I’m Sm’all Ears

I have small ears.  Tiny ears.  Bat-sized ears.  No, fish size ears.  Have you ever seen a fish’s ears?  No, because they’re too small.  That’s how small my ears are.  In college, after a night of drunken revelry, my inebriated friends used to like to take out a ruler and measure my ears.  Boy howdy, what passed for fun in my Texas college town would fill a book, or at least a small Post-it note.  So here I am, many, many years later with my tiny ears.  To tell you the truth, until now these ears o’ mine have never been a problem.  However, lately, I’ve been cursing these tiny flaps of cartilage attached to the side of my head.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could exchange facial features like Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head?  Sometimes, just for kicks, I would put my eyes in the back of my head.

The problem I’ve encountered in the past few weeks is finding headphones that fit.  I’ve tried every size of earbuds imaginable but they always fall out of my tiny ears.  Well, they don’t actually fit inside my ears so I have to sort of wedge them along the outer ridges.  But I spend an unreasonable amount of time pushing my earphones back in while I’m running.  I am sure that people I pass think, “Why does she keep hitting herself in the side of her head like that?” No, you dumbasses, I am not a high-functioning autistic, I am just trying to keep my earphones from falling out of my eraser-sized ears.  On the other hand, I’ve also collected a lot of change from tourists who think I’m a street performer doing the Macarena.  That knowledge will come in handy when I’m in Europe and I’ve run out of coins for the public restrooms.  Anyway, I’ve looked for smaller ear buds but can’t find the right fit.  Probably because if I get them any smaller than the ones I have now, they’ll be the size of Tic-Tacs. 

Apparently my ears are so small that the woman who cut my hair this weekend decided that my ears should be liberated from the prison of my unruly locks.  For some reason the woman insisted on blow-drying my hair, although I never wear it straight, and then cutting it.  She said something about being able to see the lines and angles or whatever.  Um, I have curly hair.  No lines, no angles, just curls, waves, corkscrews, and general mayhem.  I should’ve stabbed her with her scissors and made a break for the door, but I didn’t.  I’m only big, bad, and confrontational in my head.  My big ol’ punkin head.  Yes, I have a big head.  Tiny ears.  Big head.  Sounds like a Discovery Health documentary, doesn’t it?  Something that’s aired right after the touching family saga about the midgets little people people shorter than everyone else.

Anyway, I told Sweeny Todd that if she insisted on cutting my hair while it was straight to remember that my hair shrinks up A LOT when it’s curly and dry.  She didn’t listen.  And so now everyone can see my tiny ears.  Oh, and the hair cut?  Yeah, it accentuates my ginormous punkin’ head.  It sticks out from my head like a nimbus, or rather, a giant dandelion puff.  I wish I could borrow Mr. Potato Head’s hat.  Hey, if the hat can fit Mr. Potato Head, it should be able to fit Ms. Dingo Punkin’ Head, right?  I bitched and moaned all day yesterday.  Mr. Dingo said that it wasn’t that bad but the sideways glances he kept taking at my noggin had me convinced that he was either looking at my tiny ears or trying to gauge how long it would take my hair to grow back so that he could be seen with me in public.  He kept saying that it wasn’t that bad but when I went to take Dingo Girl for her walk he urged me to wear my hat. 

So, I called the salon and bitched, bitched, bitched.  I’m supposed to go see the owner who will try to fix what can be fixed and maybe offer some consolation for the loss of almost four inches of hair — free coloring or deep conditioning would lessen the pain.  But you know what?  Life can be a sneaky bitch.  I washed my hair this morning and didn’t look at it again until later in the evening when I was on my way to meet a friend for drinks after class.  I was trying to decide whether to go with the baseball cap or the Jackie O type scarf when I looked in the mirror.  And holy hell y’all, my hair looked kinda cute.  Tiny ears n’ all. 

So what am I supposed to do?  I mean, my hair does not look like I expected or wanted it to, and yes, it does need to be evened out where Edward Scissorhands decided to use the back of my head as her fantasy playground, but it doesn’t look as bad as I made it out to be when I called them yesterday.  If I get out of the shower tomorrow morning and my hair looks even better than it did today, do not think that I am above saving face by having Mr. Dingo take a kitchen knife to my ‘do.  Oh yes, I’ll go there.

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It’s the DNA

I don’t think a balanced diet means hoovering one Entenmann’s Fudge Iced Golden Cake for every veggie that I manage to force down my gullet.  I could just kick myself.  I’m going to blame it on Mr. Dingo, though. 

Yesterday when I made my grocery list laden with yucky boring healthy foods like zucchini and grapes, Mr. Dingo asked if I wouldn’t mind picking up an Entenmann’s Fudge Iced Golden Cake for him.  Let me take this moment to inform you that Mr. Dingo is buff and he doesn’t have to break a sweat to maintain his David-like physique.  (Mr. Dingo wants me to insert here that I have changed the subject from vegetables.  I am referring his six pack abs, muscular legs, and great ass, not the baby-carrot-looking boybits Michelangelo’s David so proudly flaunts). 

Anyway, I think the only exercise Mr. Dingo gets is when he loses at Rock, Paper, Scissors and has to take Dingo Girl out for her potty breaks during a Class 5 hurricane while I remain inside keeping an eye on the weather channel and making a mental list to take stock of our bottled water and other perishables; namely, Swedish Fish — so yummy, yet so nasty when they get hard and stale.  So yeah, he’s genetically gifted with hotness. 

Unlike me, Mr. Dingo lacks the congenital defect otherwise known as a Sweet Tooth.  While the failure to have a fresh stash of Swedish Fish during a state of emergency would render me a blubbering mess languishing on the kitchen floor bemoaning our imminent demise and mentally calculating the amount of protein on Not a Dingo’s six- pound frame, Mr. Dingo would be completely satisfied surviving off of hardtack and MREs.  Sometimes, however, he likes a little dessert and will ask me to pick something up for him.  Come on, man!  Asking me to go to the grocery store and roam the candy aisle is like asking a pedophile to go to your local elementary school to pick up your daughter.

So I went to the grocery store and filled my grocery cart with things like apples, a block loaf of whole grain bread, and the Entenmann’s cake.  You will be proud of my fortitude.  I waited until Mr. Dingo got home from work so he could see the cake in its entirety before I dove into it face first. To be fair to myself, it was a very difficult day and if downing an Entemann’s in three bites was an effective form of self-medication, then cut me some slack. 

Yesterday was my niece’s birthday.  I’ve never mentioned my dickhead rot in hell piece of shit brother and, other than in today’s post, you will most likely never hear about him again.  His only redeeming quality is that he has four of the most beautiful, intelligent, funny, and loving children evah!  I have three nieces and a nephew.  I haven’t seen them in two years.  I’m not going into details, not out of any respect for his privacy because I don’t give a flying fuck about that.  It’s out of respect for my nieces and nephew that I can’t tell you more.  But in spite of the fact that I haven’t had any contact with them, I still send cards and letters on holidays and birthdays in the off chance that one of them will get them and know that my Mom and I have done everything we can to protect them.  That’s so much more than the circus courts ever did.  It is my greatest fear that one day they will contact me and hate me for not doing more. 

So I called Niece #2 for her birthday.  My heart was in my throat when some woman (this may be wife three or four, lord knows my dickhead rot in hell piece of shit brother cannot pick, or keep, a sane woman) answered the phone.  I said, “Hi, this is Aunt Dingo.  I’d like to wish Niece #2 a Happy Birthday.” There was silence as I heard her put the phone down and I could hear the kids in the background.  If this were a Lifetime movie, you know I would’ve been screaming into the receiver so that they could hear me.  But this wasn’t a Lifetime movie and I lost my chance when my dickhead rot in hell piece of shit brother got on the phone.  I would like to say that I conducted myself with maturity and restraint so I’ll say that.  But that’s not how it went down.  No, in reality the moment was much more like me trying that cartoon maneuver of sticking my hand into the mouthpiece of the phone so it would come out of the earpiece at the recipient’s end.  Just so you know, it doesn’t work on cordless phones.  So, what it actually came down to was, two hours later, me wolfing down Entenmann’s with a knife and my bare hands.  But hey, at least I wasn’t smoking!!

There are so many times when something happens that reminds me of the kids and something they said or did.  I decided though, that just because I can’t see my nieces and nephew doesn’t mean that I can’t remember them.  It doesn’t mean that I can’t tell you about the time that Mom and Niece #2 were standing in the grocery store check-out lane when Niece #2 proclaimed, in a loud, proud three-year-old voice, “Grammy, I LOVE your titties!” while giving them a lurid squeeze.  It doesn’t mean that I can’t tell you about the beautiful summer day that the kids and I drove around with the windows down and bags full of candy and pumped up on soda singing songs from Maroon 5’s Songs about Jane.  Hmmm.... Maybe the fact that I returned them to my dickhead rot in hell piece of shit brother on a sugar and caffeine high with suggestive lyrics in their little heads is an indication of why my parents and I can’t see them.  Nah.  He’s just an ass.  But if you’ve read this, you know that he comes by it naturally.  It’s in the DNA. 

Thank you, my loyal readers reader Mom, for being here for me.  After yesterday, I figured the best way to deal with this was to write about it.  And eat Entemann’s.  Lots and lots of Entenmann’s.  So, thank you also Entemann’s .  And thank goodness today was one of my running days. 

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Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

Breaking news!  I ate a vegetable for dinner! 

I quit smoking two months ago (go me!), started running, and now, now I’m eating veggies?  What’s next, a cure for cancer?  Don’t roll your eyes, I’m sure whatever is growing in the Petri dish that is my bathtub has medicinal properties.  Mr. Dingo and I are trying to adopt healthier eating habits and so far, of all the changes in my life, this one that has been the toughest.  I mean, I was raised in a family where “fried” is the fifth food group.  If the food wasn’t fried it had best be smothered in gravy.  My culinary role models were not Julia Child or the Cajun Chef and his “un-yones.” I was more cosmopolitan in my tastes, preferring the exoticism of Outback Steakhouse and the intercontinental flair of The International House of Pancakes. 

Obviously, I am not a foodie.  Which, by the way is a pretentious label.  Do people actually go around calling themselves “foodies?” Wait a minute, let me ask my friend Google.  Oh my God, Google says, “Yes!” What does one wear to such an “intimate” event that the information on location will only be given to those who RSVP to the tasting?  Would my Red Lobster bib be completely out of place?  When should one use the finger bowl and when should one just lick one’s fingers and why does one always use the pronoun “one” when trying to sound high-falutin?  I would go to an event like this if just to report back to you but $85 is a lot of money to shell out just to make fun of people when I can get that sort of amusement for free just by walking down the street.  Or teaching my class. 

Speaking of class, yesterday — only two class meetings away from the end of the semester — I was informed that I have to give a final exam in the class.  As part of some new (“new” as in only TWO class meetings from the end of the semester!!) assessment program, all freshman literature classes must have a final exam.  My class took it rather well.  I softened the blow by telling them that I would only use the highest test grade, whether that was their mid-term or their final, when calculating final grades.  I was immediately hailed a hero.  I basked in the praise — “You are soo cool!” and “You rock!” — while secretly patting myself on the back for figuring out a way to avoid creating a new grading rubric.  Oh, and the students that the assessment team chose from my class to assess?  You guessed it, the plagiarist.  Also included in my assessment:  a student who hasn’t turned in a paper the entire semester and someone who has been featured quite regularly in my rants here.  They couldn’t pick my rock stars?  They couldn’t pick the students who amaze me daily with their insights and ability to discuss issues and the complexities of literature and life?  No, they pick the two students who I can’t tell whether they are vegetable or mineral. 

It’s enough to make me want to drink except that, after reading that foodienyc.com web site, I’m beginning to doubt my ability to taste and assess food and wine.  Maybe I should put together an assessment team for food and wine.  We could all meet at my apartment and eat fried food and drink my favorite wine.  I would even spring for one can for each of us.  Of course, since it would be such an intimate setting, I won’t be able to tell you the location until you RSVP.  And please, bring your own Red Lobster bibs.  My set is currently in the laundry hamper until the maid gets around to cleaning them.

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YouTube is a Time Suck

You Tube is a time suck. I sat down hours ago to write a post about Dingo Girl’s birthday and ended up watching videos like the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain’s rendition of "Hey Ya," and at least three different versions of Kate Bush’s "Wuthering Heights." I finally realized that tomorrow’s lesson plan is not going to write itself and Scrubs is probably the best sitcom I’ve never seen. It seems they have a song and choreographed routine for every occasion. Hell, anyone that can belt out tunes and Boys2Men footwork at a moment’s notice is a friend of mine. And, if you can do it in a hospital without slipping on blood-drenched floors or tripping over bed pans, well, you’ve got my Neilson rating. Where has this show been all my life?

Like JD and Turk, I have a song for everything.  EVERYTHING.  You know that game where you have to start a sentence with a word beginning with the first letter of the last word in the sentence?  No?  Geez! What did you guys do on your long-assed family road trips, or was that just an ingenious game invented Mom to keep me stumped and quiet after she said, “Yesterday, I went for my x-ray?” Well, anyway, my life is kinda like that game.  I have a song for anything anyone says.  I’m sure it often makes Mr. Dingo feel as if he’s trapped inside a 1970s station wagon with wood panel siding and no air conditioning headed to the Grand Canyon but, well, he’s stuck with me.  I’ve been playing this game all my life and I’m good.  I’m also not proud.  I’ll dredge up Schoolhouse Rock.

Mr. Dingo:  I can’t find the macro function on the camera.

Me:  (singing) Conjunction junction, macro function?  Hooking up words and phrases and clauses.

Mr. Dingo: Are you done?

Me: (singing) Conjunction Junction, how’s that function?
I got three favorite cars
That get most of my job done.
Conjunction Junction, what’s their function?
I got “and,” “but,” and “or.”
They’ll get you pretty far.

Yes, now I’m done.

I admit that it’s probably annoying but I can’t stop. 

My blog should really be called, As I Was Singing.  A childhood raised on musicals, church camp, country music, Motown, and Casey’s Top 40 made me the most versatile singer not in the business.  I would stage musicals for my neighbors and, at ten cents a ticket to my backyard performances, I thought they were getting a great deal.  Where else could you see a nine year old make a seamless transition from Grease’s “Summer Nights” to A Chorus Line’s “Dance: Ten, Looks: Three?” Oh yeah, Momma was proud.  I think she stayed home from church the next morning just to plan my Broadway debut. 

With MTV, VH1, and the internet, my musical repertoire expanded.  Mr. Dingo, Dingo Girl, and Not a Dingo are the grateful recipients of my musical endeavors.  The problem is that once I hit puberty, my vocal prowess went the way of Peter Brady (“When it’s time to cHAAngE…”) and never came back.  I can’t carry a tune in a Kate Spade hobo bag.  No, no, I’m not being modest.  I really can’t sing.  But I can’t sing loudly.  I mean, I can’t sing but I do it loudly.  In the seclusion of my own home, of course.  Or the car.  Or on deserted running trails.  Yeah, it’s that last one that causes a bit of embarrassment from time to time.

On days when I haven’t encountered another runner since leaving the trail around The Reservoir, I feel as if I’m the only one in the park.  Yesterday the cherry blossoms blew their heavenly scented petals in my path and the sun was shining brightly.  Life was a Disney movie — before the Elton John sellout and all that Circle of Life crap.  I’m talking Snow White.  Squirrels and pigeons gathered around my Saucony running shoes to guide my steps over the uneven bridle path, so it seemed perfectly natural to crank up the iPod and start singing.  Toward the end of my run I like to kick it to Melanie C’s “Suddenly Monday.” It gives me that extra boost I need not to sit down on the curb and start crying to keep going.  Singing along is fine.  But this song makes my tired legs want to dance as well.  Singing or talking to oneself while running is not unusual.  I see perfectly normal looking people singing to themselves as they run all the time.  Singing to oneself and breaking into a jig is not normal.  It’s just bizarre.  But yesterday I couldn’t help it.  And of course as Melanie C and I are singing and dancing to “together we flyyyyyyyyYYYYyyyy….” this couple comes from out of nowhere and passes me, giving me wide berth and trying to pretend like they’re not frightened by my wailing and flailing but they clearly are.  I’m tempted to turn all Aquaman on them and direct the squirrels and pigeons at my command to attack — but I restrain myself.  I do not want to go from Disney to Law & Order in one morning.

So that’s the end of my post.  Nothing witty or wise to get you started on this Monday morning.  Nothing but Melanie C and “Suddenly Monday.” Enjoy.  And I DARE you to listen to it without dancing.

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Next Rest Area, 26.2 Miles

I can’t believe that I’ve just completed my second week of preliminary marathon training.  Ten minutes of plodding running followed by five minutes of desperate gasping for air in which bugs and other unsuspecting airborne creatures that couldn’t escape the vortex created by my desperate wheezing contribute to my protein intake for the week.  Now I know why nature abhors a vacuum.  It upsets her delicate balance as I rob hundreds of spiders and bats of their breakfast. 

While I did not start training with the intent of losing weight, I thought that dropping thirty pounds might just be a fringe benefit.  Wanna know how much weight I’ve lost?  None.  Not one ounce.  Mr. Dingo says this is because I’m gaining muscle, that water weight from sore muscles will eventually disperse, yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah....  Thank you, Charles Atlas.  He suggested that I go by measurements instead.  So I dug out the tape measure expecting to be pleasantly surprised.  I was surprised all right.  Do you want to know how many inches I’ve lost?  This   much.  See that teeny space between “this” and “much”?  Yep, that’s how many inches I’ve lost.  Thank goodness we have a tape measure with hundredths of inches on it or I might have missed the incredible improvement altogether.  It boggles the mind, doesn’t it?  It’s not fair.  I’ve changed my eating habits considerably.  On most days, I can go at least fifteen minutes without eating a candy bar.  And not one Twizzler today.  Not one!

So, someone please tell me when the weight should start melting off.  Right now, while the grass along my running trail is still wet with Spring rain, everything is alright.  Come the hot, parched days of summer, when everything green hoarsely begs for water, it will be a different story.  The sparks thrown off by the rubbing of my thighs will cause wildfires.  You’ll hear about it on the news.  “Well, it has been a very hot summer, but these are the first wildfires Central Park has ever known.  Back to you in the studio, Ernie.” Maybe I should alert the authorities now so they can start monitoring the water levels in The Reservoir.

Speaking of water, I thought that eating properly would be the most difficult part of marathon training but it’s not (I say as I wipe the grease from the fourth hamburger I’ve had this week from my keyboard).  It’s the peeing.  I have a bladder the size of a postage stamp.  In the two weeks I’ve been training, I have found every bathroom and port-o-potty on my running route in the park.  If I have the slightest sip of water at any time prior to my run, I’ll have to pee before I get to park entrance.  Running only makes it worse and all I can think about is the next pit stop.  What am I going to do in Florence?  I’m sure that the running route is not going to be lined with a Starbucks — a tiny bladder’s best friend — every fifty yards.  If Florence is anything like other European countries I’ve been to, I’m going to have to carry a pocket full of change to use the public loos.  Do they make running shorts with pockets that big? I am worried about how much change I will have to carry.  I will be the next wonder of the world.  Like the Great Wall of China, you will be able to see me from space. 

Or, even worse, I will have to resort to using adult diapers to make it through the race.  I have this image of myself being interviewed at the finish line by an Italian news crew speaking to me in broken English:

Reporter: Missa Dingo.  How does-a persona go from-a being a-thirty pounds overweight-a to a- winning la Firenze Marathon in only a few-a months-a?

Dingo: (Smiling brightly as the camera pans close, her waterproof makeup perfectly intact and her too-white teeth causing a momentary sunspot on the lens.) Depends....

Well, wildfires and pit stops be damned, I’ll get across that finish line!  Maybe not first or second or fiftieth.  Maybe the clowns on their stilts and the old people with their fancy prosthetic hips will finish before me.  I will be there though, at the very same finish line the one-man band with his accordion and the drums on his back and the cymbals between his legs will have passed only hours before.  I may not be there with bells on, one-man band will have taken all of them, but I’ll jingle the euros in my pocket like castanets.

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