Running out of toilet paper sucks more than running out of diapers.

It sucks more than running out of milk or bread or coffee or (dare I say it?) vodka.

You know what sucks more than running out of toilet paper though? Running out of toilet paper AND paper towels AND tissue paper AND coffee filters AND anything remotely soft enough to handle my business without leaving behind a nasty paper cut or twelve.

Death, despair, pestilence, chaos and destruction… Pshaw.

This, dear reader, is what we call a true tragedy.

And to make it all more Shakespearean-like, my healthy supply of  drive-thru supplied napkins are in the console of my truck – MY TRUCK which is with HIM because HE likes it more than HIS truck, which I incidentally cannot use due to my ability to properly drive a stick (much like my great ass and calculus skills) going out the window at the onset of ‘mommy brain’. His truck, of course, has no supply of drive-thru napkins because he has no ‘mommy brain’.

He has ‘daddy brain’.

Which means that I’d probably only find lots of empty Redbull cans and old porn. *

And wiping my hoohoo with either just seems uncomfortable and highly dirty.

So I guess it’s just me and this pack of anti-bacterial wipes that smell awfully like formaldehyde-flavored lemons.. Which I’m fairly certain will take that not-so-fresh-feeling to a whole new level of  goddamnmylifesucks.

Wish me luck…

*Yes, the statement about the daddy brain leading to Redbull and porn was totally sexist… but you totally deserved it after snickering about me and my inability to drive a stick, and you know it.

** Oh! And did ‘ya miss me?

There’s a huge green grasshopper stalking me.

And I’m a little flattered that someone cares enough to do so.

2. Unfriendly Chick

I mean, seriously, I get that it’s retail- coffee-flavored retail, grant you- but retail nevertheless… And working retail sucks all sorts of hairy monkey balls on the best of days…

But you work at Starbucks, dude… You’re s’pose to make me feel like the grouchy bitch that I am and demand that I be more chipper… you’re not s’pose to be so bloody sullen and depressed.

Now, instead of walking out all caffeinated and refreshed, I just feel dirty.

3. Bitch in the Box

Believe it or not, there’s actually a  small part of me that is constantly demanding that we skip on the foreplay and get right down to the thick of  things as quickly as possible…

Of course, most of the time, I totally ignore that part.

Thankfully, iTunes totally doesn’t.

A quick click of a button, and I’m good.

Of course, when gratification is so close at hand… I often tend to get super greedy and super click-y. Which is all fine and dandy since I totally get the pay to play aspect of this relationship…

Matter of fact, I embrace it.

What I don’t embrace, however, is the silly system that lets me click and click (and click and click and click) and doesn’t bother to charge me until a week or two down the road…

In one freaking giant lump sum.

That I have to hide like a bad gambling debt.

And consider selling either a liver or a really good time to make up for it.

4.  Chick Checking Herself Out in Rearview Mirror

Yeah, honey, that Bump-it is still on your head… and it doesn’t look any better than you thought it did when you left the house this morning…

And your friend there? The one telling you how cute it is and that you’ve never looked better and recommended that you wear it with the spandex-esque skirt?

She’s what we southern ladies call an ‘bold-faced lying uber-cunt’.

5.  … And Goddemmit, could it be any freaking hotter?

“To the back…”

“Why?”

“Because you keep looking at me like you want me to die.”

Humph. I guess someone ate his shredded wheat this morning.

The Baby’s name was going to be Emily.

Emily Ellis Bell Shakespeare.

Totally pretentious and totally perfect…

Except for the fact that she’d probably end up in a classroom with 12 other Emilys…

And her Valentine’s Day Cards would be addressed to “Emily¹²“.

Which would totally screw with my unoriginal sense of unoriginality.

And we just couldn’t have that.

(For the record, I was all for calling her Ellis. Otherpeoplewhowillnotbenamed pitched a hissy and wouldn’t give an inch– no matter how many times I explained favorite book and pseudonyms and women authors and countless Gawddammit, I’ll be pushing this monster out of my delicate bits while you’ll no doubt be eating Burger King and chatting on the phone as if there’s not a little thing like a HUMAN BEING coming out of my vagina and when is your vasectomy appointment again…s.)

So I named her after Elvis.

And refuse to pass by any editions of  Wuthering Heights not currently gracing my bookshelves.

I picked this one up today… The cover art is by Ruben Toledo, and it seems as if he has done an entire collection of classics for Penguin.

I’m totally in love…

And am determined to PACE myself in the spending of all of my money in order to get them all.

But then…

Determination isn’t at all original, now is it?

Not any run of the mill type mother though… more along the lines of the scheduling, uber-organized, “I’ve had a slew of children and could do this with my eyes closed and my hands tied to the doorknob with old shoestrings”  type of mother who would have no problem taking me in hand and teaching me how to sleep as normal people do.

Normal.

Heh.

It seems as if my body has decided to finally push me off that rocky ledge of sanity that I’ve been precariously balanced at the edge of for years by forgetting how to sleep.

Yes, dear reader, I’ve forgotten how to sleep.

And if the random bouts of woolgathering and inappropriate daydreams about purple rainstorms, Chuck Bass, and Jesus are any indication, I’m fairly certain that it’s making me CRAZY. (Dude- I can totally hear what you’re thinking right now… and, frankly, it hurts my feelings. A lot.)

Random fact: Alot is a town and nagar panchayat in the Ratlam district of Madhya Pradesh, India. A lot is the amount of times that I’ve managed to set my kitchen on fire by boiling water.

Granted, I’ve always been the  night owl… Needing a bit of peace from the roar of the maddening crowd that is my progeny (plus the man) (and the cat) (oh and the little dog that grew three feet and fifty pounds in a week too), the quiet found in that lovely space between midnight and 3 a.m. has always been a haven of sorts.

Now, however, thanks to a bout of asinine flu that put me severely behind on work and various other obligations that have me, well, obligated, that lovely space of three hours has become a hectic gap of four or five.

By the time that I am finished with whatever project it is that I set out to accomplish, I am, of course, too wired for sleep…

So I read.

A book.

A book that I can’t put down until I am finished- regardless if I’ve already read it a dozen times before. (Dude? Can still hear you over here.)

Which puts me just about the time that the kids need to be up and readied for school- the time that is supposed to mark the beginning of my day and the beginning of this obviously vicious circle of purple rains, Chuck Basses, and Jesuses (Jesi?)…

Which isn’t at all as fun as it sounds, believe it or not. (Although I won’t argue its potential.)

And since I can’t tightly swaddle and hold myself down in order to force a bit of much needed rest as easily as one might hope…

I need a mother, methinks.

One who could handle the situation with her eyes closed and her hands tied to the doorknob with old shoestrings.

One who has a slew of children and has seen this all before.

One who would tell me to quit all of this infernal whining, put down the damn book, close my eyes and go to gawddamned sleep already.

One who…

Oh…

Yeah.

Nevermind.

And the world smells so good that you wanna stick your head out of the window and hang your tongue out like a dog.

Here in Shakespeare-ville, we’re bbq’ing the regular goodies as well as duck breast wrapped in jalapeno and bacon.

YUM.

And I keep asking myself whether or not the show is entirely appropriate for children…

On one hand, they can name the majority of the bones in the skeletal system, know how to use fabric softener to restore dehydrated appendages, and can recognize all of the occupational markers of being a violinist.

On the other, they’re starting to appear awfully unaffected by the sight of a rotting corpse.

And here I thought that when they told me motherhood would be about making the tough decisions, they were talking about things like breastfeeding or spanking or cloth-diapering…

You know…

Trivial shit.

Let’s play a little game of  Judith’s Favorite Thing in the Picture, shall we?

The rules are really simple; just tell me which of the things in the above picture is the thing that I like the best.  Don’t be fooled, though, this is not as easy as it seems.

Is it…

1.  The rustic-esque $3 “Wine by the glass” tin serving tray that magically turns the wicker basket in my livingroom into a nifty tabletop.

2.  My lovely cup of café au lait that makes my day that much brighter.

3.  The irony behind the text message from God telling me that I should consider therapy.

Winners will receive absolutely nothing other than the right to do a winner’s dance at will.

Naked if you’d prefer*.

Or, if you’re anything like me, at least with a bra on.

Wanna come?

I turned thirty in September.

To my credit, I didn’t overly freak out as one might expect someone on the verge of being soundly routed from that decade epitomized by both the freedom of youth and the joys of full-fledged adulthood to do.  Although, I’ll admit, I may have spent many a moment while at a bachelor-ette party the weekend before  (a final hurrah, if you would, to prove that I could still toss back nearly a rent payment’s worth of cheap vodka and expensive tequila, crawl into bed after the rooster’s crow, and still survive to tell about it) adamantly insisting to friends, old and new alike, that I would not be having another birthday and that twenty-nine was a perfectly acceptable age to… well… stop aging.

Still, I’ve a fairly old soul, a realistic one at that, and when the various ‘happy birthday’ texts and calls started coming in that morning, I accepted them with grace and very little resentment.

After all, 30 is the new 20.

Right?

Right.

And then a few weeks later, I found myself being asked for id while purchasing a pack of smokes for my sister at the grocery store around the corner. The cashier was really young, still tainted by that telltale floppy-ness of youth not quite ready for swagger.

“I know you’re probably old enough, but can I see some id,” he asked conspiratorially, his ‘damn the man’ attitude charming on so many levels. I laughed, of course, thinking back on the days when you didn’t even have to be as tall as the counter to buy cigarettes, and it was fun to be the big girl and run in for your mom’s- at six years old.

“Sure thing, hon, but I promise that I am,” I handed over my out of state license with a bit of swagger of my own and watched his eyes bounce around searchingly for a bit, “the date’s at the bottom on the right.”

“Oh, ” he said, “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, ma’am, but you look really young for your age,”  he smiled deferentially  and gave back the silly piece of plastic, moving on to the bagging of the mac-and-cheese destined for that night’s dinner.

“Uh…,” I paused, totally without my usual grace and mildly uncomfortable with his compliment. I stuttered over a proper response to that simple statement while trying to pinpoint what it was exactly that ruffled my feathers so, when any other sane woman would be flattered.

The fact that he called me ma’am bothered me not in the slightest, of course.  This was the South. Gray hair notwithstanding, if you were born at any time in my life that I was old enough to have changed your diaper, ma’am was and is expected. Even the loss of his conspiracy-laced tone, the one that suggested we breathed in the same “underdog in a world of autocratic adults” air together, didn’t bother me. My time of being that underdog was long enough ago that it came with its very own theme song, back when theme songs were cool and Will Smith was still a prince.

What bothered me, what really bothered me, was the emphasis- that exaggerated emphasis on the word age that made me an old woman in youth’s clothing. That exaggerated emphasis that had the lady next in line staring at my face intently as if to discover my astounding anti-aging secrets or perhaps an evident mark  indicating that I’d made a deal with some passing devil in need of a soul.  The emphasis that made 30 sound like 65.

After all,  30 is NOT 65.

That’s just silly.

Right?

This post wasn’t written for a {W}rite of Passage prompt- but I totally lucked out and it fit. Sorta. Challenge #7: Dialogue.

I am not above pinching my children.

Hard.

Yes, I can see that you are on a date of some sort, and I, for one, am simply thrilled- thrilled- that your many hours of cyber-wooing paid off in the form of a real live girl willing to suffer through your 15 minute monologues on the joy of whatever it is that jerks your chain these days while partaking of the super-swanky “2 can eat for $20″ meal spread across the table before you…

And, yes, I understand that my child’s high pitched laughter, born of the joy of having a brother whose pre-appetizer performance consists of sticking a straw up his nose, isn’t always considered a delightful sound to someone without children such as yourself…

But if you send so much as one more dirty look in my direction…

I am not above pinching my children.

And moving their chairs closer in order for you to be upfront and center for a drama-filled toddler breakdown, complete with mountains of snot, rivers of tears, and the occasional stomp and/or kick or two.

Hell, I’m not even certain that I’m above having them fling said snot and tears at you and your nifty metr0-sexual pre-ripped jeans while your date and her cute shoes look on in sheer horror.

So how about we stop all this mess before it starts…

I’ll get back to the second act of the illustrious straw-up-the-nose performance now in progress…

My children can get back to being children as children ought…

And you?

You can walk away from this whole experience snot-free and (perhaps) wise enough to recognize the perils of dining in any restaurant that serves crayons with their menus.

M’kay?

click to enlarge

I am utterly fascinated by validation phrases.

They’re like little messages from god…

on a stick.

Not as appetizing as alligator on a stick, mind you…

But the potential to be fulfilling is definitely there.

That odd little disclaimer at the beginning, the one that had made me pause countless times over the years, the thing that I never understood but was too excited by what came next to stop and fully ponder…

It finally made complete and total sense.

And it was horrible.

At first, I was too aware of the box-cutter in my hand to really pay attention to what she was explaining. The thing, with its hunter-safety orange plastic outfit and  grimy little razor-blade  that was never actually sharp enough to cut through the tougher cardboard but still quite sufficient at slicing off a bit of flesh here and there, was always accompanied by a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was far too clumsy to handle such things with grace and ease. And it knew it.

I followed her down the aisle, stopping here and there to tidy up or to discuss the latest plot, the newest intrigue. We’d been the best of  friends for over a decade, the nuances of her speech as familiar to me as the back of my own hand. As we headed to the front of the store, nothing in her voice that day gave away the nightmare that was to come. Later, after it was all said and done, I’d look back and recognize the play there. After all, we’d been the best of friends for over a decade. She knew my predictable reaction to such things as well as the back of her hand. The sense of betrayal was overwhelming.

She handed me a folded sheet of paper, and I gladly set aside my tacky and sweat-inducing weapon in order to read through it. The contents on that paper were divided into five  main sections, the first three completely unsurprising; the final two consisting of numbered columns, one called ‘pull’ and the other ‘keep’. I wondered if I needed to go back for boxes. She gave a tight shake of her head and held out two rather ominous black bags originally  intended for lawn waste or contractor work. I’d used a similar grade once to cover up a busted window in my car. I called them lick and stick windows and reminded her of the tale as we started pulling and keeping as the list demanded. We were still giggling like school girls when she reached for her blade.

I then watched in horror as she folded back the covers of  literary greats and non-greats, classic literature and popular fiction, social science and unauthorized biographies. I watched in horror as she folded back the covers of both Shakespeare and Stephen King alike. I watched in horror as she folded back the covers of overstocked paperbacks left over from the holiday season, sliced them off, and then threw them away in one of those great big bags intended for trash.

I felt an overwhelming desire to hiss at her- to hiss at my best friend the way a mob would at a witch burning. My best friend, the butcher of books.

In shock, I turned my head away from the carnage laid out before me and looked over the bookstore that had become my second home- the place I could be found even when not scheduled to work. I grasped the title in my hand close to my chest and breathed in lungfuls of type, page, and leather- my most favorite smells in all of the world next to the sweet smell of my newborn’s  head. I thought back through all of the years, all of the books, all of the tiny disclaimers that I never understood but was too excited by what came next to stop and fully ponder…

And I hated my job.

This post was written for a {W}rite of Passage prompt: Challenge #5 – The Job.

My breasts are starting to become a problem.

As much as I love the Betty and the Bertha (Bertha being the larger and decidedly more aggressive one- the alpha tit, if you will), I do believe that they may be the culprits behind my back aches and subsequent old lady groans.

Plus, if the amount of crumbs that fall about my feet when I finally let the girls out for their nightly free range romps are any indication, they’ve begun storing away food for the winter.

And, even you, dear reader, must admit…

It’s not that big of a leap from food hoarding to world domination.

1. Eat less.
2. Drink more.
3. Faithfully log and keep track of household appliances.
4. Learn a new skill.
5. Forget an old [unnecessary] one.
6. Pick up my camera at least once a day.
7. And take pictures with it. (I think it best to be specific in this instance.)
8. Be less stubborn about the little things.
9. More so about the big ones.
10. Create & adhere to business hours.
11. Blog more often.
12. For real this time.
13. Reevaluate my worth.
14. Price accordingly.
15. Cut back on the Diet Coke.
16. Consider doing so on the coffee.
17. Stop feeling guilty.
18. Stop feeling obligated.
19. Pay more attention to friends.
20. Less attention to non-friends.
21. Meditate every day.
22. Twice on the more frustrating ones.
23. Laugh more.
24. Cry more.
25. Buy waterproof mascara.
26. Wear pretty shoes more often- stop settling for the flats.
27. Take more chances.
28. Have more faith.
29. Chill.The.Fuck.Out.
30. Appreciate everything just a little more.
31. Finally do the thing that you should have done ages ago…

See you in 2010.