Dr. Strangemom (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the blog)

You Say Aquariums; I Say Aquaria

As far as I am concerned, the holiday season pales in excitement compared to the Winter Olympics, but then again, I don't compete in the holidays (see prior posts about my Olympic sock-skating career) so the buildup from Thanksgiving to New Years is denouement to me.

I had no idea I was competitive; in fact, I've always prided myself on my total lack of a competitive streak. It pretty much defines me. Well, that, and that I was the person at summer camp who got fired for decorating Gary Shapiro's penis with Sharpie markers in 1971. Oh, and that I unwittingly walked around Bridgeport Village with a big "Pick Me Up - I'm LIght!" sticker on my butt from my new vacuum cleaner last spring. And no one even tried.

But seeing how the holidays don't give me a buzz the way the Olympics do, I have to say I guess I must  have the competitive gene in me somewhere. Maybe it's stuck in my elbow or something, cornered by the "I am smart" genes, unable to get a word in edgewise, save for once every four winters. My "I am smart" genes are pretty hard to ignore, what with their insufferable habit of swimming around inside of me correcting everyone's grammar and syntax and instructing everyone on the proper way to store flatware and prepare thoroughly for a colonoscopy and how to stand kinda scrunched and sideways so your back fat doesn't bust out to point that strangers cannot tell if you are coming or going. Look how those know-it-all smart genes even pushed me into using the word "denouement" up there in the first paragraph. I don't even know what "denouement" means, for fuck's sake.

They run my damn life, the "I am smart" genes. They have this humongous bone to pick with the rest of me and they really don't have to prove anything. I mean, it's not like I have a lot of ego vested in, say, my pubic hair transplant coiffure or my inedible kale-infused granola. I know what I got goin' on and what I don't got goin' on.

I mean, I know on what I have going and on what I do not have going.

Oh, shut up, Strangemom. God, I can be insufferable. 

Robin married me because of my intelligence. He just read that sentence and said, no, he married me because I put out and I could play all the chords to "Moonshadow", but that's neither here nor there because it doesn't support my position. Still, I see that look in his eyes, and in my kids' eyes, and in the eyes of everyone I stop on the street because they have used improper grammar or mispronounced a word or they just look like they could use some helpful suggestions from me concerning their overall improvement.

Once, when I gently interrupted this guy during a story he was telling at a party, for using the word "auditoriums" when - durrr, everyone knows - the plural of "auditorium" is "auditoria", he actually walked away from me, mid-sentence. Wow. Hypersensitive, much? What a baby. He still whines about it, even now after thirty years of marriage. Blah blah blah, "....of all the podiums in the world, she had to walk over to mine...." he begins his sad story of how we met.

Oh, and btw, dude? The plural of "podium" is "podia".

 

 

 

 

 

My OBGYN Is A Cricket

My friend's daughter just got her period.

Now, me, I have sons so I never experienced that momentous event, but I remember when my sister got her period. Our family was in Mexico and it had been a tense trip, what with my sister exuding all sorts of coming-of-age hormones and my dad exuding all sorts of don't-you-be-looking-at-my-daughter hormones at the guys who were picking up on Karen's coming-of-age hormones. I recall that the actual day Karen got her period she and Dad had a big fight because Karen had her lips parted (as opposed to pursed, I guess. And locked) and Dad said she was just asking for male attention by doing that. Now I have no idea who was right - for all I know, Karen had a deviated septum and Dad forcing her to keep her lips pursed could have resulted in her getting no air at all and possible eventual death. Which, probably, remembering how freaked my Dad was about his daughter growing up, would have been pretty much 50/50 on the scale of his daughter being sexually attractive to men/vs death.

Anyway, Karen whispered to my mom that night that she had just gotten her period and my mom called the Rosenfelds, our friends with whom we were traveling in Mexico, and they came down to our room and everyone had champagne.

Except Karen, who was mortified and stayed in a corner, I think. And except for my dad, who was frantically trying to fashion a chastity belt out of old huaraches and broken pieces of Oaxacan pottery.

I was about ten years old and although I got the gist of what was happening, I wasn't particularly emotionally attached to the moment. Nina Rosenfeld and I had spent that day barfing our guts out on the steps of the hotel and then, Nina got stuck in the hotel elevator and then, that same night, our friend Cindy called us from LA to say that Jayne Mansfield had been killed. Which, in my young mind, indelibly connected barfing and stuck elevators and Jayne Mansfield and convertibles with getting your period and, I am certain, resulted in some really weird shit in my head concerning sex. Which is why - now that I think of it - I sometimes fake orgasms when "Project Runway" is about to start and Robin is still having the time of his life on top of me.

Yeah, that's why.

So when I got my period a few years later, remembering the champagne and barfing and Jayne Mansfield, I told no one.

This is so much the way of the second child, isn't it? You just deal with your own shit, quietly. Unfortunately, that only works when the second child has a modicum of common sense and ability to read instructions; otherwise, that second child might wind up not realizing that you remove the hard cardboard container from the actual tampon before inserting it into your.....you know....your, well, let's just call it, your Bat Mitzvah (I just decided that Bat Mitzvah is a totally excellent euphemism for vagina, don't you agree?)  and the second child - sweet, simple second child - walks around for five days a month with an actual box of Tampax inside her, walking as if she's riding a mechanical bull and when she sits down on the hard, wooden chairs in her junior high school classes, almost faints from the pain.

It also certainly didn't help that I got my information about getting your period from that stupid ass Jiminy Crickett movie they showed us in fourth grade. I came away from that flick thinking that you get your period at age 12 and it doesn't stop - ever, even for a moment - until age 45. Yikes. That was some future shock for ten year old me. I figured I only had, like, two more years of a normal life until I started bleeding for the next 33 years.

And, while we're on the subject, why did they choose Jiminy Crickett to talk to us about girly shit? He's a boy, for fuck's sake. Oh, and a cricket. And although he seemed avuncular and intelligent for a cricket, and even though he fit into the tiny white doctor's coat and wore wire-rimmed glasses which probably cinched the audition for him, that just didn't make him OBGYN.

 Which, in conclusion, is why we eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

Walk On By. And Don't Try To Have Sex With Me. And Pass The Turkey.

The closer we get to Thanksgiving, the more detached I feel from the whole thing.

It has nothing to do with the actual Thanksgiving; you know, the food, the family, the fact that someone from outside the family is coming this year, which means that I'm going to have to watch my language and now we can't discuss bowel movements during dinner and we probably should serve the food properly on platters, with utensils, instead of, say, shoving it all into a pinata and letting everyone have at it with twigs and branches until the whole thing bursts over the dining room table.

Don't you hate outsiders? As soon as an outsider comes into your life, your sparkling clean house suddenly smells funky like moldy towels, and your whimsical folk decor suddenly looks like it was made by blind March of Dimes kids with no arms, and your erudite family suddenly seems like a bunch of sexual maniacal knuckle draggers right out of "Clan Of The Cave Bear". I do not heart seeing myself through someone else's eyes. It's all I can do to squint myself out of focus when I walk by a store window.

Plus, Thanksgiving is such a white people's holiday. It is so not badass. I mean, even Easter has a giant bunny that could squish you to get your chocolate eggs if he had a mind to, right? And Lent? Fuuuuck, Lent is so fucking badass. Denying yourself the shit you love most? That's hot.

And you gotta give us Jews our props for Tisha B'Av. We fast for 25 hours - unless we are really, really hungry and we have a Groupon for Sweet Tomatoes;  we are also forbidden to wash or bathe, apply creams or oils, wear leather shoes, or have marital relations.

I know, right? A holiday where you cannot have sex, even if sitting around in your funky, unwashed pajamas, doing away with deodorant and even skipping the psoriasis cream gets you in the mood just makes good religious sense.

And if all that wasn't badass enough, we aren't even supposed to greet each other on Tisha B'Av. Yup. You just walk on by without so much as a "Shalom" or a fist bump. This is why I love being Jewish: no sex and you don't have to say "hi".

Thanksgiving cannot possibly compete.

Then there's this whole Black Friday thing. Doesn't that name make you just a little bit nervous? I mean, we absolutely have to support it - we fucked over the black people big time and now we have to be accountable for it by standing in line at Kohl's at three a.m. because when you steal a people from their homeland and enslave them for decades before liberating them to make a new life in a racist country with a disappearing middle class and a bunch of Republican douchebags who believe that Obama and Pelosi are the Red Menaces because they believe that people shouldn't die from lack of health care, well, then, you better be willing to call a good, stable financial situation being "in the black". Because then, you know, we're even.

So I am getting my accountable white ass over to the stores on Friday. Because of slavery, you know. However, if you see me and I don't say "hi", just know I am preparing for Tisha B'Av.

And walk on by.

 

Shit That Doesn't Count, redux

1. Calories; if you eat the food on an airplane. The higher the altitude, the less the calories. I've done the math. Well, not so much done the math as wished this were true.

2. Keeping the change not owed you if you are shopping in a chain store owned by The Man. Or if you really need the change because you are thirsty and an iced tea at Starbucks is $2.30. Starbucks isn't The Man. Starbucks is kinda The Man's fairly decent second cousin. Who won't unionize.

3. Sex at summer camp. You always come home from summer camp revirginized no matter how many pine needles you have stuck in your underpants. Also, sex under the influence of an entire carton of Cherry Garcia doesn't count. That's just a necessary burning of the calories.

4. Lying. Lying burns more calories than telling the truth, so really, it's for your health. Oh wait. Look at me. Never mind.

5. Eating the cream cheese directly from your finger while taking a bite from a bagel. It only counts if the cream cheese touches the knife.

6. Sex after a funeral. Unless it's the funeral of the person you are having sex with.

7. Turning off the lights, hiding behind the couch and pretending to not be home when friends come to visit. It's okay to do that. Unless you specifically invited them over. In which case, you will have deny ever having invited them (see #4). If you have young children witnessing this, explain to them that sometimes you have to set someone free to make room for other friends. You know, attractive ones. With beach houses.

8. Faking an orgasm because you feel a hip cramp coming on if you stay in that position another minute.

9. Faking a hip cramp coming on.

10. Faking an orgasm during phone sex. Does anyone not fake that? Me, I don't know; I've never had phone sex. I hate talking on the phone even during normal circumstances. Although once when my friend David Besbris was on the phone and he was describing the glaze he made for the BBQ chicken, I kinda felt light-headed for a few seconds and imagined him naked, with an apricot chipotle glaze all over his (boneless, skinless) thighs.

 

Back On The Commune....

Yeah, so Wade and I are cool.

But is that enough, really? Is having a black friend going to give me the edge I need to take my place in today's uber-PC, "fuck convention" world? I wanna be ghetto. And not just Warsaw Ghetto, either, like my friend David said. I mean, the Warsaw Ghetto fighters were badass, don't get me wrong; they held off the Nazis by lobbing homemade grenades and rocks at them and, in contrast, when Robin was in the hospital, I could barely stop that one German nurse from giving him an enema. Although I did lob a homemade grenade at her when she was leaving the room. Okay, well not so much a grenade as a very stern look of disapproval. She got my message.

HAH. Another victory for the Jews.

Still, I just don't feel non-conformist enough.

So I am upping the ante. Ready for this?

We are getting bees!

I know I am a tad behind the trend; bees are the new chickens, at least in suburbia. But add beekeeping to the fact that I have a black friend AND my whole "we're all moving to a commune after The Revolution" thing going, and I just might be able to pull off this image I crave.

Speaking of the commune, Claire named it for us: Yurtopia.

Claire is also the one who named this blog for me, so, clearly, she will be in charge of Naming Things on the commune.

As I wrote in an earlier blog post, thanks to my recent experience with Robin's post surgical needs, I will be in charge of emptying the blood on all neck tubes and drains of the comrades. Each according to his ability, you know.

Oh, and Don (see photo a few posts back) gets the biggest yurt. Magic Brownie Fridays and 'Shroom Sundays don't happen by themselves. If Don's happy, the 'mune is happy.

Now, a few of you have asked me about nudity.

Well, I am all for it. However, to participate in Naked Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, you will need to show proof of either advanced macular degeneration or end stage dementia. I don't need anyone with keen eyesight or a sound mind looking at my 56 year old boobs. Dude, I haven't even seen them myself in the last few years. I may as well start wearing two fanny packs around my waist instead of a bra.

Yurtopia comrades with keen eyesight can hang out with the nudists but only if they squirt hand sanitizer directly into their eyes before (and after) looking at us.

Okay.

Bees: check

Black friend: check

Commune name: check

All we need, then, is the tie-dye person and the person to sit in a corner and play "Stairway To Heaven" ad nauseum on a poorly-tuned guitar  and I think we can start looking for land.

Operators are standing by to take your reservations.

 

 

 

 

 

In Which I Reclaim My Badassitude

Hey, anyone heard from Wade?

Uh-oh.

I haven't heard from him, which is weird. I'm pretty sure the last thing he said to me at the market the other day was, "yeah, you can use my name, just spell it right."  Or maybe I just made that up right now. I don't know. I'm quite wrought over this. Not overwrought yet; just wrought.

You know what? I am totally going to call him this minute while I have the courage. This means I must really be worried that he's pissed off at me because I HATE the phone. I stare at a ringing phone and go through all the Kubler Ross stages of shock, fear, denial, bargaining, anger and finally, surrender. Although surrender usually comes after the phone has stopped ringing, which works out well.

But I have to find out. Okay, I'm calling them. Shit. It's RINGING. Please don't be home, please don't be home, please don't be home...

Christine: Hello

Me: Oh sorry, wrong number.

Christine: I have Caller ID. I know it's you.

And that's how it began. But I did finally ask her if she and Wade saw my last post and yes, they did. And no, they didn't call me or email me or anything after they read it.

And silence.

Fuck. If lose my most badass black friend over this, my street cred will hit rock bottom. I may as well put on a pair of chinos and have lunch at, I don't know, Red Lobster. Listen to Easy Listenin' radio. Tie a sweater around my shoulders. Drive a Highlander.

Oh wait. I do drive a Highlander. And sometimes I get a chill around my shoulders. You know, when we sit outside at Red Lobster. At lunch. I'm fucked already.

Without Wade and Christine, the edgiest thing about me is that I am the only person left in America who still uses that deoderant crystal thing. But that really doesn't even come close to having a black friend.

Which is why it's a good thing that THEY AREN'T MAD AT ME.

Christine put Wade on the phone. He was - and you gotta admit, it takes a badass guy to do this - on the toilet while we spoke. It might even have been number two. God, Wade is so dang dangerous.

Anyway, turns out they didn't get back to me about the post because - and I want to quote them exactly - "we had a mountain of ironing to do. And the house was a mess. And there was all that work to do for the kids' school auction."

Hunh.

Ironically, my weekend featured wine and pot and chili farts and someone peeing on the couch and lots of bad words and NO house cleaning. And I haven't ironed in, like, eleven years. All the shit sitting in that basket has been in and out of fashion three times already and it's still wrinkled.

I just had an epiphany: Maybe I've got this thing all wrong. Maybe I am WADE'S COOL, DANGEROUS  JEWISH FRIEND!

Whoa. This is some righteous some heavy shit to think about.

You know, people are kinda scared of me. Well, not so much scared as offended by, but still. And just the other night in Temple, during the Silent Meditation, when I should have been thinking about how to be a better person, I totally checked out the shoes people were wearing instead. AND I coveted, like, four pairs I saw. Coveted. Which is against the Commandments, for fuck's sake. Uh-huh.You heard me.

And get this:  yesterday, I accidentally dropped my bite guard right into the slimy, funky brussel sprout stuck on the bottom the crisper and I didn't throw out either one. Well, okay, you got me there. I threw out my bite guard. But still.

And I don't shave my head, like Wade does but I do have an old lady thinning spot at the top of my bangs. And I could probably match Wade whisker for whisker if you take away my Epilady for a couple of days.

You know what? I am totally getting online and going to that Justice website where Christine shops. And I am buying myself a Zhu  Zhu. I have no idea what that is, but it sounds as bad ass and cool and edgy and scary as I am.

 

 

 

 

 

What Would Wade Do?

I ran into my African American friend today.

You know Wade? Yeah, he's African American. I have an African American friend. A real one, too, not some African American person I recognize because we go to the same bank or dentist or something. Wade comes to my house and everything. He has even been here when I'm not home.

Okay, that's not true, but I wanted to stress that we are so close, I would totally let him come here when I wasn't home. Although not with all his kids. One of them is a vomiter.

There are precious few things a nice, white, suburban Jewish girl can do that are cooler than having a black friend. Especially with my family history of political activism, being friends with Wade is the offical PC notary stamp on my life. I love that I can tap into his militant angst and rage against the machine right alongside my strong, angry African American brother.

Like this afternoon? At the market? Wade's wife couldn't find a gift card for Justice. Even though she totally saw them there the day before. Hate crime. Fucking A.

Oh yeah. They shop at a store called JUSTICE. Man, they are so fucking hot. Compare that name to Safeway. SAFE way. Puhleeze. Even I want to beat myself up for being so white.

And yes, I did check out Justice on their pink and purple website. And yes, they do sell Webkins and Zhu Zhu pets and pink go-go boots, but still. It's called Justice, for fuck's sake. I am totally shopping there from now on for all my....er....cute 'n cozy pj's and 4-undies-to-a-pack in lollipop colors.

I wanna be like Wade. I want oppression issues. Cool ones, not stupid shit like demanding a Hanukah menorah next to the Christmas tree in in front of the library or lodging a complaint that school dances are on Friday nights when, supposedly, all the Jews are in temple. Because they aren't. I know; I'M in temple and there are A LOT of empty spaces in the pews. I'm just saying.

Everything Wade does is cool. Like, this one time.......um....um....hunh. Well, nothing specific comes to mind but believe me, when you are black like Wade, with a shaved head and a 'tude, everything you do is cool. Well, except when he wears that Christmas sweater with the dog angels on it. Even Wade can't sex up that weenie thing.

Or when he hit his elbow on the corner of the coffee table and he, like, practically howled and kept talking about it all fucking evening.

Or when he dances. Yikes.

I joke. I've never seen Wade dance. It would be racist of me to try and get him to do it and I just don't see it coming up authentically in our everyday conversation. It would be like if he said to me, "oh, by the way, Jew, will you come over and count my money?" 

And I'd say, "what money? You don't have any money, homey."

And he'd say, "yeah, cuz your people stole all of it to buy the banks and movie studios, bitch."

And then we'd laugh merrily and toast to our awesomeness.

'Cause Wade 'n me, that's how we roll.

'K. Later.

 

 

 

 

Better Lunar Than Sooner

Do they still have traffic school?  Because I probably should go.

I haven't gotten a ticket or anything; it's just that the longer I drive, it is becoming more and more clear  that I am pretty much making up my own rules. The other day, for instance, as I was making a left hand turn in one of those meridians, I thought to myself, "what is a meridian? And is this one? Is it legal to be doing this?"

I find myself asking that question a lot while driving. "Is this legal?" should be my personalized license plate.

I know that a lot of my spaciness is probably due to brain overload, what with the midterm elections and Robin having The Cancer and Hanukah starting, like, forty-five minutes after Thanksgiving this year. Add to the list of shit I do not understand: What the fuck is up with my people still using the lunar calendar? Why do we have to make everything so complicated for ourselves?  Everyone else is all lined up, ready for the holidays, and there we are, the lunar calendar folk, scratching our heads, shrugging at each other and holding up the entire operation. No wonder everyone wants to beat us up.

It's bad enough that Christmas celebrators get all the Martha Stewart piney and flannel decorations and the Jews get some bullshit crap tissue paper fold-out of a dreidle to hang from the dining room light fixture while we fry onions and potatoes; we also have to do HOMEWORK to figure out when our stupid holiday is coming every stupid year. Math homework.

I am considering a conversion for that one reason alone. I want a religion with no math required. I mean it; I will go get Robin uncircumsized, I'll get in my Volkswagon, drive recklessly to a bad part of town, get me some badass tattoo on the approximate area where my butt used to be and then I will eat some bacon. With a Nazi. And I will not wash my hands before. Or after.

You heard me. Yeah, you better run.

I actually composed that last bit in my head while driving home today. I tried to write it down, so as not to forget but between getting onto the freeway, surreptitiously talking into the cell phone hidden in my bra (so as not to alert the fuzz), dipping my sushi in the wasabi soy sauce on my lap and using a chopstick to extract as much rice from the thing as possible before eating it because, clearly, it is the four ounces of rice that are making me fat and not the fourteen cinnamon rugelech I ate this week, using my brake pedal foot to scratch this weird, relentlessly itchy spot on the bottom of my gas pedal foot and holding on to that one, long, to-the-count-of-twenty Kegel squeeze, I couldn't find a pencil. 

At the very least, I probably need to stop doing my Kegel exercises while driving. All the blood rushing down to my pelvic floor, away from my brain, can't be a safe condition on the road. On the other hand, if I don't do my Kegels, my pelvis will drop out and land on the actual floor. When I least expect it. Maybe during Hanukah.

Whenever the fuck that is.

 

Pencils Down

Okay, I'm off to loll about on the couch and watch TV for the rest of my life. I have fulfilled my duties as a mother. See ya next time around, suckas.

I spend a lot of time fretting over all the shit I did wrong with my kids. Even though they are grown, even though they are kind and curious and honorable people, and even though fretting isn't going to change anything, it still occupies most of my days and nights as an activity.

But yesterday at lunch, it all changed.

Jeannette said to Michelle and me - we all have kids between the ages of 23 and 29 - "we did a good job raising our kids. They vote."

And before my forkful of Pad Se Ew could reach my mouth, there it was. Achievement. Yes, my kids do vote. Good parents raise kids who vote. Ergo...

Right on. I am all about lowering the barre to meet reasonable expectations.

One evening, in one of the parenting classes I teach, Nimah said to me, "enough with the endless discussions. Just tell us what the minimum requirements are in parenting".

To which Andrea added, "well, to still get an 'A'".

At the time, I was slightly speechless, never having given much thought to the idea of minimum requirements in parenting. Which is weird, because finding a way to do the very least is pretty much my raison d'etre. If you recall, I am the one who paid a friend to take a class in college for me so I could sleep in on Tuesdays.

And now I have an answer, thanks to Jeannette.

And Jeannette should know. She is an amazing textile artist. Also, she can bake any kind of cookie there is. Any. Those are good enough parenting qualifications for me.

Now, it makes it even nicer that my kids vote the same way I do. I'm not sure I would be claiming achievement for raising them right if they were, say, supporters of Newt or the Boner. In fact, I am certain I would return my signed certificate. And then pluck out my eyes with a meat thermometer.

Happily, however, we all wound up on the same side. Except when it comes to hippie things like love and peace and Blowin' In The Wind and putting lemon slices in your sox when you have a cold and keeping a dreamcatcher by your bed. And smudging sage to cleanse the house after you have a fight with someone, and spitting three times and swinging a chicken over your head to keep away the evil spirits when someone compliments you. You know, normal shit. My kids are not really down with that.

I guess I shouldn't have expected to raise hippie kids. I mean, a kid has to rebel against his parents. And if his parents are a pair of old dope-smoking, blanket-toting, protest-going, bare butt-showing, commune-dwelling, Amway-selling, wheat bread-baking, granola-making, skinny dipping, acid tripping, folk song singing, poncho-clinging, dulcimer-playing, full moon baying, incense-burning, Marxist-learning, toddler-weaning, leftist-leaning  Pinkos, then, really, where's a kid to go from there to make his own rebellious statement?

I should be relieved they aren't fascist dictators. Or Kelsey Grammer.

So now that I have fulfilled the Mom Requirement and I will have all this time on my hands, I think I am going to....hmmm....er.....what was it that I was going to do....

Oh, right. Lay down.

 

 

 

It's About Time

So Claudia wrote a list the other day of all the shit her someday future daughter-in-law will notice about her and find hypocritical. Claudia is a playright and an editor, and coming up with this list probably took her the better part of a Friday. It was a really well-written list.

It is precisely this kind of time management choice that bonds me to my Facebook Ladies Writing And Creative Endeavors Salon.

Claudia's boys are nowhere near marrying age; in fact, none of our kids are planning to get married anytime soon, but we all felt compelled to study Claudia's list and discuss it. It's such an important topic. Especially when Jane is late for a meeting and Claire is on a deadline for her next novel.

This whole "working at home on your own time" thing intrigues me. They did not teach time management at my high school. I am certain this is the sole cause of my lazyass lifestyle.

My niece Alia - imbued with all the ambition and work ethic that Karen and I traded in for pot in 1971 - actually showers and gets dressed in real clothes just to work in her home office. When my oldest was here last week for Robin's surgery, he took 8AM  phone consults with clients in a suit. In the living room.

I often go to work in the clothes I slept in the night before. Which were the clothes I went to work in the day before. Really, the only things I am consistently on top of are overeating and tweezing.

And even the tweezing ocassionally goes to hell when life is hectic and I forget to bring the magnifying glass into the bathroom for mustache inspection.

A lackidasical attitude towards personal grooming.

And thus begins the list of things my someday future DIL will notice about me.

I better buckle down and get to work on this list right now.

But first I better go into the bathroom and fix the DIY haircut I did at 2AM this morning. You know how ideas seem so kickass bitchen when you are dangerously sleep-deprived? And how - if you don't wear your glasses and only have the nightlight on in the bathroom - you can totally dig the coif you give yourself, employing all the methods you see Shanon and Vesta use in the shop, like cutting in sideways and twisting locks of hair before you snip?

The morning light brought a harsh blow. I look like I pulled out pieces of hair with my teeth during the night. The only positive thing I can say about my new haircut is that I have finally discovered the perfect style to highlight a double chin.

Which is enough accomplishment for today, right?