The Fairest In The Land

It's official:  I am no longer the fattest person on the block.

Back the fuck up, Dr. Phil.  I may be FAT, but I'm not the FATTEST.  So give me back my damn sugar.

Praise Jesus and pass the butter, y'all.

A few days ago a moving truck pulled up to the brick house across the street from me.  I casually watched the comings and goings while Maisy barked warnings of murder, mayhem, and the Zombie Apocalypse for 8 hours straight.  When they were finished, she quit barking and I promptly forgot about the whole "new neighbors" thing (since I'd never met the old neighbors) and went about my life.

And then, it happened:

I was casually hanging out waiting for the dogs to pee or poop or both while they frolicked around the yard and ate grass, when out of the corner of my eye, I watched the new residents pull up to the house in their truck and climb out.

And what to my wondering eyes should appear but...

A Fat Girl wearing short shorts climbed out of the truck and ambled up to the front door of  the house, smoking her cigarette and chugging soda out of her large McDonald's cup.  (At least, I'm assuming soda... unless she's an iced tea kind of girl, which somehow I doubt.)

I was overjoyed.

(I'm sure most of you are now scratching your heads and wondering what the hell is wrong with me that I'd be ecstatic over the appearance of someone fatter than me, so let me explain.)

Even in the world of Fatties, you never want to be the fattest one.

If I were a member of the above group of heifers, I would want to be the second one from the left, in the black bathing suit with the good tan.

You can tell that she KNOWS she's the hot one, just by the come-hither look she's tossing over her shoulder.  

 

She's all, "Yeah, I look like a line-backer, but check out the cellulite on THESE porkers!"

I'm almost 50, I'm short, I'm chunky, I'm losing the war with gravity... I can't compete with the skinny young hard bodies that I see prancing up and down my street walking their dogs, even though their hairstyles are 10 years out of date and their clothes are hideous.

But plunk me down next to a badly dressed fatty?

Winnah winnah chicken dinnah!!

Who's the fairest fatty of them all?  I am, bitches!

When I joined Weight Watchers 7 years ago and started lurking and posting on the message boards, I became aware that there was a Hierarchy of Fatties.

You had the Queen Fatties:  The girls who were charter members of the Such a Pretty Face Club.  Those girls banded together, formed their own Mean Fat Society, and held a Reign of Terror over the more plain fatties.

Above the Queen Fatties were the few and far between Don't Give a Shit Fatties:  The ones who didn't let their weight and insecurities dictate how they felt about themselves and didn't tolerate the bullshit of the Queen Fatties.

(Much fighting and backstabbing ensued between the two.)

Down at the bottom were the Plain Fatties:  These girls were fat all through their lives and didn't even have Such a Pretty Face to rely on.  They groveled at the feet of the Fatty Queens and the Don't Give a Shit Fatties, offering obsequious compliments and LoL's and were their staunchest supporters, just for a random pat on the head and some acknowledgment that they were, indeed, occasionally worthy.

Example of a Plain, Desperate Fatty, in case you weren't sure.

I personally hovered between the Don't Give a Shit Fatties and the Queen Fatties, because sadly, I don't usually give a shit what people think about me and I'm quite adept at being a Mean Girl.  I'm not proud of it, but there ya go.

And let's face it, homely fatties are a sad, sad group.  Sometimes you just need to kick them when they're hovering down around your ass area blowing kisses.  

The Queen Fatties and the Don't Give a Shit Fatties could say pretty much anything and the Plain Fatties would be bobbing and curtsying and agreeing with every word, proving that no matter what land you're in, if you're the fairest, you're going to get your ass kissed.

Pretty is it's own reward.

Anyway, my narcissism dictates that I can't be the fattest, ugliest girl on the block.  If I am, I will be forced to recruit fatter, uglier girls than I am to live next door to me, just so that I look better.  (Failing that, Dan and I will just have to scout out a fatter, uglier neighborhood.)

I don't have to do that now, thanks to my new neighbor, who thoughtfully ate herself up to approximately 300 lbs, just so that I would feel thin and cute while standing next to her.

Some people are givers, you know?

Meanwhile, let me leave you with this:

Every cloud...

Thank you, God.

Fatty Confessionals

(In case you need a back story, you can read all about the time I figured out I was fat right here.)

Stupid fat.

Stupid food.

Anyway.

I finally relented and bought some bigger clothes.  I ordered them online, since my only local option is Walmart, where the same styles they were selling in California three years ago are gracing the racks in northern New York right now.

Also?

What the FUCK is up with the ugly-ass faux animal print clothing for fat chicks???  Am I going on safari... as a target?

Gonna cost a fortune to stuff and mount THAT bitch!

Anyway.

I ordered the clothes a leeeeetle too big, thinking it would be better to have them a little too loose than too tight, ya know what I mean?  It's traumatic enough that none of the clothes I moved here with can squeeze themselves over my ever-expanding ass, damned if I'm going to buy NEW clothes that I can't wear, either.

When the clothing arrived I was excited... and nervous.  What if they don't fit?  Oh my God... what if I'm even fatter than I think I am???


The good news is:  All the clothes fit.

The bad news is:  None of them were too big.

Fuck me hard, y'all.

I went through all of my really terrible Fat Habits and decided which ones to cut out completely and which ones to cut down on considerably.

(It's hard to let go of Fat Habits.  They're so... fun.  And delicious.)

Fat Habits That Need To Die


1.  No more popcorn.

Okay, you're saying "Popcorn?  What's wrong with popcorn?  It's a light, healthy snack!"

Sure it is... if you don't eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner... which I may or may not have been known to do.  I'm addicted to popcorn.  And yes, I buy the Light or the 94% Fat Free... but I'm not devouring the dainty little 100 calorie bags, people.  Oh no, not me... I'm wolfing down the big-ass bags that used to feed me AND my three kids when we'd hunker down and watch a movie.  One of the bags I was eating was a total of 230 calories.  Add that to your day, ever day, and believe me when I say it adds up.

Just ask my scale.

Or my ass.


Alas, dear Popcorn, I hardly knew ye.


2.  Candy for breakfast is never okay.  Never.

I shouldn't need to write that down as something I need to remind myself of, but there ya go.  Good n Plentys and coffee are made for each other.


3.  You won't die if you don't have a bedtime snack.  In fact, you won't get heartburn, either.  Pull your head out of your ass, Danielle.


4.  Booze is not a food group.  Rationalizing that vodka is made out of potatoes and is therefore, related to a vegetable, is fooling no one.  Not even you.

(A Bloody Mary also doesn't count as a vegetable, even though it totally should.)


5.  Butter goes on the bread, not the other way around.  



6.  Just because you CAN have two burritos doesn't mean you NEED to have two burritos.  Or half a pizza.  Etc.

No really... it's true.

No one will die if there's food left over.  The starving children in Africa will not sleep better at night knowing that the fat little piggy in northern New York cleaned her plate.


7.  Deliberately ignoring the nutritional information on the food labels because you don't want to know how many calories it contains doesn't make it less fattening.

It just makes you fatter.

And a little bit stupider.

Everyone knows that.  EVERYONE.

So last week, I did okay.  I wasn't perfect, but I did okay.   (Until I drank 564758473658 calories worth of Bailey's, but I threw it all up so it doesn't count.)

Naturally, I stepped on the scale this morning, confident in the fact that I had lost at LEAST 20 lbs due to my week of eating right and exercising.  (It's the LEAST my body could do, right?)

As I waited with baited breath for the magical numbers to appear before me, suddenly, there it was:

*drumrollllllllllllll*

A big fat maintain.

You heard me right... A BIG FAT MAINTAIN.

NO LOSS.  NONE.

Me, to myself:  "Well, I DID exercise, and muscle weighs more than fat, so I probably lost fat and gained muscle weight."


Me, back to myself:  "Suuuure you did."

Dammit.

Week Numero Dos, y'all.

It ain't over til the Fat Lady sings.

Or fits back into a size 7.

Whichever comes first.

It happened one Sunday...

Well, it finally happened.

I finally said the stupidest thing I've ever said, ever, and hopefully ever WILL say.

It happened so quickly that I relived hearing the words in my head at least 5 times before the sound actually registered and the words erupted into the atmosphere.  Even as I was reaching to snatch them back and swallow them, it was too late.

They were out there, never to be unsaid.

It happened like this:

Dan and I were driving to a camp site along the St. Lawrence River to hang out with his family, all of whom unexaplainably like camping.  

(Right?  Why?  WHYYYY?)

I'm not a camper.  I was raised by wolves campers and spent my childhood being dragged through the wilds of every remote part of the western United States and Canada, being forced at gunpoint into a canoe/kayak, shot down the fastest and most treacherous rivers available with nothing between me and certain death but a piece of fiberglass and a paddle, and tortured nightly by having to sleep in a tent with only a thin piece of nylon keeping the grizzly bears and wolverines at bay.  I spent weeks shivering in the rain, being devoured by mosquitoes and eating freeze dried concoctions that my mother never would have forced upon us in civilization, like Chicken a la King (wtf is it, anyway?), Turkey Medallions and mixed vegetables (hurl) and dried milk in our glutenous bowls of oatmeal cooked over a campfire.  You haven't lived until that was your breakfast every morning for 6 weeks.  

So yeah... I've dedicated my adulthood to not camping.

Dear Not Camping,  I love you more!  No, I love YOU more!  You hang up!  No, YOU hang up!!

(Note how I'm procrastinating about disclosing the actual Really Stupid Thing I said?)

Anyway, as I was saying:

We were on our way to hang out at a campsite with Dan's parents and some random relatives.  (The only thing that got me in the car was the promise of booze once I got there and the close proximity of a bathroom that didn't involve porta potties.)  

As we were driving down some picturesque farm roads in a part of the state I've never seen before, we passed what appeared to be a Deer Farm.  (I don't get it, either.  Deer Farm??  Why????  There are 6758495867 bazillion deer roaming the streets of northern New York.  Do you really need to breed them, too?)  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that didn't seem to belong.

Then, this happened:

These words will go down in infamy.  They will appear on my headstone.  Life, as I know it, will never be the same.

Me:  "Oh my God... LOOK!  A baby camel!"

*cue sound track of my life*

Dan:  *slowly turning his head to look at me*

Me:  *scrambling to shove the words back into my mouth*

Dan slowed down, turned around and drove back by the deer farm.

There, lurching happily among the fawns and yearlings, was an ungainly baby moose.

Dan:  "Camel?"

Me:  "I didn't say that."

Dan:  "No, seriously... a baby camel?  In northern New York?  Because, why?  The climate is so arid and camels would thrive here?"

Me:  "Shut up."

Dan:  *losing it*  "HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!"

Me:  "IT COULD HAVE BEEN A BABY CAMEL."

Dan:  "No, it couldn't have been.  Oh my God, I can't breathe... HAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!"

Okay, in my defense:

Baby Moose... Mooselet?  Mooseling?  Whatever.

Baby Camel.  

SEE????

Just because the probability of a camel appearing in upstate New York, land of water, mosquitoes, green grass, and Amish, doesn't mean it couldn't have happened.

And why the hell would I be expecting to see a moose, when I haven't even quite adjusted to the reality of deer farms???

Meanwhile, Dan had a glorious time on the drive home pointing at random bits of livestock and shouting, "LOOK!  A BABY CAMEL!"

(Have I mentioned lately that I hate him?)

In other news, I learned first hand that drinking half a gianormous bottle of Bailey's Irish Creme WILL make me throw up, possibly for days.

Me, camping.

Another one with TMI

First coherent thought this morning:

What the fuck is UP with these panties???

I basically spent the night tossing, turning and gyrating in a desperate attempt to situate my underwear just right so that they'd stop crawling up my butt and wedging themselves into *ahem* other areas.

As I yanked and pulled and tried to find a position that wouldn't encourage creepage, those damn panties just developed a life of their own and drove me fucking crazy all night  long.

Second coherent thought this morning:

Why the hell didn't I just take them off?

Riiiight.

Since I really have no intelligent response to that question, I've decided to ignore it.

Also?  It appears that I got a bargain, because MY large wedgie was FREE.

This, naturally, leads me to a TMI discussion about underwear choices.

(Feel free to chime in.  Or tune out.  I understand either way.)

For some reason, men seem to find the idea of a woman wearing thong underwear extremely sexy. So women, naturally, wear them.

And I've yet to figure out why, other than the benefit of cutting down on visible panty lines.   (Aka VPL, in case you've seen that before and had no clue as to what it stood for but didn't care enough or were too embarrassed to ask.  You're welcome.)

Which, in MY opinion?

Isn't a good enough reason to slice my ass in half.

I've owned a few thongs but can only wear them for about 30 minutes before they start driving me crazy.  

So I begin, mentally, to weigh the pros and cons:

Pro:

No visible panty lines.

Con:

No one is noticing my panty line anyway because they're distracted by my hand being shoved down the back of my pants every 6 seconds to remove floss from butt-crack.

Pro:

Men think it's sexy.

Con:

Doing deep knee bends to remove floss from butt-crack while performing a reverse reach-around is not sexy.

Ever.

That's hawt.

Let me break it down for you, in case you're a dude and are still focused on the hotness of thongs:

1.  Take a thin strip of lace.

2.  Wedge it deeply within the confines of your ass-crack.

3.  Floss it up and down.

4.  For 8 to 12 hours.

5.  Without stopping.

Still sexy?

Shhhh... don't tell anyone...

I decided to base my underwear choices on more utilitarian purposes rather than on what men may or may not find sexy.

Moving right along, let's discuss the option at the exact opposite end of the underwear spectrum:

The Granny Panty.

I'm not a fan of those, either.

First of all, I do not like billowing folds of cotton or nylon hanging out over the waistband of my pants.

Not that it wouldn't come in handy were I ever to be involved in a plane crash, as I'm sure they could double as a parachute and/or flotation device, but in real life?

No.

Also?

I feel like there's just too much excess room to guarantee that everything stays where it's supposed to.

(I know, I know... now you're wondering what I've got going on that needs to be kept confined.  No, I don't have a secret penis or anything growing where it isn't supposed to.  I just mean that I like my girly bits to touch cotton, not air.)

And let's face it:  Those panties be ugly.  And huge.  

Which leads me to:

Everything In Between.

You've got hipsters, boy shorts, high cut, commando...

Only never commando.

Never.

I have never been able to wrap my head around the idea of not putting on panties before I leave the house.

I would spend every waking second being hideously aware of the fact that I wasn't wearing panties.

I would probably begin all of my conversations with, "Hi, I'm Dani and I'm not wearing panties" and every one would think I was hitting on them when in reality, I would just not be able to talk about anything else because all I would be thinking about was the air blowing up my dress and the fear that at any given moment, I would fall down and be spread eagle in public without wearing any panties.

Or worse.

I would be afraid to sit down, stand up, walk, talk, bend over, sneeze...  (If you've had kids you understand why that might be an issue... Imagine being out and about all carefree and panty-less when suddenly you are struck with a sneezing attack and all you can do is just stand there helplessly, sneezing and piddling without any panties on.  That would be awkward.  I of course would just step over the puddle and pretend it didn't happen, but deep inside, I would know.  And sadly, so would everyone else.)

I think I'm super careful about my panty choices because of the number of times I've inadvertently tucked a skirt into the back of my underpants and went on my merry way, cluelessly mooning the world and only finding out about it hours later when becoming suddenly conscious of the back draft that shouldn't be there.

I think this is Karma's way of saying, "The world doesn't want to see your ass.  Cover it.  But not with granny panties, because the world doesn't want to see that, either."

Who an I to argue with Karma?

No one, that's who.

  Meanwhile, in my travels through the Google-verse this morning, I found this and thought it was hilarious.

Since it has nothing to do with my blog, I'm sticking it in as an after-thought.

Kind if like an After Dinner mint:

Fatty Gets A Clue

After a long weekend of pina coladas, barbecue, and Olive Garden, I'm once again sucking in my stomach to button my Fat Pants and trying not to picture myself riding on a Motorized Scooter for Fatties because the distance between my couch and the toilet is getting too far to walk.

As I was gearing up to give myself a pep talk about how "You're not THAT fat... yet..." the commercial for Lipozene suddenly appeared on my tv.  (You know, the one where the blonde woman comes on and asks, "Are you... overweight?" with the same look of disgust and shocked tone one would use while asking, "Did you... fart?")  

She then follows that delicate question by asking if you've considered "drastic measures" to lose weight, like liposuction or surgery. 

Then she talks about the horrors of being 20 lbs overweight... or even more.

And I'm all, in my head, thinking "Oh dear Lord... not 20 lbs or more!!  Surely NO one is MORE than 20 lbs overweight because that would be ghastly and practically unheard of!!"

I ended that conversation in my head with, "You stupid bitch."  (Her, not me.)

Then an angry former fatty comes on and speaks heatedly about how you "CAN'T do it by yourself, you just CAN'T"  and encourages everyone to "order the pills NOW.  Don't wait, don't try dieting, don't try exercise, just pick up the phone and call!!!"  You won't have to change your eating habits, you don't have to exercise, all you have to do is take this pill.  

She's so pissed off while she's issuing these instructions that I feel kind of scared, like if I don't shove fat burning chemical into my body, she's going to show up and kick my ass.

Which I kind of hope she will, because I have a few before and after photos to show her, of how I not only CAN, but DID do it myself.

"Say whaaaa?"  you ask.

Okay, here's the thing:

I know I post a lot of humorous photos on my blog and make horrible comments about People of Walmart and spend a great deal of time making fun of fatties.  Some people find me horribly insensitive, mean, or even hypocritical...

Because I used to be really, really fat.

Even more than 20 lbs overweight.

(I know, right?  *gasp*)

In Real Life, at one time I was 100 lbs overweight.  Between depression, frustration, fear, and inability to change certain really terrible things that had happened in my life, as an adult and after I had kids, I ate my way up the scale to the point where the Lipozene Lady would have most likely dragged my fat ass out to pasture and just had me shot.

Instead, I put my fat ass on a healthy weight loss plan and in two years time, I lost over 100 lbs.

By myself, Lipozene Lady.  That's right, you heard me... No surgery, no pills, no drastic measures.  It's actually as easy and as difficult as smaller portions, healthier food choices, and getting off your ass and exercising.

This is Dan and me on our wedding day in 2005.

This is me exactly one year later, after losing 80 lbs... without Lipozene, bitch.

I kept the weight off for almost six years.  Then slowly but surely, with the stress of packing up our shit and moving from California to New York, being homesick, sad, and unemployed, I've been not-so-gradually re-fatting at the speed of light.  (Two years to  lose it, two weeks to gain it back... how the hell is THAT fair??)

Part of the time I'm really furious with myself, because I know exactly what I'm doing wrong, and yet I keep doing it.

Me, on the couch this morning.  

And I also know that all the fat melting pills in the world are not going to fix my Fatty Brain or stop me from eating when I'm depressed, frustrated, scared, or so stressed I can barely stand myself.  (Which is pretty much most of the time lately.)

I don't care if a pill kills my hunger... I don't need to be hungry to eat.  (Sad but true.  I just have to be awake to eat.)

I don't care if a pill melts the fat out of all the food I shove into my mouth and then shoots it out my ass (Dear Alli,  This One's For You...) There is literally no part of me that wants to shit myself to death just so I can still eat a Big Mac.

I don't want to take the easy way or find a magic pill.

(I know, right?  WTF am I saying??)

I actually want to change my mindset so that WHEN Life throws me a curve ball (which it will... over and over and over again) I don't eat my weight in bread.  I want to be able to say, "Dani... instead of sitting down with a cube of butter and a loaf of bread, how about you go take the dogs for a walk?  It'll actually make you feel just as good as the bread and butter does, but won't go straight to your ass" and then actually do it.  (It always sounds like such a fabulous idea in my head but I suck at the follow-through.)

No, really... is it??

ANYWAY... mixed in with all this rambling is a promise I'm making to myself today, in front of my 12 followers:

I am going to stop myself now, before it gets so out of control that I have to lose that damn 100 lbs all the fuck over again.

And all y'all are going to have to suck it up and read about it a lot, because I literally have nothing else to do other than keep you posted on my successes/failures/foodcravings/fatness/thinspirations.

(Also?  If one person says, "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" to me, I will cut a bitch.  Trust me on that.  I have lists of things that taste way the hell better than thin feels.  Also?  I fucking hate "Fatitudes", those idiotic motivational sayings that are supposed to make me grab an apple instead of a bag of chips.  I'll grab the apple instead of the bag of chips, but I'm not going to do it happily.  Trust me on this.)

(Also?  If I wake up tomorrow morning and am missing 12 followers, I'll know why.)

Look out world, here I come.

Remember the time I was awkward?

Sorry about yesterday's post...

Since yesterday's post just screamed "AWKWARDDDD!"  I feel like I owe you all something else.  

Something better.

Something... not awkward.

*long pause*

(Yes, I giggled when I wrote that.  "Oh, I want to, Long Pause... I want to, but I can't!"  Joey on Friends, in case you have a life and aren't addicted to reruns on TBS.)

Yeah, I've got nothing.

I'm not proud of the fact that I found this hilarious.

Okay, so this may or may not have happened yesterday (speaking of awkward moments):

I returned from running errands to find a nice looking, young, clean cut guy exiting Awesome's former apartment.

He was obviously in the military, so I assumed (since I'd been told our new neighbor was in the Coast Guard) that he was, in fact, our new neighbor.  The government vehicle parked in the driveway offered proof that this theory was most likely accurate.

Him:  "Hey, how ya doin'?"

Me:  *giant smile*  "I'm doing good!  Are you moving in?"

Him:  *looking at me a little strangely*  "Umm... no... I just moved out."

Me:  *giant lightbulb shining dimly over my head as I realized it was, in fact, Mr. Awesome incognito driving a government vehicle, apparently doing a last walk-through of his former pad*

Me:  *smiling stupidly*  "OHHHhhhhh... I didn't recognize you without your truck!"

I really hate me sometimes.

The rest of the conversation is a blur... I think I said something like, "Okay, love you, byyyyyeee..." and hot-footed it up the stairs as fast as a fat girl can.

He was there again this morning, only in his actual truck, as Dan was leaving for work.

(Which, in my opinion, gave Dan an unfair advantage.)

I could hear them outside chatting intelligently and calling each other "Bro" and "Dude."

As I hid in the apartment, swearing to not step foot outside in public again until I knew for certain that Awesome was gone forever, I suddenly felt like Lucille Ball in the episode where she meets William Holden after making an ass out of herself in front of him at The Brown Derby and winds up catching her nose on fire.

Hello, Awesome dahhhling....

The long term ramifications of this is that I am never going to be sure if the young man living below me is Awesome or one of his clones, unless, of course, the new tenant is black, or Asian, or female, or obviously not Awesome.

I could ask my landlord for a description of the new tenant, but he already thinks I'm a little off since I consistently call him Bob, which isn't his name.

I don't actually remember his name, but I swear to God that whatever it is?  It should have been Bob.

Every time I say something to Dan like "Bob was here mowing the lawn all day" (refer to yesterday's blog) he says, "Who?"  even though he knows damn well who Bob is.  Bob may not know, but DAN does.  And it drives me nuts when he acts like he doesn't know what I'm talking about when he actually does.

Then we have this conversation.  Every. Single. Time:

Dan:  *looking superior*  "WHO was here today mowing the lawn?"

Me:  *already pissed because I know that isn't our landlord's name but I can never remember what it is and Dan knows this*  "Our landlord."

Dan:  *putting on his smarty pants*  "What's his name?"

Me:  "Shut up."

Which is why I can't call and say, "Hey, Bob?  Would you mind giving me a mug shot of our new downstairs neighbor so that I can quit asking Awesome if he's moving in?"

Basically, he's been in and out all morning, doing whatever Awesomeness he needs to get done before he can leave for his next assignment, spreading Awesome and Sunshine amongst the weak and the weary.  

Maisy has been standing in front of the window watching his comings and goings, offering the occasional batshit crazy barking episode just to add excitement to his otherwise dreary day.  

As I've been listening to him accomplish massive amounts of Awesomeness, this is what HE'S been listening to:

Maisy:  "ARFARFARFARFARF!!!"

Me:  "Maisy!  Get down!"

*thud*  (That's the sound of Maisy getting down.  She's uber delicate like that.)

Maisy:  "ARFARFARFARFARF!!!"

Me:  "Maisy!!  GET. DOWN."

Maisy:  "ARFARFARFARFARFARF!!!"

Me:  "I SAID GET DOWN!  NO BARKING!  NO!  BAD DOG!"

Maisy:  "ARFFFARFARFARFARFARFARF!!!"

(She minds so well it's almost unfair to all of the people whose dogs aren't quite as perfect.)

Me:  "Maisy!!!  GET YOUR CURLY LITTLE BEHIND DOWN FROM THAT WINDOW RIGHT FREAKING NOW!"

*thud*

He's going to miss us so...

No really... he is.  Right?

The one you probably shouldn't read....

*I apologize in advance for this blog posting.  It's pointless, in the sense that it literally has no point, but I wrote the damn thing and now I feel obligated to publish it.  Plus I have to go grocery shopping and then I plan on having a few cocktails after that to help me recover from this hideously traumatic day, so I won't have time to write another one.

Go with God, my friends.  

And don't judge me.

Also?  Thanks to my friend Jenifer Stewart for saving me humiliation by pointing out my incorrect spelling of the word "their."  Dear Lord, that would have been catastrophic.

People take their lawn mowing very seriously around here.

Like, very seriously. 

Almost like it's their job, which I know for a fact it isn't.  Because if it was their job, there would be more jobs available for me because everyone else in town would be making their living by mowing their own lawns.

There is a part of me that really hates them for it.

Who would hate someone for mowing their yard, you are probably thinking.

I would, that's who.

It isn't so much the fact that they want tidy yards... I can get on board with that.  Just do it when I'm not home, okay?  I mean seriously... You have 50 square feet of yard.  Why does it take you four hours to mow it?

ON A RIDING MOWER?

I had to mow a yard three times that size when I was a kid, up hill, 10 miles both ways, in the snow.  

WITH A PUSH MOWER.

And then rake it and bag it, because we were so poor we didn't even have a fancy mower with one of those bag thingies that attach to the back that collect all the grass.

And our parents didn't love us enough to get a gardener.  They didn't see any reason why my sister and I couldn't do it.

And even when I listed all the reasons (of which there were many... MANY... most of which involved interfering with my tanning schedule) they still suggested I get my behind out into the back yard and start mowing.

And by "suggested" I mean I didn't have a choice.

Meanwhile, the noise is so fucking irritating that I'm super close to popping a cap in someone's ass, if only I weren't fanatical about gun control and actually owned a sniper rifle.

I do, however, own people who own sniper rifles... ponder, ponder...

One thing I have learned, from all this goddamn lawn mowing, is that those things they're riding on that mow lawns are not called lawn mowers.

Oh no, my friends.

They are garden tractors.

And if you make the mistake of calling it a lawn mower, you will be promptly corrected and then shunned for life, due to your obvious lack of concern for proper lawn care.

You will be stoned to death in the town square for calling it a lawn mower.

And while they're correcting my incorrect assumption that if it mows lawn, it's a lawn mower, all I'm thinking is:

I CAN'T HEAR THE TV OVER YOUR FUCKING GARDEN TRACTOR, YOU ASSHOLES.

Here I am, unemployed, with nothing better to do than DVR countless reruns of Dr. Phil on OWN, and I can't even hear it because from 8 in the morning until 5 in the evening, the morning crew is out trimming the grass with the engine power that is the equivalent of one pissed off teen-age girl that would rather be slathering herself with Tropical Tan and laying by the pool, but who am I to judge?

Then from 5 in the evening until 10 at night, they all haul out their chain saws and build shit.

Or maybe they're weed eating, I don't know.  I just know I get so sick of the sound of power tools that it makes me stabby.

I'm all sitting in my house screaming, "WOULD YOU JUST HAVE A FUCKING BARBECUE, OR SOMETHING QUIET, FOR GOD'S OWN SWEET SAKE??  JEEEEZUS!!"  and Dan's all, "What the fuck is your problem?  I love the smell of fresh cut grass..."

Oh, just BITE ME.

I like the smell of fresh cut barbecue, okay?  GOD.  Is that so wrong??  Plus it makes NO NOISE.

My landlord has been driving his lawn tractor around my apartment for the past three hours.  He has on headphones, which I'm about to rip off of his head so that I can wear them, and has mowed the same stretch of grass at least four times.  

Four times.

Is there some fancy lawn mowing contest going on that I don't know about?

See?  I had no idea it was such a big deal.

Also?

I've seen people driving their riding mowers to the Big M.

No, I'm not kidding.

They park them right next to the Amish buggies.

(Meanwhile, the horses are laughing at them.  They're all, "Dude... seriously?  You drove your garden tractor to the store to pick up another six pack?"  Or maybe that's just me laughing at them. I seriously thought it was the horses.)

Because apparently, after a hard day of sitting on your ass mowing your yard, you're too exhausted to get into your car and drive to the store.

Or something.

Or maybe all the cool kids drive their lawn tractors and I'm the big weirdo in the CAR and I don't even know it.

Maybe you burn off more calories sitting on a riding mower than you do sitting in your air conditioned car.

I hate not being in the loop.

It's like when all the other kids got to wear Ditto's jeans to school and my mother bought me some cheap knock-offs from Sears or Penney's.  They just weren't the same.

Also?  I started my period in those light blue fake Dittos while at school, thank you very much, and no one told me.

No one starts their period in light blue real Dittos, Mother.  

That's kind of how I felt sitting in my car at the Big M, surrounded by buggies and garden tractors.

I just sat there and waited to start my period.

Braless Days and Braless Niights...

Ever have one of those days when all you really want to do is take your bra off?  

I'm having one of those lives, I think.

It's no great mystery (to me, anyway) that I'm a fairly smart girl... I was born on the cusp of Sagittarius and Capricorn (December 20... which is both incredibly fabulous as well as hideously sucky, both at the same time)  and spent most of my childhood deep in the throes of the Land of the Goat. (For those of you who follow astrology, you'll be all nodding your heads and going "Dayum... you must have been a HUGE pain in the ass as a child!  How did no one ever tape your butt cheeks together and shove you in a locker?" and for those of you who don't?  It means I was kind of exceptional and advanced, precocious, even... and didn't bother to hide it.  Think Sheldon Cooper meets the Smart Girl from Scooby Doo, only with pigtails, an adorable little turned up nose, big brown eyes, and a snotty attitude.)

Except I wasn't.  I was born next door to the Sign of the Goat.

My parents, being educators, didn't bother to curb my obnoxiousness.  If anything, they encouraged it.  They were all, "I know!  Let's teacher her how to sing all her nursery rhymes in Latin when she's 2 and have her perform them at board meetings!  That'll KILL them!"  And so they did.

Then they were all, "You know what would be a GREAT idea?  Let's have her READING AT A 6TH GRADE LEVEL WHEN SHE'S 4!!  THAT WILL MAKE HER THE MOST WELL LOVED CHILD IN PRESCHOOL!"

So I did.  I would peruse the Reader's Digest Condensed Books and look up the words I didn't understand in the Oxford English Dictionary.  While the other "kidneygardeners" (whom I felt it was my duty to correct and educate, I mean, MY GOD... who the hell were their parents?  Some ignorant yokels who were breeding willy-nilly in the backwoods of California's Bay Area?) were reading Jack and Jill, I was perusing Time Magazine and trying to finish Gone With The Wind while tolerating the incredible stupidity of Scarlett O'Hara.  Bonnie Blue Butler was a complete imbecile if falling off a pony rendered her dead, Scarlett. I'm pretty sure that's when I invented the Subtle Eye roll.  It's different than the regular eye roll, where you roll your eyes obviously and deliberately to let the other person realize you think they're wearing their ass as a hat.  No, the SUBTLE eye roll (spell check keeps trying to change "eye roll" to "egg roll"... fuck you, spell check... I don't need your help) is when you quietly wait until the other person is finished being moronic and begins to walk away, and you roll your eyes politely to yourself, while mentally slapping them upside their dayum stupid heads.  

Then you go back to reading your 1200 page book while the other peasants in your  Kindgergarten class insist on calling it "Kidneygarden," playing house, and reading Dr. Seuss.

Which was, in my 5 year old opinion, little more than a big fat waste of time.

Unfortunately, my parents didn't have the common sense to let me skip all the bullshit of elementary school and just go to high school, where I obviously belonged.

5 year old me knew that Dr. Seuss was just a desperate over-rhymer.

Would you like to know how to make every adult in the history of the world hate your child?

Because my parents could have written a book on it.

Here's how:

Turn off the television when she's 7, teach her to repeat, "Television is destroying the minds of the youth of America and creating a nation of illiterates" so that she can tell all of her friends and teachers how fucking stupid they are when they're talking about the freaking Brady Bunch, and then hand her the Encyclopedia Britannica and tell her to read it.  All 26 volumes.  Which she'll do, because she doesn't have tv and she's BORED OUT OF HER FUCKING MIND.

To entertain herself, she'll do things like inform her slightly racist grandmother than her father is half black, which is why her sister has curly hair. (And which her grandmother will believe for years after, until finally bringing it up at a family get together and shocking the shit out of her parents upon finding out about their African American heritage.)

Or announce, at Easter dinner, when being asked by her grandfather what she wants to be when she grows up, that she plans on moving to New York and becoming a call girl.

Or she'll possibly spend an entire afternoon artfully placing burrs in the very long hair of the horrible little girl who lives next door to her because she's fed up with her stupid questions and non-stop tattling, then convincing said horrible little girl that she's a witch and will put a spell on her if she so much as breathes a word about  it after she needs 14 inches of her hair cut off.

On the other hand, she might also convince herself that the bedtime prayer "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep" is on par with a Death Sentence and will lie awake each night waiting to die, thanks to the oh so comforting line "If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."

(That's right, Children's Bedtime Prayer... I blame YOU for my Ambien addiction.)

She will also know way more about serial killers than anyone has a right to know.

(I lived in the Bay Area during the whole Zodiac Killer debacle.  I was 5 and read the papers every day to see if the bastard had been caught.  My walks home from school by myself because my parents didn't love me were fraught with terror.)

And then she'll spend the rest of her life annoying people with useless information, kicking ass at Jeopardy (which is only beneficial if you actually audition and then, you know, win) and no one will ever want to play Trivial Pursuit with her, ever.

And she will watch endless hours of Snapped! plotting the perfect murder...

(Kidding... kidding...)

I hope you're happy, Mom and Dad.

Anyway, before you get too sad for me, right around my 14th birthday I suddenly was overcome by Sagittarianism.

Seriously.

I went to bed a Goat and woke up an Archer.

And since the sign of the Archer is mythical and mystical and is part horse, that's wayyyyyy more interesting that being a GOAT.

See what I mean?

Those of you who actually know me will read this and be all, "Well THAT certainly makes more sense..." because really, it does.  

But here's the thing:  At the time of my transformation from Goat to Archer, I hadn't even studied astrology yet.  (I was getting to it... It was next on my list of Things To Study That No One Else Cares About.)

Magically, mysteriously, almost like Tinkerbell (who was a famous Sagittarian, fyi) had landed on my pillow and sprinkled me with fairy dust, I awoke from the Sleep of the Obnoxious Know-it-all to the Wakefulness of the Girl Who Knows Her Hair Is Perfect.

That's right, bitches... I became that girl.

Okay, not entirely, but way more than I was the night before when I went to bed.

I merged into puberty without a zit on my face.  My hair feathered like Farrah Fawcet's, my boobs emerged from the confines of my chest, and I was so busy developing my mad flirting skillz that I totally didn't have time to educate the world with my massive amounts of knowledge.

I spent high school talking to whoever was sitting behind me and not paying attention, EVER, to the teacher.

I passed high school with flying colors because somewhere inside me, the Goat still had control over my brain.

Eventually, my Goat and my Archer melded into something of a compromise... In other words, I am an underachieving party girl who can still kick ass at Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit, but who hasn't done a damn thing about it.

I never bust my ass if I don't have to, I have ZERO time management skills, I AM always faithful, I DO play for keeps, I really DO mean well, even when my foot is hanging out of my mouth, which is often is, but sadly, most of all, I've turned being a couch potato into an Olympic Event.

Which brings me back to taking my bra off.

I was chatting with a friend the other night on Facebook and asked him what his idea of a perfect evening was.  He said something like, "Go out for a nice dinner, come home, take a long walk, then watch a movie or tv or something."

And I'm all, in my head, going "Uh huh... I can get on board with the going out to dinner, but where does this "walking" shit come in?  How about go out for a nice dinner, take a nice drive, come home, put on sweats, take off my damn bra, and spend the rest of the night lying on the couch eating popcorn and watching Big Bang Theory reruns on TBS?  What kind of idiot walks when he can drive?"

And that's when it occurred to me that I might have a problem.

Whenever Dan wants to spend a weekend doing something like go to a baseball game (shoot me now, seriously... THERE IS NOTHING MORE BORING THAN BASEBALL)  or go to a barbeque or whatever, and I'll make "eh" noises, and he'll say, "Well, what do YOU want to do?" and ALLLL of my replies begin with, "Stay home, lie around in sweats..."

What's implied but isn't said is, "You know, do something where I don't have to wear a bra.  Or real pants."

If I had no standards the two wouldn't necessarily be mutually exclusive but sadly, what with the onslaught of camera phones, I'm loathe to leave the house in pants that don't zip and my boobs free-falling, know what I mean?

The day I appear in a People of Walmart photo is the day that I go all Thelma and Louise with myself and drive the asshole who took my picture off a cliff.

This is not me.  I swear.  No, really.  It isn't.  *cough*

I figure with all my smarts, I should be able to come up with the perfect job where I don't ever have to take off my jammies OR put on a bra.

I had a brief inspiration, where I was all, "OOH!  I know!!  Phone sex operator!"  and then I was all, "Scratch that... too much work. Plus I couldn't eat popcorn or watch Murder She Wrote at the same time."  Plus I'd have to lie all day about what I was wearing because no one wants to hear, "So I'm lying here in my gray sweats with the hole in the crotch and the really thin areas of fabric where my thighs rub together when I walk..."

Or do they?

I don't know, because I refuse, on principle alone, to read 50 Shades of Gray, which may or may not be about having sex in gray sweatspants.

So yeah... phone sex operator is out.  For now.  At least until I'm not too fat for real pants anymore.

Or buy some bigger pants, whichever.

Back to the drawing board...

Sweats and no bra, sweats and no bra...

Oooh!  OOOOOH!!!  I COULD BE A PROFESSIONAL BLOGGER AND NOT GET PAID FOR IT!!

BOOOOOO-YAHHH, REAL PANTS!  SCREW YOU, BRA!!!

It's on, bitches.

Oh wait...

I'm already doing that.

So why the fuck do I get up in the morning and put on a bra?

Oh yeah... Now I remember.

No More Mr. Awesome

I'm pretty sure this is what was going on in his apartment.

It was with deep sadness that I may or may not have spent the entire day yesterday spying on the movers who were moving Mr. Awesome out of the downstairs apartment.

Note the awesomeness of how his moving trucks completely blocked in my car and made it impossible for me to leave at ALL yesterday.  In front and in back of my car were boxes, crates, his Awesome truck, and other members of Team Awesome. 

Proof of his Awesomeness lies in the fact that he needed not one, but TWO moving trucks to remove his belongings from a teensy, tiny, four room apartment.  (Not four bedrooms... four rooms.  Total.  Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living room.)  

I'm assuming one truck was for his belongings, the other for his Awesomeness.  

Since I was completely blocked in on all sides, I literally had no other choice than to spend my day spying on him.  No other choice.  

My observations were as follow:

1.  Even though it was the hottest, most humid fucking day in the entire history of days, Awesome outside looked cooler and less sweaty than I did from the confines of my air conditioned apartment.

2.  Team Awesome and the Movers worked their ASSES off.

3.  THE Awesome didn't lift a finger.  You have no idea how much I admire that.

4.  It took them 8 hours to wrap, box and load his shit into one truck.

5.  I didn't see them put anything into the other truck, which is why I'm assuming it was there to transport his Awesomeness.

Watching this totally made me change my Life Goals.

Previously, they were:

1.  Get a job, any job.

2.  Become independently wealthy so as not to have to work.

3.  Write the best book ever written, ever, in the history if books.

4.  Actually get it published.

Now?  My new Life's Goal is:

1.  Become so fucking awesome that my awesomeness needs it's own moving truck.

Thank you, Mr. Awesome, for Showing Me The Way.

Meanwhile, I'm going to miss him so.

Now that the downstairs apartment is momentarily empty, stomping across the floor has lost all of it's appeal.  I was a little sad last night when I was stomping into the kitchen and Dan said, "Jesus, Dani... you walk like a herd of elephants!" (because he's stealthy like a cat, don'tcha know) and I said, "So?" and for once, in like, the history of Dan, he had no response.  

When Maisy was committing her nightly hate crime against the Amish (every single night for a year they've driven their buggies past my house at 7:00 and every single night for a year Maisy has gone ape-shit crazy at the window at 7:00) I had no reason to tell her to be quiet.  (The only reason I made her be quiet before was because it was a little embarrassing.  I mean, for the first week or so, I get that horses and buggies were startling to a pug who'd never been any closer to a farm than driving past 40 million of them when we crossed the neverendingmotherfucking midwest, but after a year, she really should have been expecting it.  Ya know?  And since not once did that buggy ever enter our home, she honestly had no reason to behave so irrationally.  And since I'm a Liberal and racism is sort of an ISSUE for me, having a dog that commits hate crimes was humiliating.  I felt like it implied that I'm a bad dog parent, especially after I found out that he's had a German Shepard in his apartment the entire time and I didn't know it until, like, last month, because HIS dog was awesome.)

And be Awesome alike.

Which basically means that while my dogs were upstairs being assholes, his dog was downstairs rolling it's eyes and texting all it's friends about the fat pug and the gay pomeranian upstairs.

How Awesome's dog spends his days.

How my dog spends her days.

Yesterday, when Dan came home from work, sweaty and disgusting and looking like he'd just rolled out of a swamp, he had this conversation with Awesome on the stairs:

Dan:  *dripping sweat from the four foot walk from the car to the stairwell*  "Man, you picked a miserable day to move!"

Awesome:  *so cool he had a light frost on his eyebrows*  "What do you mean?"

Dan:  *this close to passing out from heat stroke*  "It's hotter than balls today!"

Awesome:  *raising his frosty eyebrows and looking surprised*  "Is it?"

Things I Learned From Awesome:

And most importantly...

Dear Awesome,


As much fun as I had at your expense, I never forgot you were a Marine and that I owe my freedom to you and your Team.  Thanks for a year of entertainment and most of all, thank you for your service.  


Go with God and I pray for your continued safety and happiness.


Love,


The Noisy Bitch Upstairs