Don't blog angry

Just when you think everything is going swimmingly, and you have actually gotten some sleep in the past week, and people are very sweet to you and write nice comments on your blog, and yesterday you even WASHED YOUR HAIR LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING...it all goes to poo.

I am in a very bad mood, and I have been since I woke up at 5:00AM FOR NO GOOD REASON. Mr. Blogger steered clear at just the sight of me, as well he should. The man knows the signs of Defcon 1.

Breaking the silence over a breakfast of Diet 7-up (me...nauseous and PMSing) and two bananas (Mr. Blogger...distracted by all the eggshell-walking..."I could have sworn I already peeled this...oh, there's the other one"), we proceed with the first fight of the day:

"Did you remember to call your Mom yesterday, AS I REMINDED YOU TO ABOUT 20 TIMES???" (Go on the offense immediately, with a not-so-sly reference to the fact that he never remembers anything unless you remind him ABOUT 20 TIMES...he wasn't kidding about the ADD.)

"No, I was very busy working." (Remind wife of the fact that you are currently the only breadwinner in the house and she should just be thankful and appreciate you, which she really does, but she's crabby.)

"But you had time to call ME!" (Aaaahhh...the foolish comment said in haste. Just as it escapes your lips, you know it will come back to bite you in the ass.)

"So you're saying I shouldn't have?" (Use logic argument which you know will make her even crazier, but hey, this is fun.)

"I told your Mom that you would! Now she's going to think I forgot!" (Guilt is a great motivator...also notice the "woe is me" aspect being nicely played.)

"FINE!"

"FINE!"

Uttered in hushed tones while walking to the other room...

"Boy, somebody is Grumpy Honey today."

"I HEARD THAT!"

And.......scene.

I may need to remind you that this is not a household of shiny happy people in the morning. If you need your drama fix, come on over when either of us is trying to rouse ourselves out of bed, or in a hurry from over-sleeping, or can't find their keys, or is just generally pissed off at the fact that it's morning.

Nighttime? Hey, we're swinging from the rafters over here. Enjoy baking cookies at 3:00 in the morning? You're our kinda people. Want to watch an entire season of Friends on DVD, STARTING at 1:00 AM? We already are. OK, maybe those two examples don't exactly scream "Spouses Gone Wild", but we have our fun.

My best reasoning would be that I don't think either of us ever got over the whole "I'm-old-enough-to-stay-up-all-night-if-I-feel-like-it" phase, so dammit, we do. Just don't expect us to actually get up the next day.

Unfortunately though, we're also old enough to have to pay bills. I did recently suggest escaping to an island and living off the land, but there's no cable. Or 4:00AM Krispy Kreme runs.

So all will be well here at the Blogger Household. MB and I did smoochy-smooch quite a bit before he left for work and he did make me laugh when he called from the Post Office asking how to spell Tucson (god only knows what it finally turned out to be, since he couldn't hear me and all I kept hearing was "S FIRST? OR C FIRST? WHAT???").

...well, provided he remembers to bring home my Slurpee. I better go call him.

Did you think the kid on the Hippity Hop was Mr. Blogger too?

Let's get this clear...

The picture of the woman in today's earlier post is NOT moi. She's Mental Health...oh just read it again and maybe it will make more sense. Irony, people, irony!

I mean really, does she look like me? Ok, yes, I have gone through about 1000 hair color changes since high school, so I can understand your confusion.

But the face?? I am nowhere near that peppy and vapid.

Now THIS, on the other hand, IS my picture...



Get it straight.

And if I had written it in high school, it would have been Rick Springfield

Mental Health is a BEEYOTCH. No, scratch that. She's a HIGH SCHOOL BITCH, who knows she's thinner than you and prettier than you...and can maintain the most perfectly feathered hair and frosty pink lip gloss ALL DAY. (And you know how high school is all about the frosty pink lip gloss.)

You, on the other hand, spend an hour-and-a-half styling your naturally curly hair into said 'do, only to have it frizz up by 2nd period. And your Mom makes you wear CORAL LIPSTICK, because "it is so much more flattering to your skin tone".

Then, Mental Health steals your boyfriend.

When I was a Freshman at UCLA, my first English class was taught by a particularly hippy-fied professor. You know the type..."Let's have class on the Sculpture Garden lawn today while we're surrounded by the flora and fauna as INSPIRATION!" Yeah whatever lady, just don't start doing modern dance in your Birkenstocks.

I do have to say though, that when she gave us our first research paper assignment, she must have told us a hundred times, "I don't care what you write about. It could be about surfing for all I care...just make it something about which you are PASSIONATE!" (Notice how she stated that with such perfect grammar?)

Now, the compliant student in me wanted to go with that notion, but the must-prove-I'm-smarter-than-everyone-here part thought that something along the lines of...

"Voltaire - How His Attraction to the Philosophy of John Locke and the Theories of Mathematician and Scientist Sir Isaac Newton Led to Philosophical Rationalism"

...would be a good bet to impress. (I really did write that paper much later, but I digress.) After thinking about it though, I had to wonder: when do you really ever get to write about ANYTHING? Especially in college. I had to do it.

My topic? James Dean. Yup, you got it. The object of my massive crush at the time (yeah, I knew he had died about 30 years before, but a teenager doesn't care about such things when HE IS SOOOO CUTE!). They're just lucky I didn't take the class my Sophomore year or it would've been on Duran Duran.

I spent HOURS, I spent DAYS...locked away in the many libraries of the campus, learning more about James Dean that any person probably has a right to know. The man did like to keep his secrets.

(Would you believe though that a few years later, I lived in the exact room he did at Sigma Nu...when they would let girls live in the fraternities for the Summer. NO THE BOYS WEREN'T THERE TOO. Sheesh.)

I even skipped Mardi Gras to slave away and write the best damn James Dean research paper ever. Well, there probably wasn't much competition for that title, but I WAS AN ACHIEVER DAMMIT!

When it was time to turn it in, I did sweat for a moment that Ms. Professor would think I went a little overboard with the "choose anything" edict and brand me a foolish teeny-bopper who would never make a REAL writer.

A few days later she returned our graded papers back to us. But she didn't have mine. I almost shit my pants thinking, oh god, she's going to keep me after class to tell me nice try, now could we perhaps pick a topic of some relevance? But Susie also didn't get hers back, and prior to now, she had received nothing but A's on her papers, so I tried not to panic.

Ms. Professor went to the front of the class.

"I have two papers here. One perhaps best exemplifies the assignment, while the other just didn't get it. I would like to read them both. Please do not be offended if I chose yours for the latter reason; I just want everyone to realize that when you write a research paper, if the topic doesn't really get into your heart, YOUR SOUL, you can't interest the reader.

Here's the one with more heart than any I've read in ages..."

I'm thinking you get it by now. I got an A+.

My highly circuitous point here? Write what you know. What interests you. Something about which you are PASSIONATE!

And what I know is this: Mental Health may not exactly be my friend these days, but that skinny, Heather Locklear wannabe better watch her ass. Her secret? Aqua Net.

Mine? I can write.

Wherein I establish my devotion to both my husband...and reality TV

I have been married three times. There, I've said it. As my old college sorority roommate put it when asked if she could attend numero tres, "I would never miss one of Brooke's weddings!". She meant it in only the sweetest way though, I assure you.

But not including Mom, she really is the only one to attend all three. Hey, it's not like they were all in the space of a year or something...sheesh...I'm hardly Britney. (OK, I too met my current husband in London and we do both have a love of all things Cheeto-rific, but I draw the line at ever uttering the word "y'all".)

I imagine my friend deserves some kind of door prize for the trifecta. But what do you get the woman who is still on marriage number one-and-only, with two beautiful kids and a face that REALLY hasn't changed since we hid her then fiancee overnight in our room, knowing that YOU WERE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE MEN ON THE SECOND FLOOR AND COULD FACE SERIOUS PUNISHMENT FOR DOING SO. See, not all sorority girls are conformist.

Mr. Blogger, however, is IT. Let me say that again in case you didn't hear me. HE. IS. IT. Not because it's a pain in the ass to plan a wedding, and not because I don't have the strength to diet myself back into oblivion with the sole purpose of looking good for one day, only to go Binge City on the honeymoon.

It is because he makes me laugh. Yes, he is cute and sexy as hell. Yes, he has an English accent which frankly makes the words "I love you" sound like a purr from heaven. And yes, I have finally learned that perfect though I may aspire to be, I do make mistakes occasionally and CANNOT win every argument. Oh, pull your chin off the floor Honey.

If you need any proof of this man's impeccable genes, please see the comment section under yesterday's post. MB's mom, this "fuck"'s for you.

Which brings me to last night...

I was firmly ensconced on the couch, watching The Amazing Race with the Amazing Runaway Amish Buggy. Suddenly I became keenly aware that out of the corner of my eye, Mr. Blogger appeared to be riding some kind of invisible Hippity Hop. It was either that or he was playing peek-a-boo. I prefer to believe the former because you have to at least be somewhat older to advance to the Hop.

Crouched down next to me, head-a-bobbin' and laughing to himself, I knew he was not on any kind of hallucinogenic; he simply wanted my attention. After a good 20 seconds of this, I did what any wife in her right mind would do...shout "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!".

And with that he ran back to the other room to finish watching House, exclaiming "I have ADD!", only with the last "D" pronounced "deeeeeeeeeeeeee!". Apparently this display was only to last as long as the commercial break would allow.

I'm thinking if this whole baby-making thing doesn't quite work out....maybe that's not the end of the world. I've got enough to deal with. And to love.

"I don't want to be a pussy...I want to bowl!"

I have now decided, fuck it, the layout is just going to have to do. I would like to just start with the damn blogging already!

So much to discuss, explain, rationalize. First, before I'm sued for copyright infringement, the above quote was taken from Mr. Angry Bowler last night as he bowled in an insomnia-and-medication-induced haze.

But how can you let a quote like that go unpublished now, really? The world must know, my friend.

And since I don't even begin to know how to bowl, and never really do, it's obvious I didn't come up with it. But enough about bowling, for chrissakes.

First, a few words of introduction.

(Mom, if you haven't keeled over from my saying fuck so soon, well, know that there will be some profanity from time-to-time 'cause I only hold it in when I'm around YOU...and maybe the in-laws. Except that time when I was about 12 and dropped the entire bowl of guacamole on your pearl gray carpet. Ah yes, the look on your face when said expletive was delivered to an entire house full of dinner party guests. Good times.

But I do honor you with the title...the yespleasenothankyoudropdead part. No, not the masthead. Look up at the top. The part where you type in the web site you want to see. Mom! Up above, where the big long line full of letters in the white box is! Oh forget it. I'll call you.)

You see, wishy-washiness was not permitted when I was growing up. Have an opinion. State it. Own it. If you DARED to reply, "Sure, yeah, whatever" to either "Would you like some ice cream?" or "Is it ok if I shave your head?", Mom's shorthand was to remind you "Yes please! No thank you! Drop dead!". We quickly learned that you better say one of the above. At least even "Drop dead" was an answer that showed some balls. Even if it got you grounded.

So when I once told this story to the hubby (dubbed by last night's bowling cognoscenti and now to be known as Mr. Blogger or "MB") , he immediately said, "Ohhhhh! So THAT'S why you get so annoyed when I say "sure"!!" And I didn't even realize I did. Ladies and gentlemen...my mother's legacy, living on in a pissed off wife.

Am I more than you bargained for?

Well this pretty much sums it up for now. But after countless hours of trying to get the template to work, being unable to get any font colors or styles to change, and the loss of handfuls of hair from just uploading this damn picture alone...

I will of course go back to trying to make it all work again anyway.