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

The King And I

Ah me.

Here it is, August, and I've nothing to show for it.

Oh, I made some decent stabs at things this summer, got some shit done, returned a couple of phone calls, but all in all, I'm still waiting - in a existential sense -  for my coffee to kick in. 

Remember "Iron Poor Blood"? Does that still exist? Maybe I have that.

Or maybe I am just the least motivated person ever.

I love laying down. I just love it to pieces. Sometimes when I am very stressed and overworked, I visualize my bed. My big bed. My King. My California King. So firm with me, yet so yielding. My King is so large, he makes me feel petite when I am with him. I want to be a better woman when I am with him. In fact, I believe I am a better woman when I am in bed. Despite my penchant for peeking at the clock during sex to calculate how many hours of sleep I'm going to get once the sex is over. 

Don't tell Robin. He thinks I am looking at his penis. And counting its inches, I guess. 

"Seven, eight, eight and a half - YAY!" I say quietly, because I see by the clock it's before midnight and I don't have to get up until 8:30 the next morning. And Robin puffs up, thinking his penis is eight a half inches. And that excites him. And that makes the  sex go quickly. And I can get my eight and a half hours. Win win.

Upright, I am cranky and my lower back gets stiff. Upright, I am always hungry and I grow despairing that I haven't heard back from the agent about my novel, and I run out of Sangria every week. I become bitchy because the last person in the kitchen didn't use Mrs. Meyer's Basil Scented Counter Spray so it doesn't smell perfect in there. I sigh a lot of long-suffering sighs, I watch the clock. I sit down to write and I cannot think of one fucking thing to say and I am certain I've already written everything I will ever write.

But in bed, when I am in the coiled arms of my King, I am awesome.

I lay on my back and try to touch each of the King's four corners with my toes or fingertips. I can't, of course, and that makes it even better. I am so small, so dainty. I'm a Lilliputian taking a nap curled up on Gulliver's big, 600-thread count chest.

When you wear a size 10 shoe, there are not a lot of times you get to feel dainty in life. Plus, my shoes are mostly round-toed clogs, and a 10 in normal shoe size is like a size gajillion in clog. Once I put my sister's shoes - both of them - inside my clog. I'm fairly certain I could've put my actual sister in there, as well. If I were so inclined.

My big sister is a tiny little thing. Mom smoked when she was pregnant with Karen, but she stopped smoking when she was pregnant with me. Isn't that great? Karen is a blonde, blue-eyed petite person who still wears a bikini. I was born a size XL and needed darts in my Onesies.

My California King does not judge me. I'm not too heavy for him. In fact, according to the specifications on his label, I could gain another fifteen hundred pounds or so and he'd still support me. As would Robin. I have two good men in my life.

I will never leave either one of them for one of those sleek Swedish models.

 

 

Hunger Games

So, Mom wants me to pull the plug on her when the time comes. She doesn't think Karen will do it.

"I'm just worried it will be too hard for Karen," she told me, "and she won't be able to let me go. I'm counting on you because Karen is so...you know..." Her voice drifted off.

I waited. 

What? Karen is so...what, Mom?

What is Karen that I am not, that would make me the obvious daughter to pull the plug? It makes it sound like, between the two of us, Karen would be keening in the corner, pleading with the doctors to prolong Mom's life, and I'd be, all, "hey, Karen, I just pulled it; how about us going downstairs to the cafeteria? They have a nice tuna sandwich."

I suppose Mom is right. I don't think it would happen the other way around. Karen is never hungry. She isn't the kind of daughter who, sitting vigil by her beloved mother's side, would think about food.

Whereas I cannot think of a moment that I haven't thought about food. In fact, I started this post last June but I got hungry after I typed the words "tuna sandwich" and I took a two-month lunch break after the fifth paragraph.

The other day at the market, the woman in front of me at the deli counter asked the guy if he would open the package of tofu sausages so she could buy just one.

"It's just me," she explained to me, "I just need one for dinner."

I laughed - you know, that convivial, sarcastic, unifying kind of "Right. Good one," snort that brings strangers together at the deli aisle, and  results in world peace.

Then it dawned on me that she wasn't kidding. She was only going to eat ONE tofu sausage for dinner.

Fuck. I eat ONE sausage while grilling the other ones for my dinner. And then I eat another one while cleaning up from dinner. 

On an unrelated note, my underpants are getting tight. I think my dryer is set too high.

When your underpants are too tight, nothing is right with the world. I swear, I could get a call right this second saying that I won a billion dollars, that my novel is going to be published, war has been eradicated in the universe, and cancer has been cured, and I would think, "My underpants are too tight."

I should probably do something about it.

I meant to get in shape in the early 90's but I never diet during Republican administrations. I feel one should beef up when social services are at stake. Just in case. 

And then in '08 I read in snopes that Curves is owned by right-wing, Tea Party reactionaries, so I canceled my membership even though we had just elected a Democratic president and I wanted to look hot for him. I took one for the party. I stopped working out. I'm kind of an ironic activist that way.  

Anyway, luckily, Mom is going anywhere. She just celebrated her 90th birthday with a Zumba party. And I Googled the Zumba corporation and read that they just donated a lot of money to fight world hunger. Which I support because I know the pain of hunger. I just ate five tofu sausages and I'm hungry. 

Let's end hunger. I'll pull the plug.

Then we'll go get something to eat.