you smellin' somethin Funky
then you know it got to be nobody other than Apl, Will n' Taboo
Cause you know that if it smells like Funk then it must be us
If you smellin' elephant shit then it must be us.

Go give it a listen, kids, it's worthwhile. Anyway, the point is, I was playing this in the car, and all of a sudden, I see monkey arms in the rearview mirror. At the next stoplight, I turned around and saw Babygirl flinging Dorj around madly and yelling, "Dorj dancing!" I started laughing and said, "Hey, can Dorj raise the roof?" and showed her how - I'll be damned if she didn't make that monkey dance better than your most painted-up club kid. Then she screamed "DORJ CRAZY!" I had to agree. That monkey has mad dancing skillz.

Dr. Teeth

I am late posting today because I hit the dentist for my 6-month-checkup. My dignity was wildly insulted when the hygienist made me watch a video about the best way to brush with an electric toothbrush.

On the plus side, I got my standard dose of nitrous oxide, which I dig because then I can fantasize about getting laid while my teeth are being scraped. And, oddly, this doesn't turn me off of sex at all...

So I have no cavities and am a little hornier now than when I started out the day. I figure the universe is balanced.

Setting the Women's Movement Back About 8,000 Years

I know that the first rule of blogging is not to talk about work. And I won't. Really. I promise.

But I can talk about the basic fact that today, I am going to ask for a promotion. The timing is right and the person is the right person to ask. (By the way, get-a-raise juju is most appreciated).

Anyway, because the person I have to ask is a smarmy feller who takes every opportunity to look down my dress he has, I had to dress carefully this morning. I had to plan to look good but not distracting good. So the boobilicious dress stayed in the closet (not because I have any ethical problem with using my tits for myownpurposes, but because I want the guy to at least be able to comprehend my question) and a stylish but not whoreish dress came out.

I personally feel like God gave me tits to use - they're like my superpower. Of course, I have to have some help from Victoria's Secret to use them most effectively. And strapless dresses are my kryptonite. Seriously, they've done some impressive work for me. It remains to be seen, though, if the boob power extends to getting a raise. I suppose the quality of my work will help things out, if they fail me, huh?

Perpetual Wedgie

I have a strange problem. I am in between pants sizes. I blame roller derby and an increase in buttage, which has meant that my formerly slightly loose pants now are...snug. Really, my pants are way too intimate with my ass - instead of a friendly hug between friends, my pants-ass relationship is more of a outright nasty, dirty fucking of a lifetime.

All this is to say that maybe I should invest in new pants.

Next Top Model

In a week, yours truly is going to be a model in a local fundraiser fashion show being put on by my rollerderby league. The proceeds are going to a local charity and it seems like a good cause, so I - oh, fuck, who am I kidding? I get to prance around on stage in a spotlight in cute clothes I didn't have to pay for after a professional has done my hair and makeup. Really, I don't think I need another reason to participate.

So yesterday, I went to the boutique that I'll be modelling for a fitting. This involved a gay man with hips smaller than mine asking me my size (and I decided not to lie since it would just drag everything out that much longer and make me look stupid) and loading up a fitting room with all kinds of hopeful things. I confess that I took a weird pleasure in being sort of catered to like this while "normal" shoppers were all around.

"We're just getting a sense of your size and the styles that look best on you, hon!" the salesboy called as he threw pairs of impossibly tiny jeans and flimsy blouses over the door of the dressing room.

And the amazing thing? Almost everything looked great. The exception was this strapless dress that, now that I've looked at a picture of it online, I feel better about since it looks just as much like shit in that picture as it did on me.

I guess, too, it's a bad sign when you exit the dressing room and two salespeople immediately start giggling at just how hard your poor little tits are working to keep your damn dress up.

Everything else seems good, though at least one dress necessitates wearing that v-string panty I've already told you all way too much about on here (maybe it's time to invest in more than one pair of these?)(I can get them as a Mother's Day gift for myself since nothing says "Mama" like a half-ounce of fabric that doesn't do much to cover your girly bits). There's no room for a slip with it (thank God, as I hate slips), but I wonder if this will be problematic with lighting. Good thing I'm not modest and, really, if I didn't want people to check out my ass through a dress, why the hell would I do this in the first place?

It's Not That Interesting, And Yet I Can't Be Disinterested

Every morning, I pull into the parking lot at work between 7 and 7:45 am. No matter what time I get there, there is ALWAYS a woman (the same one) in her car talking on her cell phone.

Every. single. morning.

This woman looks like she's in her early sixties - she wears slacks and sweaters with little cutesy things on them. The car is turned off and she's always sitting there with her seatbelt undone, though sometimes she looks like she's having a heated discussion.

What the hell? I swear, I have seen her doing this every single morning for months now.

Who is she talking to? Why every morning? Why so early? Why do I care?

Sometimes You Have No One To Blame But Yourownself

Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting in the main office, waiting for the day to be over, when Male Receptionist revealed to me that he had an entire bag of miniature Reese's Cups hidden in his desk drawer. Incensed at candy being withheld from me, I immediately filled my pockets, and went back to my own office (from which I am able to yell at the Main Office).

"I'm gonna eat all 13 of these!" I hollered.

I halfheartedly began working and eating a Reese's Cup every now and then. I kept Male Receptionist updated on my progress. "I'm on number 6 now!" I'd yell.

When I hit number 12, I loudly informed the main office that I was on number 12 around a mouthful of peanut butter and chocolate.

"Gross, Dirty Girl!" Male Receptionist said, "That is disgusting!"

And such words would normally be blasphemy. Unfortunately, as soon as he said it, it became disgusting and I felt really sick.

I stumbled out to the main office in a sugar daze, holding Reese's Cup #13 in my hand. "Here," I said, depositing it on Male Receptionist's desk, "You can have this one back. I'm...um...not hungry anymore."

And you know what? This morning, for the first time in my life, I think I can do without Reese's Cups. I hope this isn't a permanent thing.

The Graduate

In a recent spring clean of my apartment (said apartment looks just as messy/dirty as it did the week before I cleaned, by the way), I cleaned out some major items. I donated out-of-style clothes to Goodwill because surely poor people don't want to be in style. I sold the marginally cool clothes to a secondhand store. I threw out broken toys and things that BabyGirl had been using as toys that really weren't.

In the upheaval, I came across my undergraduate diploma, which had been handsomely framed as a graduation gift many years ago and then promptly stuck in a closet, where it stayed until I divorced and then I moved it to my new bachelorette closet.

When I found it, it dawned on me that perhaps I could be proud of my diploma. Hell, I could hang it in my actual office! That might lend an air of professionalism to offset the pink walls and overload of crayon drawings (not necessarily created by my daughter, either).

But this morning, as I hauled the thing up here, I remembered that undergraduate diplomas are a dime a dozen these days, especially in my field. I have no idea where my Master's degree is, though I suspect it's tucked in a closet somewhere, probably still back at my ex-husband's apartment. But even if I had that one framed nicely and hung up next to the undergraduate one, it's still nothing special. I mean, the only degree that confers a title on you is the doctorate. I still haven't figured out how to get people to call me Mistress Dirty Girl in honor of my education and not my proclivity for all things sexually subversive.

So now I'm left wondering if I should just not hang either until I get that Ph.D. I'll never actually get.

Went to a Party, I Danced All Night, Drank 16 Beers and I Started Up a Fight

I heart roller derby.

Killing Time

Well, even I take a day off now and then!

But I am currently sitting in the service department of my Toyota dealership, waiting for them to balance my tires, replace a hubcap, and do the standard 10,000-mile service.

I thought smart to bring my laptop with me, since it seems a lot of places have free wireless these days. Of course, many don't. I can't tell you the level of my disappointment when I discovered about a year ago for the first time that Starbucks doesn't let you get wireless for free. In my opinion, paying $5 for a cup of overroasted coffee + $10 for a day of free wireless that you couldn't possibly get your money's worth of unless you bought eight or nine $5 cups of coffee = getting fucked up the ass, big-time.

But my Toyota dealership seems to know that the way to ease the pain of what might end up turning into some sort of wildly-expensive axle problem (can you all tell from the preceeding paragraphs that I might have hydroplaned the other day and might have slid into a curb and might have done some damage to my brand-new car that causes it to shudder orgasmically when I go over 60 miles an hour?).

There's no point to this post other than to say a)waiting sucks, b)Babygirl is cracking me up because she's wearing a construction paper hat she made at daycare that has tissue paper roses and horseshoes all over it to celebrate the derby, and c)you might get really excited when you see that a business has free wireless until you realize you've already investigated the entire internet.

Every Day I Get a Little Older

In our office this week, we have a huge variety of free food for reasons I won't go into. But every morning, there's everything from every kind of Little Debbie you can imagine to bananas to nacho cheese and Fritos. Of course, I steer clear of anything even remotely resembling healthy.

We do this twice and year, and every time I've said that I have limitations, at least in the morning, as to what I'll eat. In my mind, I just can't eat honey mustard pretzel bits while I drink my Javanilla coffee - it seems wrong, somehow.

Today, though, I broke through that barrier. I have eaten not only my body weight in miniature Reese's cups this morning, I have also enjoyed some barbeque potato chips and more hummus than anyone should really eat before 10 am. And I did it all while chugging my coffee.

I'm worried that this is just one step away from drinking decaf while eating a cheeseburger at 4 pm as part of the early-bird special at Friday's. Next thing you know I'll be lamenting liver spots on my hands and comparison shopping adult undergarments.

I Can't Decide If This Makes Me Old or Smart or Both

In spite of my recent slate of gay-themed Netflix choices, I also recently got "Meet the Fockers."

Two nights ago, I watched about 45 minutes of it and turned it off. Last night,I briefly contemplated finishing it and thought, "Nah, not interested," and opted instead for a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode I've probably seen 15 times. I sent "Meet the Fockers" back to Netflixland today without having finished it, which is honestly a rare thing for me. There have only been two other times I've not finished a movie I've started. One was "Rushmore" which I rented in 1999 and was too blitzed out of my mind on shots of Southern Comfort to appreciate the snark. The other was "In the Bedroom" which I sat through the first 30 minutes of in the theater and then left because I was so bored I thought I was going to die and I could anticipate every single thing that was about to go down.

But "Meet the Fockers" makes more sense for me to dislike. In fact, I'm not really sure why I put it on my list in the first place. I hate movies where the humor is all based around situations that go from bad to worse. Train-wreck comedies, I guess I could call them. And I don't find anything funny about train-wrecks, even if the train has a name that sounds remarkably like a profanity.

I appreciate juvenile humor, sex humor, fart jokes, and even a good kick in the nuts now and then in my movies. I just can't find the humor in Ben Stiller looking uncomfortable for two hours solid.

Sick of Myself

Cough, cough, cough.

Still sick. Because of this, I have finally decided to actually skip a derby practice tomorrow night AND not work out today at the gym. Of course, if I was really committed to getting better, I would be eating the apples and oranges we have in the office this week instead of the oatmeal creme pies we also have.

To be fair, I ate a raisin creme pie, too, which I feel is damn close to a fruit. Hell, the raisins in it are so healthy it's practically medicine. Am I right here?

Anyway, I wanted to come here and talk about how I'm the kind of person who can, when she's sick, still be inexplicably horny. As a matter of fact, if anything, I get more horny when I'm sick. I have no scientific way of explaining this except to propose that maybe when I'm sick, I get distilled down to the very essence of myself. But there wasn't really much to say beyond that basic fact.

To help describe this, I've thoughtfully rendered what I imagine my brain looks like today:



Honestly, this might be my brain every day.

Weekend Update

You know it was a good party if you have paddle-shaped bruises on your ass from, well, a paddle.

Unfortunately, the (admittedly minimal) pain from the bruise is completely offset from the pain in my right boob from coughing so much for the last two weeks. I had no idea there were muscles in there, but there clearly are and I clearly pulled one.

Live to Love and Give Good Tongue

If you have Netflix, you know that it's set up to recommend more movies based on your previous choices. And if you're like me, you take those recommendations. And if you're also like me and forget to go in and mix up your queue, you end up with a long run of accidentally "themed" discs at your house.

All that is lead-up to explain why it makes sense that for the last several months, I've watched "The Birdcage," "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar," the first season of "Queer as Folk" and most of the first season of "The L Word."

Last night, I watched an episode of "The L Word" in which Jenny's old college roommate visited and found out that Jenny had fallen in love with (and gotten her heart broken by) Marina. She (the roommate) said something to the effect of "Yeah, I'm not so much about the puss. I like dick."

And I have to say that watching all this does make you - okay, me - think. On the sexuality spectrum, I'm mostly on the "likes dick" end with a few forays into the other end of the swimming pool upon occasion. I mean, I think some women are hot. I'm turned on by some women. I've kissed several ladies in a more-than-just-friendly way. I can't seem to convince any guys to go for the guy-guy-girl scenario, but really, that's another blog post altogether. But I'm sort of ambivalent about the puss. I like myownpussy, of course. But, not having had extensive interaction with anyone else's, I'm not sure how I'd react when faced with the incredible responsibility to be "about the puss." Who knows? Maybe I'd be great at it and I have no idea! (This thought just dawned on me as I typed and made me feel a lot better about my chances for winning that "Sexual Dynamo of the Year" pageant I should really enter myself in).

And in case I get the opportunity to test my lesbian skillz, I thought I'd better know which character from "The L Word" I was. You know, so I'd know how to proceed...

Which Character from The L Word are You???

you are JENNY! you are sweet, shy, and innocent, but you've got a darker, sexier side...and you cant hold it in forever! you're the closet freak of the group!
Take this quiz!








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I don't know about that "shy" business, but still...

Good Morning Starshine, The Earth Says Hello

This morning, I woke up ("woke up" might be overstating things just a bit. It was more of a zombie-like motion of me falling out of bed and directly into my clothes) at 6 am and went to the gym before work. Having sustained only minor injuries last night at rollerderby practice, the workout went surprisingly well.

I don't like to work out in the mornings for a variety of reasons. One is that I can't push myself as hard. For someone who is as sunshiney as I am in the mornings, I seem unable to go faster than a quick trot on the treadmill if it's earlier than 11 in the morning, no matter how loud I play Peaches "Hot Rod" in my eardrums.

But the bigger reason is that I then have to get ready for work at the gym. This necessitates me bringing my entire apartment with me, apparently. I'm a relatively low-maintenance kind of a girl, beauty-wise, so it always shocks me when I'm fighting to shove a pair of 5-inch heels into a cubic centimeter of free space in my gym bag.

After I shower, I confess that I generally roam around the locker room largely naked as I get ready. It's just too hot after working out and with the steam from the showers for me to either leave a towel on or get dressed more than panties and bra. And to be quite honest, I'm not really modest. If you want to look, look. I always look. I know that this is a huge breach of unspoken gym etiquette, but I'm curious. I want to know how I stack up in the "Naked Lady" area of my life. And besides, if I didn't look, I wouldn't see things like the gi-normous pair of bright yellow granny panties I saw on a middle-aged businesswoman this morning. Really, I don't know how she crammed those things into her power suit slacks.

I'm still not sure if the benefits of going to the gym are worth all the efforts of doing so, but I really think that the entertainment factor of seeing size 24 canary-yellow undies and thinking, "I have something to blog about!" shouldn't be undervalued...

Shake That Ass, Girl, And Let Me See What You've Got

I'm not a fan of thongs. As Minnie Driver once said in her darling British accent on a late-night talk show, they "make me feel like me bum has gotten hungry and eaten me pants."

This personal choice usually has no effect on my day-to-day life, as most of my clothes work just fine with bikini panties or those adorable Victoria's Secret Sexy Little Things booty panties. It's not like my clothes are generally so skintight as to reveal panty lines anyway.

Or so I thought.

Today, I'm rocking some cute gray slacks, a girly black t-shirt, mary janes, and a hairdo that remarkably looks like something special. All morning, I've been silently congratulating myself on looking good. "Dang good" is how I put it to myself in myownhead an hour ago, I believe.

But I just happened to go to the bathroom (all right, so "happened to" makes it sound like a happy accident - it was a deliberate choice) and was checking myself out in the mirror when I noticed that, for all my cuteness, when I did I three-quarter turn in front of the mirror, something was off.

I have bifurcated buns.

My panty lines are such that they are cutting exactly halfway across each ass cheek, making it look like I have a cute heiner on top and then big blobs of butt below. Like, two butts. It's not attractive, people. I'm not even sure how this is possible considering that I have the smallest arse in the universe (despite the fact that I have been reassured that the mythical "derby butt" does exist and will be mine after several months of rollerderby).

In any case, I plan to spend a lot of time sitting on aforementioned asses today to keep it out of view of the general public. It may be time to invest in some panties that just go ahead and let it all hang out.

Who Knew I Would Come Clean So Quickly?

A comment on yesterday’s post suggested I bring a “friend” into the shower with me to while away the long minutes as I wait for my purple shampoo to not do its job.

If I put the issue of my general clumsiness aside for just a moment (my lack of coordination is spectacular and honestly, I really should have both an ambulance on speed dial on my phone and the phone itself in the shower with me if I’m going to do a little self-entertaining) (come to think of it, there might be big money to be made with a combination waterproof-cell-phone-or-walkie-talkie-vibrator)(even bigger money to be made if it can be a cute hot pink color), she has a point.

However, my current equipment isn’t suitable to get wet. Not wet from water, anyway. Hey, I had to clarify! And it’s not. I don’t want to die from vaginal electrocution. What a way to go.

Apparently, though, there’s a wide variety of waterproof stuff that’s more than workable.

But then I got caught up on this same site in a whole section full of anthropomorphic yet cartoon-y bath toys. If your standard penis-shaped vibrator isn’t good enough for you, you can get your groove thang on, March of the Penguins style.

I don’t know about you, but if I was turned on by a rubber ducky going to town on me, I might not be the kind of person who has boredom issues in the shower in the first place.

Old Yeller

I have always been a very fast showerer. Even when I think I'm lingering, I'm not - I'm in and out in ten minutes.

Or I should change all the verb tenses in that previous sentence to indicate that I used to be such a showerer.

I blame my yellow hair. In an attempt to go to blonde from a light ash brown, I've been dousing my head monthly in Feria's platinumest blonde hair dye. Honestly, I'm surprised I'm not bald considering what I put my hair through on a daily basis, what with the dying and the ironing and blow-drying and voodoo witch doctor-y-like prayers beseeching the gods of hair to please let me wake up one morning with waist-length, perfectly highlighted and artistically tousled tresses.

But the fact is I have yellow hair. Bright yellow. Not orange, not strawberry blonde, but yellow. School-bus yellow. Carnation yellow. Peeps yellow.

I was lamenting the state of my hair to a fellow rollergirl (whose blonde and pink hair I lust after) and she recommended I go to the local beauty supply store and buy a shampoo that is made to draw the brassiness and yellow tones out of blonde hair.

The next day I found myself in line behind a woman with limp mousy hair who was buying not one, not two, but seven home permanent kits ready to shell out $8 for purple shampoo that would make my hair look as blonde as Gwen Stefani's.

Now my daily shower routine takes forever because, apparently, the purpleness of the shampoo isn't powerful enough in and of itsownself. I have to shampoo twice, letting the second shampoo sit on my head for 3-5 minutes. This, combined with my conditioner that requires me to leave it on for 3 minutes as well means I'm already approaching my standard total shower time. To kill the time, I shave my pits and my legs. And since my legs are about 10 miles long, you'd think this would more than take up my wait time. Rather, I've become used to zipping along with the shaving, so I usually find myself standing there for a good five minutes, just hanging out.

Occasionally, I do lifts to strengthen my calves for skating. Sometimes I sing. But mostly I stand there and think about how bored I am.

And the payoff? I get out of the shower what seems like weeks later and blow-dry my hair, only to discover it looks exactly the same as when I got in. And yet, somehow, this doesn't deter me from doing the same thing all over again the next day. I might agree with that whole beauty is pain thing (eyebrow plucking, waxing your naughty bits, etc.), but I have a harder time accepting that beauty is boredom...

And So It Begins

I have come to this blog after leaving one behind that was enormous, highly visible, and quite personal. I have returned to a blogging life with the hope of managing to be real, to be funny, and to be entertaining without it being necessary in the slightest to reveal my actual name. No doubt some of you know who I am (and, I'm afraid, if you leave a comment for me with my real name included, I will promptly delete it, no offense to you, of course). For the rest of you, the important things to know:

I am:

• a single woman.
• a mother of a two-year-old daughter, BabyGirl.
• employed in a good job that frequently annoys me.
• a rollergirl with my local rollerderby league.
• constantly laughing at myself.
• excited by just about everything in life, including the big guns: love, fucking, humor, beauty, intelligence, and honesty.

I am not:

• sorry for anything I will write here.

Let the fun begin.