on santa's naughty list

while researching some things for my final project for class (i am beginning to think i will be in grad school forever) i needed the url for a website i tracked down the night before. being the tech-savvy girl that i am, i decided to check my browser's history file.

which is why i am now convinced i am on santa's naughty list.

christmas time each year is a crap shoot for me as to which list i wind up on. some years i manage to keep my anti-social urges in check. (sometimes, people even say i can be... ahem, nice.) admittedly though, there are far fewer of those folks than the ones who call me a bitch, but que sera sera.

so what does this have to do with my research project? well, lemme tell ya. it involves a little thing called curiousity and something about how it killed a cat, which just so happened to be right after the cat swallowed poor tweety bird who flapped about in a frenzy, yelling "i deed, i deed see a puddy tat!"

at christmas time, no one should ever use the view history option on their web browser. mam and i are both pretty big online shoppers so it's no surprise that either of us would choose to do our holiday shopping for one another online.

sooo, do i think of this before i go digging through our recent web travels? nope.

any sane, rationale person would think of this immediately after they realize "wow, we've been on a lot of websites recently". then that person would promptly close the window after getting what they had intended to find in the first place.

i am not that sane, rational person. nope. not even close.

in my defense, the site that i decided to visit was one of his snowboarding/skiing websites. you know the kind, where the skater folks look all hip, with great hair and hip bones jutted just so. not at all like reality where one's lips are horribly chapped, one's nose is red and helplessly weeping snot while wearing windblown hair that's not at all like sexy, just-rolled-out-of-bed hair but just knotted and tangled like a homeless person.

what my snooping self did was try to snoop on something that was not on his impossible-to-extract-from-him xmas wish list. instead, i get a preview of my christmas morning feigning excitement and choking down fear of careening down an icy hill wearing his present. looking like a newborn gazelle (wow, i've never compared myself to a gazelle before) learning to walk (okay, maybe it should be a foal that i am comparing myself to) on brand new legs, or in this case -- a snowboard.

after three mouse clicks, i realized all of his web searching was for snowboard jackets and paraphenalia for those of the female gender. for one moment there, i did find myself wishing he was into wearing women's clothes. but i'm not that lucky to be married to a cross-dressing, snowboarding afficiando.

no, the son-of-a-bitch was trying to outfit ME in his little snowbunny outfits! obviously he's forgetting that i am neither of the size to be considered a bunny (more like a "snow walrus" these days) nor have the inclination to spend my time outside in the cold on my ass blowing snot rockets like there's no tomorrow. with tangled, nasty hair to boot, thank you very much.

no way is this mamacita into playing those reindeer games!

just another manic martha

now that the holiday season is in full swing, i feel the urges. i have lust in my heart -- for all things martha.

it's these nesting urges that cause me to forget the simple things, like -- i really can't cook. it's these damn urges that force me to try anyway. sure, i can bake a pie! hell, i can even make an appetizer, too.

before i know it, i am knee-deep in recipe denial. and shortly thereafter, i am faced with the crushing reality of defeat as my appetizer flops and i discover the omission of an integral step in the recipe. (and no, i will not share what i fcuked up this time. my amnesia-based cooking frenzy will surely mount its ugly head again someday and next time -- next time i will be prepared! booyah, baby.)

during this time i also feel the need to clean, too. any other time of the year i am referred to as the clean nazi, but at this time of year when confronted with what i affectionately call the muddy season, those urges gain even more strength. october and november are some of the hardest months of the year -- until the ground freezes, each trip to the yard invites the princess (chloe) and piglet (sadie) to take a mudbath.

this might be a stock tip, people: invest in the makers of swiffer wetjet products right before the muddy season begins -- i know loads of other mother of furkids out there who live by their wetjets, too.

so another day means another trip out of the closet for my vacuum cleaner which gets more action than a prostitute these days. goddess only knows, the prostitute probably sucks more and costs less than my bagless vac does.

ahh, and while on the subject of crackwhores, with the return of the holiday season comes the onslaught of a new enemy -- the army of inflatables infiltrating front lawns everywhere. i wanna decorate for the holidays with the best of them but save me from the snow globes, would ya?

death of a pocket rocket

as women, there is usually some reluctance to talk openly about all aspects of our lives. nowhere is this more apparent than in our sex lives. i'll tell a perfect stranger on the elevator that my ass looks huge upon catching my reflection but won't share intimate details with the goddess girls.

so when i tell you i just had to throw away my third vibrator, i am not quite sure if i am ahead of the curve or not. just as i am equally sure that it is three more than most women have ever had.

i don't think i am some sort of amazon-sex goddess who rides her vibrators until the motor wears out, or whose vagina dentata tears the shit out of the plastic sheathing but i guess if you look at my track record it seems that way. and it's not like i am buying cracker jack versions to begin with that come with an expiration date like, good for 100 uses before self-destructing.

this one in particular has me very sad to see it disintegrate. the other ones were okay, but this is the first one whose heart -- the motor -- gave out. i tried rescuscitating it, replacing its batteries but nothing stopped its slow fade into the deep beyond. maybe the fact it glowed bright pink was too much for it. like a homing device, you were always sure where it rolled to on the bed in the dark.

another ex-vibrator bit the dust after putting holes in the molded plastic sheathing that would frighten me if i came across a real penis that veiny. what would start out as a little tiny hole in the plastic would soon enlarge and begin to take in all sorts of goo it wasn't meant to -- soap from cleaning it, lube, my goo. one day as i cleaned it, i noticed i could squirt out the trapped contents that now formed a bubble under its surface. i realized as that steady stream of possibly bateria-laden fluid released into the sink, i had lost another friend.

i caste out my first vibrator in favor of the holy one. why, oh why, did i get rid of you? it was a starter vibrator, like your first car, it may not have been pretty or had all the upgrades, but it managed to get you to your destination each time. steady and reliably, but not at all flashy or anything to write home about. damn! now i have none.

now, my nightstand sits empty. mam was surprised when i said "pinky" (okay if men nickname their penises, i can damn well nickname my vibrator) had gone to the great big sex shop in the sky.

"why would you do that," he said as if there was a slim chance he could run out to the garbage to retrieve it. "did you hear the sounds it was making the last time we used it?" i shot back. "i get a little worried putting anything near my vajayjay that sounds like a broken weed wacker." you could use all the plastic silicone in pamela anderson's breasts to protect me from that broken weed wacker and i'd still be afraid.

how depressing! everyone in my family is buzzing about gathering christmas lists of wants this year and all i want for christmas is a new vibrator that i can't ask santa for it.

oh well, it's not like i was a good girl this year anyway.

what i am thankful for

right now, i am most thankful that thanksgiving only happens once a year.

don't get me wrong, the fall is my favorite season and thanksgiving is it's penultimate holiday. but in reality, i am not sure i know of too many people who look forward to that much family togetherness.

and anyone who does is a liar. and possibly already drunk.

how did what was meant to be a celebration turn into such a melting pot of family hostility? a night of pass-me-a-plate-of-passive-aggression with a side of cranberry sauce, please.

don't get me wrong, my family loves each other. we just can't stand being around each other. add in a dash of food sensitivities, a large splash of alcohol and it's amazing that we manage to survive any of our family dinners together. corrupting the occasion even more is the "my house vs. your house" location argument and "who's picking up grandma from the hood" that gets more heated and dangerous each year.

not the 'hood per se, that's always been a disaster. it's the stakes in who gets the 45 minute ride down and back listening to my nan bitch about why she is still alive. doesn't god know she wants to die? she's wanted to die since 1986 and it is now her greatest failure that she hasn't yet.

somehow this year i think i sold my soul to the devil, my brother. i am pretty sure that by agreeing to his terms to both pick her up and drive her home i need to find a goat, a virgin and an altar somewhere by sunset tomorrow.

after all, we are talking about the woman who brings her own beer to social gatherings. not too many people still drink pabst blue ribbon over a certain age. how many grandmothers do you know that can hang at the bar with 20-something bike messengers drinking shots of pbr all night?

my cousins and fellow she-devils and i do the silent conversations pleading with each other for help. as in "please make her shut up" and "no, you sit there" that can make or break dinner for all of us. my uncle pokes fun at what he calls the "weak", because in his mind, what else is there to do at family gatherings?

we try to talk about what is going on in each of our lives. my cousins in college, my brother and i are now cube dwellers, our parents are already well-versed in each other's happenings to begin with. why then do we suffer?

because underneath it all, we all understand where each other is coming from. and as much as we can drive each other batty, we do feel some small trickle of love and compassion for each other.

even if we have to slice each other open to get to it.

21st century metrosexual man

in every fairy tale that's ever been told, there's a simple balance to maintain. for every heroine, there must be a villain. and for every villain, there must be something he does to royally piss off the heroine to warrant to fairy tale in the first place.

this fairy tale, children, tells a very scary lesson. gather round as we tell the story of the metrosexual man and his ever expanding closet.

... once upon a time, a metrosexual man lived with his wife in their humble suburban abode. one with small closets and an even smaller kitchen, but my friend, that is a different story, indeed. no, our metrosexual man cut a fine cloth. with impeccable outfits that fit his figure just so, the metrosexual man had an outfit for every occasion and more. his closets were jammed with dress shirts from every designer macy's carried. dress and casual corduroys, cargos and jeans of all fits filled his hangers. sweaters and vests, hats and tees.

the problem, my friends, is the metrosexual man's addiction to shopping. not only must he feed this addiction by continually adding new pieces to his collection, he shares one scary connection to the one person his wife loathes, his mother. just like his mother, our metrosexual man never throws anything out -- ever.

his poor wife, our heroine, must deal with this growing mountain of clothing. the metrosexual man does share in the responsibility of keeping house, he does do the laundry, but fails to ever put it away. our heroine believes it may lead to him confront the issue of where to put all of his shit. so our heroine is faced with this dilemma.

like a bulemic, our heroine is accustomed to the "binge and purge" shopping routine -- buy new things, purge the old (or ill-fitting) but our metrosexual man is not. and no matter how many times she tries to explain it to him, he does not or cares not to understand. again, giving credence to the genetic condition known as "pack-us rat-us" to be passed down through his mother's line because they never, ever throw anything away.

twenty-two black t-shirts. 15 polos. hockey jerseys that span multiple teams and multiple styles. shiny shirts that no longer fit his growing man boobs but are distinctive in their appearance so if they were to disappear, their presence would be missed.

woah, what is our heroine to do? throw up her hands and wail? kick and scream, throw up a fight?

no, our heroine is smarter than that. the very heroine that thought the shoe monster into existence is smarter than the average bear. she has undertaken a slow and hopefully successful mission to cull the closet of the metrosexual man.

one t-shirt at a time if she must.

mwah-ha-ha-ha.

gnooks!

gazooks, i found gnooks!

this funky website uses artificial intelligence to match reader with author based on an author you enjoy. after playing with its maps for a bit, i have determined it is pretty accurate with some of the authors i've enjoyed popping up on the map. it's even given me some new names to authors to look up.

look in the mirror

at some point, it happens to everyone. the day jumps out in front of you like a mosquito as if to say, "hah! you didn't think this would happen, but it did. i'm here to make a liar out of you." and before you could swat the nasty little bugger, it screams those word you loathe to hear: "you have become your mother!"


splat! you squish the little son-of-a-bitch but not before its words have a chance to really sink in. you look over at your mother and realize, wow, you're both sitting with your arms crossed, leaning into the table. hmmm, that's scary. and the more you become aware of it, the scarier it gets, and the more connections you notice and before it's too late, you're suddenly well too aware of what's coming next.

the four o'clock pink my mom suffers with rosacia has already started with me. by the end of the workday, my face takes on the appearance of a healthy 2-martini lunch even if the hardest thing i have imbibed all day is a diet coke.

the other little mannerisms become apparent too, leading me to wonder if looking at my grandmother is just looking into a crystal ball set 50 years into the future, just like looking at my mother's gives me a sneak peak into my future.

either way, goddess help us all.