Pound Of Flesh

Quick Update:  I did a movie review for The Greenists.  Please check it out!

Tap, tap, tap…testing 1, 2, 3…is anybody out there?

Well, that was an unexpected and unintended bloggy hiatus! 

The last two weeks of class were a flurry of papers, projects, exams, and grading.  You’d think that once grades were submitted I’d be able to kick back with a beer and revel in the five minutes I have to myself before I begin prepping for the fall.  Oh, Innernetz, how silly you are!  I had to use four of those minutes to catch up on the many things I had let slide during the summer session.  After grades are submitted, my personal life takes over. Among the many joyous tasks I had: calls to my slumlord about the dismal water pressure that had turned my shower into Chinese water torture, involuntary volunteer work, and inventing new miracle diets that magically and effortlessly pack on the pounds.  Yes, I did watch eighteen nonstop hours of Seasons 1 and 2 of True Blood, but that indulgence was earned since, even after grades were submitted, I spent a disproportionate amount of time performing cutting edge surgery on students whose heads were so far up their asses that their burps were indistinguishable from their farts

All of the students (and some of their parents) think that if they could just meet with me, they’d be able to convince me that getting that pedicure was much more important than attending the mid-term exam.  And every semester I get one or two students who tell me that they thought all of the assignments were optional.  I tell you what, if they were as creative and diligent in doing the assigned work as they were with coming up with excuses for not doing it, they’d all be A+ students.  But they’re not.  They’re just idiots.  Two seconds after grades were submitted I began receiving phone calls and emails asking, “What can I do about my grade?” My standard answer always starts with, “First, build a time machine....” They don’t think that’s as funny as I do. 

One student failed the course because she missed an entire week of class.  She flounced into my office peeling like a soft shell crab, her tan lines fish belly white against her crocodile jerky skin.  “I told you that I had a family vacation that was non-negotiable!” she shrieked, waving her arms with such fury and drama that she looked like a fight scene from the Matrix.  Layers of baked flesh drifted onto my desk as though I had landed in a dust-mite’s dream.  Flake threw herself into the chair next to my desk and crossed her arms like a petulant child.  “What do you have to say for yourself?” Flake demanded, her face shriveled like an Appalachian apple doll.  What else could I say?  I gently pushed a tube of Aveeno across the desk and held up the garden hose I keep in my desk.  “She rubs the lotion on her skin....”

The last time I saw skin like hers, I was Flake’s age and working at a video store.  (Just in case any of my students are reading: yes, they had televisions and even videos when I was your age.  Yes, the videos were made of wood.) My co-irker was a tall bottle-blonde who aspired to be a supermodel.  I didn’t see it ever happening only because she had a congenital defect that was impossible to overlook: she was butt ugly.  Willem Defoe/Janet Reno love-child ugly. If ugly were a sport, she would win the Tour de Ugly every year and, every single year, the French would accuse her of taking ugly-enhancing drugs.  My co-irker would lay out in the sun every chance she got, but her skin never changed from baboon-ass red to the deep copper tan she so desired.  I called her Chernobyl Barbie.

One day, after being on vacation for almost two weeks, Chernobyl Barbie walked into the video store looking as if she had vacationed on the sun.  Her skin was brown, blistered, and pork rind crispy.  In her red and white sundress, she resembled a KFC Chicken Strip.  Chernobyl Barbie slathered on cheap body lotion throughout the day to soothe her skin and prolong her third degree burn tan.  She scared more children than usual.

By closing time, her chest was an oozing mass of moist, peeling, bubbly flesh.  After returning some videos to the stacks, she came behind the counter where I was counting the day’s receipts, noting the surge in rentals of Nightmare on Elm Street. Chernobyl Barbie went to grab the next pile of unshelved movies from the floor and tripped.  I tried to catch her but my palm landed with a schwack! in the middle of her lubricated chest. It was like sinking my hand into Vaseline covered Tempur-Pedic foam, patented NASA research and all.  I yanked my hand away but, after her twelve hours of regular basting, my hand just slid across her Butterball chest, the skin curling like ribbon candy and encasing each digit like a Chinese finger trap. And the smell!  I gagged and tried to breathe through my nose as her skin gave off the swampy, wet smell of a dirty fish tank.  Where was her filter?  Must change her filter!

“Get it off!  Get it off!” I screamed, snapping my hands back and forth.  But the dead flesh clung on, not wanting to relinquish its hold on living cells.  Chernobyl Barbie was no help.  She was staring in disbelief at the raw white skin emblazoned on her chest in the distinct shape of my palm.  With a final violent shake, the skin came loose and dropped onto the glass counter with a sickening schlock! Imagine the sound you make when you suck Jello right out of the bowl: schlock!

I don’t remember much after that, and neither would you.  But I do remember that, for the rest of that summer, Chernobyl Barbie walked around with my handprint on her chest like a turkey drawing kids do at Thanksgiving, except that, against the crispy pork-rind skin next to it, it looked like a marshmallow turkey.  Still, somehow, she continued to scare more kids than usual.

I thought about Chernobyl Barbie as I watched Flake douse herself with my tube of lotion.  As she sputtered and spewed about her vacation and how I owed her a good grade, her dry skin crackled and threatened to split like a crusty baked potato.  Where was my sour cream?

With the apartment in such a state of disrepair that Dingo Girl and Not a Dingo are weighing the benefits of homelessness and the drama of summer semester just beginning to fade, students for next semester are already starting to contact me (“Do we have to read all the books on the syllabus?”).  I have been too tired and unmotivated to blog, preferring instead to escape my surroundings via the Fine Living channel. But that will change soon.  I’ve scheduled myself for a thirty minute nap on Thursday.  After that, I’ll be Dingolicious all over again.

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Washed Up

There’s a good reason for my unexpected blogging hiatus.  But I don’t want to bore you with tales of luxurious warm days flashing my six-pack abs in a HAWT white bikini on the Cote d’Azure or lull you to sleep with anecdotes of decadent nights hobnobbing with the Hollywood elite.  No, we’ll just pretend that I spent Spring Break conducting important science experiments about mass and inertia: 

How many Peeps can one consume before someone who hasn’t run in two weeks swells up to Violet Beauregard proportions?

I also pondered the great questions of math and logic:

How long does it take to grade 59 papers, 62 Mid-Terms, and 57 writing exercises when Real Housewives and The Millionaire Matchmaker have back to back marathons?

Then, there was the Great Dishwasher Debacle.  The email from Marian the Librarian was unexpected.  “We’re moving and we no longer need our portable dishwasher.  Do you want it?” I know if I were a good friend my first thoughts should have been, where are you moving to?  When?  Do you need help?  But no, my first thought was DISHWASHER!  Mr. Dingo was startled at the tears that sprang to my eyes.  He asked if I was okay and between sobs I informed him that we were getting a dishwasher.  I may have even jumped up and down and mimed spiking a football before propelling myself across the apartment in a Charlies Angel’s roll in celebration. 

I love, love, love a clean house.  Many a night when I can’t sleep I drool over the interior decorating porn on Apartment Therapy and Desire to Inspire.  The airy, bright living rooms, spotless tubs, the mystery of “where in the hell did they store all their clothes?” and the crisp, pet-hair free couches make me swoon.  I just don’t have the time to make the apartment look like those photos.  Sure, sometimes cleaning can be therapeutic.  Like when I finally move the couch to vacuum and find a wayward Oxycontin tablet.  Those turn out to be lovely afternoons.  Just me, the tingly feelings, and pretty colors. 

Anyway, the dishwasher was like winning the lotto.  It was beautiful.  I named her Bianca.  I also let the dishes pile up for days.  I would use one spoon to scoop the sugar into my tea and a different one to stir it.  When I was feeling wild and reckless I took plates from the cupboards and licked them thoroughly before placing them on the counter next to the sink — because I HAD A DISHWASHER!  The day finally came to let Bianca do what she was born to do.  I loaded the dishwasher, hit Start, and the gentle swishing of water fell upon my ears like the dulcet tones of angels.  And then it all went black.  Pitch black.  I called to Dingo Girl hoping she would act as a seeing eye dog and lead me to my bed where I could cry myself to sleep, but she cleared out when the first cries of “Shitfuckgoddamnmutherfucker!” bounced off the walls. 

Apparently, our apartment is a holdover from the Middle Ages and the fuses can’t cope with the demands made by a dishwasher.  Bianca requires more power than the gear and pulley system attached to the hamster wheel in the fuse box is able to muster.  So, this weekend, we listed Bianca on freecycle.com and placed her on the curb for some lucky person to pick up.  I taped a sign to her door:  WILL WORK FOR FUSE.

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Now, Honestly!

I know most of you are going to scroll down to the end just to see who won the Dan Aykroyd wine giveaway.  Just make sure you come back up here and read the rest of the post because I talk all about me!

One year ago today, As I Was Saying was born.  What started out as a writing blog where I could wax eloquent about my thoughts and my life turned into a blog where I write about waxing.  And hair cuts, clueless students, weird running companions, and other odd people in my life.  It’s been fun and at times cathartic.  But the best thing about blogging has been (everyone get your hankies out) meeting you, Innernetz.  Thanks for sticking around.  Thanks for your comments and emails.  Thanks for your support and encouragement.  And, when I needed to hear it, thanks for telling me to “Shut the fuck up already!  You think you have it so hard? There are starving children in Africa and moose running from rabid-incoherent-VP-wannabe-hockey-moms-with-high-powered-rifles-in-helicopters who have real problems!” So, yeah, thanks for that. Keep on keepin’ it real, Innernetz!

It’s been a great good interesting year overall, but it has been a fabulous year of blogging.  I’ve won quite a few awards including some I have not mentioned yet.  I was recently listed at Blogtrepenuer as one of the 100 Must Read Blogs . . . Written by Women!  I’m excited!  Thrilled!  Honored!  There are some great blogs on the list in several categories so pop over there and check them out.

And April at It’s All About Balance has also given me some cyberbling — the Honest Scrap Award.  You know how I feel about honesty.  It’s always the best policy if you don’t think you can get away with lying.  We’re supposed to list ten honest things about ourselves but I’m only going to list two.

• My poop is green.  Yes, green.  Remember my ode to Mr. Dingo’s Red Velvet Cake?  Alas, it was not to be.  I searched the entire grocery store for red food coloring.  All they had was blue.  There was an entire shelf devoted to blue food coloring.  I suppose it’s the overstock from all the Obama baking.  But really, they need to stock the red now.  Can’t we all just get along?

So, Blue Velvet it was.  Except that when we poured the blue food coloring into the cake batter, it turned green.  Not pretty Spring time green.  No, this was someone-left-the-cheese-in-the-fridge-too-long green.  It was Shrek with food poisoning green.  But the cake was good and the frosting was heavenly.  And I ate half of it in one night.  The next morning my poop was green.  I asked Mr. Dingo to come look but he wouldn’t.  I then asked him if his poop was green.  He said that he hadn’t checked but since he only had one slice to my ten, his poop probably wasn’t green.  Do people poop red after eating Red Velvet Cake?  You just know that someone somewhere is receiving a government grant to research just this issue.

Hmmm, maybe this is one of those stories where I should’ve lied.  Mr. Dingo made Red Velvet Cake.  It was good.  The end. 

• I dumpster dive in my own trash.  Remember my stinky shoes?  Innernetz, when your shoes are in the bedroom closet and you can smell them in the living room, it’s time to throw them away.  So I did.  Days passed.  It rained.  It snowed.  I wore boots.  And then…then, the sun came out.  The clouds parted, flowers bloomed, children laughed, and angels sang.  And I didn’t have appropriate too-warm-for-boots-not-yet-warm-enough-for-flip-flops footwear.  What’s a Dingo to do?! 

I’ll tell you what she does, she rummages to the bottom of the trash and takes her stinky shoes from under layers of funk, egg shells, and coffee grinds.  Perfect!  I don’t even think they stink anymore.  The competing offensive aromas canceled each other out and all I smell is, well, nothing.  Dingo Girl has been acting odd, however. When I take my good as new old shoes off, Dingo Girl immediately tries to bury them or rolls on them with squeaks and groans of ecstasy.  She does the same thing when we’re at the park and she finds a three-day dead pigeon.  She’s just weird like that.

So, those are my two Honest Scrap offerings.  After those two, I can’t imagine that you’d want to know any more. 

And now, what you’ve all been waiting for….the winner of the I’m a Bitch, You’re a Lush Giveaway…..The Coconut Diaries!  This was her winning foot-in-mouth anecdote:

Me: I hate taking aerobics classes with these college students. I feel so old!
Lady: I know what you mean. (uncomfortable silence). You know, I was really excited about Obama’s win. It’s like the first time I can remember being so moved by a president.
Me:  Really? Even more than Kennedy?
Lady: Well, I was 3 then.

That just cracked me up.  Coconut Diaries, I’m surprised you didn’t show her some of your own high-impact moves.

Shelly certainly gets an honorable mention for:

As a 20 yr old, working at her first Big Girl job, I was a bookkeeper, office ‘girl’/apartment/duplex manager for a construction guy.
There was this lady who has all sorts of personal problems that was going to move out of a duplex.  A second lady wanted said duplex.  I called Lady #1 to get the scoop of her time frames (of moving out) and got the latest tale of woe about her divorce and I am certain other devastation in her life.  I proceeded to call lady #2 to tell her that she couldn’t have the duplex for a while...and immaturely recounted EVERY DETAIL of this poor lady #1’s dismal life.......being all cute and gossipy, you know?
As it turned out, my airheaded 20 year old self actually dialed the FIRST number on my list (which belonged to lady #1) and of course her name was next to the number so unthinkingly I asked for her....and recounted her OWN SORRY LIFE BACK TO HER........yea...so much for cute and gossipy. 

Thanks to everyone for participating!  Please drink to another year of As I Was Saying and to good friends, good food, and green poop.

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Rice Wine?  Really?

It happens every year.  Mr. Dingo’s office does the stupid Secret Santa gift exchange and I run all over the city trying to find something intriguing and unique for him to give.  This year he had three (THREE!) Secret Santa gift exchanges.  That’s partially my fault.  He started out with only one Secret Santa exchange but the gifts I pulled myself away from the Law & Order marathon to find were so cool that other groups in his office asked him to join theirs.  By the time we finished shopping for the gift extortion we had only enough money in our bank account to tell family and friends, “Well, maybe next year.”

What’s even worse than exchanging gifts with someone you probably wouldn’t even exchange a greeting with on a normal day is that his gifts?  The ones he received?  Suck.  They suck Yeti balls.  Would anyone like a bottle of rice wine?  I can’t even re-gift that shit.  Hmmm…maybe I’ll use it for a future giveaway.  Along with some toe jam and a copy of Weird Al Yankovick’s Greatest Hits.  Yes, he actually has a Greatest Hits CD.  If you own it, we can no longer be friends.

But friends and relatives be damned, I have gifts for you, Innernetz!  Thanks for entering my giveaway for Keri Smith’s The Guerilla Art Kit and Living Out Loud.  I actually think I’m going to go buy copies of these for myself. For those of you too lazy humble to link to your own writing, there will be future giveaways and contests.  I’m trying to think of something great to giveaway for my blogaversary in February. 

I really enjoyed re-reading the posts that my fellow bloggers linked to.  You should grab yourself a nice glass of rice wine and curl up with these good reads:

• April at It’s All About Balance wrote about The Power of Negative Thinking for LA Moms.

• Mel Heth from Melissunderstandings, Life According to Mel Heth submitted what I am sure will be in Fox Television’s Spring line-up, When Necklaces Attack.

• New Life In South Dakota’s Kate has a unique take on hair care with It’s Raining Today.

• Ms. Darkstar at Darkstarian Discourse and Diversions somewhere in the frozen tundra is a longtime blogger with a new blog.  She submitted The Stupid, It Burns.

• If you needed proof that blakspring is actually female, she provides it with Proof That I May Actually Be Female.

• Fancy pants wearing Meg at Golightly writes about election night bingo and the trauma of not finding “Giant Shit Burger” on the Bingo cards in What A Relief.

• Marjolein at Won’t Let Life Define Me has Random Thoughts While Working At Home.

• Jenny is truly Wonder Woman.  She lives in a Cottage on Fox Hollow and submitted an entry about Brain Surgery. I almost felt bad laughing at some of her experiences but I know that she wants to be treated no differently than anyone else.  Since I laugh at everyone else, she’s fair game.

• stealthnerd over at Strict Shenaniganist is a Nyquil lightweight.  The sniffling, sneezing, blah, blah, blah medicine gives her a Nyquil hangover.

• You know the person in front of you at Subway who places an order for a gabillion people in her office, holding up the line until your lunch hour is over?  Ms. H at Molding Young Minds is That Girl.  She must be stopped.

• I would love Angst Girl Jules even if her dog Daisy didn’t look like Dingo Girl.  I would just have to work harder at it.  Just kidding, Jules!  In Crisis Averted, Jules writes about Daisy’s Homeland Security experience.

• Mrs. Chili at The Blue Door always makes me think, question, and get off my butt to take action. Her Ten Reasons why she’s an outspoken GBLT advocate/ally is a must read. 

• Organic Mama at Life and Times of Organic Mama submitted a post she wrote when her two daughters went away to summer camp in This Thing Called Motherhood.  It’s a great post about being a mom but also being yourself.  I would love for O’Mama to adopt me but she substitutes maple syrup for sugar.  No can do.  I bet she uses real maple syrup, too.  Perhaps, organic maple syrup and not that overly processed, calorie laden, yet sickeningly sweet Mrs. Butterworth deliciousness.

So, those were the entries.  I placed the names in an empty tissue box and with great fanfare (yes, I made my own musical accompaniment) and unnecessary flourish, I drew names.  Organic Mama is going to receive Living Out Loud and Marjolein is going to receive a transatlantic package containing The Guerilla Art Kit.  Send me your addresses ladies, so I can stalk you I can send you your books.  Thanks, Innernetz, for participating!

Happy New Year, Innernetz!

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If You Want This World To See A Better Day

Helloooo!  Is anybody out there?  I wouldn’t blame you if you had abandoned me.  This place has been filled with dust bunnies and cobwebs of late.  But I’m back, Innernetz!  My thesis is done!  My thesis is done!  After my third and final reader signed the This Is The Best Damn Thing I’ve Ever Read form, I called Mr. Dingo with the joyous news and then promptly came home and took a seven hour nap.

I am now free to get into the Christmas spirit.  And so are you — although some of you have gone ahead and done so without me. Didn’t we already talk about this? Innernetz, you are supposed to put your lives on hold until I can catch up.  But I will forgive you, Innernetz, because I love you.  And it’s Christmas.  Christmas is all about forgiveness.  And presents.  I noticed that on my birthday, in spite of my expectations for a mailbox overflowing with birthday bounty, it was remarkably empty.  I don’t blame YOU, Innernetz, I blame my lazy, thieving postman.  I know he stole all your wonderful gifts. But this is Christmas, so, bygones.

Mr. Dingo gave me an early Christmas present this year and it really put me in the holiday spirit.  He took me to see a folk music concert.  I first fell in love with folk music during my freshman year of college.  To be more specific, it was during Christmas break of my freshman year.  You see, I wasn’t always the sharp, with it woman with terrific rain boots that you know today.  In fact, back then you could say that I fell off the turnip truck. Daily.  So when I misread the dates for Christmas break I found myself back at school a week earlier than everyone else. 

The dorm was desolate.  Well, not completely desolate.  There were the girls who always dressed as if they were going to the Renaissance Festival; complete with long flowing velvet gowns and May pole ribbons in their hair.  I don’t know why they were back early.  The family must’ve run out of mutton or something.  Oh, there were also the vampire chicks.  Yeah, sorry iGeneration, you did not invent the fascination with tall, gaunt men with a thirst for blood.  The vampire chicks on campus slept all day, took night classes, dressed in black and listened to The Cure non-stop.  That they did not volunteer to help with the yearly blood drive had me doubting their commitment to their dark lord.

One of my good college friends, Kate, found out about my predicament and saved me from being challenged to a joust or joining the ranks of the not-really-very-dead by whisking me away to her family’s beautiful farm outside of Fort Worth.  The food was incredible.  I swear I put on the Freshman Fifteen during that one week.  The music, however, was the real feast.  Joan Baez, Simon & Garfunkel, The Mamas and the Papas, you name it, they had it.  On LPs.  And although my transformation from fundamentalist to feminist and political activist didn’t take place until many, many years later, the seeds were planted. 

These are the same seeds I’m attempting to plant in the embryonic brain cells of my students.  On one of my mid-semester evaluations, a male student complained that I was a feminist.  Oh, wait, what he actually wrote was, “FEMINIST.” And underlined it.  Three times.  Although it was meant as a rebuke, I took it as a compliment.  I think he was upset because I called him out for saying that women who wore mini-skirts and tank tops “deserved what they got.” He was also a little bent out of shape when, in response to one of my questions he stated, with no irony or awareness that he is a misogynistic jerk, “Because I’m a real man!” I fired back with, “Real men are not afraid of confident women.” Maybe I should put that on a t-shirt.

Don’t even get me started on his views about minorities, gays, lesbians, immigrants, etc.  It really amazes me that in 2008, his views seem to be the norm among my freshmen students.  I have been surprised by their ultra-conservative viewpoints. It’s as if they’ve been raised sucking at the over-inflated ego and rancorous tit of Rush Limbaugh. I’ve had female students tell me that a woman could not be president because she’s, well, a woman.  In another class, I pointed out that men also face discrimination, particularly when it comes to childcare issues and paternity leave.  My class thought this was hilarious!  Why in the world would a man want to take time off to spend with his newborn?  That’s the wife’s job!  Most of them thought it was disgusting to even consider that a gay couple would adopt a child much less have issues in the workplace regarding time off to care for that child.  Sometimes I want to beat my head against a wall.  Most of the time I want to beat their heads against a wall. Repeatedly.

I think, however, it would be best to send them to Kate’s for re-education.  They will come back too stuffed on good ol’ Southern cookin’ to hate anyone except the person who ate the last piece of pecan (pronounced peh-cahn NOT pee-can!) pie.  And maybe listening to music from people passionate about equality and peace will reach some primordial part of their brain. 

Well, this post ended up miles from where I intended.  I wanted to tell you about the man at the concert who kept giving us the Stink-Eye until the usher made him leave.  I also wanted to tell you how incredible the concert was.  We sang, we drank champagne, we sang louder.  My musical tastes now lean more toward the likes of Feist, Brandi Carlile, Vienna Teng, Rob Thomas, Maroon 5, and Gavin Degraw (Innernetz, are you taking notes?) but there’s a special place in my iPod for folk music.

Classes end next week.  I’m preparing the final exams this weekend.  Maybe I should ask them only one question.  A question Yusuf Isalm (formerly known as Cat Stevens) asked back in 1974:  Oh very young, what will you leave us this time?  Then again, he’s a Muslim.  And I’m pretty sure I know what they’d have to say about that.

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