An Abbreviated Leave of Absence

Dear Lovelies,

Don't try to call me this weekend or email me or expect me to be anywhere or do anything. I am running away to this place. The neighbors are watching Miss Kitty, who can just deal with her own pee on the floor for a while, and me and Mack are escaping the concrete jungle and hunkering down with our vegan inspirations. We are going to hike and lose track of time and stare at nothing and drink whiskey from the bottle while the campfire crackles and pops.

Here is something that will make you jealous, which is the way I like you...

Enjoy your weekend.

Love,
Me

A Diet Ad that Didn't Make Me Hate Myself

Quietly e-stalking as a wind down to my beer soaked weekend, I discovered this advertisement on Facebook. 

I don't really find that midriff very enticing. It kind of reminds me of monkey bread, which I like to eat, but even with all its cinnamon gooey goodness, it's still not a good model for a sexy tummy. Let me just say right here that if my stomach looked even close to that midriff up there, I'd be okay with it. But if you're going to picture a sexy tummy courtesy of "this year's most talked about diet. As seen on CNN and Fox News," you might as well pick one that doesn't look like one a normal person would have, am I right?

Here are some midriffs that I find captivating. My stomach will never look like these (read the part about the beer soaked weekend above), but I appreciate them all the same. 

  

If I was in heaven when God was handing out bodies and this one came up, I would have sold my soul to the devil to get it. Which is probably why I ended up stocky. 

Yes, Eva, you're beautiful, and it's probably hard to look like a beacon of fitness in mid-stride even with all that beauty on, but somehow you do it. Which is why I hate and love looking at you.
This woman may be a lesbian, but if I could have that much ability to kick ass around my belly button, I might not need men either. Reminder: she does run a gym and works out a billion hours a day while I run a website and sit at a desk a billion hours a day.

Dulywed: What's Beneath All Those Vows (a series)

I don't do snot, boogers, loogeys, rockets, anything that comes out of the nose.

The mere thought of nose stuff makes me nauseous. While I haven't particularly liked snot and its kin my whole life (seriously, I never ate a booger as a kid, NEVER), my dislike ballooned into disgust one innocent afternoon when I was volunteering painting old ladies fingernails at Parkview Medical Center when I was 11. I'd just zipped down to the 3rd floor to visit one of my favorite crazy old bats who would squeal with delight when we painted her nails. She wasn't all there, probably never had been, but she was happy and I liked her. That's why I made a special -- and as fate would have it final -- trip to her floor to do her nails.

I pulled out my little suitcase of color, took her hand in mine, listened to her glee manifest, and then headed off to meet Heather on another floor. As I reached out to push the elevator button, there, right there on the middle knuckle of my index finger, was Crazy Old Bat's 100-year-old booger.

Discovering an old person's booger on your finger while in an old folks' home calls for a delicate response. I swallowed my urge to run screaming to the nurses' desk yelling, "GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!" -- along with some vomit -- and instead tried to handle the situation with some semblance of composure. The need to flee was so great, I squirmed into the elevator and was left to face the booger on my own. Since I was 11, that meant I wiped it on my jeans.

For some people who wipe boogers on their socks (you know who you are), a little booger on your jeans may be something you can overlook [no kidding, I just gagged right now]. But for me, someone who has a little OCD and can't leave things alone especially if they aren't symmetrical, that booger was like a mental parasite, plaguing me with panic and discomfort and squeamishness. That booger was all I could think about, and the feeling of it on my finger is as distinct now as it was 20 years ago.

I'm subjecting myself to physical discomfort to bring this post to you, the innocent single people in my life, who have a right to know what "I do" really commits you to. Now that you understand my feeling about nasal discharge, humor me.

Today was rainy (can you believe it?) and Mack didn't have school, so I took the car to work. We had a shoot this morning, and since I never have a car, I offered to drive. When we were finished, I decided to take the car back home because I don't have a parking space at my office. On my way home, I stopped by Blockbuster to get a couple of movies since the weather suited a movie night so well, and as I went to get back in the car, I noticed some light green smudgies on the side of the driver's seat.

"What is that crap?" I thought as I leaned in to inspect the crusty debris a little more closely.

BOOGERS! MACK'S BOOGERS! A SIDE OF MY HUSBAND I NEVER WANTED TO SEE!

I choked down the chunks that were trying to expel from my mouth, hopped onto the seat to avoid brushing up against the child-like treasures stored on the fabric, and immediately called Mack.

"You cannot pick your nose and wipe your boogers on the side of the seat. That is disgusting."

I am going to say he laughed, but you should know that he really guffawed, hee hawed, almost snorted and thoroughly enjoyed himself for about 11 minutes. If we were dating, this discovery would have been a deal breaker, but unfortunately when you are dating, people keep these parts of themselves a secret, under wraps, buried deep down in the place only you know about, exactly where they should be. After you say, "I do," that's when you really start to learn what you got yourself into.

30 Down, 300 to Go

Since I'm planning to live mostly for forever, I decided that for my 30th birthday I probably ought to get a beauty regime.

I don't shower everyday, don't put on deodorant every day, and don't brush my hair everyday, so a beauty regime is a bit of an undertaking. If I look close enough to my best with minimal effort and awkwardly my best with extra effort, beauty for me just isn't worth... well.. the effort.

My new beauty regime is based on multiple magic potions that I learned about from the lady who invented my DIY French manicure kit. I did an interview with her a while ago, recruited her to write for Capessa, became enlightened about collagen and the size of Vitamin C molecules, and gained access to wholesale pricing.

Prior to getting a price break, I was keeping myself up by dusting my eyelids with skin-colored shadow to cover some blood vessels that showed up when I turned 25 and using the glare from my glasses to downplay the tired hue of purple under my eyes. That was working well enough until fine lines started accentuating my mouth and a few ravines of worry/annoyance started traversing my forehead. Because I didn't wear nearly enough sunscreen as a child. Or last year.

Now my bathroom vanity is like a chemistry lab, complete with droppers and small glass bottles of active liquid. I have about as much grace dripping Vitamin C serum on my face as I do putting on eyeliner, but I guess I'll just have to get better over time. Like I usually do...

Is it less than a week until my birthday ALREADY?? (aka what I want)

I can hardly believe I'll be turning the big 30 in just 5 days. I thought by the time I was 30 I'd have a million dollars, a sprawling mansion, and a few years under my belt as the president of the world. As it turns out, I feel accomplished if I feed myself dinner every night.

I've decided that this year, I'm going to be more selective about what features I add to my life so that I have a clear path to that mansion and presidency I'm supposed to have. As I've gotten older, I've become wiser, and I accept that I don't have the space or the attention for anything other than things I love, things like:

The Modern Plumbing & Remote Growth Prints by BenBen

This Screen Print Owl Hoodie in a Size LargeThese Sweetie Carved Tea Cups with A + M '03 on Them

The Most Intelligently Designed Grill Ever, Made By Eva SoloThis Sleek & Effective Windshield for My Honda Metropolitan ScooterSome Exotic Hula Hoop Classes for Beginners

A Hot Air Balloon Ride over California's Beautiful Countryside

Happy Mother's Day

My sisters and I are flung 5,500 miles in every direction. Our mom is our central anchor point, and Mother's Day is one of our best excuses to get together. She is easy to love, a delight to covet, and an honor to know. We love you.
Happy Mother's Day to all the other mothers I know and love. Thanks for the work you do.

7-Year-Old Wisdom

Mack's mom is in the Philippines for work this week, and before she left she gave me an assignment to wash Laila's hair. Normally, I think that a 7-year-old should wash their own hair, but I like Laila and her mom and so I do everything they tell me.

Laila has a mane of hair, long wavy hair that is such a rich brown color it makes wood jealous. It qualifies as luscious. I would love to have her hair, but after last night, I realized I would also love to have her life.

While she sat in the tub gabbing about how she'd played with not just one friend but two and how she spent the afternoon in the hot tub and the pool and how the day was just so much fun that when her mom called she had to tell her hi-bye so she could get back to her insanely wonderful life, I sat on the edge of it, trying to get the temperature just right and planning how I was going to wash and condition her hair without getting a drop of water on her forehead or -- god forbid -- near her eyebrows. She was carefree, completely solid in the fact that she was just going to live life and other people would make sure she was fed food she likes and didn't go around smelling like the inside of a shoe.

I asked her, "Laila, why don't you wash your own hair?"

"Holding my arms up for that long makes them tired." Then she looked at me like I just fell from outer space and that these questions, these ideas that I have, they need to stop annoying her or I will not be given the privilege of washing her hair again this lifetime. Clearly, she cannot be asked to exert precious energy on holding her arms over her head for 38 seconds when that energy would be better used playing for 14 hours a day.

Then she said, "Besides, when you're in the bath you're supposed to relax." And she is right, which is precisely why someone better be showing up to wash my hair every other day or I quit.