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

You Go Home With The Congressperson That Brung You

There's something about the day after the day after the State of the Union address that makes me want to take some time off of my usual routine and just mull over what our President said. Well,that's how I feel these years, at least. During the Bush years, I pretty much just wanted to take the day off and hit myself repeatedly over the head with a hammer.

I begin with a hard-hitting observation: Michelle's dress. Oy. I wanted to tell her what Grandma Eva used to say when she didn't like what her granddaughters were wearing: So, bubbeleh, so if you ever have the chence to not wear that dress again, so don't.

Still, I suppose that even Michelle is allowed a few Glamour "don't"s, so I'm gonna let it go and focus instead on the radical seating arrangement at the event.

I set out to do some research on seating arrangements of the past.

I began my research this morning by making Ak Mak and Swiss cheese sandwiches and taking them into my office. And then, being thirsty, I made some lemon and ice water. Then I had an EmergenC because my throat is feeling a little bit sore today and when your husband has cancer you have to hit the vitamin C super hard because you don't want to be the kind of wife who keeps interrupting your husband's body scan to complain to the radiologist about her sore throat. Even when your tongue has a white-ish coating on it and everything tastes like pennies and, frankly, sometimes it feels like my uterus is going numb. Oh wait, do I still have a uterus?

Hold on.

Hunh. Maybe.

I pulled down my pants just now but I had no idea where to look. So I called my sister and she said to stop bothering her every time I can't remember which body parts I still have.

Hey, my 58 year old sister didn't even know where her hymen was until, like, four years ago. See, that's what we get for all that 60's alternative education - a Sex Ed class where we made Fallopian tubes out of paper mache and miniature Abba Zabbas. So don't judge me for not knowing how to do a uterus check. It's hard enough to remember to put air in my tires.

I have no idea how to segue back to the SOTU address.

I'm not a fan of forced seating arrangements. I used to hate it when my teachers made us sit "bad kid - good kid". I guess the thinking was that the good would rub off on the bad, but all that rubbing just resulted in a rise in teenage pregnancy. Still, sitting that way was better than the dreaded "tall kids in the back" arrangement. Those of us girls who had reached our adult height in third grade -sporting Coke-bottle glasses and girl mustaches- were sent to the last row to sit with the boys and one, I don't know, nineteen year old man who, after ten years, still couldn't get the hang of long division, who threw flirty spitwads at the girly girls in the front row who were looking all petite and shit in their shirtwaist dresses.

I cannot imagine the social pressure that Mark Udall unleashed when he called for this unorthodox seating on Tuesday night. I bet for weeks, Congresspeople were waking up early, putting extra product in their hair, using the real deodorant instead of eco-friendly Tom's of Maine - which we all know, is useless in any situation other than fast asleep in a freezer - and bringing fresh muffins to work, all in the desperate hopes that they will be asked to sit with someone good at the speech. Except for Michelle Bachmann, of course, who has issues about sitting with Democrats. Personally, I think her issues are about sitting at all, since whatever huge bug she's got up her ass cannot be comfortable, but God bless.

Still, I wonder about what went on behind the scenes of the integrated seating. I wonder if they were all smiles and sweetness for the cameras and then Udall tweeted shit like, "For fuck's sake, DeMint, pop a Beano!"

I think next time they should sit by height. And the back row can throw spitwads at Clarence Thomas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Santas

You know what I suddenly miss? Christmas movies. Especially the ones where a regular person turns out to be Santa, and only some loser, unpopular child knows the secret. I just can't get enough of those Santa-disguised-as-Everyman stories. They are so realistic.  They could totally happen.

If my life were a Christmas movie, I would star my dog as Disguised Santa. Well, it would have to be a conglomeration of all my dead dogs because how can I choose just one? Oh, and that barfy, toothless cat we had, too. And our very first pet, Moses the duck. Oh,and I suppose I better add the souls of the poor dead turtles that my sister Karen and I used to beg our parents to buy us from Olvera Street; the ones we'd play with for about six minutes, grow tired of putting them on their little plastic islands with the fake plastic palm tree in their little plastic pools, and leave them to die in the hot LA summer sun.

Yeah, I owe a huge karmic debt to the turtles. We really fucked them up. I hope the Afterlife is not a giant turtle world and Karen and I are going to be their playthings. Although, Karen and I could totally be down with being left in a pool in the hot LA sun for days on end. We are diehard tanorexics. And Karen eats, like, nothing, so she'd be fine for at least a week. I'd get pretty hungry but that's the price I'd have to pay for leaving turtles to die in the sun when I was six. Still, maybe I could flirt my way into getting some crackers or something from a turtle guard who didn't know how badly I treated his brethren. Wheat Thins. And maybe a cold Diet Coke. And a tan. That would be nice.

Our turtles had a nice life for the first day or so. A teeny little pool, a shady plastic palm tree on the island in the middle of the pool, food...and....oh right. Neglect. A slow, horrific death. Not to mention that the beautiful designs painted on their shells were surely done with toxic paint. Oh God, we were monsters.

How do I make this right? Well, I have never, ever eaten turtle soup, and I never will. And I spent, like, a bazillion dollars on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures when my boys were young. My TMNT action figure money alone probably funded dental care for turtles from developing nations between 1989-1993.  That's gotta count for something.

And I always tread carefully on sand, lest I disturb turtle eggs nesting under my feet. You know, in case there are baby turtles growing on Zuma beach. Or the Oregon coast. Or the Hamptons last summer.

Oh, and all my purses and belts are pleather. Never turtle. Well, okay, I don't have any belts. Any that fit anymore, anyway.

I have to admit that my shoes, however, are leather. But in my defense, I am very conflicted about it. I always feel very bad about myself when I put my shoes on. And, as I have told my children their entire lives, the important thing is that you feel bad.

 Also in my defense, they are Danskos and gorgeous. My shoes, not my kids. Well, my kids are gorgeous, too. But they are not Danskos.

I digress. This post was about Christmas movies.

Speaking of which, you know what else I miss?

My red Danskos with the green stitching.

 

 

 

 

Particle Man

Robin and I are sleeping apart.

It’s not the first time in thirty years of marriage that he has retreated to the downstairs couch and it probably won’t be the last. We’ve been here before. There was the time he spent three hundred dollars on a wood chipper when we had a specific agreement that neither one of us can spend more than two hundred dollars without discussing it with the other one first.  And then there was the time he refused to apologize to me for siding with the nurse when she said I was not dilated during labor with our second kid, and I TOTALLY WAS FULLY DILATED. That particular fight occurred seventeen years after the baby was born, when I was retelling the story at a dinner party, but still.  In fact, just talking about it now kinda pisses me off at Robin. And the baby will be twenty-five next autumn.

     Once, I even bolted the downstairs door shut so he couldn’t get upstairs if he wanted to. I was really mad that time although right now I cannot remember why. And anyway, I unbolted the door after, like, ten minutes because I am a hand wringer by nature and the worry about a fire or other disaster ultimately trumped my anger. I will never make a good torturer. I’d be, all, I am totally gonna waterboard you now, and then I’d think to myself, oy gevalt. A person could drown that way. Or get very scared and develop a psychological issue. And then I’d put away the bucket and we’d talk about feelings for a while. Maybe have a nice piece of cake or something.

     Still, this time Robin has really moved out. He took his stuff downstairs – pillows, blankets, toiletries – and settled in downstairs. I snuck down and took all the good towels and sheets, leaving him with the old schmattes we inherited from my parents and the funky crap the kids brought back from college with them. I also gathered my favorite books and CD’s from downstairs and squirreled them away up in our (my) bedroom. He is not going to even touch my stuff.

     We are going to live this way for two weeks.

     Doctor’s orders.

     Robin has begun radioactive treatment for cancer, and he is quarantined until he can no longer contaminate the rest of us. In the old days, a person went to the hospital to remain in isolation for the duration of this kind of treatment, but I guess now the doctors figure that he has less chance of catching, I don’t know, diphtheria or polio if he stays at home. I hear that some people go to hotels for a week or so. That idea, frankly, appeals to me in a huge way, but leaving his radioactivity for some unsuspecting hotel maid would bring some really bad karma on us. And between Robin’s ethics and my nervous Jewish stomach, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it.

     And so it begins.

     We are three days into this sixteen-day adventure. I prepared for this event for days; I covered all the remote controls and his computer keypad with plastic wrap, I sealed off shelves in the bathroom armoire, I took all the clean laundry that usually languishes on the couch and dumped it upstairs on the guest bed. I used up all my adrenaline by yesterday afternoon. Then I spent the rest of the day eating vanilla pudding and drawing pictures of Spiderman and making copies of those fallout shelter signs and pasting them all over our front door. And then I took them down because what if we need the paramedics and they won’t come in because Robin is radioactive?

     And then I put them back up because, you know, karma. And being forthcoming. And all that crap.

     God, it is exhausting being an ethical person.

     Robin was diagnosed with cancer on our thirtieth wedding anniversary. Really. Thirty years earlier, we stood under the chuppah and Robin’s dad – a Universal Life Church minister ordained by mail –blessed our union while the golf course next door blasted their announcements through a P.A. system that, I swear, was intended to bring in ships from the deep sea.

     “Stevenson, your golf cart is ready. STEVENSON!” Those were the words we heard as Robin and I kissed for the first time as husband and wife. Even now, sometimes when we kiss, I like to break away and yell, “STEVENSON!” Oh, and we laugh merrily. And then Robin says, “Can you stop doing that, really? After thirty years, it’s still not funny.” And then I get all huffy say to him, “Really? Uh, which one of us is the comedy writer and which one of us works in solar technology?”

     And then he rolls his eyes and says, “I don’t want to fight. I just wanted to kiss you.”
     But I can’t let it go.

     And then he says, “If you don’t want to have sex, just say so.”

     I love how he gets me.

     So. It’s almost nine o’clock on the morning of Day Three. I am waiting to hear him ring his bell, to let me know he’s up and ready for breakfast. I’ve already eaten two breakfasts- you know, to keep up my strength for the days ahead. I have been power eating and carb loading since, it seems, the diagnosis. For my strength, of course. I have gotten so strong already that my underpants are tight.  If I get any stronger I’m gonna have to dig out my twenty-four year old maternity underpants. Which will piss me off at Robin all over again because he didn’t believe me when I said I was dilated.

     But then I will remember that he has cancer. And I am heartbroken over it.

     This is not how we thought we’d celebrate our thirtieth year together. But in a weird way, this is exactly the kind of thing that reassures us we are a strong, enduring couple. We’ve got each other’s backs in life’s crapstorms. He lives with my varicose veins and my drooly bite guard, and the little quirk I have about forbidding him to cook or eat any stinky food when I’ve just washed my hair. I live with his ear whiskers and the fact that he still thinks it is hilarious to pull my pants down when he is following me up the stairs. We could both have done worse.

     Thirteen more days of isolation. Thirty-nine more meals from the No-Iodine diet that prepares his body for the radioactive medicine. We’ve finally figured out a system for getting food to him: He opens the door at the foot of the stairs and reaches up as far as he can. I stand on the landing and lean over the banister and stretch and reach and lunge until I spill hot soup on his arm and he screams in pain. I am also doing my part by eating all the bread in the house that contains iodine. Which is, all bread. I know, I’m an awesome wife.

     When this is all over, when Robin is pronounced healthy we are going to celebrate our anniversary. Even if it’s a year late. We’ve been talking about having a big party or going to Mexico or maybe just staying in bed and eating sushi and watching “Cash Cab”. It doesn’t matter.

     What matters is that we have at least another thirty years together.

     So Robin can realize that I was really, truly, fully dilated and he totally owes me an apology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dickileaks and Vagileaks

Claudia and Doug came up with two stellar words last week to describe when people sleep around and then blab about it:

Dickileaks and vagileaks.

Although, come to think of it, vagileaks was how Claudia described what happens when middle-aged women laugh too hard. But it could work both ways.

Now me, I don't sleep around and tell. Mostly because Robin wants to believe he married a virgin thirty years ago. Or at least, a refurbished virgin ("if you haven't seen it, it's new to YOU").  So he isn't down with all my stories about the old days.

Except the story about that boyfriend I had in another country. Before I spoke the language.The one that was so kind and spoke to me really slowly so I could understand. And he was so beautiful. So we didn't really have to talk much.

And then, a few years later when I was living in the States again, a friend from the old days came to visit. And after a few uncomfortable conversations about my old boyfriend, she let it slip that my slow-talking, gentle, beautiful boyfriend was, in fact, mentally challenged. Like, alot. And that all my friends really wondered what the fuck I was all about, coming to their country - an intelligent young woman - and shacking up with the village simpleton.

Oh, Robin cannot get enough of that story. In fact, when he was going in for cancer surgery a few months ago, he asked me to tell it again, just to cheer him up. And I did. And it did. He just laughs harder and harder every time he hears me tell it. He practically busts a gut at the end, where people say to me, "What? You didn't even KNOW he was, you know, mentally challenged????" And I have to say, in my defense, that those first weeks in a new country, our vocabulary was pretty much well-matched. And so what if he used a comb to cut his chicken or washed his hair with moldy leaves. It coulda been a cultural thing.  Who was I to judge?

And of course, comes the inevitable question of when, exactly, did I figure it out and is that why we broke up.

I really, really, really want to say that I figured it out in a few hours and gently exited the picture, leaving him to his second grade workbooks.

But the fact is (and this where Robin actually forgets he has cancer, he is so cheered by the story) I finally figured it out seven years later, when my friends came to visit and told me. Yup. I never figured it out by myself.  I know, what the fuck is up with that? I can't believe it myself. I never noticed.

Well, I do know why:

I am pretty much all about ME in a relationship.

It's a blessing and curse, I suppose. I could have a  boyfriend who, I don't know, is missing a nose, or raising wild monkeys in the living room, or who dresses up like Eva Braun and it would take me a long time to get it. I once lived with a boyfriend who actually barfed in bed next to me after hanging out in bars most nights and I never figured out that he was a drinker.

Yup. Me me me me me me me me me me me me.

Oh, and you.

 

 

 

Maybe Yes, Maybe No; What's For Sure Is Maybe

I am in decision-making mode today.

Generally, I have no problem making up my mind. I can walk into Baskin Robbins and, by the time I'm first in line, I know exactly what I want: Popcorn. I bought my car within a half hour of arriving at the dealership. I bought my wedding dress in twenty minutes, at the first store my mom and I entered. Well, not store so much as stall, as I bought it in LA, on Olvera Street, from a vendor who also, later, scored me some decent Quaaludes.

My point is, I do not dwell in uncertainty. I hop out of uncertainty like it's a bathtub filled with scalding, radioactive water. I usually don't even care if my decision is the right one, or even a good one, as long as it's quick, marginally legal and can be treated with antibiotics. You know, like sex.

But I have been dragging my feet lately about this one thing and it's enough already.

You see, I need to buy a new bra.

My actual age is 56 but my Boob Age (in which you take your chronological age, multiply it by the number of children you had, divide it by the number of bathrooms in your house, subtract the times that just thinking about Sarah Palin has forced you to feel all woozy and nauseous and shit, and then add two extra years for each box of Wheat Thins you've eaten in the car on the way home from the market and then thrown the empty box away before walking into the house) is, like, four gajillion.

And hear me, Olga and Victoria and Maidenform - yeah, you, Miss M, looking all innocent and shit in your all cotton cups -  the lacey, plunging little numbers I used to wear no longer do the trick now that I am in Boob Age. (Which, for you anthropaleogeology buffs, immediately follows the I Don't Look Too Bad For Someone Who Has Nursed Two Babies Age, and preceeds the promised land of Ages, the Oh What The Fuck Do I Care Anyway, He's Either Horny Or He's Not And I Am No Longer Going To Keep My Bra On During Sex Because, Honestly, Who Do I Think I am Kidding Age.)

Imagine my boobs as Afghanistan and my current bra is our military fighting there. Yeah, we suit up and look the part but are we really holding up our end of the deal? Or, honestly, is the foundation collapsing around us?

I set out the other day on a reconnaissance mission to the Nordstrom bra department.

The bras were tagged with some sort of enticing call-out, like "Look! No seams!"  or "My straps won't slip!"  or "Help! I'm a bra! Get me the fuck outta here!"  Each bra's headline was cleverly worded to lure me in. Support? Yes, thank you. Great tee-shirt bra? But of course. Banded side slings? Well, I have no idea what that means and frankly, I am a little bit nervous, but sure, why not? I'll pretty much try anything once.

The problem is, of course, that bras are lying motherfuckers.

I called out to the saleslady, who was approximately twelve years old and, from what I could ascertain, was sporting a diaphanous camisole and two butterfly bandages in place of a proper brassiere.

"These bras don't seem to be, um, doing what they say they will do." I whispered.

"Ma'am, not everyone is going to have the same success with them, of course," she replied after peeking her head in and seeing me with bits and pieces of bra and elastic and hooks and eyes cutting so deeply into various folds of my body it looked as though I was birthing them.

Not everyone has success with them? Then why do the bras call out with promises? Their tags should read, "May or MAY NOT hold up those ridiculous wet sandbags of yours".

It's kinda like the TV commercials for medications that warn they "may cause extreme drowsiness or manic agitation; sore throat or lack of sore throat; increased appetite or a disinterest in eating; constipation or continuous anal seepage; sudden death or a rich, full life; may cause your body to emit a powerful musk that will force the opposite sex to strip naked in front of you and buy you a Range Rover, OR you may revulse all mammals to the point of being cornered and spit upon."

You know, maybe. No promises.

Well, I am a person who wants promises. Certainty. Guarantees. Iron-clad agreements. Gratuitous praise. More wine. Shut the door. Leave me alone. Wait, come back. Do you have any pretzels?

Uh, where was I?

Right. I need a bra.

Although, right now, I'm thinking that pretzels and wine are gonna do the trick.

 

Blue Balls Under My Pants On Fire

I can't even get started on Sarah Palin. My head will fall off.

But I will take a few moments to muse about what it feels like to wait for snow.

I grew up in LA and moved to the Pacific Northwest only fifteen years ago, so winter is still a big deal to me. And when snow is predicted, when snow days are promised, when we get a handful of flakes and then...nothing, well, it's the weather equivalent of having blue balls.

I am horny for snow. I want it so bad. I look at the news, footage of the East coast storms and I think to myself, "I would totally hit that."

Snow is the ultimate Absence Excuse/Tardy Excuse/ Get Out Of PE note. It's from GOD. Which only goes to prove that even the Lord understands how fabulous it is to stay in your jammies all day, eat the unhealthy peanut butter (the one that can live, unrefrigerated, in your cupboard for, like, ten years) from the earthquake kit and catch up on all the episodes of Sister Wives.  And, just because I am on the subject, I bet God would agree with me that the concept of sister wives is kinda cool, but that Cody dude is a douche. Seriously, if I was going to share a man with a gaggle of like-minded gals, I would pick someone way more worthy. Like, Barack Obama.

I'd totally be in the 'Bam's stable.

I'm not sure Michelle would dig it. Or maybe she would. She's kinda hard to read on the subject of sharing her man. If I ever get a chance to meet her, remind me to ask her if she watches "SisterWives" on TLC.

Actually, there is no one more worthy of a stable than my Robin. I tend towards the hermit, Unibomber lifestyle and Robin tends towards the normal, healthy, social one. He's been okay with my tendency towards agoraphobia for the past thirty -one years, but I think he's getting ansty lately.  The other night, he came into my office, saw me in my pajamas and bite guard, typing away at the computer, lemon water by my side, and said to me, "you know it's only 7:15, don't you?"

I had to think really hard about what his point was.

"Did you want to go out somewhere?" I asked him. I said the words go out with the horror one would say, for instance, stab kittens. Or taunt the poor.

He gave me a long look during which, I imagine, he willed himself to list all my good qualities. Come to think of it, it wasn't such a long look.

"You know what?" I said after a moment, "you're right. Let's go out. I'll go get dressed."

I know, right? I am an awesome wife.

Only thing is, he knows my game. He knows that I'm not going anywhere. He knows that I know that he isn't going to force me to go out, just like he knows that I know that he isn't going to force me to turn off the TV when he wants to sleep and I need it on because in the silence all I can hear are the voices (the voices! the voices!) even when I haul my body out of bed and say, "you sleep. I'll go watch TV downstairs. In the cold. Dank. Where you once saw a mouse."

It's the little things, the habitual lies and nefarious manipulations, that keep marriage alive. And keep my man at home, every night, bored, itching for a social life, for thirty-one years.

It also can't hurt if, when we climb into bed tonight, I picture Robin as snow.

 

 

Where I Did/ Not Like His Penis, redux

20100 is all about simplifying, right?

So I have only one resolution this year: I will write a book to accompany that awesome title I came up with a few months ago - Where I Did Not Like His Penis.

The initial intention was write it ala Dr. Seuss, but after "I did not like it near my anus; Lord, that was a wee bit heinous", everything else seemed, you know, denouement. A writer has to know when she's peaked.

Although, now that I think of it, these are frighteningly homophobic days; I worry that people would think it was an anti-gay thing, you know? And although I, myself, am not a fan of the where fudge is made activities, well, God bless the rest of you who are.

Hunh. Now I am even rethinking the awesomeness of the title. What if the Westboro Church gets wind of it and co-opts it for their own nefarious purposes?

Maybe I better write something called, "Where I DID Like His Penis", you know, so as not to infer anything anti-gay. Well, THAT would be a short story.

No, no, no, I don't want to sound anti-sex, either. I am a fan and a player. I even have my own glove and balls. Ha ha ha, I have no idea what that means but it's funny, right?

It's just that I really liked that title.

Maybe if I switch around the emphasis, it would be less problematic. I could try it this way:  Where I Did Not Like His Penis, as if I'm dissing one specific, unlikable penis. Like, say, Alex Trebek's.

Or, how about Where I Did Not Like His Penis. As in, but you might get a kick out of it down there, bless your heart.

Wait! I've got it: Where I Did Not Like His Penis. As opposed to, maybe, his Flowbee Vacuum Haircut System. I'm just saying.

No, it's not gonna work. I suppose I will have to find a different resolution for 2011 and that is going to be no picnic, let me tell you. I cannot think of one thing about myself that I can honestly muster up the motivation to change. Frankly, I wouldn't know what to do in the mornings if I didn't have to deal with my headache, hunger and self-loathing. I am just not one of those happy, self-actualized people who rise with the morning sun, eats their Kashi Go Lean and produces a perfect poop before jogging to their Flex Cars to go off and, I don't know, feed the orphans. I'm more of a stagger blindly to the bathroom, sit on the toilet, moaning, until the Prozac kicks in type of gal.

You know, a trophy wife.