wardrobe malfunction

what kind of girl am i you ask? obviously, it's what's on everyone's mind these days. but since you asked, i'll tell you.

i am the type of girl who wears black panties under tan pants. unintentionally, of course, not that it matters one bit now.

mornings are hazardous to my health and career. bumbling around the house, trying to feed the dogs with one eye open, not getting locked outside if the door closes behind me when i bring them in. getting dressed in the morning should not pose such hazardous results.

but it does.

getting dressed in the morning is like playing a slot machine in my closet -- pull back the arm to see if i win big. clean clothes, in sizes that fit, without any wardrobe malfunctions or oddly-paired combinations. we have a winner.

this morning, i pulled back the arm and waited:
ding, bar.
ding, bar again.
ding, lemon. so sorry, thanks for playing.

i didn't realize my losing bet (or is it that i am a loser?) until i got to work. yes, i am that girl the others talk about. and by this time, i can't insert another quarter hoping for a better outcome. the wrinkled black pants look pretty good right about now. i just need to face it -- i'm screwed. and i look slutty, ta boot.

my buddy alicia, the only one who i can call in such a situation, recommended a drastic course of action. "you gotta go commando. you have no other choice."

but i do another option. i can walk proudly and ignore the stares that follow me as i walk away. or run. quickly. to the victoria's secret on walnut street as soon as it opens.

like this, like that

like this, like that, like this, an' huh...

for the last two days, i have walked around obsessed with snoop dogg lyrics tattooed on my brain. not that it's a bad thing necessarily, but the urge to whip out the next line in some of snoop's better songs is just too great.

la de da da da...
muthafcukin' snoop dee-oh-double gee.

these words will get me fired if uttered from my lips while talking with a client, or talking to any another person in my office for that matter, regardless, of how loudly the bass may be thumping in my head. i work in a professional, uber conservative setting -- dropping lines about bitches and hos will not win me any props wit' ma niggas in the office.

which is partially why it's been so much fun.

c'mon think about the irony for a second -- thirty-year-old white, suburban professional woman rapping about tappin' dat ass, hos up and jeans down -- while driving around in her big honkin' suburban-assault-vehicle (sav for those in the know) while carrying a coach, head and shoulders bopping like a gansta.

think about this.

i'm sure snoop dee-oh-double gee was not expecting see-a-are-l-double e-n when he crooned some of these songs. these songs take me back to growing up in the 'hood, with a heart and soul bursting with a brash, a fcuk you attitude that doesn't give a shit about what you think, only about breaking out of where i was and breaking down others perceptions. like that, like this.

just chill.
'til the next episode.

what a girl wants

what a girl wants, what this girl needs... is a wife.

the next few paragraphs will not be an expose on the benefits of lesbian marriage or the death of feminism (although i reserve the right to riff on those topics at a later date). stop reading now if you choose but, be sure, this will not center on those topics.

i need a wife to take care of me. now, in all fairness, i would kick the first guy who said those words to me squarely in the nuts without so much as blinking.

then, i would kick him again just to be sure he understood the first time.

if i had a wife, the dishes from sunday would have been washed on sunday instead of the tower of food-encrusted plates waiting for me to wash tonight at 10 o'clock. if i had a wife, my wife would have paid the bills already so after my long day at work, after dinner i can relax. if i had a wife, dinner would be waiting for me to get ho--, oh wait. mam does make dinner for me. and lately, with my fcuked up schedule, dinner is waiting on the stove for me.

i hear the whining you're doing right, now. "wahhh," you have a demanding job. "wahhh," you generally like what you do and earn a good living. "wait, aren't you a wife?"

bite me.

before those words even cross your lips, let me remind you what happens to people who piss me off. i believe it's not sexist at all for me to want a wife. my gender-neutral wife would clean my house weekly and vacuum daily. my wife would go grocery shopping, pick up the dry cleaning, run errands, put away laundry, wash the windows -- all things i have all intentions of doing but just can't seem to find the time.

christina, when she agrees to marry burke, negotiates the terms of her acceptance of his marriage proposal -- "i don't do the ring thing. we're both surgeons and we'll have a lot of money, we can hire a wife" couldn't be a truer statement for me. (aside from the medical school degree, but i am getting my master's degree in something else, does that count for something??)

after meeting up with an old friend travelling on a completely divergent path than mine, i was jealous for a minute or two of how simple her life seems in comparison. knowing myself though, there is no way on this planet i could step into her shoes and be happy.

yes, a wife -- definitely what this girl wants.

blister in the sun

how do you know you're getting old?

when one of your teenage anthems appears in a wendy's commercial for a new artery clogging sandwich. i'm sitting here typing away, trying to ignore madtv which for some reason tonight is really funny when i hear the first few notes --

drumbeat, drumbeat. din-din-din-din din-din-din-din, din-din-din-din-din-din.

i start humming, my head bopping from side to side like a rag doll with each beat: "lemme go wa-aaahhhlld, like a blister in the sun, lemme go wa-aaahld, hey big hands, i know you're the one....."

except the words never came. the violent femmes -- the band you do not fcuk with, you do not fcuk with this band* -- became an instrumental freakin' commercial. oy! i feel old. what's next, they might be giants or rem pitching products for pepsi?

*you get bonus points in my book if you know what this reference is to...

snakes ....

... in my muthafcukin' basement!

as if the last few days has not been enough of a whirlwind, topsy-turvy week, we find this new addition moved into my house -- a garter snake curled into a ball lay at the bottom of my basement steps.

when mam came back up from the basement the other night, he seemed a bit, well, freaked. hands in his pockets, he just kept looking up at the ceiling, until i had to ask him what the hell he was up to. he just looked at me with a weird look in his eye. i asked him if he found the skeleton from the mouse that snapped a trap -- yes, i gave in and resorted to a kill-trap after every mouse in our zip code became aware that we were the only house that offered room and board without fear of being smooshed or snapped -- and managed to escape without a trace.

"we have a snake in the basement."

after peeling myself down from the ceiling, i responded rationally. "well, get him out. now. if you're not sure how, get a hockey stick and a box. and a drink. an alcoholic beverage is an absolute necessity. one before and after, please. just get him out of here. and let me know when you're coming upstairs so i can be in a locked room."

he was clearly shaken, but i was not going down there to play samuel l. jackson. no way. in our untraditional marriage, there are very few occassions where we ascribe to traditional gender roles. killing bugs and ridding our house of vermin are it. he cooks, i clean. he does laundry, i put it away. we both take out the garbage. nope, he muthafcukin' OWNS the extermination business.

i realize it's cold outside and all creatures great and small are trying desperately to find a place to get warm. listen here, li'l creatures -- my home is not it. i already have two big dogs who leave enough dog hair, eat enough food and give enough love for all of you. once i throw picking up after mam into the list, you'll understand i don't have room for any more animals. please find another place to go. i realize the woods at the back of my property are your summer homes. although my friends may call my house the "lodge" or "chalet", it really isn't. and we're certainly not looking for any new creatures to add to our zoo.

if you do decide to try to come in, then be prepared for my own samuel l. jackson to escort your ass back outside.

brick house

on monday, i wrote about the brick i managed to ingest without knowing it. well, a coworker took a sledgehammer to it around lunchtime.

after spending the better part of my morning with increasingly worse pain where the brick seemed to lodge, i couldn't stand it any longer. i called debbie to see if she had any drugs -- immodium, aspirin, cyanide -- to remove the pain. the woman who self-diagnoses her own illnesses and manages to get herself prescriptions for just about anything, had nothing to help me. instead she gave me a tea bag of green tea. "it'll soothe your stomach," she tells me. between my sweating and wooziness, i almost to believed her.

back on my floor i head to the kitchen to make myself a cup of this green tea. maybe i could have tested her theory of green tea if the co-worker next to me hadn't decided to make her lunch at that moment. her choice of foodage? a big green healthy salad topped with rancid-smelling chunks of chicken which poured out from a never-ending ziplock baggy.

the smell of that chicken carcass hit me first in the nose. i tried to wave it away, turning my face this way and that trying to avoid breathing it in. too late. the boiled flesh, cubed to fit into the carnivore's mouth, hit me square in the brick where my stomach once sat. wham!

i haphazardly left my tea on the counter next to the hot water station. my only thought was, the brick has been hit and the pieces are going somewhere, anywhere and everywhere. now.

in a panic, i dove into the ladies room, which thankfully is only about 5 feet from where i stood. the first nauseous wave of bricks hit my throat, when i hear a voice behind me. "are you okay?" i pop my head out from the stall -- cause really, do you think i am okay with that large of a sound emitting from me? i can only imagine the look of panic that spread across my face with the knowledge of what comes next.

"are you going to be sick?" no, i just decided to test out being a bulimic for a while, since all attempts at anorexia have failed to date. before i could answer her, another wave of bricks decided they needed to escape my body.

wave after wave of bricks burst forth in away that can only be described as my screentest for the next installment of the exorcism. as the crowd outside the ladies room grew, because really, just in case it was an exorcism going on in the bathroom, they wanted to stay clear of any malevolent beings - myself included.

now, what do you think most people would think when a 30-year old woman begins to heave violently? right, not the rotovirus. not food poisoning. yeah, you guessed it. in between heaves i can hear the whispers starting on the other side of the door, is she pregnant? whisper, whisper, pregnant? whisper, whisper.

for the love of goddess, no! if i was, it could only be satan's child with a touch of food poisoning that could cause that much fevering, heavering and screaming. after i left pretty much most of what i had consumed for the last week in the septic system at work, i decided to go home.

in the options of being held captive on a train with others to infect or a solitary ride home, i opted to contain my germs and share them with only one person -- an immigrant cabbie who had the bad luck to pick my pale, weak self up and drive her home to the 'burbs.

"ahh, rich people live in the suburbs," he says. "i ain't rich, buddy." normally a comment like that might have set off some internal childhood ghetto alarms that shriek: if he thinks you're rich, he may try to rob you. you're in a strange car, with a strange man going very far away right now. all fight systems on alert. fortunately, i was too sick and concentrating too hard on keeping last tuesday's lunch down to care. sure, try to rob me. one push in the wrong direction and i'll hit you with a ton of bricks. (all puns intended.)

it was a miserable ride for both of us. i motioned for him to head to an atm not far from my home and one that conveniently shared a parking lot with a local police station. at least the cops could thwart any attempts at robbery i thought. instead of needing the police, i left them with a present on their lawn. yup, more bricks.

miraculously, i made it home okay. the cabbie? he probably regretted my fare, but not my tip. is there a rule about how much to tip a cabbie who will need to clean up your vomit after driving you 30 miles outside of the city? (i didn't think so either.)

i spent the next 48 hours praying for death to come more quickly or for the last load of bricks to leave. my ribs hurt. i felt as if my torso had turned inside out like a pair of old blue jeans to empty the pockets of any loose change before throwing it into the spin cycle. from hell. wash, rinse and repeat.

in those 48 hours, my nursemaids chloe and sadie never left my side. my husband left me a sink full of dirty dishes. we all know who loves me best.

random thoughts on a monday morning

my stomach feels like i swallowed a brick last night. although the running with scissors chardonnay was good, i was a good girl last night and after drinking one only glass, i switched my choice of beverages to diet cokes...

chili at a superbowl party is very all-american. the spousal abuse later on, not so much. seriously, after snoozing the alarm for the third time this morning, i crawled back under the covers only to be assaulted by the rat-a-tat-tat of mam's ass. needless to say, i quickly decided braving the cold morning was better than dying of ass-fixin-ation...

.. which leads me to the cold. 9-friggin'-degrees out there this morning. global warming my ass. in august when its 105 degrees in the philly with 200% humidity, i may believe it. until then, i say burn, baby, burn those fossil fuels. i'll gladly sign up for one less day of winter's bitchslap - you know the one. your cheeks sting, your nose flows freely right down the back of your throat causing the most gawdawful sounds of those snorting, phlegm-induced coughing fits that cause you to feel nauseous, like how i felt this morning.

and we come full circle.

last night

what the fcuk was up with abc's decision to NOT run the latest episode of grey's anatomy again last night? sinking down into a little kid's whine: "it's not fair. they promised!" i whined for at least an hour. i'm thinking an email campaign may help vet some frustration although last night, i seriously contemplated driving to the local station armed with gray paintballs to make my point.

i flipped to channel 6 in my neck of the woods to see some pseudo-celebrity dressed to the nines with uber-bleached hair and teeth talking about the friggin' car show? class lets out too late for me to catch an entire episode on thursdays. now that mam is hooked, i find myself peppering him with questions when i get in -- what's happening? how did she get there? he did what?!? -- that (happily for me anyway) annoys him now as much as his questions annoyed me at the beginning of the season before the show made him an addict, too.

at the end of a long week, i really look forward to settling in the couch and watching grey while i unwind. stupid car shows with airbrushed-tan pseudo-celebs doesn't quite do the trick. damn you, american broadcast company.

out of words

it feels good to write each day. like a mental cleansing of my soul but afterwards, it leaves me feeling drained. out of words by the time i can sit and write a post, i am so tired that my snarkiness just gets sucked right out of me.

i am beginning to think that each time i think my working self will get a little downtime or a chance to catch up and catch my breath, a heavier weight or bigger project opportunity (depending on your point-of-view) gets dropped on me. and me, being the sucker/do-gooder or opportunistic-ladder-climber (again, point-of-view) takes the bait everytime. i am beginning to think i am a corporate whore. dirty girl that i am, sometimes, i even like it.

in the true spirit of multiplicity, i am just not a happy gal if all sides of my life are not in balance. so while i may not be able to share everything that i am working on these days in this format, i'll try to include a snippet here and there. and for those editing types -- you know who you are -- who i really piss off by writing for myself in ALL lowercase and sporadic punctuation, i'll even leave it in a proper writing style.

see, even i can be nice from time to time. a snippet is included below:


When animal control officers walked in with the stray, it was a scene that upset even the most experienced shelter workers. Jennifer Mead, then Director of Animal Welfare Programs at the shelter, remembers her first sight of the dog. “He was completely emaciated. My heart broke.” The stray, with his skin sagging, showed every bone in his long, lean body. His sunken eyes were cloudy and distant. His body fat stores had been depleted from weeks, possibly months of starvation, causing the bones on his face to take on a skeletal look. The shelter workers easily wrapped their hands around the top of his skull outlining where fat and muscle should be, dismissing their initial thoughts that his head was deformed. His coarse coat barely protected his protruding rib bones that seemed to end too abruptly at his narrow waist before meeting up with his jutting hipbones. Between the sagging skin and slow gait as animal control officers led him into the shelter, he gave the appearance of an old man, shuffling along with the animal control officer’s rope leash tied loosely around his thin neck.

* * * * *

let me know if you want to read more.