Something about something...

This morning I may or may not have climbed into the shower still wearing my underwear.

(I'll let you all contemplate that for a moment.)

(Seriously... this shit totally happened.)

As I was raising my right foot to step over the threshold I thought, "Wait... wait... something doesn't feel quite right."

Water began pelting my head and shoulders while I lifted the other foot to complete the transition from dirty to clean and I thought, "OHHHHhhhh... underpants!"

Right?

Underpants.

This is just one small thing in a long list of so-called Senior Moments (which I used to call Blonde Moments, even though I'm brunette) that have been happening lately with increasing regularity.


I tried to find the bright side...


"At least I am in the privacy of my bathroom and not standing in the check out aisle at Walmart."


Then I went to the Dark Side...


"Next time I'll be at the post office and wearing my underwear on the outside of my pants and I will be forced to do the Walk Of Shame back to my car."



But yeah, the crazy is starting to rear it's ugly head more often than it probably should.  It happens so often, in fact, that I found myself googling Symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease on WebMD.  In case you aren't familiar with WebMD (in which case, I salute you) there is a section in which you can check your symptoms and see what they match up to.

There was no symptom that read "Showering in Underwear" so I moved on to the Wheel of Disease and just clicked on Alzheimer's.

Yep...

Yep...

Check...

Check...

Check...



I'm sure it's no shock to anyone that according to the internet, I totally have it.

The internet was all, "Dude... Remember the time... Oh wait.  You can't." 

(The internet is an asshole.)

And it has crossed my mind (what there is left of it) that I am no longer Of An Age where Alzheimer's is not a possibility.  In fact, if I suddenly were so afflicted, no one would say, "Oh, that poor thing... she's so young!"  Instead they would nod their heads and say, "Yep... we've seen it coming for a while now.  Her poor husband... he's so young."


Me, to Husband:  "When I am old and senile will your new, young wife take care of me until it's time for me to be put in a home?"

Husband:  "What??"


Men... so clueless.

If I'm going to be honest, I have to admit that senility has been a long time coming for me.  I've been spacing out since late December back in '62.  Back in my infancy, I was "preoccupied" (read:  clumsy).  According to my mother, I have Not Been Paying Attention since shortly after birth.  I tripped, I fell, I banged, I cut, I dropped, I spilled, I crashed, I burned. 

Long story short, it's a miracle I survived.  (I had stitches five times before I was 6.  No lie.  All my fault.  Every single time.  Why, you ask?  Because I Wasn't Paying Attention.)

Later, as a child, I was "not being challenged enough."  (Seriously... if you don't have to pay attention to your teacher in order to complete your work accurately and in a timely manner, why bother?)

Thus, a Bad Habit was born.  (Or I was born with a Bad Habit.  Either way, it didn't bode well for my future.  Thank God I was pretty.)

I skipped gleefully through school rarely paying attention, rarely taking notes (I doodled and wrote long letters to my friends, all of whom were paying attention and are therefore more successful than I am), doing my homework at the last possible second, staying up all night writing 20 page term papers that were due the next day on books that I had forgotten to check out of the library until that afternoon...

It worked for me.  Sort of. 

At any rate, it worked well enough that I opted not to change it.

Scatter-brained School Girl beget Absent-Minded Mother beget... well, me.

My catchphrase has become, "Oh shit... I forgot."

My headstone will read, "Dani's not here yet.  She forgot what day it was."  (It'll be awesome.  People will wonder if they should wait for me or just leave a note saying they dropped by.  Maybe I'll just have an answering machine installed and everyone can just leave a message.  Or text.  I prefer text.  I never listen to my messages anyway.  So yeah... if you call and I don't answer, hang up and text me.  Because if you don't, I'll just see that you called, not listen to the message, and then totally forget to call you back.   Now you know.)

Come the Rapture, I'll be watching Dr. Phil and a Special Report will cut into my Regularly Scheduled Programming and I'll be all annoyed and scream at the TV, "THERE IS NO TALKING DURING DR. PHIL!" and then I'll mute it and go to the bathroom and get a diet Pepsi and come back and wonder where everyone went.  And then I'll be all, "Oh yeah... shit.  That was today, wasn't it."

Long story short, I'll wind up being Raptured in my sweat pants.

(Hopefully some of my close friends will totally see that coming and bring something along for me to change into.  Lindsay, I'm counting on you.)


Have you ever run into a person in the grocery store that seems to know you, so you are all "HI!  How ARE you?" and you chat for a while and the whole time you are thinking, "Who IZZZZZ this person???"  and then you hug and air-kiss and tell them you'll see them soon and you come home and your mother-in-law calls you and says, "Such and such a relative said they ran into you at the store today!" and you suddenly have a moment of clarity because you just saw that person at a family reunion six weeks previously?

Have you ever not recognized the person who works at your local market (which only has three employees whom you see pretty much every day and know more about than you probably should because it's a small town, people talk, and you listen) because you see them somewhere outside the store where you aren't used to seeing them and your brain can't seem to wrap itself around the fact that maybe, just maybe, they go other places, too?

Have you ever climbed into the shower still wearing your underwear?

(Oh wait... we already did that one.)

I forget to take my ear plugs out in the morning and worry that I've suddenly gone deaf, I can't remember half the time if I've put detergent into the washing machine so I double up because I really don't want to dig through all the dirty clothes to see if I put it in first, I frequently don't remember if I already washed my hair when I'm taking a shower so I wash it again just in case...

Oh... and one day last summer I only shaved one leg.  I think I got distracted or something, because I didn't get around to shaving the other one and didn't notice until I was sitting next to the pool in my bathing suit.

It was slightly awkward.

(Husband:  "Why is one leg hairier than the other?"  Me:  "I dunno... one grows faster or something.")

If I suddenly start blogging about growing up in a small log cabin somewhere on the prairie, you'll know why.

Consider yourselves warned.


 

The One Where My Vagina Is Not Ready For It's Close-up

I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, considering I'm a grown-ass woman and all, but I avoid gynecological exams like it's my JOB, yo.  (And since I currently don't have a job, I have plenty of time to dedicate to my avoidance.)

I know that in this day and age of the Vagina Monologues and Femi-Nazis and Girl Power that I should be out there just like, "Yeah... this is my vaj.  Wanna see it?  Her name is Tiffany" or some such shit but I'm not quite there, ya know?

In fact, I'm nowhere near there.  I'm so far from there that in terms of time and distance I haven't even been born yet.

This isn't a new thing with me.... I've been actively avoiding the gyno since I knew what one was.  I actually didn't have my first Lady Parts exam until I was 5 months pregnant with my first child, and only then because I had no other choice.  He was coming out of that end one way or the other whether I liked it or not.  I'd made my bed... now I needed to climb up on the table, plant my feet in the stirrups, and lie in it.

(I made my sister go with me.  Yes, I AM that much of a coward.)

I honestly don't know why I'm so afraid.  Millions if women do this every day with no hand-holding, no bribery, no problem.  They're all, "Gotta go to the Box Doctor today.... we'll meet later for coffee" and off they go, ho hum, ready to have some dude with a miner's light on his forehead get friendly with their nether regions and crank them open with an icy cold speculum.  "Helloooooo in there....."

(They should probably send in a canary first to make sure it's safe.)

I'm not ashamed of my girl parts... as far as I can tell they are functional and normal and according to the porn I've seen (which granted, isn't a lot... perhaps I should watch more?) look pretty much the way they're supposed to.  I mean, I don't have a nose or teeth or anything untoward growing out of my business.  No one has ever complained about it or commented on it in a negative way, like "Dude.... the fuck is THAT?"  during moments of intimacy.  So I assume everything is cool down under the hood, know what I'm sayin'?

Like this, only on my vagina.

I've never looked at it with a hand mirror or named it or drawn a picture of it, but I am accepting on good faith that as far as vaginas go, mine is serviceable and aesthetically correct. 

(While I'm on the topic I just need to throw this out there before I forget:  Guys, stop calling it a pussy, okay?  Just... eww.  I can guarantee that we do not refer to it that way, EVER.  Except for your benefit because for some reason that's the only word you're comfortable with.  If we say "Would you like to touch my vagina?" you're all, "Your what?  Huh?"  Trust me on this.  I've never been in a doctor's office and had him say, "Okay, let's take a look at your pussy now..." or been in a conversation with one of my girlfriends about Female Trouble and had them say, "So does your pussy ever feel like something something something...."  because WE DON'T SAY THAT AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU.  This has been a public service announcement.)

(Also?  It's pronounced "men-stru-a-tion" not "men-i-stra-tion."  FYI.)

I have managed to avoid going in for my Well Woman Exam (doctor talk for pap smear, rectal probe, and boobie fondling) for 5  years.  I'm not proud of that... in fact, I'm pretty ashamed of that... but there ya go.  I don't know what it is about dropping trou, laying flat on my back with my ass scootched to the end of the table and my legs high up in the air with my feet pointing east and west, but I would rather have my fingers cut off with a dull, rusty butter knife under the hot, hot sun than find myself in that position.

First there are the fears:

1)  What if I fart?

2)  What if I pee a little?

3)  What if there is a terrible smell that I'm not aware of?

4)  What if there is something hideously, horribly wrong and I need to be scheduled for an emergency vagectomy?

5)  What if, God forbid, I shart??

Then, of course, is the knowledge that at some point the doctor will... willll.... stick his/her finger up my butt.


I don't like that.  And I don't know why you think it's necessary.


Recently I was fired by my doctor due to my unwillingness to let her look at my pee-pee.  I may or may not have cancelled on four Well Woman exams and apparently, this upset her.  She sent me a letter that, translated, basically said, "Dear Danielle,  Since you won't let me look at your vagina and touch your boobies, we need to break up.  Love, Doctor."

I'm not gonna lie, I was a little miffed.  It kind of reminded me of the worst date I have ever been on IN MY LIFE when a guy I went to high school with (Dear People I Went To High School With,  He was a red-headed asshole and I think he drove a VW bug.  If you know who he is and keep in touch let him know I have a List and his name is at the top)  took me to a cheap-ass Mexican restaurant in the middle of nowhere (this really happened, you guys), spent $2 on a tostada for me, and then demanded that I put out because he bought me dinner.

Two dollars.

Seriously.

When I told him NO, in no uncertain terms, he told me that a girl I knew (who hated me, OBVIOUSLY), had PROMISED HIM that I would blow him if he bought me dinner.  (Her name is on the list, too.  I've been keeping my eye on her on Facebook and long story short, I'm super glad she got real fat because that'll make it easier to catch her when I finally get around to hunting her ass down.)

When I informed him that not only was she a liar, but also a whore, he dropped me off alongside a canal bank and left me stranded in the boonies.  

Yeah.  That's how being fired by my doctor for not showing her my goodies made me feel.  It took me back down a dark, dark road, you guys.  A dark road that started with a lousy tostada and ended with  me not putting out and being kicked out of the car.

(I can laugh about it now but at the time it was beyond humiliating and devastating.)

(Okay, I lied.  It is still beyond humiliating and devastating and I still can't laugh about it.)


Since I am now Of The Age where having a doctor available to write me prescriptions is more than just convenient, it's actually a matter of Life and Death, I didn't have the luxury of procrastinating (which is something I actually DO enjoy and am really, really good at).  I had to haul out the phone book and start making calls.

As luck would have it, I found a doctor who is literally less than a block away from my house.  If I fell out of a tree and broke my leg she could hear me screaming and come running, she's that close.  (Considering how frequently I fall and hurt myself, that's incredibly handy.)   I made my Let's Get To Know Each Other appointment and drove the .09890 miles to her office.  (Yes, I drove, even though I can see the building from my house.  Shut up.  It was hot and I was tired. I was running late.  Plus I didn't want to get sweaty.  I wanted to make a good impression.  Okay fine, and I'm lazy.  There.  Happy now?)


I toodled into the examination room and played Twenty Questions with the nurse, who weighed me (whore) and checked my blood pressure (high).  As she was preparing to leave the room she said "Doctor will be with you shortly" and tossed me a cotton gown.


Just hold the motherfuckin' phone.


Me:  "Wait.  Wait.  Wait.  What??"

Nurse:  "??"

Me:  "And you want me to do WHAT with this?"

Nurse:  *blink*  *blink*

Me:  *holding the gown with one finger and raising my eyebrows in an "I don't think so" way*

Nurse:  "You need to disrobe and put on the gown so Doctor can examine you."

Me:  "I am here just to get established as a patient, not to have a complete physical."

Nurse:  *looking frightened*  "Doctor will be with you shortly."



That's right, bitch.  Hurry along now.  Don't MAKE me kick your ass.


When the doctor entered the room she found me fully clothed, sitting on the wooden chair and reading my Kindle.

We chatted about the weather, my tattoos, where I was from, and why I was there.

And then?

It happened.

Her:  "So I need you to disrobe and put on this gown so I can examine you."

Me:  "I am not here for a physical."

Her:  "I hate to disagree with you, but you are."

Me:  "Noooo.... I'm just here to establish myself as a patient."

Her:  "Well, that's how we establish patients here.  We give them physicals."

Me:  *grasping at straws*  "That's not how *I* do it."

Her:  "You're not in Kansas anymore, sweetheart.  That's how *I* do it."


Holy fuck.


As luck would have it, God saw fit to hand me an ex-Army doctor with a sweet little grandmotherly cookie-baking face and a back-bone of steel. 

AND as luck would also have it, God handed HER a dedicated procrastinator with a sweet little middle-aged cookie-eating face and the stubbornness of a mule.

This could be interesting.




Me:  "Ummm.... errr.... I'm not prepared for that."

Her:  "How so?"

Me:  "Ummmm.... I need to prepare.... things."

Her:  "What things?"

Me:

Her:

Me:  "Uhhh..."

Her:  ?

Me:  "Ummm... my vagina."

Her:  *snorting with laughter*  "How do you plan on preparing your vagina?  Are you going to marinate it?  Have a talk with it?"

Me:  "You know.... grooming and stuff."

Her:  "Honey, I'm 60 years old.  I don't care what your vagina looks like."

Me:  "Riiight.... but I do."

Her:  "Will there be any vajazzling going on or are you just needing time to get a wax?"

Me:  "No vajazzling.  Just... upkeep."

Her:  "Okay.  I am making you a Well Woman Exam appointment for October 31.  That gives you four months to trim, wax, buff and vajazzle.  You also might want to do something with your breasts because you will also be getting a mammogram.  And we will be taking some labs.  No excuses."

Me:  "Okay, good,  I'll be there."

Her:  "Damn right you will or else I will come get you.  I know where you live."



Note to self:  The jig is up.

Shit.

Well, hell!  If OPRAH can do it, SO CAN I!!!

 

I think I'm growing a hump (and other stories)

*Author's note:  If you're under 40 and can't relate to this AT ALL, just wait.  It's called middle-age, people, and it's coming for you.

I'm starting to accept the fact that I'm not getting any younger. 

Okay, that's a lie.  I'm starting to accept the fact that I can't afford the type of surgical procedures that will delay the aging process. 

At first I decided to just go with it and embrace my inner Crone.  I was all, "I'm turning 40!  It won't be so bad... 40 is the new 30!" 

I lost a shit ton of weight, got new boobs and a hot young husband (not necessarily in that order... first I got the husband, then I lost the weight.  The boobs were kind of a necessity after the weight loss left the old ones hanging down around my knees) and was Loud and Proud about being Forty And Fabulous.

And then I turned 48... then 49... and lied to myself for 364 days about how "50 is the new 40!" even though no one ever, EVER says that. EVER.  Then on December 19th, 2012, 24 hours before my birthday, I flung myself face down on my bed and sobbed about the fact that I was this close  to being half a century old.

Half a century.

That's freaking old, y'all.

I made a daring decision to Not Turn 50.  If  I refused to acknowledge it, it wouldn't happen.  Denial IS your best friend.  I staged a protest, had a sit in, drank copious amounts of vodka, and refused to answer the phone on December 20th (because if one single person had called and said "Happy 50th Birthday!" shit would have gone down, and gone down hard).

Shockingly, despite my efforts, I turned 50 anyway.   (Time is kind of a motherfucker, in case you are under 40 and didn't know.)


And I learned why nobody says "50 is the new 40!":

Because it isn't.  50 is the same old rat bastard it's always been.

Which brings me to turning 51 half a year ago.

51. 51, in case you can't do the math, is older than 50.  It's more than Half a Century.  Which means, in technical turns, I'm almost 100.

And things are starting to fall apart.

Like my face, for example.


I've always had a great relationship with my face.  I like my face.  It's been a good face over the years.

It has all the right features, in basically the right places:  Two eyes a reasonable distance apart, one nose that is well-centered and doesn't dominate the middle of my face, a mouth with teeth that haven't decayed yet and made their appearance in somewhat straight lines, a chin that pokes out and doesn't sink into my neck...

 It's served me well over time, you know?  It didn't get pimply in high school, it didn't get too wrinkled from all the sun I exposed it to during my "I Don't Care If I Get Skin Cancer And Die... I'll Look Hot In My Coffin With My Killer Tan!" years, and though it ballooned up on the feeding frenzy known as my "Let Me Eat Cake Every Day" years, it slimmed right back down during my "I Refuse To Be 40 And Fat" years without any horrible side-effects (I am chronically horrified yet fascinated by the falling faces of the people who appear on shows like My 600 Lb Life.  They look like melting candles.  There but for the Grace of God and excellent genetics could have goneth I).  My cheekbones stayed resistant to gravity, my double chin turned back into one, my neck didn't resemble a turkey and I never grew an eyebrow hair anywhere it didn't belong.

Until recently.

Slowly but surely, things are starting to change.

And not for the best.

The Asshole known as  Father Time finally caught up with me, and he is kicking. my. ass.

My eyelids are drooping, my forehead is begging for Botox, my nasal-labial folds (which makes it sound like I have a vagina on my face) are becoming slightly more prominent, and I'm getting age spots on my right cheek.

Age spots.

AGE SPOTS.

(The last time I went to the salon and had my hair colored, my stylist spent 5 minutes trying to rub one off because she thought she had gotten dye on my cheek.  THAT wasn't awkward AT ALL.)

I will now share with you a deep, dark secret that no one tells you until it's too late:

As you grow older, one of two things will eventually happen.

1.  Your eyebrows will sprout like weeds OR

2.  They will disappear completely.

There is no happy medium.

My brows fall into the second category. 

Where I used to have two very nice eyebrows, I now have none. 

So I have (or so I thought) perfected the art of drawing them on.

As it turns out, if you put your make-up on in a low-light room, when you catch a glimpse of yourself in bright light, you wind up looking like this:

Which may or may not have happened to me yesterday.

Yesterday was a bad day.

Yesterday was one of those days that gives you an atomic wedgy in front of your crush then knocks you down and kicks sand in your face.  Yesterday was one of those days that steals your boyfriend, tells your mother you smoke, and puts your bra in the freezer at a slumber party.  Yesterday was one of those days that pretends to be your friend and then talks about you behind your back.

Yesterday was a real asshole.

I had to run some errands so I put myself together bright and early.  I left the house feeling pretty good about myself.  Hair was behaving, face was working, clothes fit... all positives in my life.  I was wearing a cute sundress and awesome shoes and overall, I felt like, if not a million bucks, at least 20, ya know?  I left the house with a song in my heart and a credit card in my wallet, ready to do a tiny bit of damage to my bank account.

And then I caught a bright and luminous glimpse of myself in the rear-view mirror.

*cue slasher movie music*

Realization hit me over the head like it was mugging me and trying to steal my purse.

Make-up just isn't for fun and games any more.  Now it's a desperate line drawn in the sand.  Too little and I look like I've given up.  Too much and I look like Jackie Stallone.

Shit just got real.



By the time I arrived at my destination (Walmart, people.  Yes, I was going to Walmart.  Because at Walmart?  I am the prettiest girl at the dance) I had managed to convince myself that age is just a number and if I add my numbers together, I am only 6.  Or if I reversed them, I was merely 15.  Either way, I was good to go.

I sashayed through Walmart smiling at all the homely people and feeling beneficent for gracing them with my fabulousness.

And then?

I started to sneeze.

I sneezed, and I sneezed, and I sneezed and I sneezed.

And every time I sneezed...

I peed a little.

I sailed through Walmart peeing on my feet... and I couldn't stop.

Oh, the horror!

Ohhhhh, the humanity!!!!!

Fake it, Danielle!  I said to myself.  Hold your head high, girl... people will just think something in your cart is leaking!  Even though it's coming from underneath your dress and there is no water-like substances in your cart, they will just assume!!! 

I made eye-contact with an elderly woman and she gave me the nod.

She knows, I said to myself.  Fuck!!

I wanted to die.  Not just cease to exist, but actually drop dead right there in Walmart with my tinkled on tootsies pointed skyward, just like the Wicked Witch of the East with the house crushing her body.  (Only without the gawd-awful striped socks and pointy shoes.  I don't care WHAT Stacy and Clinton say, pointy shoes always give you witch feet.  It is a scientific fact.)


Needless to say my wish went un-granted and I spent the rest of the morning in wet shoes and damp underthings smelling faintly of pee-pee and wondering which Old Folks Home my children will put me into. 

Probably one in the mid-West, I decided.  Then they won't have to come and visit their constantly urinating mother and take her for walks in her pissy shoes.

And then I came home and discovered that I'm growing a hump on my back.

Either that, or I'm just really fat right below the back of my neck.

And all my missing eyebrow hairs have relocated to my chin.

Wasn't it just yesterday, I asked myself, that I was graduating from high school?

No, replied Self, yesterday you were refilling your pill organizer because you take so goddamn many that you can't remember if you took them or not.  And you left pasta boiling on the stove for 25 minutes because you forgot you had started cooking it.  Yesterday you discovered that you missed an entire section of your knee while shaving your legs and were closely inspecting a mysterious and suspicious mole that you couldn't remember if you had ever seen before. 


Screw you, Self!