Debbie Does Drivel

Yep, It's Confirmed

I am a bad wife. Kevin went to the ER Saturday night and I was bitching at him right through the second IV for not doing my yoga tapes.

Apparently when you push your muscles to the point of exhaustion and beyond, as was the case with my 40-ish husband, your muscles release a compound which can clog your kidneys. Normal rate of this compound is 195. Kevin's number was 4,800. Which is about the number of times I shook my head and wagged my finger at his deluded athleticism.

I Think I'm Going to Quit My Job

My friend keeps saying "speak your truth," and it's finally got to me.
My truth is I dislike corporate life greatly and would rather flounder in financial ruin while following my bliss.
It's when you take risks like the above that good things happen, says friend.
But, like, shouldn't I have A Plan?

More Remembrances

The summer before I went into high school, I remember being terrified that there would be "drug users" there, because I'd seen way too many "Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway" type movies as a kid.

My dad could not talk me out of my vision of zitty long-hairs clogging high school hallways, nonchalantly leaning against lockers with syringes dangling from their forearms.

Things I Haven't Said

There are many things I don't write about that are happening/have happened in my life of late. Also there are things I feel like telling about myself, just to hear me bloggle.

--Kevin's grandma had a stroke Monday night. She is doing much better, but still in the hospital. For one night, she knew she was on the same floor as her husband was last year when he died. Say prayers.

--My best friend is moving away in June. She's really the only long-term friend I have here in San Diego. We went to Marquette together, roomed in Chicago for several years and hang in SD. When I'm drunk, I get fascinated with her butt. It's a thing. Not that way.

--I get crushes on guys still. Like now I have a groove on this long-haired, goateed, dusty reporter embedded with the Marines. His name is Kevin too, so it's coolio. I also have an unhealthy fixation on Stone Phillips.

--I'm smugly superior about the fact that my scopes are intelligent journalists or actors who've attended Ivy League colleges...but...

--I still watch Buffy. Like twice a day.

--My feelings get hurt a lot. Usually, I disguise the hurt as senseless anger and seething resentment. But if the person says sorry or seems in any way to be contrite, I melt voluminously like my Dreyer's Heath Bar Crunch ice cream is melting now.

--I can eat ice cream, any time, any where. Come on, name a time or place!...
Yes! I could eat it then. And there.

--I like pus. It's so pussy and sometimes foamy or on occasions chunky or even drippy. It's best when it's yellowish. I've had a longtime flirtation with pus. When I'm feeling really hot, I pick Kev's back. That way, I'm combining two things I love.

--For as long as I can remember, people have called me weird. It really used to make me sad. It doesn't anymore.
I think this means I've lost all frame of reference and that I'm not just weird, but crazy too.

I am so Bad-Ass

So I walk into Pure Beauty and I'm like "yeah, I signed up for your Club three months ago and never received my card OR the gift certificates. What are you going to do about it?"
And they're all, "we'll fax your complaint to the head office."
And I'm, "OK, do that."
Then I walk away without buying anything.

Women.

I've said it before:

I'm looking at my bulletin board with that tacked phrase I referenced many blogs ago:

"It has nothing to do with the bark.
We are telepathic."

And I still can't get over how I savor those sentences.
So mystifying. And gratifyingly ambiguous.

Hand it over to M. Night Shamylan and watch the movie screenplay fireworks go off.

Or, should I....?

Nah, that'd be WAY over my motivation threshhold.

Holding it in for 21 years

There was this one time in 8th grade when I was hanging in the principal's office with some kids I knew and John Caruso made me laugh and I totally farted.
It was like an SNL skit, I'm telling you: one minute we're all laughing and the next everyone is just staring at me, not saying a word.
THAT was the first mile on my gastro-intestinal road to hell.

Maybe You're Wondering...

Yes it is Saturday night.
And I might as well tell you: I'm watching the 2002 MTV Movie Awards.
2002.
MTV.
Movie.
Awards.

Lou-Zare.

The L.A.-based Mark & Brian radio show used to do this once-a-year segment where they'd get drunk on the air to demonstrate how you lose your reasoning abilities when you drink. I think it was a push for MADD, but I remember thinking, "They make drunk sound so fun, how can this possibly deter anybody, much less teen-agers who are built for Dionyssian (Greek Gods not strong point) debauchery, from drinking?" (Shit, I do love my alliteration.)

...wait...I must go turn on Buffy...I like to hear it in the background when I do all things...

...must still have in my peripheral hearing...

Anyway, I decided to get drunk tonight online and just keep writing and writing and see the turn my prose took; watch how I lose myself in the labyrinth of liquor; thrill to my own loss of reason...but think it may just be a cheap thrill. Cheap like a $1.99 bottle of Chuck Shaw, it just may be. And I'm above that.

*********
(doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo (raise pitch of voice here for one "doo") doo doo doo doo doo doo) --> please sing the previous Jeopardy-style....tune is meant to denote passage of time.

Oh man, that was funny. I buy Charles Shaw all the time. Definitely not above that. But like to paint a high-and-mighty picture from time to time.

Let me segue and explain exactly why I'm getting drunk and trying to pass it off as a socialogical experiment.

See, my job is charisma-stripping. And very unfortunately irritating beyond all measure. But that's not it.

No, it's frustrating too. And my bosses do things that set my deadlines back and then like to blame me when things come in past-due and it makes me angry and I tend to be immature and one juvenile response to that is drunkenness.

(Am I spelling things wrong? I think I'm spelling things wrong. I have an unnatural fear of that since I spelled "school" wrong in the second grade spelling bee. Much humiliation and mind-numbing despair followed. Especially since I'd lost to Patty Frye, who earlier that year had fallen from the top of a slide and was never quite up to snuff after that.)

Oh! Spike's shirt is off! And he's on a bed.
You will excuse me for a minute?

(doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo (don;t forget to raise pitch of voice here) doo doo doo doo doo doo)

Hello again, hello.

I am also getting drunk because I have PMS and alcohol, coupled with liver-maurading Advil, work quite well to keep symptoms at bay.

But also, I am drinking because as the great writer Michael Ventura says:
"I write this, then in defense and praise of those spirits who have accompanied me into great happiness and serious misery. At times protected me, at times attacked. Spirits that have been straightforward and devious, loyal and treacherous by turns (usually in proportion to how I was acting toward myself). They have revealed great things, and hidden others; made some nights bearable, rendered some unbearable; brought me closer to some people, took me farther from others. And they have made a fool of me -- sometimes gently, sometimes brutally. There is nothing simple about them. There is nothing simple about anything spirited.
I believe what the Sufis say: that something in you is already drunk, always drunk, and that this may be what is closest to the gods. And sometimes, as in tribal ritual, we drink to meet and wake that inner drunkenness."

I took a walk in the pre-summerness tonight and found myself remembering all those spring afternoons after school when I'd run out the door straightaway to play outside.
The smells were even the same. It's like if summer anticipation had a scent, it'd be backyards, a mac-n-cheese dinner at a friend's house, and grass stains on knees.
When I was a kid, I'd consider each moment a bubble; each one fat and round with the promise of something interesting coming on. I wanted to pop each and every one.

I'm Still Remembering (Bear With Me)

I found this inside my "Debbie as a Kid" folder my mom once kept:

"Dear toothfairy,
I lost my tooth.
But please still give me money.
I'll try to find my tooth.

Debbie"

I can't wait to have kids!
I hope they're as smart and well-spoken as I obviously was!

It's my favorite brand of rain tonight: gutsy, fierce and ghoulish.

The kind of rain that begins historical dramas with bonneted girls and boys snug in bed within a stone manor, where a fire blazes against a black cast iron soup pot while outside a lone darkish silhouette trudges up a wind-whipped, tree-lined pathway, travelling wearily and soon to fall prey to a headless horseman, man-wolf or Jack the Ripper attack, after which his head, limbs, or heart roll soundlessly down the cobbled walkway to bump gently against the manor's wooden door jamb, only to be morbidly and maybe gushily discovered by the chambermaid sweeping bits of crumb from the hearth outside.

Not a Fan
Is it me or is Shania Twain all frosting and no cake?

I'm Not a Party-Pooper

Ack, I just can't get into those pre-fab party situations with any degree of enjoyment. You know the ones? Where everybody is supposed to be all "Girls/Boys Gone Wild" like St. Patrick's Day, Halloween, New Year's? When you have to wear green or otherwise accept the accoutrements of the holiday, dorkily grinning like a fool.

I hate being told what to do, for one. DO NOT tell me I need a birthday hat or horn blower to have a good time. DO NOT presume that because I'm not drinking champagne, I don't enjoy the New Year's flava.

My best times have been in dive bars on a lark, wearing dirty jeans, meeting people I have no business talking to, usually on a Tuesday night. I have fun precisely when I'm not supposed to; but when I'm told I should expect a good time, nay I need to don party favors too -- I never ever do.

This is why the bachelorette party coming up this Friday is ailing me so.
I like my girl time and I like it unplanned and unstructured. So when we try too hard to be crazy gals, I lose interest. Penis straws, pin the dick on the stud and "bachelorette slut" pins mean we're trying too hard. Can't we just sit around prattling, drinking kir royales, eating brownies from the pan, modeling our lingerie for each other until we fall to the floor, spent, in an enormous group slumber party of heaving female flesh?
(THAT was for my husband whom I sense is about to read over my shoulder.)

It's early and I'm tired.
I need to be at work at 7AM today so I can leave at 3PM to gather my serving dishes and foodstuffs for the bachelorette party tonight.
I spent most of last night cooking: olive dip, cucumber dip, roasted pepper sandwiches, greek pasta salad, eggplant dip for the exotic vegetables. I'll also have a shabby chic bowl out for the chocolate-covered espresso beans, and another for the tri-colored Terra chips. I'm trying to de-bach the bachelorette party culinarily.
I feel that did not make sense.

Anyway, on the ride to work today, I felt an enormous pain of loss for my mom. That kind of thing comes and goes, but hasn't arisen out of the blue like that for awhile. I was listening to Norah Jones and the hurt hit me. There's reasons for why it got me right then, but I just don't want to go into it. Other than to say, I miss my mom's sweet smile, her gentle ways, how she'd kick her feet up spasmodically when she laughed hard, and most especially, how she'd stare at me (all of us) for minutes wondrously, studiously, gloriously.

She'd have been 62 on Sunday.

It's early and I'm tired.

I could learn a lot from my dad.
Yeah, he's a goon, but also a risk-taker.
Tonight, we're at a piano bar and Junior Seau is there and my dad is like: "I need to smack him upside the head!"
No explanation as to why.
So, next thing I know, my dad is walking over to Jr. Seau and I'm like "Shit! He's going to smack Jr. upside his very large (more so in person) head!"
And I couldn't look.
But my dad, he took the risk. He wanted to hit Junior Seau and he walked over there to do it. And me, his daughter, I couldn't even bear witness to the ridiculo-fukco-lous quest my dad was on.
My dad takes chances.
They are stupid. And groundless.
But he follows through.

Epilogue: Did he hit Junior?
I'm not sure, but whatever my dad did, he did it wobbily. And with purpose.

KINKY; BUT NOT SEXY KINKY, MESSED-UP KINKY

Last night I had a dream that Weezy Jefferson was sitting on me, promising me a good time.
I can still see her glossy red lips missing a corner of color where she'd swiped her fingertip against them for a moment, then pressed it to mine.

I think this was some screwed up interpretation of my desire to move out of my current rental into a deeluxe apartment in the sky-eye-eye.

A CHODE IS A CHODE IS A CHODE

The bachelorette party on Friday was fun.

A man showed me his 12-inch penis.

How this came to be:
I was outside with the bachelorette smoking some menthol junk you only smoke when you don't really smoke but you think it would be cool because you're drinking. As we were smoking, the man's friend who gave us the menthol crud said quite out of the blue, "Jack has a 12-inch penis flat."

We knew what he meant, although flat was a strange way to describe it. However, it did turn out to be true.

So Jack, who was wearing an untucked shirt over his jeans looked a little embarrassed, but also proud.

I looked down at his leg and saw the tip of this thing clearly outlined halfway down his thigh, almost to his knee.

So then his friend says, "He'll show you! He likes to show it!"

And me and Michelle, we're like "No way! This is so bacheloretty! We can't pass this up."

And I'm saying something stupid like, "The tip! The tip!" in a spot-on Tattoo from "Fantasy Island" imitation because I couldn't think of what else to say.

And next thing we know, out it comes and it had almost as many square feet as Fantasy Island, but was no fantasy, because it really was flat! And wide! Like a mushy two-by-four! And although gross and unseemly, it did make us feel like proper bachelorettes.

I remember you, pacing the corner
in all your rumple

Fingers corkscrewed in your hair
like a lure in a fish

Mouthing the fervent soundtrack
to a movie in your head

Come out of the corner
to stand with me here

The movie will be over
and you haven't seen a thing

In grade school, I tried out for cheerleading every year.
I practiced going all the way down with my splits, doing straight cartwheels and acting real giggly.
I attempted to clap loudly, stomp wildly and act peppy.
I wanted to do choreographed routines so bad, I rehearsed all the time to get it right.
Sometimes, I did it to the beat of "Coward of the County" (Kenny Rogers) or the Aesop Fables album (Smothers Brothers).
Really, it was scary how bad I wanted to be a cheerleader.
I remember trying out in the gym, usually going right after that perky Sally Ahern, and trying to smile all the way through, even when I knew I was off-beat and my voice was shaky.
How I wanted to be a cheerleader.
There are times I still can touch, smell even, that desire.
Smooth gym floors, sweaty armpits, grassy football fields all bring me back.
And sometimes I still feel like I'm trying out for cheerleading.

PR: (i.e. Please Refrain)

I work in PR, yet I'm very much not a PR person.
I've never been a glad-handing baby-kisser. It takes me awhile to warm up to people and I abhor fakery of any kind ("It's so good to see you! Why yes, I'd love to send you that press kit again! Oh no! I HATE trees, so I don't mind sacrificing another of those pesky natural wonders to your insatiable and mysterous appetite for the materials I keep sending and you keep losing!")

When my company sends me to some event to schmooze the press, I just die a little inside, because I'm so non-schmoozy. BUT....

There are times when I surprise myself. It's almost as if some gene from my Dad (salesman extradonnaire) lies dormant most of the year, only to awake upon certain occasions, overwhelming my natural tendencies to be cynical and ironic and instead making me love everybody and want to know all about their decouppage projects. It's like my body secretes a naturally-occurring ecstasy hormone once a year or so.

Yesterday I attended my friend's wedding at a winery here in San Diego and I was all over the place, sprinkling gratuitous compliments and professions of love and devotion to everyone from the woman I met in the bathroom to the janitor guy.

I accosted the band on their intermission and begged for their card, because they were THE BEST BAND I'D EVER HEARD! and I NEED YOUR CONTACT INFO SO I CAN REFER YOU TO EVERYONE I KNOW, like THE NICE WOMAN I JUST MET IN THE RESTROOM AND THE JANITOR GUY!"

Then, I'm off the bar where I tell the vineyard owner that she "MAKES THE BEST WINE EVER! IT'S SO ROBUST! AND FLAVORFUL! and IS THAT CHERRY I TASTE? MY GOD, I LOVE CHERRY! and I LOVE YOU FOR PRODUCING A WINE THAT TASTES OF CHERRY!"

There was one 45-minute stretch where I disappeared, leaving my husband to talk with Colleen and Frank, who were hurt at my long absence because I'd just got finished telling them "HOW I'D LOVE TO HANG OUT WITH YOU GUYS MORE!" YOU'RE SUCH A GREAT COUPLE AND I NEED TO HAVE A GAME NIGHT WITH YOU! I'LL MAKE FONDUE!"

During those 45 minutes, I was "hanging" outside the tent with the bride's friends from Michigan and they were cool because THEY WERE FROM THE MIDWEST and "I REALLY MISS CHICAGO AND MILWAUKEE AND CONSEQUENTLY I MISS YOU GIRLS TOO BECAUSE YOU REMIND ME OF MY HOMELAND!"

When we left the wedding, I left skidmarks on the ground because quite honestly Kev had to drag me out of there, but not before I could chat a second with the best man to nod thoughtfully at his description of the gene research he was doing and after which I thanked him for DOING SUCH IMPORTANT WORK; THE WORLD NEEDS MORE PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND IS THAT YOUR WIFE OVER THERE? I BET SHE'S ALSO AN UPSTANDING HUMAN LIKE YOU. I SHOULD SAY HI!"

So I did, after which we exited amidst regretful, woeful stares that such a loving and fabulous complimenter such as myself had to leave.

I think you should know that I had to promise Kev I'd get a full-body scan to identify that ecstasy-producing, usually-dormant gene so we can have it excised. HEY! MAYBE THE GENE-RESEARCHING BEST MAN WOULD BE INTERESTED IN STUDYING IT! I MUST CALL THE BAND TO SEE IF THEY HAVE THE BEST MAN'S PHONE NUMBER OR WOULD COLLEEN AND FRANK HAVE IT?