The Twitching Hour(s)

There is a rule in our house that applies only to me.  I am not allowed out unsupervised between the hours of 3 and 5 p.m.  Basically from after school until dinner time.  If I leave the house alone during those hours, odds are I might not come home.  For whatever reason, my hypoglycemia kicks in REALLY hard in the afternoon.  When we had a Fabricland in town, David had been known to call and ask, "Has there been a red-headed woman in your store, staring dazedly at fabrics for the last hour and a half?"  Me, between 3 and 5 p.m. is kind of like me on 'shrooms.  Colours are very pretty, I want to touch everything and I have no concept of time passing.  Grocery shopping?  Forget about it.  A 1/2 hour shop can take me 4 hours if I enter the No Frills at 3:15 p.m.  "Look!  They have ginger beer now!  This shape feels nice and smooth in my hand.  The bottle is very brown-y"

Every now and again we forget the time and I sneak out before anyone notices.  It's worse this fall because  David teaches out of town now, and I don't have a car during the day.  So far I'm managing household errands by riding my bike most places.

This was my Mother's Day gift a couple of years back.

Except that I can't do a full-on grocery shop using my little bike basket, so when he gets home from work at 3:30, there's still shit I need to do that requires bigger than a bike basket and I'll hop in the car and disappear. David usually sends Rissa to monitor me.  "Make sure your mother comes home.  Take the cell.  If you guys aren't home in 45 minutes, I'm notifying the authorities."

Yesterday, I had to get a bunch of stuff at Staples.  Riding my bike up there usually isn't a hardship, I have a nice white rabbit helmet that makes me pretty freakin' visible and also adds a certain je ne sais quoi to our small town.  I needed to get a whole whack of rewritable cds and other stuff that would have been weighty and I wouldn't want all of that bouncing around in my basket (NOT a euphemism), plus, I was a wee bit stoned from the overdose of Tylenol that wasn't working and when I visualized the trip, this is what I saw:  Horrified bystanders converging upon an ambulance, firetruck and hearse on the bottom of Ontario Street.  "Hey  that delightfully eccentric lady with the rabbit bike helmet got hit by a mack truck when she tried to ride her bike while hopped up on too many Tylenol!  That's her head over there!"  So instead, I did NOT get on my bike.  See that?  Right there?  I was totally using my brain.  I made an executive decision and didn't bike while under the influence.  Gold Star for Heather!

You can't really see, but the inside of the ears are PINK!!!

Which meant that when David got home from work I said, "I'm just going to hop into the car and run to Staples..."

David - eyebrows raised.  "Uh... NO.  You're not.  You tell me what you need and I'll go get it."

My eyebrows scrunched down in a defensive, pouty stance.  "No.  This is my job to do and I can do it myself, you shouldn't have to babysit me!"

"If only that were true my Love."

"It's not your job."

"I'm afraid it is."

Eyebrows even lower on my face, gearing up to true petulance tinged with guilt at involving him in my errands and perhaps some tears at my hypoglycemic helplessness. "I... I..."

"Just stop.  I'll go with you.  We'll get the stuff.  We'll come home.  It'll be fun."

"Like a date?"
 
"Sure, we can call it a date."

"Okay then.  Rissa!!!  Daddy and I are going on a date to Staples!!"

And it's a good thing he WAS with me, because the aisle with all the fancy envelopes?  VERY colourful.

Woman on the VERGE...

WARNING ADULT LANGUAGE IN THIS POST!

I am this close...

I give you fair warning - as I'm typing this I am stoned out of my gourd on extra-strength Tylenol.  I took three.  This may devolve into a rant.

I am loopy beyond belief and STILL in pain.  Shouldn't a drug that advertises it 'relieves pain'  ACTUALLY do it?  Three frickin' Tylenol and NO pain relief.  I know, I KNOW, I shouldn't have taken three!!  I KNOW!!  But what's GOOD here, and what all my nurse/doctor friends should really focus on, is that I DIDN'T take that many anti-inflammatories, because I know that they wreck your stomach.  Even though if I'd taken three extra-strength Advil maybe I would no longer be in pain right now.   I am loop-the-fuckin'-loop stoned, but still in pain.  However, I'm smart enough to know that NOW taking some extra-strength Advil on top of the extra-strength Tylenol (with soy milk and some rice crackers, 'cause you really should have food on your stomach with anti-inflammatories), would be BAD. See, I'm being sensible here!  I will wait a couple of hours, eat and THEN take anti-inflammatories.

Yes, ladies & germs DAY 1 of Heather's period has arrived... AGAIN.  I know, doesn't it seem like it was a mere 23 days ago when I posted a similar rant?  http://whatthepoohdude.blogspot.ca/2012/09/pms-and-grammar-gazpacho.html

THAT'S BECAUSE IT WAS!!!

But you know what?  It could have been worse.  It could have started Saturday when I was prepping for the Stag & Doe, instead of last night.  There.  I have just now found the silver lining that Mom always finds.  Of course Mom never suffered from machete to your uterus menstrual cramps and doesn't believe in PMS.   "Well I never had much trouble with my periods.  On very rare occasions my back might get a little achy."  My Mom is healthy as the proverbial horse and managed to sleep through the re-setting and insertion of pins into her shattered ankle.  "Oh it was a local so I didn't feel anything - I was a little tired, so I had a cat-nap."  I am so NOT my mother's daughter in the health dept.  I imagine that Rissa is praying that she'll take after her Mor-Mor instead of me.  I keep telling Rissa "I'm an anomaly.  Don't be like me."

Exercise can sometimes help.  The treadmill in the office closet is mocking me right now.  "Come on Heather...  Just roll me out and climb on... You'll feel better... "  Oh yeah?  You don't know what you're talking about treadmill.  You're just a stupid  - (I was going to say inanimate object - but you totally can move) - and you don't have a freaking uterus and you're not in pain.  So fuck you treadmill!  FUCK YOU!

sigh 

I'm going to get on though.  'Cause I know if I don't, I won't sleep tonight.  I will grudgingly climb on, but I'm not jogging.  I'm only going to saunter.  I will watch True Blood as I saunter as a badge of irony.  So there.

I ain't 20 any more...

So yesterday I spent a lot of time on my feet.  A LOT.  And those feet were in boots with heels.  Not crazy-high heels, but high enough that when I stopped moving at the end of the day?  I thought I might die.  I'm pretty sure that the balls of my feet exploded.  I might just be walking on stumps now.

How is it that it's only when you STOP that you realize how much your body has betrayed you? Not just the feet - which to be fair had been wearing said boots for about 6 hours and had every right to explode (memorial service later today), but my hips... GOOD GOD my hips!  And my back, and Achilles tendons - which totally relates to wearing the heels as well...  Done... Gone... Kaput.

See, we were dancing.  The regular dancing was fine.  David and I then decided to a little bit of swing dancing.  That's when my hips went. 

Sexy, non?

"Well Mary, I'll tell you...  My hips are giving me such grief.  I can barely get through Flip, Flop & Fly without having a rest break for these old girls."

There's something about the doing the triple step, triple step, rock step ... that bounce on my joints? In heels?  After one song the pain started.  A smart girl would have stopped.  A smart girl would have said, "Thank you darling, but no.  I need to rest now and take some Advil for my inflamed hips."  But swing dancing is so much FUN!  It's about the most fun you can have without it turning into an orgasm. (Although maybe if you kept dancing...)  Some might say that roller coasters would offer more bang (HAH!), but swing dancing has much less screaming, more laughter and lasts longer than a typical roller coaster.   

It goes back to my youth.  I was a gymnast.  Between the ages of 8-16, I was very bendy.  (Steady there boys.)   That's what's done me in.  I have these hyper-flexible joints in my hips and back.  I was TOO flexible, or so the physiotherapists have since told me.   "Oh here's your problem... your tendons don't support any of your joints any more.  Nope, we can't help you with that. By the time you're 60, you're pretty much fucked."  Which is why my back, hips and even Achilles tendons began to betray me as early as my 20s.

But I've figured it all out!  The NEXT time I swing dance?  No heels for me!  I'm going to wear saddle shoes! Or Keds with the rubberized soles all slidey and worn out.  I'll take the Advil first, ice between songs and get David to rub me all over with Traumeel afterward.  'Cause I ain't NOT going to dance.

A little rub'll do ya!

Not for the squeamish...

Okay, seriously.  Acne? I am 44 frickin' years of age!  I shouldn't be getting any.  Peri-Menopause is wreaking havoc with my skin!!  I mean, COME ON!!!  I know my period's coming, but I don't need any extra facial detailing at present.  It's right beside my mouth - the size of... of... I want to say Vesuvius, but I know that really it's only the size of a large pinhead, but it freaking hurts.  Mostly because I've been picking, won't leave it alone and can't get what's in there to come out...  but the pain is real!

And every time I pick, I can hear my mother's voice in my head "STOP PICKING!!!  YOU'LL SCAR!" Her mantra from when I was an adolescent.  Which, just so you know, I totally didn't.  I have four, count 'em FOUR, scars on my face and they are on my forehead and from me scratching CHICKEN POX, not ZITS and that happened when I was 8, and my bangs hide them.  So there.  That's not to say I don't have have lots of other scars, but they just aren't on my face.  I was a terribly accident prone child.

You HAVE to squeeze zits.  You know what it's like.  That feeling that SOMETHING is in there.  Something that if you just squeeze hard enough will shoot out, maybe landing on the mirror as a sebum trophy, maybe not, but almost certainly relieving that pressure under your skin.  Then you dab on a little zit cream and you're good to go, but until that moment of release - it's torture.

I freely admit that the primate instinct in me is really strong.  I'm a groomer.  I'm a picker.  If I am offered the choice between sex and squeezing a really deep blackhead on David's back,  I have to think about it really hard.  (I know!  I know!!!! EEEEEEW!!!!)  I will  TOTALLY choose the sex, but there is a really big internal conflict that occurs within me first.  'Cause the satisfaction that comes from a really good blackhead squeeze?  Unparalleled.  Truly.  Especially the ones where you can squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and ALL THIS STUFF COMES OUT??  Like in one long stringy bit?  (I know!  I know!!!!! EEEEEEW!!!)  But come on... everyone has their thing.  My Mom loves peeling sunburns.  My brother loved to pick scabs.  I have friends who SQUEEEEE!! over stripping wallpaper in one long strip.  My thing just happens to be disgusting on a primordial level.  A level that no one wants to talk about but almost everyone acts upon.  Anyone who says that they don't is lying and isn't in touch with their inner gorilla.

The hardest thing now is that Rissa is getting blackheads and it takes every bit of restraint within me NOT to go at her.  David says I'm not allowed to.  She is out of bounds.  He barely lets me do it to him because he HATES being picked at.   David hates being picked at but he lets me, because he knows that I'm a twisted mess of a girl who has a primate grooming kink.  See that?   Right there?  That's love.  That is how much he loves me.  Oh the glory that is him!!

Plenty of Batteries...

WARNING: THERE IS ADULT LANGUAGE/CONTENT IN THIS POST!!  IF YOU DON'T BLANCH AT THE WORD 'FUCK' -  FEEL FREE TO READ ON.  IF YOU CAN'T SAY THE 'F' WORD - I'D STOP IF I WERE YOU.

I've been brash, bodacious and lived with bravado most of my life.  While in Theatre at the University of Ottawa, our acting teacher had the class define each student's public persona.  You know... how others perceive us, the facade we present to the world, our safety net. I was 19 years old, thought of myself as a bit of a clown. I was interesting-looking, but not pretty; intelligent, but not Einstein.  The class decided that my persona was a 35 year old attractive woman named Gwen.  She was confident, had many acquaintances (mostly male) and few close friends.  If Gwen fell onstage, not only would she get up and pretend it had NEVER happened, she would have the entire audience convinced that it had never happened.

I didn't have a whole helluva lot of tact when I was younger.  My mother despaired that I would never discover it.  I would rush into situations and bowl people over.  I was like a 120 lb Labrador puppy (who am I kidding? 140 lb.  The last time I was 120 lbs was when I was 12).  I'd sit on laps. (NEVER putting my full weight on a guy, 'cause of course they would be crushed under my true feminine weight.  I would barely rest my ass on their legs.  Most of my weight pushed through the balls of my firmly planted feet, my thighs more than likely shaking from the prolonged half squat. All to avoid hearing this: "Holy Crap you're HEAVY!"

I'd say shocking things for effect.  When an acquaintance said that she was dating a guy with whom I had previously been intimate,  I actually uttered these words, "Oh yeah, I fucked him."  Who SAYS that?  Who says that to another girl?  You know what that was?  That was FULL-ON JEALOUS BRAVADO talking there. My thoughts probably ran along the lines of Why am I just good enough to sleep with, but she's good enough to sleep with AND be his girlfriend??  But what it came out as was, "Oh yeah, I fucked him." ?!?

People took it for granted that I was a destroyer of men.  All tits and ass and red hair - I terrified guys.  I couldn't be embarrassed, told off-colour jokes, flirted and stood REALLY close.  Most of the time that tactic worked for me.  It kept men a safe distance away.  Very few called my bluff.  When there actually was  a guy who who'd say "Alright, you wanna play?  I'll play."  I wouldn't know what to do.  I'd blush, get butterflies and generally lose any nerve I pretended I had.

I had a crush in university on a  french actor in the theatre program.  He stole my powers of speech.  I became nearly mute around him.  Quite a feat.  What was funny?   This guy was not even attractive.  He was balding, didn't have great teeth and was really hairy (think Robin Williams hairy), but to me?  Oh, to me, this guy was IT.  He had CHARISMA.  Must have been pheromones.   I was so enthralled I couldn't even flirt with him.  I tried one time, he blew me off and I never attempted again.  Too much.  He was too much for me.   I was but a naive girl and he was a MAN.

A couple of years later, french crush guy and I were working together, and I guess I seemed like a safe bet for an easy lay and he was laying it on pretty thick to test the waters.  By this time I'd grown up a bit and had regained my powers of speech... or maybe by then I just had a better sense of a man's true character.

"Look," I said.  "I'm flattered and all that, but I am not going to fuck you tonight.  If you want to have a date, go to dinner, see a movie, then great.  But we're not going to end up in bed at the end of the night.  More than likely it would be a quick fumble.  Might be good, or might not, but frankly, I've got enough erotica and batteries at home to keep me busy for a long time without enduring a one-night stand that is sure to make the next time we see each other really awkward.  So what you you say?"  He didn't take me on a date. No-nonsense, in-control Heather was a bit too formidable, I guess.  Honesty...  It really is a great way to separate the boys from the men.

 

 

Meatloaf vs Meatloaf

Meatloaf vs Meatloaf

Rissa: "Is 'Meatloaf' - Meatloaf's actual name?"
David: "No, I don't think so."
Rissa:  "That's good 'cause that would be really unfortunate - it would be like naming your kid brussels sprout or candlestick."

***

"Wait!  Wait!  You go to my room, but don't go on the bed.  Stand by the... stand by the closet!!  I want to make a grand entrance!!!"  Rissa gallumphs down the hall and appears in the doorway,  poses in a Superman pose and then launches herself  onto the bed, landing on her stomach. 
"You done?"
"Not yet!"  She extends her arms and legs off the mattress and makes whooshing noises.
"Are you trying to shoot light out of your fingers and toes?"
"YES!!!  Is it working?"

***

Rissa's review of the Dark Knight Rises.  "It was alright I guess.  But holy camole!  Anne Hathaway's butt was parading itself to the universe!"

I'm older than Mrs. Robinson!!

While reading Wired this morning at breakfast, there was a photo for Marriott (EXPERIENCE the world of MARRIOTT!)  with 40-somethings laughing and using an IPad to show how hip and 'Now' they are while enjoying glasses of red wine.  Two gentlemen - one with a greying, well-groomed beard and another with trendy glasses + a woman, I'm guessing early 40s - looks kinda like Robin Wright in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  And I thought:  GOOD GOD!  THAT'S MY DEMOGRAPHIC!!! THIS AD IS AIMED AT ME!!!!  I am THAT old now.

Think back to when your parents would have cocktail parties - remember those?  When you would stay up, maybe sneak to the first landing on the staircase to listen in?  They'd be all dressed up...  smoke and drunken laughter would fill the living room?  Remember that?   Remember how OLD they seemed?  Well, more than likely, they were only in their 30s.

Then I got to thinking about Cary Grant.  Who, even now, when I re-watch Notorious, is the most mature and debonair man on the planet.  He has always seemed so much older and world-wise than I could ever hope to be in my lifetime.  He was only 43 years old when he made Notorious. That's a year younger than I am now.  Which means that I'm older than Cary Grant.  This makes me ache with such a sense of defeat, because there's just no way that I can compete.  I can't ever be that together, that deep that grounded.   I can't ever move the way he did.  I'll never be that graceful!  He moved like a freaking cat.  And yes, I know he's a dude, but let's say there was a classic female actress in her 40s - which is laughable  because it just didn't happen then.  I mean think about it.  Maybe Bette Davis in All About Eve - she was cast as a 'fading' star at the ripe old age of 42.  Actresses of a certain age just didn't get screen time then.  If you were over 40 you were relegated to the crazy roles, the mother roles, the spinster roles or the over-the-hill rolls.  And you know something?  Anne Bancroft when she starred in The Graduate was only 36 years old!!!  I'm older than Mrs. Robinson!  HOLY CRAP!  And what's worse?  Most kids don't even know who the hell she is!

Oh look!  There's Dustin Hoffman at the window of the nave! 
Whatever is HE doing there?
If only I'd had my own leopard hat and coat!

"Let me be your Mrs. Robinson."
"Who?"
"Seriously?  You don't know who Mrs. Robinson is?  What about Simon & Garfunkle?  Have you heard of them?  OH GOOD GOD!  How 'bout this?  We'll skip any sort of inappropriate sexual come on... Let me be your teacher of iconic cultural moments?"
"I could be down with that."

OY.