A day in the life:

Maddy: Brady, Mom’s taking us to the donut shop!
Brady: The donut shot?
Maddy: No, shoP! ShoP! Shop, with a P.
Brady: The Pee Shop? I don’t wanna go to a Pee Shop!

My Biological Alarm(ing) Clock

You know the phrase, "My Biological Clock is ticking!"?

I don't.
I know the phrase, "My Biological Alarm is going off! AND I KEEP HITTING THE SNOOZE BUTTON!"

My genetic makeup is such that I will always enjoy the company of my friends. I will, most likely, always enjoy the occasional dips into the pool of Chemical Substances. I don't want to cut either of those out of my life entirely, but I am becoming increasingly aware of the futility of "the scene." I've said all this before. I usually stop there, but tonight I feel like taking this point through its logical progression. (Please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle. Do not disembark until the ride has come to a complete stop.)

I want to settle down. I want someone to find enough worth in me to pledge unconditional love. I want to have fights without anticipating a break up. I want to fight over the remote control. I want someone to acknowledge the fact that I had a hard day and tell me "good job," and cuddle. I want someone to back up my parental decisions and occasionally tell the kids, "You heard your Mom." I want someone to notice when I make the bed.

I have, almost overnight, developed the compulsion of checking the ring fingers of strangers' hands to see if there's a band there. Everyone who appears to be over the age of 18 is getting their left hands covertly ogled by me. Young, old, fat, skinny, balding, wearing socks with sandals, it doesn't matter. I am so interested in knowing who is part of this elusive club.

I'm pa"NIK"ing.
It's all too much, it's way too soon, but I just want to secure a place in that big Happily Ever After. NOT ANYTIME SOON, mind you, but maybe one day. You know, in that window of opportunity right between pigs flying and hell freezing over- that's when I see it happening.

This entry is such a mess.

May 3rd, 2006

and then there was one.

Mosquit-oh-my-god! I'm PEST-rified!

So, there I was.
I finished the novel I've been pouring over for the last couple days, smoked my last cigarette of the evening, text-messaged the boy to say goodnight. All that was left of my exhausting day was the requisite washing of the face and brushing of the toothoids. I got up out of bed and shuffled to the sink.

So, there he was.
It's not every day that I'm faced with an insect in the safehaven of my own home, and certainly not often that said insect is the size of my own clenched fist. This mosquito was so large that I immediately named him Maximus. Or Claudio. Maybe Mosquimoto... but that's neither here nor there. This was a bug so intimidating , the only way it could have possibly gotten into my house was by dressing up like a door-to-door vaccuum salesman, ringing the doorbell, and then buzzing in, knocking over my roommate. I figure that its next step was to hide out in my bathroom until my guard was down. If he had his way, you'd be reading about my death in tomorrow's headline: "Serial Blood Sucker Strikes Again!" I'm just lucky the damn thing didn't fly out from behind the bathroom door, shout "BOO!" and then make off with my purse.
I was certain that this thing could have drained me of all the blood in my body faster than I could chug a Bud Light. I wasn't so worried about a few pesky, itchy bumps as I feared it flying off into the night carrying my children. For that, Dracula must die. I must wage in hand-to-wing combat. I must gain the respect of tabloid readers all over the world by slaying the real chupacabra!
My first reaction was to run for my life. The odds were already against me- although we'd both be in the same weight class, he's got three times as many limbs as I do, not to mention the whole flying thing. He can suck blood and implant disease- what the hell can I do, aside from flinging a shoe?

So, there we were.
He bobbed and weaved like Ali.
I flailed and swung like a mental patient on an acid trip doing the hokey-pokey.
He feigned disinterest and flew up into the shutters high above my shower.
I clenched my teeth, channeled Schwartzenegger, and hopped in the tub. Balancing precariously on the rim, I jabbed at the shutters with my weapon of choice- an Old Navy Flip Flop- taunting my enemy to come out of hiding and prepare to meet his doom.
That sly fucker waited, bid his time, until I tried to gain more altitude by shoving the ball of my right foot onto a ledge about waist high on the shower wall. He had the patience to hide out until I hoisted myself up.
He dive-bombed me like a kamikazi.
I screamed like a girl.
With one foot on the tiny projection from the wall, one hand on the windowsill, and the other hand gripping both my sandal and the top rail of the sliding-glass shower door, I had a limited range of motion and no balance to free up a hand to swing with. I'm not sure if karate kicking a bug with one dangling limb was the greatest idea, but it was all I could do.

So there I was,
shreiking, swinging like Tarzan, practically bicycling midair in my shower, thinking that I have sunk to a new low. Anyone who knows me can guess how the story ends: of course I fall. Of course, I laugh.

And of course, Mosquimoto flew into the kitchen, opened up a beer, and started making himself a sandwich.


(i totally yoinked that image from a google search. mad props to whomever created it... http://www.delarge.co.uk/dv/mosquito.gif)

Clean Break

“I’ll give you a ring,” he said. He stands a foot taller than I, so he was looking down on me as he spoke, but the metaphor of “looking down on” clicked in my brain immediately as he cleared his throat and kept speaking. “We can, you know, talk…”


Talk? About what? About how he doesn’t love me? About how we’re horribly mis-matched? Maybe about how he doesn’t think he can make me happy, and vice-versa? As he hugged me outside of the front door of our work, I inhaled deeply (yet subtly- I think) to smell him, wondered if it was the last time I’d be this close to the man I loved, and also poked myself in the eye with the sunglasses that were hooked over the collar of his brown t-shirt. Shit.


It was only much later that the irony of his selection of euphemism- a ring- dawned on me. I‘m sure he wouldn‘t be that cruel intentionally, but I wonder now if he noticed. He was referring to a phone call, but someone needs to remind the guy to choose your words wisely when you’re talking to your ex... especially after a major point of contention in the relationship was the fact that one party didn't deem the other party "marriage-worthy". I think the exact quote was, "I do want to get married, just not to you." I digress, that's neither here nor there (it's way over in a nice place called "Things That Should Have Sent Me Running Away Screaming, But Sadly, Did Not"). But back to the hug.


I held on seconds after his grasp loosened, giving away my desperation yet again. Thinking that I had only moments left to salvage my self-esteem, I took a half-step back and looked up into his face.


“Don’t call me.”


How I ever got those words out is beyond me, but what was a bittersweet victory on my behalf rendered no visible sign of emotion from him. Finally-


“Ok.”


I said goodbye then; goodbye to the wavy hair, to the face I had memorized, to the feeling of those arms around me. I wondered if anyone would make me laugh like he could, I hoped no one would make me cry like he did.


I slowly pivoted around, the soles of my brown leather boots making a satisfying scratch on the concrete. As I began walking to my car, I was inundated with thoughts all vying for the premiere position at the front of my mind. The only two I allowed to repeat themselves over and over again in my brain were “Don’t look back!” and “Seriously, Nikki, don’t fucking trip and fall over.”

Bow-chicka-bow-wow

After having a night with friends who only partially succeeded in attaining their goal of distracing you from your heartbroken misery, the last thing you want to do is go home and try to write to purge your depression... and be distracted by the sounds of your roommate's "doing it" from the next room.

I should know.

When life gives you pickles, relish it.

Maddy: Do I have to go to school tomorrow?
Mommy: Yes.
Maddy: Oh, the daily pickles!

You remind me of the babe! / What babe? / The babe with the power! / What power?

Sure I have!!!


Good!
No, evil.
No, good.
Or maybe...
Well,


Shit.