Awkward Things My Mother Never Taught Me

Poop, Poo, Doodies

2011-07-30T06:14:00.005-05:00

When I was younger and still very awkward, I used to talk about poo because I thought it was funny. You know like the friends episode where Chandler thinks duties is funny. That was me. "He said doodies" snicker, laugh, snort. I was not much of a lady then. I'm not so sure I'm much of one now, but I have more 'lady-like' moments now. Even though I still think doodies is funny.

Now that I have a child, I find that the majority of conversations my husband and I have are about poo.
"Did she have a poop today?"
"How many times did she poo today?"
"What did it look like?"
"What was the consistency?"
"Was it extra stinky just for you?"
"How many wipes did it take?"
"Did it require a wardrobe change?"

Who knew death could come out of a baby's butt and instill such pain on you, while at the same time producing such laughter from her? She thinks putting us through such agony is hilarious. And so it makes sense now. Doodies is funny from birth. It doesn't stop being funny to you until you have to change exploding, stinky diapers. But at that moment the humor is passed on to the next generation. And so poop will always be funny.

That said it doesn't change the fact that my husband and I don't have much else to talk about. Not that we don't talk about other things. Other topics just don't seem to dominate our conversations anymore. Is that a sign of an old married couple? I suppose. But it sure is fun to talk about poo and especially, for me, if she had an extra stinky poo just for him. It brings joy to my soul to know I am not be the only one changing extra stinky, messy diapers.

Who Knew Being a Cop Could be THIS Awkward?!?!

2011-07-01T06:21:00.006-05:00

I'm not a cop, but here's an 'interesting' story about some cops that were probably not expecting to have the kind of day they had. To sum it up, a drunk lady (oxymoron), who also happened to be 'producing milk,' decided to whip out a booby and spray the officers that were called to the scene. How awkward is that?!? That's beyond awkward.

The article says she was charged with assault, but wasn't clear if that was related to spraying the officers or the fight she was having with her husband. This is clearly a woman who shouldn't drink if she can't resist the urge to spray people while intoxicated. The equivalent would be a man whipping out his dong and spraying people. Pee, milk...both bodily fluids that you don't want sprayed on you.

I wonder how that goes down....
"Ma'am step out of the car."
psycho nut job steps out of the car, whips out her boob and starts spraying the officers while probably yelling profanities.
whiping faces off..."Ma'am, put your boob away....Ma'am stop spraying us."

more spraying and profanities followed by the take down and cuffing of said psycho nutjob.

Awkward...though I'm not sure who it's most awkward for...the cops or the drunk lady (oxymoron) after she sobers up...

What it Feels Like to be a Cow

2011-05-30T16:21:00.001-05:00

I don't know if cows have feelings or not. I don't know if they object to being hooked up to automatic milkers or if they couldn't care less one way or another. But since becoming a nursing mother, I've started to ponder this and have a little sympathy for them. Or more for us human females who pump in order to feed our young.

Let me start with the mechanics of the pump. Now I know not all pumps are the same but my particular pump 'moos' the whole time. "mooo, mooo, mooo, mooo, mooo" until I turn it off. You may think I'm exaggerating, unless you have the same pump I do, but my husband moos every time he hears it. Which is usually on the weekends. So why do I have a mooing pump? Well because I'm cheap or thrifty, you pick. I went for the highly rated half priced pump because all I cared about was functionality. I did read that the biggest complaint was that it was loud. No review I ever read said the pump actually sounds like a dying or distressed cow. So that's why I feel a bit like a cow whenever I'm pumping. I sometimes moo right along with it just for fun.
So the primary reason I pump is because I work. So law requires they provide us a non-bathroom place to pump. So the room in my building is connected to one of the bathrooms and also has a door to a hallway leaving the cafeteria. Honestly I don't think there's a whole lot of traffic past the door, but when I'm in there I just assume that everyone near/passing either door can hear the distressed cow and must wonder what in the hell is going on in there. Luckily or unluckily there is a sign on the door broadcasting just what is going on in there. Though that hasn't stopped a few nosy people from giggling the door handle. That's why I double and triple check the locks on both doors every time I go in there. The other day some weird woman who happened to be walking by the other day as I was unlocking to enter asked if she could look inside. What was I supposed to say? "Squeeze out a baby and lactate like the rest of us do if you want to see inside!"

That said it's worth feeling like a cow everyday since my baby and I have figured out a way to make it work for us. Though I wouldn't object to the law stating that the room had to be sound proof. But I won't write my congressman about it. I don't think my mom could have prepared me for this because I'm pretty sure she didn't pump. I believe it's less awkward than whipping it out in public to feed her. Only because I feel strongly that for my baby and me it's a very private and personal thing and I don't want anyone outside of our immediate family (or those I deem ok) seeing, watching, or gawking at us. Though I'm not condemning those that do. I much prefer to have a bottle prepped when possible, or find a reasonably private place for us when she needs to eat. Just like I'm also not condemning those women who feed their babies formula. My doctor was fed formula and she's a doctor and I a loser government worker. So my decision probably isn't making my daughter smarter than the formula fed babies around her. Though I'm sure many will say it is. I'm guessing reading to her and practicing math skills and such will do more for her intelligence.

I think it's silly that I feel the need to clarify that I'm not negatively judging those who make choices differently than me. But that's because I've learned that breastfeeding is such a polarizing topic. (see one of my previous posts). And no matter what your personal choice is someone will have a harsh defensive opinion because they assume your are judging them harshly for choosing differently. I couldn't care less that you chose differently than me. Newsflash I care more about my baby than I care about yours so as long as you don't abuse your baby or leave it in a hot car, I'm happy for you and I won't judge you harshly. This isn't that kind of a post.

Is It Weird That I Want to Hang Out with my OBGYN???

2011-04-22T20:42:00.008-05:00

You know this is a subject I haven't discussed with my mom. I just assume her OBGYN was a man and since she was in her 20s when she had my brother and me, her OBGYN was probably at least more than 10 years older than her so this thought probably never crossed her mind. So I'm guessing she has not frame of reference and can't relate to this.

I'm in my early 30's and get along with people in excess of 5 years either way of my age. Mostly on the older side of me. I'm not exactly sure how old my OBGYN is, but she is not much older than me assuming she's at least a year or two older than me if not more. What I do know is that she has 2 young kids and if she's over 40, she's looks better than I do.

One might then ask how I picked her. Well I looked for a specific hospital that was about 2 miles from my house, and then I looked at doctors with privileges. Next I looked at their location and pictures. She was the only one that was right next to the hospital or didn't look weird. What!!! Weird looking. Well when looking for a doctor without a recommendation, I want someone who's not fat because a fat doctor consulting you about your health is a hypocrite. I also must have a woman if she is going to see me naked, but she must not look like she might at all enjoy looking at my girl parts. Which is why I can't pick a man. Why not a gay man? Nothing against them but doctors don't post if they prefer lady or men parts in their own sex lives. And if they did, other than posting a picture of their family, I'd be creeped out that they are sharing their sex life with the world. My doctor posted information about her family so she didn't worry me one way or the other. I didn't mind that she looked young because she had good credentials and I figure the fresher they are out of med school, the most up to date information they have. Plus she can't have her own practice and be much younger than me if at all. Unless of course she was a Doogie Howser M.D. Which I'm sure is possible, but not likely.

So maybe it's because she helped suck, pull, yank my sweet baby out of me, but after my 6-week follow up I really felt the desire to be friends with her and hang out with her. I felt like we bonded and really got along. She made me feel like one of her more together patients as she said I was the only one to not call her. And for that matter call her with stupid questions that make me look like an idiot or a tramp. Yes there really are stupid questions.

I'm really sad that I'm down to seeing her once a year now. But I can't hang out with someone who checks out my lady parts either. It's just not natural. I wouldn't even know how to make the transition from patient to friend and find a new doctor. The finding a new doctor part is the easy part. My husband said I could stalk her on facebook. But then that turns me into the creepy patient then doesn't it?

Oh well. I suppose it will have to be left at a fleeting desire. I need to find another friend I suppose. But no one around here is a cool and laid back as she is....I heart you (in not a creepy way) Dr. J!!! Thank you for being so awesome!!! even though you made me cry after breaking my water...that was hormones not you!!!

Ok maybe it's a little weird...

Waterboarding Has Nothing on Back Labor

2011-02-18T09:48:00.004-06:00

So I'm settling in my my new little one nearly 6 weeks post partum. She was definitely worth about 7 months worth of misery and the pain of labor. Well I don't know if I'd still be saying that without the miracle of epidurals. My mother gave birth without drugs, but she had no frame of reference for what I went through. The only advice she gave me was that she wouldn't advise going without drugs. Which I had no intention of doing.

So let me start by saying I had to be induced. Nothing started happening until my doctor came in and broke my water. The pain started and I got one drug that made me woozy but still very aware. As that started to wear off, I got another drug that my nurse told me I'd probably sleep. She couldn't have been more wrong because as soon as that drug got injected, the contraction kicked in to high gear. Let me just say I don't know what it feels like to have contractions in my belly. It was all in my back and it was excruciating pain. The worst pain I've ever felt and I had a bike accident on a boys' bike that bonked my hootie once. I've never understood why boys' bikes have that cross bar since their genitalia is at greater risk for damage should they bonk themselves.

All that crap they say about relaxing in between contractions, in order to save yourself for delivery, went out the window. There was no downtime to relax. The anesthesiologist couldn't get there fast enough. But when he did, he was my hero.

If the U.S. government wants an effective mechanism by which to get enemies to talk, then they should figure out how to induce back labor pain in anyone without them being pregnant. Then no one can bitch about it being torture since women throughout the world routinely experience this excruciating pain. I'm convinced it would make anyone talk to make it stop. Perhaps I'm just a weeny though. Either way I was greatful for the relief of an epidural. They are a gift from God.

Things That Make You Cry When Pregnant

2010-12-01T17:51:00.009-06:00

So I had heard your hormones and emotions run wild when you're pregnant, but I just figured it was over the usual stuff that a woman might cry at like movies, the loss of a pet, a sad book etc. My mother never gave me any heads up to the absurdities that will make you cry when they should make you laugh, angry, or cause indifference from you.

I've been pretty even keeled this whole time. I'm not bitchy and don't throw temper tantrums. I might cry at a tear jerking movie, or at a commercial that talks about planning for your future. I'd say that's not too bad. But I wasn't prepared for the random moments that caused set me off in hysterical, sinus draining, crying fits.

1. Road Rage. Several months ago, I witnessed a potentially dangerous episode of road rage between two jackasses about 100 yards in front of me. One probably wasn't paying attention and almost ran into the other but corrected himself. The other decided to get aggressive which lead to 2 pissy, pitch fittin drivers acting like dumbasses. Luckily I was far enough behind them to avoid running into this disaster, and when I saw them pull over as if they were going to lay the smack down on each other, I was relieved I was at my exit and continued on.

Normally this would just piss me off and I would be cussing their idiocy. But instead I freaked out and started crying hysterically the rest of the way home. I could not stop crying and blabbering at what jerks they were to put me and others around them in danger by acting like fools. How in the hell could they NOT know that a pregnant woman was a mere 100 yards behind them? Insensitive bastards!!!

2. Puking in Your Lap. Now I know that you're probably thinking this is not such a strange thing to make you cry hysterically even when your not hormonal. But this wasn't my first time to throw up on myself while stuck in the car. Yes I said stuck in the car. While driving down the highway. The first time it happened was about 10 years ago. I got some stomach bug that caused it. But I didn't cry. I stayed rational and logical. I merely contemplated whether or not I should stop at the ER on my way home or not. I knew in my gut it wasn't serious so I continued driving the 20 minutes all the way home.

This time I thought I was well enough past my morning sickness which had been very routine to this point and always at home. It'd been a week and a half since I'd thrown up. Well this one morning I woke up an hour earlier than normal not feeling very well. My stomach was burning and I just generally didn't feel very good. Well I had smoothie for breakfast and went on my way to work. I started not feeling well but being on the highway in the left lane didn't give me many options for pulling over. So I started making my way right. I made it there and just as I was about to pull over... well it was too late. Logically I pulled off and turned around to head back home. Though irrationally emotional, I balled the whole way home which took a good 10-15 min. The difference between this time and 10 years ago, I had someone waiting at home to help me. Ten years ago I got home got out cleaned myself off, took a nap in the tub, got up feeling better and cleaned my car. This time, I didn't have to clean anything but myself, but I still couldn't stop crying about it.

3. Scooping Dog Poo. So this is what convinced me to post on this topic. Today I was cleaning up after my dog in the yard, which was way overdue for cleaning. Now I've got 5 1/2 weeks to go, or less if I'm lucky, so I'm feeling large and not so mobile. Bending over is getting harder and harder so I'm using one hand on the pooper scooper and the load is getting heavy. On top of that, any activity like this now exhausts the hell out of me. I'm half way done and starting the other fence line and suddenly I realize there's a pile I missed that I didn't see when I got there. So I start scooping that up and I keep finding more and more in the same basic area. Initially this is perplexing to me, but I keep scooping before I discover there's a freaking giant hole in the bag. What's going in is now falling out every time I lower to scoop, so I've been rescooping the same poop for the last minute or so. Which is a giant waste of valuable energy.

Under normal circumstances that would have made me laugh, but I was already exhausted from the other side of the yard and the bag was so heavy and there was so much poop to scoop, and to top it off now my bag had a hole in it and I was going to have to get a new bag to finish the job and a new bag just to put the original worthless bag in. Which I might add was going to require more energy to be exerted. So I started crying ridiculously out of frustration. Not cool. Not cool at all. Especially since it makes me feel like I sound overly dramatic. Which is a quality I generally despise, or at least find incredibly annoying. None the less I'm crying like a nut job and my dog is worried enough about me that she keeps checking on me and actually gives me the frisbee to throw to her rather than insisting I chase her for it. It's about time my dog feel sorry for me and play with the frisbee right!!

4. Accidentally Deleting all of the Pictures From the Computer. Pregnant or not, I logically know that it would take a LOT to permanently delete pictures from my computer and that whatever I had done was not likely permanent. However when I went to the recycle bin I could not find them as I expected. So what do I do? The only thing that obviously solves all my problems. I start to cry as I frantically try to find them. When that doesn't work, I call my dad the 'computer expert' crying that I somehow deleted all of our pictures and can't find them anywhere....can you help me????? Of course while I'm on the phone with him I go back to the recycle bin and take a slower look and find them. But they were not as I would have expected to find them. Then of course I get mad at computer technology for deleting my pictures without even selecting them all and hitting the delete button. Stupid technology, what good is it if it takes over and does what you don't want it to do???

5. Crying. Since it's against my personality to cry irrationally, crying in the above described circumstances results in more blathering, snotty, frustrating, crying. I don't really know what else to say about that. It's not very attractive at all, which is why most of the time I try not to cry around my husband. Especially since logic tells me it's stupid to cry about these things and pride tells me it's a sign of weakness. All of that goes out the window, understandably so, when one is growing a baby.

So that's my crying list. I'm sure there are a few more I could add that are not nearly as entertaining. Be warned ladies, if you haven't experienced this, you will find yourself crying over things that seem more ridiculous than spilt milk.

The True Meaning of "Pregnancy Glow"

2010-09-14T18:58:00.006-05:00

So growing up I heard about this "glow" that you get when your pregnant. I don't recall whether or not it was specifically explained to me as this look of joy and happiness that you get knowing that your offspring is growing inside you, but somehow that is what I always interpreted the meaning to be. I've even gotten the comment a few times myself.

Here's the thing, until recently I've been fighting pretty regular morning sickness either first thing in the morning or in the afternoon/evening. So I didn't feel like joy and happiness was oozing from my face. That leaves one other option which gives a whole new meaning to "glow." My face broke out like I was 12 or 13 all over again. I was humiliated. Then and now. I thought I left 13 back in 1991! Mom did NOT warn me that my face would look this bad. And all the magazines and Internet articles that said your skin never looks better than when your pregnant LIED! Can I sue them for mental anguish or something like that? At least when I'm not pregnant I can treat it with drugs that work. When you're pregnant, they don't let you use the stuff that works so you just have to 'deal' with it and hope it clears up before you die. Even better before you deliver. I'm still waiting, though it's a little better than when it was at it's worst.

I ooze oil when my face is out of control despite the assistance of makeup. I have so much oil on my face, BP needs to dispatch a clean up crew to help. (sorry for the lame joke...not really!) So I assume any "glow" that I had or even still have at times is due to the light reflecting off of the oil field on my forehead. That's the only possible explanation I have for anytime I glow since I can't bring myself to utter the words "I've never felt better in my life" to describe being pregnant. That would be a big fat lie coming from my mouth.

So there you have it...Pregnancy Glow is a polite way of saying 'how old are you? 13?!?!' or 'your skin is terrifying! But I can't look away!' or 'Thank God my skin doesn't look as bad as yours!!' I'm sure I could go on and on, but you get the point. Pregnancy Glow, no matter how well-intentioned, is not a compliment. Unless you're one of the lucky few that not only didn't get sick but never had better skin in your whole life.

How to Get Knocked up Like a Sorority Girl

2010-08-23T17:59:00.003-05:00

So in the event that any of you have been wondering where I've been, I've been puking my guts out and sleeping and generally feeling motivated to do as little as possible including write. Lucky you, I'm back!!!

Yes, I'm knocked up....Half-way through and just found out it's a girl! So the next several posts will be dedicated to all of the awkward crap about pregnancy my mother didn't tell me about. The puking I expected. That was about it.

So the first part to having a baby is actually conceiving. As many of you know it's not nearly as simple as going off birth control. Though my mom seemed to be under that impression. Apparently that's how it worked for her. Off a couple a months then BAM!!! What she didn't take into account is that she was in her early 20's, I'm waited until 31 to 'stop preventing.'

Anyways so I was so good that I only consumed adult beverages during the week that confirmed conception failure. Several months passed and still no luck. I decided that maybe I ought to try tracking my temperature, because this option is much cheaper than buying an ovulation kit. Plus I didn't want to lose money if it didn't work. So I started tracking my temperature. I get up at 5am during the week for work. The weekends I sleep until at least 6:30 or later, but you must take it at the same time everyday. That sucked big time. To top it off, I got sick sometime during month 2, which screwed my normal temperature way up for a week. So I gave that up. I decided it was more work then I was willing to do that early on in the 'not preventing' process. I figured I'd pick it up again if I got closer to a year out and wanted to have information to take to a doctor.

So back to the adult beverages and the title of this post. Some time later, I was about to go visit some friends and my week of confirmed failure was about to start in a couple of days, so I did invest in an 'early' pregnancy test and used that as my confirmation and peace of mind that it was ok to have a margarita or two. So I didn't worry about it and had a great time with them. Not a sorority girl amount of a good time that could get me arrested for walking around in public, but enough.

We got home on the day failure was to be confirmed, I was mowing the lawn and my back snapped and started hurting. Failure wasn't confirmed that day but my back continued to hurt. I suspected that failure hadn't happened, but as I only had 1 pregnancy test left, I didn't want to take it until my body was really ready to pass it, because again, I'm cheap, and I really really didn't want to spend the money on a new box if I didn't have to. So I waited for about 5 days before I took it again, which was exactly 1 week after I took the first one. I passed!

So moral of the story. Don't stress yourself out by trying to do everything right to get pregnant. Relax and have fun with it. And for pete's sake don't keep drinking after you confirm you're pregnant. Oh and secondary moral, don't believe those commercials about the pregnancy tests working early. It's a trick to get you to buy more tests! I should sue for false advertising, but they covered themselves with a disclaimer on the box.

Awkward Quandry of the Day

2010-01-25T17:33:00.002-06:00

Why are big sunglasses considered fashionable when big regular glasses from 1980-1993 still aren't considered fashionable?

I got my first pair yesterday and today while wearing them on my walk today, I found myself feeling like I was in 3rd-8th grade. They feel heavy and awkward and I'm constantly pushing them up my nose while they are constantly weighing me down.

My big sunglasses aren't nearly as big as the ones I see everyone else wearing. How do they do it without going insane? If I had to wear them all day, I'd get angry like I did with my glasses growing up. I remember throwing them across the gym floor once or twice they made me so mad. Good thing I don't wear my sunglasses all day and it's also good that I only paid $10 for them.

Youtube is Not Always Your Friend

2010-01-20T21:42:00.003-06:00

Ohhh what's more awkward than having a wardrobe malfunction caught on video? Having it placed on youtube. Nonetheless I laughed hysterically enough to post it. Hope you enjoy.

Facebook is Like Reliving Highschool All Over Again

2010-01-09T20:40:00.000-06:00

My mother obviously couldn't have taught me this because she isn't even on Facebook. Which is really probably a good thing. I resisted the "social networking" frenzy as long as I possibly could out of the principle of the matter. Mostly because My Space dominated the market and it seemed like something for musicians, teenagers, and child predators. I wanted nothing to do with it even after Facebook entered the scene. But then a year ago my curiosity got the better of me and so I gave in.

Immediately I got friend requests from people I knew in college all the way back to people I knew in elementary school. Which, since I moved around more than most people I know, I had lost touch with many of them so it was pretty neat to touch base with them again after all these years.

In case you haven't figured it out, I hated most of high school except my freshman year. Well suddenly I'm facebook friends with these people who somehow contributed to this awkward time of my life. And before you know it you're "friends" with a bunch of other people you knew at some point in your life either because you drunk friended them (like drunk dialing) or sober friended them because you talked yourself into the nerve to send them a friend request. Or they did the same to you.

So I saw no facebook etiquette for how to handle a new friend. I thought it only polite to at the very least say hi on their wall or even email them to catch up. I genuinely cared too. I found out it was like being in high school all over again where they find it amusing to just ignore my "hello how are you." And they sent me the request!!! Why would you friend me only to ignore me. Or accept a friend request only to ignore me. Trust me if you didn't care enough about me to keep up with me until now, my life is not nearly interesting enough to ignore me on facebook.

Then there are those that just send you a friend request because they want numbers. So if they ever ran across your path or went to the same school as you, they send you and 100's others requests. But they never bothered to get to know you ever. I'm not convinced they really knew my name. They just saw me in a school group they are in or something like that. So what do I do? I just say no. Lots of friends don't make you a super nice and genuine friend and person. That's not to say I'm super close with all of my facebook friends, but I do know that they knew my name or I knew them and we've all had some sort of interaction be it have actual classes together or actual conversations no matter how short.

That said it's here to stay and it's a much better forum than most of the other "social networking" forums and who knows, maybe it will result in a job someday when I need or want it. Also I find it to be the only way some of my friends communicate anymore. I still prefer email and am glad some of my closer friends also keep in touch that way. Needless to say, I no longer feel like I must make some form of communication with with a new friend. But I always always respond, if someone wants to know what's up with me.

Happy New Year!!!

2010-01-01T21:01:00.003-06:00

So I've never been big into resolutions because often people seem to make them about things that involve changing habits or lifestyle that they don't really want to change. But in keeping with the theme of this blog, I've decided to spend less time worrying about my crows feet and gray hairs that I can't keep up with, and spend more time enjoying getting them.

2010 is going to be a great year and a great start to another great decade! Perhaps that's because as I get older, I do less awkward things. Or perhaps it's because I care less about embarrassing myself.

Hope you all have a fabulous year!

Christmas Commercialism

2009-12-20T20:01:00.004-06:00

In the spirit of Christmas I decided to post about what used to be my favorite time of the year as a kid. Now it's Thanksgiving, because there are not gifts, candy, or other merchandising pressures on that Holiday. It's just a time to get together with family and friends and be Thankful for them and for life and to enjoy time with them.

Christmas should be about that universally, and if you're a Christian the birth of Christ. But as I've aged it seems like it's become more about the commercialism. Gifts this and gifts that. When I was younger and didn't have expenses I loved buying gifts for my family and friends. It gave me great pleasure to give them something that hopefully I had picked up on that they wanted or would like.

However I remember the exact moment it changed for me. I was in college and suddenly one year it became about "I want you to get me this" and "so and so is going to get me that." I didn't like being told want to get someone. It took the joy out of getting them something that I had thought of knowing them and their personality and their likes etc. That's when the fun of giving at Christmas started to leave for me. Not to mention for the next several years out of college I was broke and couldn't meet the expectations of giving to some people.

I was too dumb and at the time talentless to think of making gifts back then. But I would love to see everyone thumb their nose at the commercialism of Christmas and get creative in their gifts. Maybe it's making a meal, cookies, or bread. Maybe it's drawing or painting a picture. Maybe it's sewing or knitting something. Maybe it's building something out of wood like chair or table. Maybe it's giving your time to babysit, or mow the lawn, or clean the house. Maybe you have some other skill or talent to share with family and friends. It doesn't mean you won't spend any money, but you might spend a lot less and you put your time and heart in it.

I know many people already do this, I just wish I'd thought of this for myself a lot sooner than this year. It also takes time to change traditions in families, and sometimes you may not be successful to the point you'd like to be. It's sometimes hard to change habits cold turkey. But let's take back Christmas to make it about true giving rather than superficial giving.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Is Crying Because You Lost Manly?

2009-12-06T09:40:00.004-06:00

Here's one for the guys that the ladies can maintain interest in and an have an opinion about. The premise is not "is it ok for a man to cry ever," because I will agree that there are appropriate times for a man to cry. Well in reality this should apply to women too, however it's more acceptable for women to cry for no reason or at the drop of a hat. What shouldn't be appropriate for women is to cry as a manipulation tool, which many of us either have done or do.

But I digress.

Yesterday after Florida's loss to Alabama (college football for those of you still not following me), Florida's quarterback Tim Tebow was crying. Of course he was spared from the cameras so there were plenty of good shots of him crying so there's no mistaking that he had something stuck in his eyes other than tears. They didn't even stack up to Alabama and he was crying because they lost. This isn't the first time he's cried because his team lost a game.

I personally think it's awkward for a man to show such a display after losing a game. And I think less of him as a man. It makes him look like a spoiled brat that he didn't get his way. Little kids cry after losing a game, not men. My first thought is does that boy have a daddy to teach him how to be a man? Or did he only have a mother and thus learned how not to control his emotions when it's appropriate to control them.

Losing a game is not an appropriate time to cry. Though feel free to disagree with me if you like. You'll still be wrong in my eyes. And I'm sure I'll remain wrong in your eyes. I don't much care for crying for joy either after a win, but that's less offensive than crying because you didn't win the game. Tell me what you think.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

2009-11-25T21:57:00.002-06:00

Here's hoping some of you have awkwardly funny Thanksgiving moments to share with the rest of us!!! Who knows maybe I'll have one :)

He Doesn't Belong With You

2009-11-15T15:50:00.004-06:00

So it's virtually impossible not to here the Taylor Swift song on the radio since even if you only listen while driving to work in the mornings. So the song I'm referring to is that "You Belong With Me." If you haven't figured out why she's making millions off of it, listen to the words, it's what every not dating girl aged 14-24 is thinking about their guy friends that they have unrequited crushes on. These guys apparently like talking to them and hanging out with them, while they are dating and kissing on other girls.

I can remember several times growing up where I didn't understand why "he" didn't see the chemistry between us that I saw. This is because my mother didn't teach me what I sense I may not have listened to, thus requiring that I learn this lesson on my own over time. If I could talk to Taylor and all other other girls out there this is what I'd say:

"He doesn't belong with you. He's not romantically interested in you, and probably never will be, otherwise he'd be asking you out on dates, not kissing on those other girls. He probably respects you and likes you as a person, but even if you put on a cheerleader outfit or high heels and cute skirt and lots of makeup, he still won't see what you want him to see. He knows you want him and that feeds his ego. That's why he makes sure to keep you in the 'friend zone.'"

"You belong with someone whose heart and butterflies flutter when he sees you. You belong with someone who only has eyes for you. You belong with someone you choose who chooses you back. You belong with someone who wouldn't string you along just to feed his ego. You belong with someone who makes you a better person and is a better person by virtue of being with you. You belong with someone who you sweep off of their feet rather than the other way around."

"He belongs with someone else not because he's a bad person or an egomaniac, but because he doesn't belong with you. He is too immature for you or anyone right now, but hopefully he'll find someone someday that sweeps him off his feet and makes him become a man. He belongs with someone who will make him a better person by virtue of being with her. He deserves the same thing you do, he's just not choosing it with you. So don't waste your time pining when you could be missing out on spending time with lots of other great guys that do meet those conditions."

Perhaps this is a lesson that girls must learn on their own, but I'll be damned if I don't try to teach or at least warn any daughters of mine that I see wasting their time pining over some boy who is stringing them along. This lesson didn't apply to every boy I had a crush on, just the ones who were actually friends and were spending time with me.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but had I wrote that song I'd be a millionaire too! I just lived it more or less.

Diarrhea of the Mouth is.....????

2009-10-25T11:55:00.000-05:00

What's awkward is listening to people who have it and not knowing how to handle this situation. I had a boss with this problem. His diarrhea pushed the line of sexist or just inappropriate. And it didn't really seem to hurt him since he's was making good money....moral of the story....perhaps I'm too careful with my words....professionally and personally.....which might be the cause of the following...

What's even more awkward is that I've nothing awkward left to write about and no one reading anymore so really, what's the point???

I think I'll take a hiatus until I get inspired again and until I've improved my diarrhea of the mouth for posting. As this might be an appropriate medium for it....

Until then feel free to look through my old posts. Some of them don't suck so bad.

A Perm Isn't Called a Perm Because It's Temporary

2009-10-11T12:19:00.003-05:00

Perhaps I'm the only one to experience this phenomenon, but does anyone else remember when perms were the rage in the 80's? My mom had the short perm look that she still used a curling iron on. What was the point of the perm? I still don't know. The perm look that I liked was the spiral perm that only blondes seemed to pull off or get to work right.

I guess I decided at one point that I wanted one so my mom went to cosmetology school to learn how to do a perm. No but she did go to the store and get one and the rods if she didn't already have one. And she did the perm herself. I was looking for the cute spiral perm results but that's not how it came out. My hair was fine other than not looking like I wanted it to. Amazingly without schooling and a license, my mom did not fry my hair. Well...

So I hated my hair but made due with it for awhile. I really wanted a professional to do it because I was convinced they could give me the spiral perm I wanted. So at least once or twice in my live my mom took me to a professional to have it done. It still turned out the same way. Not cool. It only added to my awkward, zitty, big giant glasses, bad perm dorkyness. As far as I can remember I was given somewhere between 2 and 4 perms in my life. Half by my mom and the other half professionally. I was never satisfied with the results so I was determined to let it all grow out to my once beautiful straight hair.

It grew and grew and grew and 18+ years later, I still have some kind of curly hair. I can't just let my hair naturally dry and get beautiful hair. I have to use heat to make it straighten it and make it look remotely presentable. But then I still have that nagging frizziness that pops up in humidity.

A few years ago a professional showed me what to do to make left over perm in my hair look good. I tried it for awhile but not for long because I suppose it was too much work for me. You see I'm pretty lazy when it comes to my hair. But a few weeks ago I decided to give it a try again to see if it took any longer than my normal routine to straighten my hair. Turns out it takes about the same time as long as I put the hair dryer on high. With the right product in my hair, it doesn't look half bad. So I decided to try it at work all last week. I might keep it up since my look has felt redundant for most of my life. Just with varying lengths. I'm just not a huge fan of overly crunchy or wet looking hair. So I suppose I'll have to experiment with various products. I just wish I'd known how to fix it back then to make it look half-way decent.

The point is, had I known all of those years ago that a perm was going to fry my hair follicles to permanently make my hair grow wavy, I wouldn't have bothered. I went so far as trying to do my own "straight perm" at home. Didn't work. I didn't even notice a difference when I was done. Am I the only one who learned this the hard way? Someone tried to tell me in college that it was puberty. She can sell it but I'm not buying it. It was that dadgum perm! You won't convince me otherwise in spite of what evidence to the contrary might be out there.

Online Dating Isn't for Everyone

2009-10-04T13:18:00.005-05:00

Online dating is what about 10-12 years old now. Right? Maybe more. Before then blind dates consisted of being set up by friends, parents, co-workers, etc. Perhaps answering ads in the back of sketchy magazines, but I'm sure most normal people stayed away from that. Anyways so my mom really couldn't warn me about online dating. I'm going to share with you my one and only experience with it. I'll tell you the punch line now, it was not with my husband. I met him the old fashioned way. At church!

This happened shortly after college though I can't remember the exact year. Maybe 2002 or 2003. So I was playing around online with a dating sight and I don't exactly remember how but signed up for the 2 week free trial as a joke. So we started trolling through profiles in spite of not setting one up for me. So I ran across a guy that struck my fancy. He had a full head of hair, and confident demeanor about him which instantly attracted me. He lived about 5 states away or so. Just for fun I sent a flirty little message, figuring with a picture like that, he's probably busy with chicks that were more geographically desirable and in his own league.

Low and behold he wrote be back and seemed all flirty and interested. I can't remember the circumstances by my free trial was about to expire and it was going to cost $5 to extend it for 2 weeks or a month or something like that and I was just going to let it go, but a lady I worked with insisted I not drop this, since they'd gone through all my failed guy drama up to that point. So she paid the $5 to extend it. So I kept corresponding with him exchanging emails before my term expired.

I should have seen the writing on the wall when he was so eager to correspond with me and when flowers and candy showed up at my place of business. No guy ever sent me flowers and candy, and I was always concerned about my friends that did shower girls with gifts like that. (Flash forward to dating my husband, I told him never ever to pay to send me flowers at work, if he wanted to give me flowers he could buy the $5 bunch at the grocery store and deliver them himself or wait until he saw me later) This is because it's sign of what to expect post marriage and to a girl like me, I see this as a bottomless pit of wasted money. $5 no, but $30-$40 a pop, way too wasteful. And they don't last nearly as long as the flowers from the store do.

Red flag number 3 or perhaps 4(I believe I've covered 2 now, maybe more), the day he sent me the flowers and candy, he tracked down how to call me at work. Granted I did work customer service so he called the 800#, but still, perhaps a little to stalkerish. Though I will admit had the rest of the story gone differently, I'd look back at that as romantic rather than red flagish. At the time, I didn't see it as a red flag, but I should have. Several of my friends had gotten married right out of college or were engaged and I had no prospects on the horizon, so I though what the hell. Why not take a chance. I generally learn my lesson after one time.

So anyways after that we exchanged phone numbers and began talking on the phone on top of emailing. After some time we were curious enough to meet, but I was never going to go meet a stranger by myself. He offered to come visit me. My friends were well aware of this and were on standby for the weekend in case it didn't go well. So I go to the airport to pick him up and what I had pictured in my head and what I picked up didn't quite match up. Do you remember how I said full head of hair and confident demeanor? The picture was clearly several years old, which I can deal with thinning hair, when someone carries them self with confidence. I knew in the first instance I saw him that I wasn't attracted to him. He looked as if he was 30lbs lighter than me dripping wet, which I've hung out with plenty guys my height or shorter, and they still weren't that lite. His shoulders were hunched over and he carried himself as if he was going to get rejected. Why did he even come?!?!

So I knew from that moment it was going to be a LONG weekend. Thank God for my friends! So that I didn't have to be alone with him much. And he stayed in a hotel, because I'm not an idiot. So it started off awkward and it just got worse from there. Want to know why? He kept fishing for complements! I'm happy to give a complement unsolicited if I believe it's deserved, but when someone is fishing for one, I won't even throw the fisher a bone. Perhaps that's how I added to the awkwardness that weekend. But I refused to give some BS "you're so great" when I didn't believe it. That's not to say he wasn't a nice guy. He really was, we just weren't a match and I knew it, I just felt bad for him and me both that we had to make it through the weekend. And I didn't know how to let him down easily. Perhaps it was because of immaturity, perhaps I was just chicken. Either way, the awkwardness still wasn't over.

This was because rather than accept it wasn't a match, he had to call me out on not biting while he was fishing. I think also on my friends being around the whole time. I suppose if that's what he was expecting, he deserved an explanation. But I didn't know how to be nice about it. Again either immaturity or chicken or both.

Anyways the weekend finally ended and I was glad to drop him off at the airport and send him on his way. I do remember feeling a little guilt because it wasn't cheap to fly out to see me and stay in a hotel etc. But, it was as much a risk on his part as it was on mine. And one shouldn't start a relationship based on guilt. I do hope he found a good match for him. My friends and I had a laugh about it for years. I hope he was able to laugh about it to. I never saw or spoke to him again after that. And I never ever ever was tempted to try online dating sites ever again. Though I know of people that it's worked for. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

High School Reunions are as Awkward as High School Was

2009-09-20T15:39:00.001-05:00

I realize that high school reunions are supposed to be about reminiscing about the good ol' days, but the reality is that if your class was awkward in high school, the reunion isn't likely to be any different. And I'll say it; I don't look at high school as the good ol' days since most of it sucked buckets for me. So why in the hell would I want to go back?

My class seemed very clicky. It was a small class and we all knew and talked to each other, but we didn't all hang out together in our free time. The reality is that if we'd gone to a huge public school, most of our paths wouldn't have crossed including most of the friends we actually did hang out with. But here's the thing we have all hopefully changed since then and that includes people we used to hang out with. We've all moved on. Reunions are about going back. Back to a place I didn't much care for when I was there but made tolerable by the friends I did have.

A few years ago, I went to my 10 year reunion. I had avoided going back in previous years but decided to go since a friend I'm still in contact with was going. And another friend was going to show and I hoped a few more of my friends would show. Also I really had a morbid curiosity about what some of my former classmates were up to, though I myself was not where I had hoped to be in my career 10 years out from high school. I had recently acquired a stable job that I wasn't completely ashamed of. But I was afraid to go because I figured everyone else would have these crazy awesome careers to brag about.

The reality was that most of the people that showed up had between 1 and 3 kids already. I was shocked because I wasn't even close to thinking I was mature enough to have a kid. (still not sure that I am) Much more 2 or 3 toddlers that were running around. This was a bit awkward because I didn't know what to say to them anymore. I couldn't even relate to wanting kids yet. On the bright side, I didn't see the fabulous high dollar careers that I expected. We were all pretty much paying our dues as far as I could tell. Most of us were well on our way to middle class life, meeting the hopes and dreams of our parents.

Only about half of us, if that many showed up. People that ignored each other in high school continued to ignore each other. I will admit I didn't make an effort to talk to everyone either. I just didn't see the point. Plus hearing about the divorces made the following sympathy awkward.
Now we're all ignoring each other on Facebook. Go figure. We really have nothing to say to each other except to the click or group of friends we belonged to then. It was such an awkward experience, that it's awkward to write about and make it sound amusing. It just sounds sad I think.

Wedding Jitters

2009-09-13T16:57:00.003-05:00

If I knew then what I know now, I would have had a small wedding in the back yard and only invited family and a very few close friends. I was excited to get married but the fanfare gave me a bit of nervous anxiety that I would have been happy to do without. Though I'm still proud of the cake that cost about $10 and fed everyone that came that wanted cake and still had leftovers.

So onto my jitters. I had a bunch of stuff stored in my dad's attic that I needed to move out and into our new apartment. The week before, I was up there getting boxes and loading up my stuff to move. You know how most attics aren't finished unless you finish them? Well my stuff was on parts that didn't have any kind of flooring down on the studs. So I was standing on the studs, beams or whatever they are called, lifting a box when I lost my balance and stepped in between the studs and my foot when right through the ceiling. Luckily I came to a stop on top of the fridge.

OH CRAP!!! I just ruined my dad's ceiling!!! and I was getting married in a few days. I was immediately terrified that he was going to be furious and disown me or refuse to walk me down the aisle. Or charge me to fix it and I didn't have a job yet!!! Well that was a little dramatic, but I was really upset that I was in the attic standing on his fridge. I called my soon to be husband and forgot to tell him that there was a fridge under me. So imagine what he pictured, me falling 10 feet to the floor with legs and arms mangled in directions they aren't supposed to go! If he were a woman he would have imagined a wedding with me being wheeled down the aisle in a body cast.

On the bright side, my dad was glad that the fridge was there, and it was something he knew how to fix and so it didn't even come close to breaking the bank. So in the end it wasn't so bad. We all survived. But it didn't relieve any of my other jitters. How do you tell a new bride and her mother that less is more. Most people will tell you that my wedding was more less than more. But I fought for less and hind-sight being 20/20, would have preferred much less than I even fought for. That would have lessened the jitters greatly.

Do any of you have any great wedding jitters stories? The funnier the better!

Paranoia Is Best Taken Lightheartedly

2009-08-30T14:56:00.006-05:00

The inspiration for this topic came from my trip to the doctor the other week. I had never met or seen this doctor before and so meeting a doctor for the first time is a little nerve-wracking especially when you're a closet hypochondriac like me. Which is where that paranoia starts, because I was certain by the end of my visit he was going to out me, or at least chart me as a hypochondriac.

Well I was promptly taken back to an exam room and as such I was waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, until the nurse came in and told me a previous appointment was running later than they expected but that he'd be in shortly. So now I will tell you the secondary awkward paranoia that came to me during what seemed to be a never ending wait to inevitably diagnose me as a hypochondriac.

So whenever I am waiting and waiting anywhere without a magazine to look at either by lack of or quality of choice, I begin to look around the room, count the ceiling tiles if they exist, notice the floors and furniture, and notice the cleanliness or nit picky lack there of among other observational things. I am generally drawn to vents, and every time I see a vent, I think "what if there's a camera on me, and what if they are watching my every move rather than really "in with another patient" as they want me to believe. Well this gave me such a brilliant idea for a post, so I pulled my little notebook of ideas out of my purse and started to write this down. As I was writing this down and second paranoid delusional thought passed through my head, "what if the doctor walks in on me as I'm writing this down, what is he going to think, say, or demand to know about what I am writing." This caused me to laugh which brought my paranoid thought full circle, "what if paranoia is why I'm actually here visiting the doctor today?" Which of course amplifies the paranoia of being outed as a hypochondriac. Is this irony, tragedy, or both?

All this from the thought of a camera on me. You know what's sad or funny as you might see it, every time I'm in a public bathroom and I see a vent in full view of the toilet, I'm paranoid that there might be a camera on me. :)

That's All Folks!!!
Same time same place next week. Though I might take Labor Day Weekend off. If so, don't labor on Labor Day if you can help it. Have a safe and happy holiday!

Breastfeeding Is A Polarizing Topic!

2009-08-23T16:02:00.001-05:00

I'm probably going out on a limb posting this, but just know I mostly respect opposing opinions on this topic depending on the context.

So not being a mother I only have the perspective of a non-mom, and as a non-mom it's a little awkward when I see someone breastfeeding in public without any kind of blanket or breastfeeding apron. Mostly because I don't know where to look and I wouldn't dream of exposing myself that way in public for any reason. I would find a place that provides me some kind of privacy, or I would always make use of a something that would allow us to be discreet.

http://www.wctv.tv/news/headlines/53292102.html
This story is about a nurse-in that was staged in a Florida fast food restaurant because that manager (a woman) had asked a woman cover up while feeding her baby. While it was in poor taste, I completely understand where she was coming from. She was likely thinking of the consideration of the other customers. That said she didn't have consideration for the mother feeding her baby either. The manager admitted that she made a mistake.

What I find funny is how this nurse-in was about making a statement about their "right" to feed their children. I really find it to be a mockery of such a intimate and special moment between a mother and child. Because mothers have a duty, not a right to feed their children, and it shouldn't be about garnering attention, it should be about nourishing one's child. And gathering a bunch of women to use their babies to make a point is about garnering attention.

But you see this opinion in and of itself is very polarizing, and I didn't know that until someone posted that story on facebook and I made a comment, and someone obviously disagreed with my point of view. Which is fine, we are all entitled to our opinions. I had no idea that people disagreed with me on this, though I should have, because I've seen it done not-so-discreetly and discreetly which should have clued me in that many women aren't as private about it as I would be. So often times disagreements like this can be awkward even if one tries to state their opinions in the utmost respectful manner. It really depends if you and the other party involved can agree to disagree or not.

I do find some of the comments on both sides of the issue at the end of that story interesting food for thought. Pun always intended.

And you thought this was going to be about whether or not to breastfeed, which is a very polarizing topic in and of it's self. And my opinion that it's a mother's choice is likely to upset some as well. Though some people like to demonize women that don't, even though as I understand it, sometimes it's beyond their control. Let's just say that there are many healthy, well-adjusted adopted babies that don't get the opportunity to breast-feed.

Just Because You're in Another Country Doesn't Make it a Cultural Thing

2009-08-15T15:41:00.004-05:00

When I was 19, I took a year off school and went to Brazil as a student missionary. This meant that I went there to teach English which helped raise money for the orphanage and various daycare projects that my church operates over there. So to help keep down expenses, they get people to volunteer to put the various students that come up in their house, providing room and board for them.

My particular family had 3 kids, one of whom was away at college most of the time. They decided to house 2 of us. We were exited to be there in a new place and they did a very good job of making us welcome and introducing us to people at church, etc etc. There were quite a few things happening in the house that we chalked up to cultural differences, that we found out later weren't necessarily cultural. Remember I was in a 3rd world country that I knew nothing about, and this was my first introduction to the culture. We were not placed in the slums, we were in a regular neighborhood in a regular house. It wasn't a mansion, but it looked nothing like the slums either.

Much to our unpleasant surprise, one day we come home from teaching and the mom of the house is walking around naked and her 12 or 13 year old son is there. And she wasn't phased when we saw her stark nekked. Awkward.....for us....We didn't think it could get any worse, but it did. She kept doing this on a regular basis and she wanted us to teach her English while she was naked!!! What?!?! I have a strict personal policy that I only teach English to those that are properly covered up. But how do you say that to your hostess? I know it's hot there, but it wasn't any worse than it is in Texas and we wear clothes. Especially in front of guests. (Austin can pose the exception to that at times)

We were stunned and it was really really really awkward. How do you politely excuse yourself from such a situation without seeming ungrateful for their hospitality to you? After all we were eating their food (which incidentally waned away shortly after our arrival) It's not like she made an effort to be less naked in front of us either. Though to her benefit, she never asked us to get naked. Though it's possible that she did and we just didn't understand what she said. We were especially disturbed by this display in front of her son. We had no choice, we talked to our director about it, and eventually we were both placed elsewhere. We were probably exposed to it, pun intended, for maybe a week or two longer after talking to the director about it. I'm sure it seemed we were there longer than we actually were after these naked episodes started, because neither of us were the type to parade around naked in front of anyone else, let alone strangers.

Tell you what, had her husband ever done that, we would have been packed and out of there that minute. But because it was her, we were confused as to whether or not this was normal behavior in that country. We soon found out that it was NOT normal Brazilian behavior to parade around naked in your own home in front of guests, as well as some of the other things we let go as being cultural. It was just the culture of that family. What an awkward lesson to learn. Some things your mom just can't prepare you for even if she tries.

That aside, my experience in Brazil was a great one and I really love that country and their food. If you've ever been to a churrascaria here in America, just know that you are getting ripped off out the wazoo. We can't justify it, though we just found an alternative Brazilian restaurant that isn't nearly a rip off and had all of my favorite foods on one appetizer dish.

Your Expectations of Others are too High

2009-08-09T13:20:00.005-05:00

I have recently come to the realization that my expectations of others are too high. It kind of popped in my head at an interview just over 6 months ago when asked about my weakness. That was the answer I gave. I got the job and my boss and I seem to be a good fit for each other. Which is a good thing. Though I think I had been thinking of the concept for awhile.

What I mean my that is that I expect others to perform at least close to as well as I do or even some people and friends I've worked with and respect their work ethic. I expect them to care about doing a good job as much as I do. I expect a reasonable thought process for every decision they make. The problem comes in here since reasonable is as defined by me, not them. This applies to all parts of life, not just work, though since I spend so much time at work, this is probably where people don't meet my expectations the most since they have numerous opportunities to let me down.

I know I'm not alone in this, but what am I to do? Lower my standards for myself, so that my standards for others will be lowered? I also expect that people will want to better themselves and their skills (this may not apply to all lines of work which I have no problem with) to advance their careers, when they may be perfectly happy doing the same job for the last 10 years and for the next 20, getting only a cost of living increase if they are lucky. Doesn't matter, I can't understand that mindset or that choice. However what I do know is that it makes things easier for those of that are ambitious enough to climb the ladder. Less competition + consistently higher performance = a dang good chance of promotions, raises, and respect. Even though some people see it as more headaches. I get that, it's a headache dealing with people that don't care about their jobs as much as you do and not knowing what to do to motivate them. I guess that's the challenge the higher you climb.

What's awkward about it, is not know what to do about it if anything. In an ideal world, I'd get rid of the sub-par and bring in those that excel. But it is possible that people can excel in the same job for 10 years. You want good competent people surrounding you, but reality doesn't always allow for this. Another awkward thing about this is that I don't know if this makes me a bad person or not. I don't think it does, but perhaps some aspects of this do.

The Inner Struggles of a Closet Hypochondriac

2009-08-02T16:47:00.005-05:00

This is a reprint from another blog of mine that is now inactive. But I thought it was appropriate since it's often awkward to have these conversations with yourself and at times with your doctor. I never discussed this with my mother growing up, nor did she teach me to be a hypochondriac. Hope you enjoy and perhaps some of you can relate.

Just what is a closet hypochondriac? Those of you that can relate to the title alone know exactly what I’m talking about. To me, a closet hypochondriac is someone whose logic tends to overrule his or her irrational fears so that no doctor would ever label them a hypochondriac. I hope that others that are in the closet about this can rest assured that they aren’t alone and hopefully embrace it from a humorous perspective.

Those of you that can’t relate may now be asking yourselves, just what inner struggles could they possibly have? Well it’s simple, every time something new comes up that causes us to worry, which we logically know is irrational worry, nonetheless we worry. We then struggle with whether or not to go to the doctor. If we go to the doctor, they are going to tell us nothing is wrong, and we fear worse that we will be laughed at once we leave or labeled a hypochondriac in our chart. AHHHH!!! Not that!!! That’s where our logic kicks in and we choose not to go to the doctor. But after we’ve made that choice, we can’t stop worrying that something really IS wrong and this is the one time we really SHOULD have it checked out by a doctor, because if we wait TOO long, it will be TOO late and there will be nothing they can do. This is our internal struggle.

For me, my terminal disease of choice is cancer. If I see a bump on my hand that wasn’t there before, that I don’t know how it got there, it’s probably cancer. Or I’m going to worry that it is until it goes away. I’ve struggled with various back pain most of my life in one area. But I know how to treat and prevent pain on that side of my back. However, if I have pain on the other side of my back that logically I know feels like I strained a muscle, and it just needs time and perhaps ice and heat, I still worry that it’s cancer. Every time I get a new freckle somewhere on my body, I worry it’s cancer. I often have random bruises pop up on my body that I can’t pinpoint how they got there, so I worry I could have cancer. Even though I have a terrible depth perception problem which causes me to run into doorways, walls, or anything else in my way simply because I misjudge the distance they are from my body. Logically I know this is probably how one of these unknown bruises came about so I don’t bother going to the doctor freaking out. But I still wonder in the back of my mind sometimes until it goes away and I forget about it.

I thought I read somewhere once that the two most common diseases feared by hypochondriacs are cancer and MS. I’m sure there are other diseases feared out there. Please feel free to share your closet hypochondriacal disease of choice with the rest of us. It’s great therapy to get it off your chest. We won’t judge you. We might laugh in sympathy. But your choice to control yourself is highly respected. Humor is a great way to deal with a neurosis like this.

You know what the problem is, the Internet. Every time I get some new “symptom,” I have to go to the Internet and look it up. Cancer is always the first thing that pops up. Which is probably why cancer is the disease of choice. Everything is a potential symptom for cancer. What are we supposed to do about that? If we live long enough, won’t we all get cancer? Of course if I’m 90 and diagnosed with it, that’s ok. I just don’t want to be diagnosed with untreatable, terminal cancer at 30.

You see, what we should all fear are sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, gonorrhea (what a terrible name), herpes, AIDS, and the dreaded “warts.” All terrible diseases, but medical science has come so far that you don’t really need to worry about them nearly as much as you did 10 or 15 years ago or more, because there are cures, or effective treatments. You should fear the stigma attached with having to tell your potential spouse that you had syphilis or gonorrhea. You should be ashamed. That’s what we should all fear, not cancer. But cancer, while it’s not always a death sentence, is still killing people every day at all ages. It’s so unpredictable from person to person. And there are so many different kinds of cancer.

Thus the inner struggle continues. As long as logic always wins out to dictate when we do and don’t go to the doctor, we’ll all be ok. Just have a sense of humor about the fact that you’re a closet hypochondriac like me. There’s no shame in it.

How to Watch Where You're Going

2009-07-26T11:57:00.005-05:00

In reality my mother and father probably tried to tell me this over and over and over and over, but nothing really teaches you this lesson like hands on experience. I've spent my whole life running into walls, glass doors, and door ways. When I say my whole life I mean it. I still have that problem. I've also done a lot of tripping while walking down the hall or especially the sidewalk. Honestly the running into door ways isn't so much about watching where I'm going, I think it's more about misjudging where my arm is relative to the door frame. Does that mean it's quite likely a depth perception problem or some other perception problem.

Here's what my parents did teach me relative to this problem I have, and that is how to laugh at myself. Otherwise as much as I do these things with witnesses around, familiar and strangers, I would one self-loathing, depressed, defunct, and likely non functional member of society. I have been known to be walking down the sidewalk, trip so far I almost fall, and burst out laughing, not knowing at all if anyone saw it or not. If no one saw it, it's possible I haven't really been known to anyone other than myself. I think learning to laugh at yourself if the more important lesson to learn than to watch where you're going. Besides I'm sure every time they told me this, it didn't even go in one ear. It just went around or over my head and kept on going because it was likely interpreted as nagging nonsense the first time so my ears often slammed shut as soon as advice or admonishment was detected.

So what good would this post be without a good story. I'll share the one that inspired me just the other day. Friday we were over at my mom and step dad's for dinner and so were the step siblings and in-law and niece as a result. So the girls decided to go to the playground down the street so that my 2 year old niece could play and get out some of her endless energy. She's like a puppy only when my dog was little she'd play for 20 minutes and crash for an hour, get up play for 20 minutes and crash for another hour.

Back to the story. So we were walking down the sidewalk chattin it up as girls do and my niece decided she wanted to hold my hand while we walked so I took her hand and was looking down at her and the sidewalk. She was talking and I was trying to interpret, when all of a sudden BAM!!!!! we came to a halt and I look up and there was a sign right there impeding my forward momentum. WHAT!!! I'm only 5'8 but you could have been 4'8 and still had to duck to miss this sign. When all of the other signs around don't require me to duck to miss. All I would normally have to watch out for is the pole. I didn't hit the pole, I hit the extra low sign. Well this was on the edge of a cul-de-sac where some people were out in their front yard. Don't know if they saw it or not, but we immediately stopped and started laughing. It didn't hurt at all but it was quite funny and quite unfortunate that no one had a camera to capture this "preventable but why would you" moment. The cutest thing was that I got an "I sorry Amboo" and a hug. So it was all worth it.

When we got back home I slammed my head into the glass door trying to see inside from the back yard. Go figure...

New lesson: Not all signs are taller than the average man, so watch out for them.

You Will Feel Compelled to Watch Lifetime Sometimes

2009-07-19T15:35:00.007-05:00

I know I'm not the only one around that is a closet Lifetime fan. I don't even want to watch any of their shows. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I love me a bad Lifetime movie now and then. My mother didn't know about this compulsion because we didn't have cable growing up. But she did watch a soap opera or two which really isn't any better. Which is why I pass no judgement on you soap opera fans.

Why am I ashamed to admit this? If you don't know then your problem may be worse than mine. I'm ashamed because the movies are often terrible, shameful, immoral, victimize women at the hands of "evil" villainous men. As if to say all men are bad, which is a premise I vehemently oppose. But occasionally they throw in an evil woman as the villain. But usually she's doing another woman bad. These movies usually have cheesy scripts and plots, but I still watch them anyways.

You know what inspired this post? I'm watching one as I write this. It's called "Confessions of a Go-Go Girl" or something like that. You know why this stupid movie works? Because inside many of us is the fantasy of being able to be a successful go-go dancer looking all scantily clad hot while getting lots of money for it. It's a notch up from being a stripper while still making good money. Yes I have an inner go-go girl that I cage. Because I can't hardly wear a bikini in front of strangers and family let alone booty shorts and a bra. I have the modesty of me, which is why my inner go-go dancer will always be caged. Except for my husband of course.

Lifetime is successful because it's target audience has many various fantasies about their lives which they can live vicariously through a Lifetime movie. No matter how bad. Why do you think they have Lifetime Movie Network too? And Lifetime Real Women. I don't watch that one, but it obviously meets the desires of enough women to make them money.

What is wrong with me? I feel like I ought to go to a support group for Lifetime addicts. I don't watch every day because I have a job. But when I didn't, don't you know I snuck in a Lifetime movie to break up the job search because there's nothing else on except soap operas in the middle of the day. And I didn't want to get sucked into one of those since I was in a temporary situation of unemployment. But I watch it entirely too much. And I secretly like it. Even though I don't want to. I really really really don't want to. I'm so ashamed of myself. My husband makes fun of me. And rightly so. He tolerates it only because we have two TVs. What's a girl to do?

Some Kids Are Into the Art of Poo!

2009-07-12T13:50:00.009-05:00

This topic was inspired by a facebook status update from someone whose daughter woke her up because her younger brother had been practicing poo art on the wall. You see my mother didn't teach me this lesson because my little cousin beat her to it in my prepubescent years. I suppose that was the first exposure into the joys of parenthood that started me squarely on the path to no kids! Well at the very least, on the path to not getting knocked up until I was ready to handle such artwork from kids. That is the first moment of many moments that started my education on the fact that having kids was not something to take lightly or to rush into.

We were over at my aunt and uncle's house and they have 2 boys several years younger than me. Well one of them wanted me to come back and see his toys. For some reason we went into the other one's bedroom who was "drawing" on the wall with drab brown. All of a sudden the smell reached my nose and I realized that 3-D crayons didn't exist. I put 2 and 2 together and I don't really remember if I held it together or if I ran screaming in horror out to the living yelling "there's poo on the wall!!!" I'm going with if I did keep it together on the outside while delivering the news, I was freaking out running with my arms waving in the air and crying "oh the horror!!!THE HUMANITY!!!! The toilet exploded and shot poo out the door, took a left turn down the hall, then a right turn into his room and splatted on his wall!!!" I certainly thought that no other child had ever done this and there must be something wrong with him!! However the calm demeanor in the living room most likely followed by an explanation taught me otherwise.

All I know is that I didn't have to clean it up. Thank goodness!! But at that moment I didn't ever want to clean it up ever!! But I had no idea what was in store for me down the road. If you are interested in what followed in my poo experience, check out my previous post about exploding poo.

It may seem like poo is a common topic for me to write about, but it has caused me much trauma in my life. And my mother never ever warned me about any of them ahead of time. I supposed she decided it was good for me to learn these lessons through experience. Although I suppose I would have avoided trying and doing a lot of things had she warned me of potential disaster. And it was damn good birth control. Although it's possible my brother never dabbled in poo art, and if he did it was either before I was born or when I was much too young to even say poo. So it may not have even crossed her mind to tell me about this art form. None the less these lessons still haunt me to this day as the images were burned through my eyes into my brain and I don't think they will ever go away!

You Must Resist the Urge to be Crazy

2009-07-05T16:23:00.000-05:00

Growing up I saw a lot of crazy women out there and I was determined not to be crazy. What I didn't know is that no matter how much I resit the urge to be crazy, I will inevitably let crazy out of the bag once in awhile. I think some of this is inherited from both sides of my family, but I think most if comes on the X chromosome. Which means guys are sometimes crazy but we are more likely on average to be twice as crazy as they are. Now this only counts for your typical average man and woman. Any outliers are anomalies and don't count for the purposes of this discussion because a men and women that are physically abusive to each other aren't normal and average and they are beyond crazy. They are complete wackadoos that shouldn't ever date or marry or be allowed to reproduce.

I know there are women out there who discussed with each other just how crazy their mothers were and how they were going to be different. And then years later they have the discussion about how they just caught themselves doing something their mother did. So does that mean their mothers weren't crazy? Or are we all just destined to become crazy as we get older? Do men know about this before they marry us? Are they crazy for marrying us?

I have long held the opinion that women use PMS as an excuse to treat their men and their family poorly, and this is unacceptable. I'm not saying we aren't allowed moments of crazy PMS or not, but it is our responsibility to recognize if we acted poorly and admit we were wrong and apologize for our psychotic, lunatic, nutjob behavior. Pride in this area will turn into your ultimate downfall. And it won't win over your family either. They will just start to resent you. Having a sense of humor about it will get you further than stubbornness and pride.

We have all had those moments where we recognized that we were crazy. When I was much younger, I was being grumpy for some reason and so my brother made the comment that I must be PMSing, followed by laughter. I just got so mad that I started crying. This was back when I was still mortified to be getting a period every month. And the thought of my brother or father knowing this was humiliating. Now I'm just annoyed by it. Anyways I got even angrier uncontrollable tears when I realized he was right. How could this be? How could I let my emotions get the best of me? I was so devastated because this was the minute I discovered I had the capacity to be a crazy nutjob. And this was horrifying on top of the humiliation of a period every month which at this point had been going on for a few years.

The older I get the more I struggle with being keeping crazy in check. It seems like no matter how hard I try to keep in, it just slips out every once in awhile against my will! It's like having the good angel on one shoulder giving you the pep talk to keep it in while the devil is on the other shoulder telling you to let it out. He just forgets to tell you how foolish letting it out makes you look. So the next time you find yourself in this scenario, kick that stupid red devil off your shoulder and listen to the angel giving you the pep talk. You'll feel empowered and a little less crazy than the last time.

How to Maintain Grace While Your Innards are Noisy

2009-06-28T17:42:00.006-05:00

We all know about burps and farts and that the sound of them can be muffled. Although they sometimes slip out in public unrestricted. They are a part of life and we all accept this about each other while secretly, or perhaps not so secretly, judging you if you let it slip noticeably. It really depends how well you are known and liked by the audience.

But what about those "other noises?" You know when you're hungry your stomach growls. But what if it is right after lunch and you are in a room full of people and your "stomach" starts making loud uncontrollable noises? Logically they should conclude that you're no longer hungry so it must be gas. I mean that's what I would logically conclude. All sorts of humiliating thoughts start running through your head like "these noises are loud enough that I'm going to start getting looks or everyone will suddenly burst out in uncontrollable laughter," or perhaps "I'm going to be the subject of gossip and laughter behind my back when we're on break," or "do they realize I'm not actually sitting back here farting?" And then you feel like making an announcement about how "hungry" you really are so they'll think it's just your stomach growling and not the continuous flow of farts. Don't they know I'd muffle a fart and they would never hear it? I always figure no, even though I would always give people the benefit of the doubt. At least at that exact moment I would feel sympathy for anyone in my position.

My mom did not prepare me for this continuous humiliation even into adulthood. I feel like I'm perpetually in high-school when silly noises like this occur in my innards and I just want to slip under my desk out of site. I can't leave the room because the whole room will exchange looks at each other followed by the biggest outburst of laughter known to man. At least this is what happens in my head. If I stay in the room, at least there might be question as to who is producing such ungodly noises after lunch. Although I'm convinced my face is flashing red saying "It's Me!! It's ME and it's gas!!!! And I am more humiliated than when I get a pap smear!!" (Though not my first 5 or so...those were definitely more humiliating.)

I wish there was a magic pill. Although I'm sure some of you probably have some. And don't tell me fruits, vegetables, and fiber is the answer. I'm sure they are causing it as my diet is high in all of those things. I'm also paranoid that they just naturally assume that it's gas when it really is my stomach growling. So I'll ask it again, am I the only one that gets embarrassed by my bodily noises? Do I need to get over it, if only in my head?

Just Because Everyone Else Doesn't Think Exactly As You Do, Doesn't Make Them Wrong!

2009-06-21T17:54:00.005-05:00

This is a subject that often comes up with me in the form of having such high expectations of others. It's very difficult for me because it often frustrates me or makes me feel like a terrible person, depending on the circumstance. Both of which are awkward positions to be in.

Work is one place that beat me down in this arena. I expect people to put the effort I do into communication, learning, and performance. This doesn't mean that mistakes and screw ups won't happen, but I make an effort to learn from mistakes and apply what I've learned for the future in similar and different situations or projects. I often find this doesn't happen, and what is even more frustrating or awkward, is that this is consistently tolerated. Although maybe what I don't notice is that these are the people that don't get promoted. It is possible that they stay in the same jobs until they retire. I suppose that's not so bad. But I often find myself getting beat down about this. And it's not that I want to lower my expectations, I want everyone to step it up a notch or two. If only a notch. I want them to strive to improve, if only a little.

This also happens in regular life when I find myself being judgemental or critical of people that get married young, which was 26 for me so younger than 25 is too young by my definition. Not that it's wrong or can't be handled, I just think there's live to be lived before getting married and that many people pass it up because they are so focused on growing up and getting married. Not that growing up and getting married is a bad thing. The next thing people do too young in my opinion is have kids. I have always had a 5 year timeline for being married before having kids. And I see so many people that are younger than me, married for less time than me having kids. Not that they can't handle it, but it just seems like a step people rush into.

It's awkward for me because I don't like to be so harsh or critical of them, although I do try and keep those opinions to myself. I don't call them up and say "What they hell are you thinking!!!! YOU'RE TOO YOUNG!!!" In reality they may not be, but I definitely was at their age. It's different for everyone. And just because they don't think the way I do for marriage and kids, doesn't make them wrong, it just makes them more grown up then me. The truth is, both of those decisions terrified me for a long time (one still does) and I don't understand people that weren't as terrified as me for both of those decisions. Maybe that just means I'm immature. Which if true, is exceptionally awkward for me as I've always been labeled mature.

Am I alone with this awkward internal struggle?

How to be Polite and Respectful in Public

2009-06-12T16:57:00.010-05:00

This post most certainly IS NOT about me or my mother. My husband and I were on vacation this last week and just returned late last night after 2 cancelled flights and getting transferred to another airline to get home. This was due to weather in our connecting city which messed up the day for a lot of travellers including us.

We had booked the first flight out at 6:00 am pst and were planning on being home by 2:00 pm cst. We didn't land at our home airport until 11:30 pm. Needless to say it was a long day for us and many other travellers. Still that's not an excuse to be rude and disrespectful in public. Basic manners should be a given when everyone is just trying to get to their final destination.

We were all loaded on our last flight home and wouldn't you know our seats were right next to some loud and obnoxious brats, when we see two other people take their seats who had been loud and obnoxiously carrying on in the waiting area in the terminal. To be fair it was really 1 of the 2 of them, but the 2nd one didn't seem to have a problem with this dramatic display for attention. So now we have 5 people all fighting for attention on a plane full of people that just wanted to get to their final destination.

Some how they started antagonizing each other and being rude to each other so one of them asked the flight attendant about changing seats but in a loud and belligerent fashion obviously taking a shot at the brats behind him. Which one of them responded to obnoxiously. However I must say the first person had gone up and down the aisles 2 or 3 times before finally taking a seat so I don't know that there weren't other exchanges between him and the flight attendants before this scene went down.

The plane had backed out of the gate and stopped for several minutes when the captain comes on and says that they have to pull back to the gate to take care of an administrative issue. A few minutes later someone from security comes on to ask the 2 people in front of the 3 obnoxious brats to please exit the plane with him as the captain has requested they be removed from the plane. There was an immediate feel of fear that came over the 3 as they were apart of the final display that a majority of the people assumed was the only reason for the 2 being asked to exit. These two immediately went into defensive "what have we done wrong" mode, refusing to leave.

Let me just say it doesn't matter at this point what anyone has done, if the captain has requested you gone, for whatever reason, you aren't going on that plane. In reality all 5 of them should have been kicked off, but I sense the one had done some other things before that scene to make one or two of the flight attendants uncomfortable. I'll back them up, I was irritated and a bit uncomfortable when they showed up right in front of those 3 brats who were already having a loud, obnoxious conversation about silliness that no one wanted to hear. Why can't people get on a plane, sit down, and shut up???? My husband and I barely talk to each other on a plane, and when we do, we keep the noise down so no one can hear our conversation. At least can the noise level be piped down to a reasonable level? Are my expectations of others again a little too high?

My other problem was the people around that decided to speak up for or against these two to plead their case or just plead for them to just get off while the gate security officials are trying to talk them off the plane before the police come and take them by force. Shut up you!!! # 1 you don't know what all was behind this removal! Don't assume you know the whole story! #2 you aren't helping this scene end any sooner by distracting security or the removees. I don't care if you think it's unreasonable, and I don't care that you just want them to go peacefully. KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!!! The captain is the only judge and jury on the plane, he's not going to change his mind because you think he should. Your opinion doesn't count so get over yourself!

They finally left the plane, but not before the 3 obnoxious brats found themselves sticking up for them when prodded by the removees. At this point I thought they felt bad about the part they played in the disturbance and were just trying to pacify the situation. But after we landed they were back to talking smack and making jokes about how they got kicked off. Was I too much of a wuss for not telling them to lock it up because they should have been kicked off too? I don't know. We touched down just after 11:30 pm and I just wanted to get off the plane and get home. I do wish I would have had the guts to tell them to grow up and get some manners, but the part of me that didn't want to cause a scene is much more dominant, because people like that generally don't have respect or consideration for anyone around them. Why didn't their (all 5 maybe 4) mothers and fathers teach them to be respectful, polite, and considerate to others in public or private? And as the case may be, why didn't they teach them to pick their friends wisely as they will be judged by the company they keep? Why is getting attention, positive or negative, more important to some people? How awkward to go though life without manners or common courtesy.

Kudos to the pilot and crew though, we were already way late getting home. Another half hour or so wasn't a big deal to us.

How to Grow Old Gracefully While Fighting the Signs of Age

2009-05-31T12:35:00.006-05:00

So I turned 31 about a week and a half ago and we'll say missed a post due to events that happened to take place during that time. My husband, who is 36, said that turning 30 wasn't so bad for him, but 31 was, because it meant he was now "into his 30s." Turning 30 was a breeze but now that I'm "into my 30's," I find myself obsessing more and more about lines and wrinkles and discolorations on my face as well as the increasing number of gray hairs I'm finding. I'm spending more money than ever on crap to try and fix or prevent things from getting worse.

A couple of years ago I went and had a spa facial done, and before hand they have you fill out a form letting them know what kinds of products you are using and what your concerns are. I was washing my face with soap and my biggest concern was the discolorations. The lady told me soap is bad. What!!! My mother never told me not to use soap on my face! I'd been using it for the last 10 years or so. They were trying to sell me their products though which were much more expensive than I was willing to pay for. So maybe soap is why my skin is still hideous. Or maybe it's just that I'm more sensitive to how it looks now that I'm into my 30s. Maybe if I'd obsessed about it half as much in my 20s, it would look much better now. I don't really know. I did however wear sunscreen most if not all of the time so I think my spots are from birth control. But I don't know if going off of it will clear it up or not.

I probably didn't worry about my skin in my 20's because I spent it worrying about my gray hair. My first gray hair was discovered in a foreign country at 19. Well I didn't worry about it so much as I made the decision to start dying it to hide the gray hair. The older I get the more I'm getting. This puts me in a very awkward place because I'm a brunette and I don't have enough gray to go blond (which would make me look silly), but I'm getting more and more gray that covering it up with dye just isn't lasting long. And I feel I'm much to young to go platinum silver (which I love) even if I had enough gray hair to warrant it. And I much too cheap a person to keep up with what ever method I choose. Hmmm what's woman to do?

Either way, I don't much like obsessing over anything whether it's the small lines or wrinkles around my eyes or a new gray hair that I haven't pulled out yet. It is kind of awkward explaining to a coworker that you are indeed 10 years younger than he is and that he's either terribly not smooth with the ladies and has just sent you into a horrible depression as he's just robbed you of 10 years of youthful beauty. I don't know who felt more awkward after that conversation, me or him. I'm guessing he didn't get it based on other short sighted comments he's made, so probably I felt the most awkward after that conversation. After all, I'm the one obsessing. I suppose it goes along with much of the rest of my life, a great big pile of awkward fun....

This 41 looking 31 year old is open to any tips and secrets you all might have for me.

There is Spackle on Your Colon...WHAT?!?!?

2009-05-17T18:53:00.004-05:00

This post is inspired by those disgusting commercials I keep hearing on the radio for colon cleanses. Maybe this wasn't so much the responsibility of my mother to teach me as my doctor. Or her doctor for that matter so she could know to teach me. None-the-less neither of these two people EVER told me I should worry about 5 lbs of spackle on my colon walls!!! But there it is on the radio so it MUST be true.

After hearing the commercial for the 50th time and contemplating 5 lbs of spackle on my colon wall, I was this (--) close to making an appointment with my doctor to ask her about the spackle on my colon wall and the best way to get rid of it. That would have been a very awkward conversation. "Doc, I'm terrified of the spackle on my colon walls. I don't want to die of spackle build up...why didn't you ever discuss this with me on my routine yearly check ups?" How awkward it would be to have your doctor laugh hysterically at you, when you didn't tell a joke.

It was this picture in my mind that lead me back to reason. If there were really 5 lbs of spackle on my colon wall, I would be terribly sick or in pain. We wouldn't be dying of the swine flu, we'd be dropping like flies from the full body infection from the 5 lbs of spackle that had been festering and growing on our colon walls for the last however many years. Seriously!!! It would be an epidemic of devastating proportions, and the colon cleanse inventors would have won a noble prize for saving humanity from certain early deaths. Our doctors would prescribing colonics and colon cleanses on a monthly basis to keep us alive since our bodies weren't doing their jobs right.

I'm glad reason and logic saved me from perhaps the most awkward conversation ever in my life.

Ode to Bill O'Reilly's Mom!

2009-05-11T21:28:00.005-05:00

Continuing on with the mother's day theme, here's a tribute to Bill O'Reilly's mom.
The following video is rated R for language. Bill O'Reilly's language. I don't know how many of you have seen the Bill O'Reilly flip out when he was on Access Hollywood. But if not here it is....

What I'm leading up to is our discovery of the "Dance Remix" to it. Which is a heavier R rating than the original, so be wary of your kids seeing it. This is really very hilarious and made possible by Bill O'Reilly's mom not teaching him how to handle stressful situations with grace. I hope he takes good care of her. I'm guessing she put up with a lot...Enjoy!!!

Happy Mother's Day!!!

2009-05-10T09:40:00.004-05:00

This site is dedicated to my mother, who made the idea for this site possible with her mothering and raising me to be independent and learn many lessons though experience.

And to all the mothers who let us all learn life's awkward lessons through experience.

Happy Mother's Day Mom!!! I Love You!!!

Not Everyone Has Dignity in Public Restrooms

2009-05-03T15:03:00.006-05:00

This will be a re post of another blog I had Sunshine Insight, that very few of you probably saw. That is because it was the first post, which was way before I got it posted on the various blog directories, unless you looked at the archive on it. Anyways the topic is basically etiquette in public restrooms. Something I feel passionately opinionated about. I suppose because my mom must have taught me good bathroom manners, or instilled a sense of private prudeness. (this is a good thing to me) What she didn't or couldn't really prepare me for was the behavior of others in public restrooms that don't meet my quite possibly unreasonably high standards. But then again, cell phones weren't widely utilized when I was a kid. But I'm quite certain there are a large number of you that agree with me even though I already know a large number of you are going to think I need help. But I'm not sure there's much more awkward than having to use an occupied public restroom. It's something I think most of us get used to as a matter of survival. And don't think I don't feel sympathy for the guys who have to stand shoulder to shoulder. Some of my below "rules" would still apply there in my mind. I'd be in a stall every time regardless of what I were doing if I were a guy. Anyways I hope you get a laugh from it......Enjoy....

Am I the only one that wonders this? Since I am a woman, I only have the vantage point of a woman. But how many times do I have to walk into a public restroom that has been freshly stinkified?? I got the inspiration for this working a temp job at a place that had a bathroom with 4 stalls. Now most of the employees were women and there were quite a few, so the probability of being in there while others were in there was relatively high. However, it was possible to get some alone time in there and I completely understand people taking advantage of that alone time because when you gotta go, you gotta go at the risk of major medical problems later.

The problem that I have is when someone walks into a bathroom that is occupied and doesn’t follow the unspoken rules of public restroom etiquette. For example, if I’m already in a stall and you need to make a stinky, then do your best to wait until I leave. If the person occupying the stall is also making a stinky then that rule doesn’t apply. Also if there are 4 stalls when you walk in, and I’ve taken the first or last stall, don’t take the stall right next to me unless the other 2 stalls are just rank and filthy. There’s no need to crowd me when I’m peeing. I wouldn’t do it to you so do me the same courtesy.

I believe women ought to approach the bathroom as I imagine guys do. When you open the bathroom door, put your guy hat on and quickly process your options so as to seem the least gay. Only in the females’ case, I look at it as the respecting yours and the others’ personal space. I realize that not all women care if another woman hears them taking care of business. But I won’t even pee in front of my husband. Why would I want another woman to listen to my business? Which brings me to another rule. Don’t talk to me while I’m doing my business. It really has nothing to do with not being able to pee and talk at the same time as it does sharing a private conversation with the rest of the women in the bathroom. Even though they have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not as a stickler for this rule as some of the others. I’m more of a go with the flow as long as you don’t pick the stall right next to me while conversing with me. And if the conversation could be construed as rude, immature, or just plain ridiculous, just save it.

Since I have learned that very few women have dignity when it comes to the bathroom, I have come up with another rule for common courtesy in the bathroom. If you must make an ungodly noise while in the bathroom, smelly or not, please have the dignity to not show your face to me. I don’t want to look you in the eye and know what disturbing sounds you are capable of making, whether I know you or not. In the work place, I may not know you well but I most likely will see your face again, and there’s no telling if I may have to work with you in the future. You and I both know that if we have to sit in a meeting together, all I will be able to think about is how gross and undignified I think you are because you dared show your face to me in the bathroom. I mean how difficult is it to sit and wait 30 seconds for me to leave, especially when you hear me washing my hands? If I had a dollar for every time a woman made a horrendous noise while I’m washing my hands, I’d probably be retired.

That leads me to my next rule in the bathroom. WASH YOUR FREAKIN HANDS WHEN YOU’RE DONE!!! It’s so gross to be at the sink and see someone come out of a stall behind you and go straight for the door. That is the reason why bathroom doors are so disgustingly dirty. There is no reason for that. If we all washed our hands it wouldn’t be as much of an issue. I suppose that all public restrooms could do us a favor by making sure that the paper towels and trashcan are located right next to the door so that those of us that do wash don’t have to touch the door. Better yet, just make them censored doors. Toilets and sinks are now censored so we don’t have to touch and spread germies. I’ve even seen censored paper towel dispensers. So it makes sense to have automatic doors doesn’t it? That way we don’t have to worry about touching a tainted door or kicking it open or whatever.

Oh and I don’t want to leave out the rudeness of talking on the phone while in said public bathroom on the pot. Seriously, is your conversation so important that it can’t wait a few minutes? It makes us other users weired out to hear a one sided conversation where we have to guess the other side of the conversation. “nothing”. Presumably a response to “What are you doing”….where the more appropriate response would be, “I brought you into the bathroom with me, can you tell?”I once worked a temp job where the boss walked around with a blue-tooth attached to his ear most of the day. Many times he’d walk out the door down the hall to the right while in a conversation, not with me. The only thing I knew to be down the hall to the right was the bathroom. He’d always come back a few minutes later still talking on that thing. I hope and pray that the person on the other end of that conversation was family only. Which is still rude, but much more understandable and less offensive than business associates. I always wondered if he was alone in the bathroom or if there were ever other men in there while he was talking on the phone. I can only assume one can never ever always have a public bathroom to themselves.

GROSS!!! and AWKWARD!!!

Don’t bring your phone into the bathroom, and if you do, never under any circumstances answer it even if it is family. It can wait a few minutes until your done. Trust me. No phone call is so important that you must attend to it while in the bathroom. And if it is, hold off on going to the bathroom until after your conversation is through.There I've said my peace, but I reserve the right to comment more on this subject later.

Never Accept a Mass Public Proposal

2009-04-22T20:45:00.005-05:00

I just got wind of this story this morning and thought I'd write about it since it's a topic I feel passionate about. A T.V. news reporter in Little Rock Arkansas proposed to his anchor girlfriend on camera during a news cast. It was very awkward for me just to listen to him speak. Here's the video if you're interested.

Quite honestly my mother never specifically taught me this, but she did teach me values and help me develop independent thought that led me to my personal set of values that developed my opinion on this topic. I know that many of you think a public proposal such as this or at a professional sporting event is so romantic, but that's your narcissistic side coming though. This is one subject you should suppress your desire to be the center of attention. That's what the wedding is for.

First of all this is a very private decision and a very private moment. It should be special to the two of you. I'm not a huge fan of restaurant proposals either but this is a much more intimate setting than a ball game or on the evening news. And a restaurant may represent a special memory for the two of you, so when I say public, I mean when thousands and thousands of people or more are FORCED to witness your proposal. The only choice they have in not witnessing it is if they happen to be in the bathroom at the time or to change the channel. But the train has started wrecking at this point and you can't change the channel in the off chance that she will turn him down. As she should every time but rarely does. Thousands of people should never be forced to be a part of such a special moment.

It's a sign of weakness and insecurity. Is he so unsure of her answer that he needs the support of thousands of strangers to convince or perhaps guilt her into saying yes? How is he going to feel if she turns him down? Awkward...This is a big red flag in my book. I think it's a red flag to a guy if his girlfriend wants a very public proposal. It goes both ways for the red flags. If my husband had done that to me, it would have been a signal to me that he really didn't know me at all.

Quite honestly I'm not even a fan of a proposal in front of the family but I realize that each family dynamic is different so I'm not even talking about that for the purpose of this post.

This is just my opinion and I'm prepared for the opposing opinions. You have a right to your opinion and I have the right to turn down anyone that proposes to me in the company of a large crowd.

Boobs Aren't All That Bad

2009-04-12T16:53:00.007-05:00

It's really kind of an oddity, boobs. Well it was for me. I knew the functional purpose for boobs growing up with regards to babies. My mom did a good job of teaching me that. But that was it. So when I started to get them, I thought it would be great. And then my mom took me bra shopping which gave me a harsh dose of reality.

I had gone my whole life care free and unrestrained with nothing but a shirt, and now I had to wear a contraption under my shirt that was supposed to contain them?!?! Well this just wasn't comfortable and it inhibited my way of life. Boys didn't so much like them as they liked to pop the bra strap in the back in an effort to humiliate you. Or maybe they were trying to get as close to touching a booby as they could since it would be quite awhile for most of them.

Then as the boobies got bigger they just seemed to get in the way. When you ran in any sport they would bounce up and down to sky and ground over and over and over. The bigger they were, the worse they bounced. And this didn't feel so comfortable either. I'm wondering now why sports bras weren't mandatory for PE when I was in school. Maybe they were in some schools but not ours. It sure would have helped. They just contributed to my awkwardness growing up since one minute you don't have them and all of sudden, before you know it, you're sprouting these benign tumors that just keep growing and growing and serve you no immediate purpose other than pain and discomfort.

Anyways I had no idea back then that they would turn out to be a source of "stimulation"...but that's where I'll leave it. They also contribute to looking and feeling more feminine. So it turns out they're not so bad. But of course the older we get the saggier they get. oh no...

Speaking of saggy boobies and the functional purpose of boobies for the nourishment of babies, did any of you see the clip of Al Roker sharing his brush with both on the Today Show? If you haven't seen it, here is the link to the video. Watch at your own risk as you will feel so sorry for his child that he put this out there in the universe. But it is funny.
http://www.eonline.com/videos/v19191253001_The_Soup_The_Price_of_Porn.html

So I guess the moral of this post is that boobs aren't all that bad if you're a woman.

How To Get Used to Your Brother Liking Your Friends

2009-04-05T17:40:00.005-05:00

I have an older brother. He's married now to someone that we didn't grow up with or go to school with, so I lucked out. He introduced me to her, not the other way around. This is how it should be. But there were many years that it didn't work out this way. All the way up until he finally went to college. We were in high school together for one year. That might have been the worst for me regarding this topic. But first I will start from the beginning.

Back in 2nd grade (5th for him), we went to a 2 teacher school that probably had a total of 20-25 students in grades 1-8. I still thought boys were oogy back then, but my brother did not think girls were oogy. He thought they were cute. He wasn't going to do anything with them obviously but you remember how it was when you were 10 or 11. Anyways I had this friend who was new to our school and she was in my grade, so since there were 4 of us in 2nd grade and 3 of us were girls, naturally we became friends. Somewhere along the way in hanging out with her, my brother was around her too. He saw her everyday so why wouldn't he notice her out of 20 people? I don't know how I figured it out but somewhere along the way he either told me or made it apparent that he found her attractive or liked her or something like that. Ohhh!!! Stay away from my friend!!!!

We left a year later and moved to a new school and made new friends. This school was bigger but for some reason not big enough. The new friend I made in my class was the only other girl in my grade, not the school but my grade. My brother had several cute girls in his class but he still liked my friend....WHAT!?!?! Again he was really too young to really do anything about it. But I'm convinced he was bold enough to let her know before she moved away. I can't really remember and I don't really care to. In the meantime not only did my brother like her but so did every other boy within a grade or two of us probably. I do know one boy in my class sent her the "will you be my special friend" note. I never got one of those so I think I was probably more jealous of her than anything. But my brother wasn't supposed to be piling onto this admiration for her!!!! After she moved away I had a few years of peace, I suppose because the girls his age were hitting puberty and sprouting boobies, so he had other girls to capture his attention for a few years until my class caught up.

So after a few years we moved again and went to another school. Bigger than the 2nd school but still relatively small in relation to public schools. I was in 7th grade at this point and he was in high school. This meant I had another couple of years of peace, maybe because most of us were in the midst of the most awkward years any girl goes through. Even the "hot" girls were a little awkward at this age in that they were still a little flat, or had pizza faces, or glasses, or said weird things, or had other awkward things happening to them in front of the audience of the rest of the school to witness, point, and laugh. (This is how it went for me in my head.)

The minute I got to high school, a new flock of students joined our class that didn't experience the most awkward years of their life in front of the whole school. So wouldn't you know it there was a new group of girls for my brother to notice. He'd had a couple years experience at dating by this point and he wasn't shy. This is why this was the worst time period in my life for him to like my friends. This was the year that he actually asked some of them to banquets or on dates or to hang out or whatever. Gag me!!!! Again only because his friends weren't asking me to banquets or on dates or to hang out or whatever. He did throw me a bone once in awhile by letting me and my friends hang out with him and his friends. But only if they came over to our house to watch movies or something like that. Before he wouldn't have invited them over if I was going to be there. Doesn't matter, he still wasn't supposed to ask my friends out!!! What was wrong with girls his own age. He dated so much maybe he'd been out with all of them and didn't want to go out with any of them again. Or maybe they were turning him down. He had a few steady girlfriends (at different times) but mostly just went out for fun with several different girls. I suppose I should be grateful that he didn't date any of my friends long term. Only went on one or two dates with them. Didn't make it any less painful for me.

Awkward!!!

Am I the only one that had this problem growing up? Please let me know if I'm not alone. I'm over it now. Although I suppose you could hardly tell if I'm writing about it. My mother never prepared me for the possibility of my brother liking my friends. I suppose she told me to get over it. I don't really remember it. I mean it's not like she could tell him "don't like your sister's friends," any more than she could tell me "don't like your brother's friends."

Oh well...I'm glad he married who he did rather than one of my friends. That would have been weird for me. Although, she is only 10 days older than me....Hmmm....Guess he never got over his thing for the ladies 3 years younger than him. Now that we are adults, it's way less weird.

How to Ask for or Accept Help From a Man

2009-03-29T14:10:00.008-05:00

This may have something to do with growing up in the midst of the gaining strength of the feminist movement which taught America that men were all pigs or dogs (I happen to love dogs) no matter what they did and women didn't need a man. So here I am growing up in this culture throwing this message at me left and right while my mom was teaching me independence. So I'm sure my brain mixed the messages up a bit rather than filter out the ridiculous one.

I have always been proud of my independence and had an interest and ability to learn things that have always been traditionally "male" responsible task. For example I love mowing lawn, I got my dad to teach me how to work on my car when I owned American, as well as basic maintenance things that apply regardless of your car's country of development. I didn't need any man's help for anything and if I did, I would call my dad. He was the only man capable of helping me. Not to mention stranger danger, and don't trust a stranger to help, you because they will probably tie you up, throw you in their trunk and you'll disappear from the face of the earth and no one will know what happened to you.

My trusty friend, who I can look back and say she and I had our heads on straight for the most part, discussed this and how we felt it was actually a weakness of ours rather than a strength. How can a man prove he's a man to you if you won't let him be a man and help you when you are in distress, even if you don't really NEED him to help you.

A perfectly great example of this happened when I was driving my car full of friends and we were probably out to go to dinner and a movie. I do believe I was in a hurry driving and I jumped the curb (I don't know how else to say it) and ended up cutting my tire and it went flat. I was furious....at myself for being so stupid. At least two of my friends had cell phones and between the two of them either had road side assistance or AAA or something that would have come and changed my tire for free since it didn't matter who owned the car. Stubborn me already knew good and well how to change a stupid tire and I didn't need anyone to come out and change my freaking tire. I just need to vent my anger while I changed my tire. The whole time they are telling me that it's really no big deal to call someone. Well what they didn't get at the time I think, is that my ego was shot for being careless and causing my own flat tire. I had to redeem myself by proving that Yes I Amber Sunshine could change my own tire, with a few choice words, without the help of a professional. So I did and we laughed about how silly I was for years.

I knew this was an issue I needed to work on, but pride is a hard thing to set aside. And I do believe that was at the core of my problem. I'm trying to remember how my friend and I decided to handle it. I think we just decided to be more conscious of it and to make more of an effort to let people help when they offered.

An example of this came sometime in college again related to a flat tire. I was driving up to my dad's house by myself on Thanksgiving or Christmas, and I'm not sure what happened but a few exits before his house, my tire went flat and I pulled over. I wasn't mad this time, it was no big deal. I would just change my tire and be on my way. Before I could even get everything out of my trunk some strangers (OH NO!!!) stopped and offered to help. I was dressed nicer than normal and I knew they were being nice on such a holiday and didn't have to stop. Rather than freak out and run screaming "STRANGER DANGER" down the road, I graciously said thank you and let them take care of my tire and about 10 minutes later I was on my way. Not stuffed in anyone's trunk if you can believe it!! I didn't have dirty hands, and I had accepted help. There was at least one other time that I was stranded, maybe for gas, at night that someone did stop and help. It's much scarier at night than during the day. There have also been other times I was stranded that people weren't so kind to stop and help and I had to hike it to the nearest gas station (before I had a cell phone) to call for help.

What I learned was that accepting or asking for help is not giving up my independence. It is in fact being resourceful and getting by even when mommy and daddy are no longer around to bail me out when I'm in trouble. And that's just as important as being independent.

How to Dance

2009-03-22T13:23:00.011-05:00

I grew up in religious home that believed dancing was a mortal sin punishable by death. (I'm exaggerating, my church doesn't believe that nor do my parents.) I also went to church school where we had banquets, hence why I didn't have dances or proms in high school to go to which I guess is where most kids learn how to or perfect the art of relaxing and dancing. That said I will agree that there is a lot of dirty dancing going on that is just ridiculous and simulated sex on the dance floor. But you don't have to dirty nasty dance to have a good time on the dance floor. And this is something that my parents really couldn't teach me because my mother didn't grow up dancing and I'm not sure that my dad was the kind of guy that danced in high school. He just hung out.

Even though my parents didn't teach me to dance that doesn't mean I didn't turn the radio up in my room and flail my arms and legs about in some thrashing manner to the beat of the music. I have rhythm and hearing the beat and moving to it has never been the problem. Here's where the problem was; in my room only I could see myself in the mirror, there was no audience around to look at me and see just how silly and ridiculous I looked. When no one was watching, I didn't care how I looked, I was having fun and expending loads of energy all at the same time without the fear of of laughing and pointing at me by a whole dance floor or room of people. As a result of my private sessions, let's just say I can do a mean running man which took lots and lots of practice. And now when the Office theme song comes on TV, I tear it up on the living room floor much to the entertainment of my husband who refuses to join me.

I did just fine with this in junior high and high school. But then college came and I made a trip to Austin with a friend to visit a friend. We decided to go down town to the world famous 6th street to hang out and catch any random band playing. So we went into a place and a reggae band was playing. We were just standing there enjoying the music (standing room only) without moving a muscle. After a bit we started to notice everyone around us was relaxed and moving to the music. It didn't really come to my mind at this point in time that they were either drunk, high, or both so they were chemically relaxed. Instead, it occured to us that we ought to relax and enjoy ourselves and not be so stiff. So there we were doing our best to sway to the music while feeling awkward and stiff. Do you know what a board looks like swaying to music? Well that was me. I was also fighting a look of shame and embarrassment on my face at the same time too. Luckily it wasn't brightly lit but in my mind that didn't matter. My face was glowing red and lighting up the room and it was as if somone was yelling through a bullhorn telling the room to look and how dumb and silly I looked stiffly bopping and swaying to the music. This wasn't even dancing. This was attempting to do something that should be easy. But not so much much for me.

Later in college I went to establishments prime for dirty dancing. It took a few times to build up the courage to go out on the floor with a female friend and just jump around. In fact that might have been the song to get me out there, I don't really remember. Jumping is a good way to start loosening up though. As time went by and I realized that people cared more about drawing attention to themselves than looking at me, I relaxed and embraced my inner dancing queen since most people looked as or more ridiculous than I did.

Whenever a country song came on, slow or not, I'd leave the dance floor. This is because, 1 I hated country and more importantly 2, it usually involved coordinated steps, which went against my nature. One time, one of my friends convinced me to go out there and he was going to teach me to two step. Awkward. This was my first attempt at dancing where you follow someone else's lead. So he told and showed me what my feet needed to do and where my hands went and we were off. This kind of dancing actually makes much more sense than my way, but requires much more discipline, control, and relaxing I think than I have. Anyways I generally spent the whole time counting my steps and looking at my feet, because when I wasn't doing those things, I would get off step and so it was just best if I concentrated. Besides, what are you supposed to do with your eyes?? Make googly eyes at each other. He was hot but he had a girlfriend and I wasn't about to step in on someone else's territory. So that added to the awkwardness. So I decided feet were better than eyes at this point. I was glad I tried and learned it though because it gave me the ability to try it a few other times. Even though I remained somewhat stiff, I still did it. Which was better than not trying at all.

I usually danced with my female friends or a few guy friends since they were "safe." If a guy I didn't know wanted to dance, I would give him an opportunity, but if he tried to put his hands on me or invade my personal space, I was out of there. As time went on, I found out that I had a sign flashing on my forehead that said "back off." Or something along those lines. The older I got, the more I made sure it was flashing when I went into a facility of drinking and dancing. This is because I had more fun dancing with my friends than fighting of some drunk guy rubbing his business up against me. That was not my idea of fun. And I found myself not getting asked to dance nearly as much as my other friends. And I was quite alright with this especially since I wasn't there to find my husband. Anyone that thinks they can find a quality mate in a bar or a club is crazy. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just saying that wasn't the place to find someone with similar values as mine and it wasn't my intention either. My only intention was to have fun and get some good exercise.

I once took free or cheap dancing lessons with a friend and it was us and some women, and some smelly unattractive older guys. I don't remember but there may have been one or two dirty (pervy) old men there. If I remember correctly there were more women than men and my friend and I ending up dancing together a few times. I think I was usually the man. Because I'm taller of course. Anyways my suggestion is if you ever go to dance classes, take a partner of the opposite sex with you. Because if you're like me switching from leading to following is simply not possible in such a short amount of time. It was still fun though.

I think the trick is to take multi-purpose dance class when you are little. Then you can get over the anxiety of looking like a doofus because you have the confidence of a trained dancer. At least for girls.

Your Neanderthal Eyebrows...Well They Don't have to be

2009-03-15T18:12:00.003-05:00

This kind of fits into some of the previous posts dealing with bodily hair and grooming, however as they deserved their own post, I figured I'd give the eyebrows their own post too. How old were you all when you started grooming your eyebrows? Did you even need to groom them or were you born with perfect eyebrow size, length, and shape?

I wasn't. Neither was my brother. I suppose he had it worse than me but guys usually get a pass for longer than girls do I think. He pretty much had the unibrow look going on. I'm not sure when he started to fix that but I'm sure it had to do with a chick he was dating at the time. It definitely was not my mother. And he solved it by shaving down between his eyes. I wish it were that simple for girls. My problem was more so in shape. I think it was like having two hairy rectangles. They may have been more like triangles. Either way they weren't attractive.

I remember once my dad took me to get a haircut from a lady we went to church with and she decided to experiment on my eyebrows. With my dad's permission of course. I suppose it was gratis. This was when I was about 12 I believe. The pain was not nearly the pain experienced from previously discussed bikini wax, but I do recall some pain. Also I distinctly remember the waxing missing a whole load of eyebrows which meant she followed up with what seemed like a marathon session of tweezing. Every once in awhile the tweezing caused more pain than should be inflicted on a 12 year old child. I knew this was more work than I cared to keep up with. I also decided that if beauty was this much pain, I wanted no part of it. Come to think of it, this might also explain my previously discussed difficulty with getting dates in high school. hmmm funny how writing about somethings can bring enlightenment about other thing...

Sometime during high school, I started to notice that my friends had shapely, girly looking eyebrows. Kind of like what you see in magazines. I vaguely remember having a conversation about it with one of my friends. I also remember reading about shaping your eyebrows in magazines. Between the two of them, I decided that tweezing was going to be my best option, and that I should tweeze bottom up and never top down so as to open up my eyes. But I must say, I wasn't looking forward to it based on my experience years before. This must have been the moment that I decided beauty was worth a certain amount of pain. My hope was that I'd get used to the pain. I suppose I did although it still hurts a little.

If I remember correctly I took a little at a time off the bottom since my impression was that it was labor intensive to do it all at once. Plus I might screw up if I did it all at once. One thing I learned was that I didn't have bushy eyebrows. They were kind of thin. So at one point I tweezed them so much that I had a short line of brow that didn't cover the length of my eye. To the point that most people in the know about all things beauty would have figured out how to draw them in. But not me. Nor did anyone teach me about this. I put up with this for the longest time and figured that was normal looking.

A few years later I decided to go through the painfully awkward process of trying to grow them out. I'm really lucky they grew back. I say painful process because you get used to a look and you have to keep yourself from compulsively plucking hairs that are out of place until you have eyebrows again. Mine aren't the most beautiful, but they are better than they once were. All of this I learned without the advice of my mother. I think she may have been born with perfect eyebrows. That must be why she didn't think to help me with this. That's ok, I had to choose when I was ready to endure the pain of beauty.

How to Stand up to Sexual Harrassment in the Work Place

2009-03-08T14:24:00.009-05:00

This isn't really a topic that's funny other than the fact that it still happens. But it's definitely awkward for anyone that has had to put up with it or deal with it. They don't teach this in college and my mother definitely never had a chat with me about how to deal with perverts in the work place. When I say perverts I mean the men that intentionally look you in the boobs instead of the eyes, or look you up and down a few times in the midst of conversation, or tell sexual stories to you. Women can be offenders too, I just haven't experienced or witnessed it so I'm not sure what they do. I suppose those of us with common sense think that it's common sense not to do those things, but that's where the exorbitantly high expectations I have are apparently flawed. I'm not even calling a man noticing a good looking woman sexual harassment, just the things I described above. Because men and women with eyes are going to notice someone they find attractive, but that doesn't mean they ogle them every time they talk to them or work with them. But apparently some do and get away with it.

Here's the problem, when young women are still very early in their careers, they don't want to "rock the boat" or establish themselves as the "whiny bitch" that complains about anything and everything. Well some do, but I'd say the reasonable ones don't. So they let a lot of things slide, or they assume or maybe hope that the women or men that have been there for awhile will step up and shut that kind of behavior down, especially if they are direct witnesses to the behavior or know that it has been a problem before. But that doesn't always happen. Why I don't know since there are sexual harassment policies anywhere you work. (in the U.S. I don't know about the rest of the world).

There's another problem, some people apparently like the attention irregardless of the creepiness of the giver of the attention. Really?!?!? Yuck!!! So when no one comes to your rescue you have 2 options, go to the boss or handle it yourself. But going to boss my come across as whiny or bitchy, especially if the offender does all kinds of things to give off the impression that he (or she as the case may be) doesn't have a clue about anything and only says or does things innocently.

So when you handle it yourself you have 2 options, be direct or limit the availability of the offender to offend to you. I'll admit being direct has got to be the better way to go, but let's not forget that the behavior shouldn't be happening in the first place, and especially when you find out that the offender has been talked to, or counseled about this very topic before. So the awkwardness is amplified when you attempt to deal with it either by direct comments to the offender or by attempting to limit the offender's opportunity to offend. Choosing the indirect method only helps with your own situation too, it can't help others in the office who are dealing with the same behavior.

If you don't make an effort to handle it or shut down an inappropriate conversation, you establish yourself as weak to the offender, and he or she knows they can get away with this in a worse way to the weaker people. I can't say if weaker people like the attention or not. I can't imagine they do but I can't imagine being so weak that you don't make some kind of attempt to shut it down or to get help from someone who has done a good job of shutting it down.

Mothers, teach your daughters (or sons) how to handle these situations, because they aren't teaching this in school. You also need to teach them how to not come across as a sexual deviant or how not to say or do things inappropriately in life. Otherwise there will be a varying degree of what various people will put up with and for how long. This has to be nipped in the bud because it shouldn't even be an issue.

Here's what my dad had to say it. The men (assuming it's a coed work place) need to act like men and get in the offender's face to shut him down whether they are the boss or not. The problem is feminism woosified a bunch of men so depending on where you work it's not easy to find a lot of men willing to make such a stand.

Just How Violating a Pap Smear Really Is...

2009-03-01T14:02:00.007-06:00

So I don't know if it's normal practice for a mother to take her daughter to her first pap smear. I'm not even sure if it's normal practice for a mother to sit her daughter down and explain the who what when where whys and hows of a pap smear. I suppose it all depends on the reason and the age a girl starts these exams. My mother and I still have not had that talk, but it seems like a moot point now and I'd probably shut that conversation down pretty fast if she ever brought it up. It's too late for that discussion.

I had heard that you're supposed to start them at 18 if you hadn't already for whatever reason, so I got all the preparation fear stories from my friend. That should have been enough to put it off for awhile, but I have closet hypochondria for cancer, and I figured it can't be found if you don't let them search for it so I bit the bullet and went. I did however make an appointment with a female doctor who basically told me she wouldn't do them in the future if I stayed over with my other doctor for everything else. I don't blame her really because I bet as a female general practitioner, she got stuck with an exorbitant amount of pap smears, especially from first timers. So I obliged since all I needed her for was to continue writing prescriptions for my would be pizza face that my other doctor had been successfully treating.

Let me just say I have always always always preferred going to the dentist over the doctor because you don't have to strip at the dentist. Unless you have one of those creepy dentists that knocks you out and feels you up while you're out. But at least you're unconscious for that and you don't necessarily know it happened. (not that it makes it right) I'm just saying that stripping at the doctor was always what I feared most about going, and I could count on not having to do so at the dentist since we didn't have pervy dentists, that we knew of. So you can imagine the shear horror I felt not only having to strip, but having cold, metal salad tongs go where cold salad tongs where never intended to go. Well I suppose this might be someone's idea of a good time but it's not mine.

This is a complete violation of my privacy and dignity not to forget comfort. But this is all in the name of prevention right? So we should continue the practice of letting doctors violate us in this manner right? I still can't get used to it and dread it every time I go. I sure wish they'd find a better way to check us ladies out.

I've always wondered what the doctors that perform them are thinking. I always kind of thought when they look at the chart when they enter the room the thought runs through their head "dammit not another pap smear today, I've seen more vaginas than I care to see in my life time?" Or something along those lines. That's why had I become a doctor, I would have specialized in an area far from the hootie not requiring the nekkedivity of any of my patients.

I know guy's don't have it all good at the doctor, but at least they don't have salad tongs stuck in any of their orifices on a regular basis and at such a young age. So not only do we have to pop out babies through a tiny canal, we have to get violated on a regular basis, and a period every month (I don't know any woman that loves it, but if they do they are nutso crazy and I absolutely can't relate to them on any level). I suppose men have to put up with the mood swings and hormonal crazies that many women take out on them. Maybe that's punishment enough. I don't know though because that's a lot for a woman to tolerate. I suppose we can be a lot for them to tolerate.

Maybe this is a topic not meant to be discussed by mothers and daughters. Maybe you don't fully appreciate the horror that is a pap smear if your mother is involved. Or perhaps the horror is exemplified by the preparation and presence of your mother. So maybe my experience could have been much worse. I choose to believe this, for me anyways.

What is a Not So Fresh Feeling?

2009-02-22T18:43:00.006-06:00

If you're anywhere from 25 and up, perhaps even younger than that, you might remember those Summer's Eve commercials with the mother and daughter walking, I think along a beach, and the daughter telling her mother that she's having a not so fresh feeling and asking what to do about it. I don't know about any of you, but my mother and I never ever ever had that not so fresh discussion. I didn't even bother to ask her when the commercials left me confused as ever because I knew it would lead to an embarrassing discussion that I just didn't want to have. And probably because it was during the time period of our classic mother-daughter clashing. But if it was what I think it was about, the thought of that conversation makes me shudder at the ooogy thought. I don't talk to my mother about that stuff, nor do I intend to anytime soon. In fact I don't even talk to my friends about that stuff. I'm a very prude and private person, and I'm ok with that. I'm sure they are too.

I'm still not exactly sure what they meant by "not so fresh feeling" because anytime I feel "not so fresh," I jump in the shower and I feel fresh and clean again all without the assistance of Summer's Eve. That leads me to another question. What's the significance of the name Summer's Eve? Is this the peak time period for women to feel not so fresh? It makes me think of the deep south before air conditioning existed. That would cause me to feel not so fresh, which leads me to believe that "not so fresh" means hot and sweaty. Ahhh... Maybe it does mean that... Once again talking it though in my head leads me to a logical conclusion...

I got most of my "feminine" information from teen magazines back then. I'd read articles or questions particularly about stuff my mom didn't teach me about, and take it as the gospel truth. I read something one time that said douching did more harm than good so I never wasted my money on them. That is what those commercials were about right??? Was I horribly wrong??? If I was, would somebody please take the time to educate me now.

Just What in the Hell is Relish?

2009-02-15T12:14:00.009-06:00

This story didn't happen to me, it happened to my cousin and I am sharing it with you as it plays out in my head. The punch line happened, the premise around the punch line is also true as I know it. Everything else is added for your entertainment and may or may not have happened as I wrote it. Nonetheless I hope it inspires you to share some of your embarrassing or awkward tales from your youth. Feel free to email them to me at lolafrog@gmail.com. Be sure to let me know if I can post your story or not.

So in high school my cousin, we'll call him Dustin to protect his real identity, was in theater group, class, whatever. So as happens sometimes, a group will get together to socialize outside of the purpose of their group. They got together for a potluck. Justin, I mean Dustin was told to bring a relish tray. Not knowing what this meant and assuming his mom would understand, since mom's are supposed to be experts in food and social gatherings around food, he didn't bother to clarify what this meant to the teacher/director/adult in charge.

Dustin goes home and tells his mom, "I gotta take a relish tray for our theater potluck. Mom what's a relish tray?" "Well Dustin relish is usually made out of chopped up pickles and stuff and you put it on hot dogs. But why in the world did he say to bring it on a tray. Are you having hot dogs?" Dustin "I don't know, I'm a guy, I can't be bothered with those kind of details."

So my aunt gets him a jar of relish to take to his potluck and he shows up relish in hand. To which the teacher/director/adult in charge says "What's this?" Dustin replied "uh relish, that's what the label says it is. Oh was I supposed to bring it on a tray? my mom didn't give me one." "Dustin, did you not understand relish tray to mean vegetable tray?" Dustin said "well if you wanted a vegetable tray, why didn't you just say that?"

From my understanding, the teacher/director/adult in charge laughed big time over it and never let my cousin live it down. And if he/she's anything like the teachers I had in school, they are repeating this story to each class every year at least once or twice and by the time each kid graduates they will have heard the story anywhere from 4-8 times if they had them as a teacher for at least one class every year. I can't blame the teacher. That's actually a funny story and I'd tell it too.

The moral of the story is that cliche about assuming is true!!! And if you want someone to bring a vegetable tray, call it a vegetable tray, not a relish tray. This is just one of those awkward lessons that my grandmother apparently didn't share with my aunt, so which generation gets to learn the lesson as awkwardly as possible, the 3rd generation. Sucked for us. At least these lessons make for good laughs.

Your Fashion Choices Just Aren't Working for You

2009-02-08T17:02:00.009-06:00

My mom did a good thing. When I was really young she started turning my fashion choices over to me in an effort to teach me to dress myself. It had to be done at some point in time. The problem was there were several long years where I looked like an awkward weirdo. I didn't much care for dresses and skirts at this time in my life and so looking girly didn't fall into my realm of choices, with the exception of the few clothes in my mother's closet that I would tolerate wearing. The rest of my choices came from my dad's closet, the hand-me-downs from my brother, and the school shopping trips at the beginning of the school year. For some reason I usually loathed the clothes we got on those trips. So I usually ended up looking like a combo of my family members. I guess in my case, the clothes were always better from someone else's closet.

I remember going to my mom and asking her if a particular pair of pants worked with a particular shirt I picked. She did a really good job of teaching me that if one was patterned the other ought not to be. But that doesn't mean I had good options to choose from if a particular set didn't work for me. The closest we ever got to agreeing on something acceptable to be seen in public in was probably some kind of patterned pants with my dad's high school t-shirt that had words and whatnot kinds of graphics on it. But thinking back, it must have looked ridiculously silly.

One thing that didn't help my options is that when we did go shopping, I picked out ridiculous fluorescent colored clothes. I couldn't help it, those were the colors I was drawn to as a kid. Some kind of overwhelming compulsion to look hideous I guess. I rarely picked out "outfits" when I went shopping too. I'd pick pieces that I liked, take them home, and then struggle to find something to wear them with. Funny how that works out.

The next problem I had was with the length of my jeans and various other pants. I was a tall girl. Well at some point in time I reached 5 feet 8 inches. Back then they didn't make them in short, regular, and long. At least not that I found. I think they were all made to fit girls 5'5-5'6 and shorter. Meaning that all of my pants went to the top of my ankles. Half-way down if I was really lucky. Maybe some of you had the same problem. Some girls I knew worked around this by buying jeans in the boy's/men's section where they did have different leg lengths. I didn't do this. I just hated my clothes. When I started buying some more of my own clothes, I got around this and the "mom-jean" high-waisted problem, that I hated so much, by buying a size or two bigger and hitching them down to my hips just below my belly button. This worked well for me through out high school. I still thought I looked funny, but at least my pants didn't go up to my boobs, and the legs went below the top of my ankles. I later discovered the problem with this look. My pants were so baggy (especially in the crotch) that they hid my figure and I looked like a boy.

I suppose maybe I had too much freedom in my choices at an early age. Hard to say. Maybe I was just the victim of 10-15 years filled with a bunch of fashion faux pas that just didn't work for me, so my only other alternative in my mind was to look like a boy for most of those years. Maybe in spite of my mother's best efforts, my hate of the current fashion trends at most if not all the time, doomed me to a lifetime of feeling awkward no matter what I put on, with a disdain for clothes and shopping.

Can anyone else relate to me on this one? Because I've always felt alone on this one. I would look at other girls and what they were wearing and thought they looked nice and attractive in their clothes, but I never could get there myself. I still struggle with it. Not nearly as much as before. At least I look like a girl, if only for high heels sometimes.

How to Avoid Rejection from Boys

2009-02-01T15:35:00.008-06:00

This might seem like an odd one. It's kind of odd to write because my mother and I never really talked about boys other than when I was given official notice that I was "allowed to date." What she didn't prepare me for was the lack of dating offers that poured in. I think this goes back to elementary school though, because I distinctly remember being grossed out when I found out a couple of boys liked me in 1st or 2nd grade. I just didn't like boys then and was humiliated when a carpool of kids arrived at school one day and my friend informed me that this boy announced his love for me on the way to school. I suppose I was humiliated because she was laughing when she told me. I know my mom knew of the incident because she was my teacher. I believe she was relieved that I was horrified and hoped I would just stay that way for a long long time so she wouldn't have to discuss boys with me. I believe she did teach me something about coping even when you are horrified by something, but as far as I remember, it stopped there.

Around 3rd grade, I distinctly remember starting to like boys. But I didn't discuss this with my mom. And subsequently, she didn't teach me appropriate behavior around boys or appropriate things to say to them to "not let them on that you like them." I had no problems fishing to find out if a boy I liked liked me back. And it was obvious fishing, not round about. They usually liked my friends, but somehow this didn't stop me. What do they call that? wearing your heart on your sleeve? From a practical standpoint once I knew they weren't interested I knew where I stood and could move on right?? Well no. I didn't usually move on until someone else caught my interest.

This continued in high school and beyond. Not with everyone. In high school I just made googly eyes at them and followed them around and talked about how dreamy they were with my friends. But if I was close enough with them, I had no problems either being "obvious" or letting them know what I thought of our situation (Usually in some kind of note. This was strategic since I didn't have to face them and if it "got ignored" well at least I now knew what they thought without forcing them to "let me down easy" in person. Less humiliating for both of us this way.). Where was that "He's Just Not That Into You" book when I needed it? I always figured with enough time, I could change their minds. No such luck. Actually I was very lucky, I just didn't know it at the time. And if my mom did ever try to tell me this, at that age, I'm sure I didn't hear her. It turned out to only be a shot at my ego rather than breaking my heart. I'm one of the few people I know who didn't have their heart broken by a "significant other." So again what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger.

I never got the "will you be my special friend" note from anyone in elementary. I probably would have said yes to anyone. Or knowing me, I would have made up a new box that said "ooooh GROSS!!!" and sent it back with that checked. You see back then and in high school I generally had crushes on "unattainable guys." Meaning I knew they were interested in someone else or they had girlfriends or whatever. I rarely liked "available" guys from 3rd through 11th grades. So had any available boy sent me that note back then, I probably would have freaked out. The one time I did like an available guy (in high school) I made googly eyes at him for a couple of weeks and then he asked me out and I said yes. I changed my mind before he even got to my door to pick me up. Poor guy. Not his fault at all. It was completely mine. Looking back at that incident told me a lot later in life about myself. In reality I just wanted to be asked to the banquets in high school. I wasn't ready to date and I didn't want to have a boyfriend even though I thought I did. I never got asked to banquets and believe it or not, I was too chicken to ask. Probably because they might have actually said yes. hmmmm...No wonder they didn't ask me, I was probably wearing a sign on my forehead that said "NOT INTERESTED!!" "ASK AT YOUR OWN RISK" Oh well. I always had fun with my chicas!! So it wasn't that big of a bummer looking back...

This isn't flowing well today...neither did my other post...grr

Anyways back to wearing my heart on my sleeve, I stuck myself out there when I met my husband too. The only difference was I didn't go overboard, I just made an effort to talk to him and let him do the rest. I changed the sign on my forehead to "Available and Interested" from "Back off Bozo." Before I met him I had resigned myself to being happy with my life if I ended up single the rest of my life. The only thing I was lacking at that point was a dog. Good news, he came with a dog!!! Jackpot!!!

Am I the only girl who was this awkwardly forward? I say awkward because I didn't get it right until I met my husband. Let's just say I feel sorry for guys and have much respect for what they go through.

I guess in a way, it turned out ok that my mom didn't discuss wooing a boy with me, because I turned out ok. But what if I hadn't? hmmmm what do you tell your sons and daughters about dating and what do you let them learn on their own?

If I ever have a son, I will just teach him that no matter how much you aren't interested in dating a girl, and you feel the need to "get her off your back," be honest and tell her you're not interested in dating her, but you are interested in being her friend. Otherwise there's no harm in her liking you unrequitedly. To any daughters, I think I would say it's ok to like guys that aren't interested in anything more than friendship (as long as he's not doing the "friends with benefits" with her) because then her mind and interest is occupied with the "unavailable", and she is learning how to be friends with and interact with the opposite sex without the sex coming into the picture.

But I'm no expert. What do you experts think??

My Awkward Week

2009-01-25T17:13:00.004-06:00

I'm going to take a break from my awkward childhood to share my awkward week with you. It may not be as funny as my childhood, simply because I'm great at adapting and handling embarrassing situation now, depending on the severity. Don't worry, next week I'll send you back to my devastatingly awkward childhood.

So I made a stop at a convenience store this last week for a small purchase. As I left the store to return to my car, I held the door for a lady to enter and then headed toward my car. I was looking down at what was not in my hands and not paying attention to where I was going. You're probably thinking I tripped and fell flat on my face right? No...

So I open my car door which without first unlocking it, which is very abnormal since I always lock my door. I didn't sit down yet but saw over to the passenger's seat and saw someone sitting there. This was very strange since I arrived alone. A tinge of fear went up my spine as I wasn't sure why there was a passenger in my car all of a sudden. I put two and two together and realized it was likely that this wasn't my car. But I was confused because it sure looked an awful lot like my car. Turns out it was just the same interior and exterior color. I quickly apologized to the man in the car preceding it with "this isn't my car!" He just started laughing and said it was fine.

I went back to my car still confused but glad there wasn't anyone actually in my car. I assume the lady I held the door for was driving that car and probably got a good chuckle when her passenger recounted it to her.

Moral of the story, if you are a passenger in a car waiting for the driver to return, lock your doors or some crazy nutjob might accidentally get in and drive you away and not even know what she's doing...I always lock the door if I wait in the car for my husband. Sometimes I don't get them unlocked in time for his return, but no strangers have driven off with me yet.

How to Walk Like a Lady

2009-01-12T20:05:00.008-06:00

I was the youngest of two kids. I had a brother 3 years older than me. This meant that I looked up to him while growing up, and since I was a tomboy, I think I must have looked to him for how to do many things including how to walk. This meant I had some kind of stroll/swagger combo that didn't resemble the dainty prance of most girls. This never bothered me, in fact I figured it somehow added to my speed when running and/or ability to play sports. So I didn't care. I didn't really notice this to be a problem until after I finished college.

The hospital I was working for was throwing its annual gala to raise money, and my department head bought a table for first come first served in my department. Being fresh out of college and indoctrinated with the importance of networking, I reserved a free spot at that table. I had the perfect "standout" dress, with the personality to pull it off. I say that because it was some sort of bright orange, which is a hideous thought for a formal occasion for most people. But most people would tell you that I pulled that dress off, but they wouldn't be caught dead in it themselves.

So I really wanted to present well in the midst of this networking opportunity, but knew I had a tendency to be awkward and goofy, especially in heels. This is because I routinely ran in the parking lot with heels on. If running in heels had been an Olympic event, I'd have been world champion. Those that know me, or knew me then, will agree that I was the antithesis of a lady. My husband doesn't quite get it, although I swear I made my unlady-like side very clear to him before we married just to make sure he still wanted to marry me. Anyways I wanted to soften myself so I turned to a friend who'd been to charm school or had been properly trained in the ways of a lady and acting lady-like for a crash course in presenting myself as a lady. Just enough to fool a bunch of "important" people for one night.

We started with walking. Lesson one I believe was something to the effect of stick your boobs out. What??? My intention was not to whore it up for the night! I did not want to draw unneeded attention to my chesticular area, I wanted to downplay it as much as possible without turning into a man. But that's what I thought the dress was for. Although as I recall, the actual words may have been to "put your shoulders back." Doesn't matter, they both came to the same result. Nonetheless, this was part of lady-like etiquette, so I humored my teacher friend and went with the flow.

Lesson two had to do with leading with your hips. Again, What??? I thought your legs led you. Oh if only there had been a camera there to catch my first several attempts at leading with my hips. If I had been a weaker person, I would have given up after the laughter it caused. However I do believe I was involved in the laughter as well. The point was to not give up. I didn't have to be perfect, but I had to get to a point where I could feel and look as natural as possible.

The next step was to combine the shoulders and the hips while wearing the heels I would be wearing. It is quite likely that this resulted in the most awkward, jerky/rigid, not lady-like walk across the room ever witnessed by anyone. It took practice but I finally got to the point where it flowed ok and I knew the look and the feel that I would practice at home later.

Other lady-like things we covered included what to do with your hands while standing around talking. But I can't really remember what that was. We also covered how not to eat like a slob and other ancillary lady-like items that I needed to brush up on for my big networking opportunity. By the time the big night arrived I was an expert lady faker.

Here's the thing, while I didn't disappoint my teacher and I learned valuable lady lessons that I would take with me to this day, all my ladyness never produced a better job as a result of my networking. No one at that gala that I talked to ever got me, or offered me a job. Maybe years from now, one of them will remember that awesome orange dress worn elegantly by that smart young lady, and offer me the job of a lifetime because of that one night. Only time will tell. For now I am grateful that I can at least fake being lady-like when necessary, like in an interview, or at church, or anywhere else where acting lady-like might be considered beneficial or at least in good taste.

The Hedges Aren't the Only Bushes that Need Trimming

2009-01-03T20:16:00.013-06:00

I can't take credit for that title and my friend can identify herself if she chooses to in the comments with a simple "you're welcome." She's probably shocked I used it, but then if she thinks about it I've always been very good at being very awkward and a wee bit embarrassing. I promise to pay you something if I get a big fat book deal. She's tolerated a lot from me :). Anyways I thought it was a genius title as titles aren't my strong point.

I actually did have this topic on my list of things to discuss focusing more on the legs, but we'll start here and keep it short and as disturbing free as possible. So this is definitely a topic my mother never discussed with me. I think I developed a clue about it probably from girly magazines, but I got an education from the male perspective hearing a bunch of crass boys talk about it constantly when I was in Italy. These were not all Italians, they were mostly American boys. There were way more boys than ladies in my school program, so we were way outnumbered and they were really bored and horny. They kept dropping lines like landing strip and bald and finally informed us all that they were guessing how all the girls groomed. Gross!!! none of their business!!! Well from my perspective. But that didn't keep me from listening in on occasion.

Probably my first real educational experience came in Brazil. Let's just say I don't recommend a bikini wax at all. But if you've already tried it without crying in pain and/or distinctly remembering the pain, by all means, continue. I find it interesting that I had to leave the country to learn about grooming this area. Maybe we really are prude here in America. But I'm ok with that in most cases.

Now onto the the legs. My mother never taught me about shaving my legs or armpits either. One day I just decided to give it a try. What, you ask, caused me to make this decision? Well I was in either 4th or 5th grade, I think, and I decided to try wearing a skirt to school. I had a really hard time being comfortable in skirts mostly because I was a tomboy I guess. But I still wanted to try being a wee bit girly after watching all my friends wear their cute skirts and what nots to school. So I put on my skirt and went off to school feeling all cute and confident. As confident as a girl with humongous glasses could feel.

So our class room was set up with groups of 4 or 5 desks . There was this boy in my group, who I happened to like at the time, and he commented on my hairy legs. I don't remember exactly what he said but I remember feeling my face get all warm and I can only assume turn really red. I was humiliated and never wore a skirt again to school until once or twice in high school. (I only wore dresses and skirts church at this time and because I always wore hose to church and it didn't seem to be an issue until I discovered, probably at this time, that your hair actually pokes through the hose!!!! What!!!! What good are they then?) Come to think of it, my brother might have made fun of my hairy legs one or twice back then too, but who cares what your brother thinks or says? So from then on, I decided it was time to start shaving my legs.

I just looked for a razor in the shower and lathered up a little soap and went to town. I feel sorry for who's ever razor that was. It couldn't have possibly been my brother's. I don't think he can grow hair on his face to this day. Let's just say I've never seen a 5 o'clock shadow on his face. Or a noon the next day shadow. But I haven't lived with him in about 12 years now, so I suppose things could have changed since then.

So I started shaving....terribly, but none-the-less I was shaving my legs. For the next 7 or 8 years I suffered through patches of hair left behind, which I noticed when I wore shorts, and was convinced it was so bad that everyone was laughing and pointing behind my back. I also suffered through countless cuts, nicks, and painful skin peels. You know where the blade catches a piece of skin and rips it up until you see the blood or feel the pain and stop, but you were going so fast that it's half way up your leg by then. There weren't enough band aids in the world to stop my bleeding. This also defeated the purpose of skirts and shorts for that matter, because who wants to show off their legs covered in bloody band aids? Yeah, nothing says sexy, like dried blood running down your legs.

Was I the only person that had this problem??? I can't imagine that I was alone in that struggle. Anyways, I tried everything from shaving cream to a brand new razor, but none of it worked. I could cut myself just as good with a new razor as I could with an old dull used razor. But they are the worst. Nothing solved my problem until they invented the razor with 3 blades. I'm not really sure why that worked. I suppose it's possible that at the exact moment that I used one of those razors, my legs decided I had been through enough tragedy and torture, and that I had had a sufficient amount of practice and decided to have mercy on me and toughen up. I choose to think it was because of the genius who added a third blade to the razor. It is possible that those razors had been around for years before I noticed. But I would prefer to think that they were brand new and there was no possible way for me to prevent my torture until that exact moment in time. Please spare me the pain of knowing this if you know it to be true.

I'm not sure what all my mom could have taught me about shaving other than letting me know that it was time if I was going to wear skirts sans the pantyhose. But I'm sure seeing your baby grow up isn't easy so if they ignore it/pretend it isn't happening, then their daughters won't suffer. But they do in so many ways. But again, what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger....or is it bitter??? hmmm....there's a fine line between the two I guess.

Either way, I'm an old pro at it now thanks to the boy or boys who made fun of me.

How to Put on Makeup Tastefully

2008-12-28T10:43:00.008-06:00

I was very much a tomboy growing up, but that didn't mean I wasn't interested in makeup. Before I was officially allowed to wear makeup, the only time I got to put on my mom's makeup was if I was "dressing up as a clown" or something like that. So that's how I got my curiosity fix until I became "of age" to wear makeup in my mom's eyes.

The magic number was 14 if I remember correctly. So for my birthday my mom loaded me up in the car and we went to Hypermart. (For those of you that didn't know the joys of Hypermart, it was a Super Walmart before Super Walmart was Super.) We went to the makeup aisle, which was like a giant super buffet of makeup. How is one supposed to choose from all of this? Well it was the early 90's which means left over 80's for moms especially I think. My mom wore wet-n-wild hot pick or any hot pink derivative there was for lipstick. I am not a hot pink girl especially when it comes to makeup. I knew this then and I haven't changed much in my color preferences. So rather than pick out some bright red lipstick, my mom thought it was a genius idea to get the green and orange lipsticks that are supposed to magically formulate with your lips to make the perfect color for whoever was wearing it!!! I knew nothing about makeup so who was I to argue?

Next it onto blush. My mom wore it, my friends all wore it so I figured, you are supposed to wear blush. Right? So we got some shade of pink blush because that's the only color you have to choose from for blush.

After blush came foundation. I still don't know what foundation is supposed to do for a 14 year old girl but we got some. I just remember lots of girls looking splotchier and oranger, or pinker than they did without it. So we picked a color by putting it on my forearm. Funny thing about the forearm, it's not exposed to the sun like the face it. hmmmm. No wonder high school is filled with a bunch of girls with a clear line around their jawline that changes colors.

Let's see. Eyeshadow. Oh wait, mom didn't wear eyeshadow so there wasn't much of a need for this. So I'm pretty sure we didn't get eyeshadow on this shopping trip, but it's possible that we got one of those multicolored eye shadows. But I would have received no instruction on how to put it on or make it look nice. But I know that we did get mascara, because a girl with full eyelashes has a need for even fuller eyelashes that will flake into her contacts causing her to pick off the rest of the mascara off her eyelashes leaving them only naturally full rather than extra full. But at least she can see again without constantly blinking or picking at her eyelashes. Come to think of it, my eyelashes aren't nearly as full and beautiful as they once were. Thanks Mascara!!!

So I had all this makeup and didn't really know how to make it complement my face rather than look like a clown. This is because my practice was strictly clown related. That didn't mean that was the look I was hoping for on a daily basis. We went over the basics but really I'd been watching my mom and my friends apply it so all that was left really was practice. So this is what I learned about my new makeup either immediately or over the years:

1. If the lipstick is green or orange, and specially formulated to blend with your chemistry to find the perfect color for you, it will turn out hot pink, or some derivative of hot pink. Avoid these at all cost. Go somewhere you can test colors on your lips.

2. Foundation will actually magnify your acne problem, making it look worse than it is. It was not for me.

3. Concealer will do the same as foundation to draw attention to your acne problem.

4. Blush in combination with the green or orange lipstick will make you look more clownish than when you dressed up as a clown. Blush was not for me either. Still isn't.

5. Mascara just wasn't meant for me. (see above discussion about mascara if you don't know why yet)

6. Mastering the art of eye shadow would take many years of practice, and asking people who seem to apply it well just how they do it. Watching them if you get the chance helps too.

7. Translucent, colorless powder would do the best job of accomplishing my main goal, which was absorbing oil, without drawing too much attention to my acne problem and giving me a hideous makeup ring around my jawline. Once pharmaceuticals came into the picture, I realized just how little I needed makeup.

8. I needed a job if I was going to get the makeup I wanted.

9. Perfecting the art of making up my face without looking like I have a load of makeup on is a challenging and continuous process as I age and my skin changes.

10. Pick a feature to emphasize and go easy on the rest to avoid the clownish look. For example, in high school I chose lips. Now I prefer the eyes, sans the mascara. This is because lipstick has to always be applied and/or gets clumpy. Eye shadow done well, can be applied once and you're good to go all day long.

It took me several years (after college, I think) to come into my own and get comfortable with makeup and the look I wanted. That's not to say I didn't use it in the meantime. It just took that long to run into people that gave me tips and tutorials that I liked for features I liked as well as product recommendations. My mom took me to do a few makeovers in high school, so it's not like she didn't try to give me the help I needed, and she didn't force her colors on me. I think makeovers just generally result in the whoreish look since they want to subsequently sell you everything they use on you. So it really was more of being patient and finding things that I was comfortable with at each time in my life rather than feeling like I always had to be made up perfectly, or use every product that my friends did.

Your First Kiss Will be Oogy

2008-12-21T20:15:00.006-06:00

I suppose everyone's experience at their first kiss ever is different, but the kind of kiss I'm talking about is not the kiss on the cheek or peck on the lips that many kids experience in elementary school. I might be the only kid who didn't have that elementary first kiss on the cheek. Anyways, I'm talking about your first real kiss involving tongue action. Commonly called french kissing by the youngsters.

My mom made sure I knew all the biology involved with sex, meaning how babies were made and that sex was for marriage. But we never talked about all the ancillary stuff that gets you there such as kissing. So my first kiss came my senior year in high school. I'm ok with that by the way in case you all are appalled that I was such a late bloomer on the dating scene. I'll probably get into that in a later post. My "boyfriend" (I have always and still do hate the terms boyfriend and girlfriend and usually referred to any "boyfriend" as "that guy I'm dating or seeing" because boyfriend and girlfriend have always sounded so juvenile to me.) had never kissed anyone before either, so this was the first kiss for both of us.

I'm sure the lack of experience on both of our parts probably affected the experience for me. But it finally came down to the moment of truth, even though we danced around it a bit from shear terror on my part. Terror because I had no clue what I was doing. Terror, because I had no clue what to expect. Terror because I was about to enter a whole new world that included swapping spit with guys. Terror because I didn't know what kissing leads to. Terror, because my life of innocence was about to end.

So we closed the deal and kissed, which only lasted for a few seconds. It was squishy, slobbery, and gross. This was as much my fault as his. I just thought it was the strangest feeling and I didn't understand at the moment why anyone thought making out was so great. How is putting your tongue in someone's mouth such a wonderful thing? I just remember having the moment be so built up in my head as being the greatest moment in my life, and it turned out to be such a let down. It was such an awkward moment. I was just not prepared for this, that's all.

Lesson learned; Practice makes perfect. Then is not so gross, and it's actually a lot of fun.

Tampons Are Your Friend

2008-12-17T18:36:00.007-06:00

Ok at some point in time on this blog I must bring up the incredibly awkward topic of tampons. Now is as good of time as any to discuss it. I have never understood the girls that were excited about starting their period. I didn't look forward to it, and knowing what I know now, I wish I had been one of the lucky ones that started at 15, 16, or 17. But I'm a very average girl and despite being athletic and active, 12 was my lucky number. What a drag!!!

So when I entered womanhood, my mother gave me a package of pads and I thought that was it for me. This was how I was supposed to tolerate 13 whole weeks out of the year. No I wasn't one of the lucky ones to have one visit for only 2 or 3 days out of the month. It was 7 whole days not a minute less. But occasionally in an act of hate a torture a few days more. Also I didn't just need two or three pads a day, I need that many an hour for the first few days. So tampons would have saved my life and a whole lot of embarrassment through the most awkward years of my life.

I spent the first few years as a woman living in morbid fear that I would suffer leakage problems. And then when the inevitable leakage happened, I lived in morbid fear that everyone would notice. Even dark pants and long t-shirts did not always do enough to hide my problems. No wonder many people call it the curse. You are cursed to spend the first several years figuring out how to contain it until it no longer causes you great humiliation. Even tampons were not the full answer to this, but they sure helped a whole freaking lot!!!

No my mother did not introduce me to a life of swimming and riding horses and running on the beach, a friend did. I never asked my mother and she never offered. We were going to the lake for some kind of school or church outing to ski and what not. I love the lake!!! I did NOT want to miss out on the lake!!! But in my current situation at the time, I was going to sit in the boat and watch everyone else have fun. Anyone that knew me, knew that was NOT NORMAL, so therefore they could deduce one of two things, I was on my period, or I went insane. I would have preferred the insane as the thought of people knowing I was on my period, especially boys, was more embarrassing than anything I could think of at that time in my life.

So we spent 20 or 30 minutes in the bathroom while she tried to talk me through it from outside the stall. I don't know how sisters handle these kinds of situations, but I do not have sisters so that was as much help as she could give me. Finally I figured it out and my life has never been the same since. So girls, my best advice to you is to talk to your mom about them early on in your life as a woman if she doesn't offer them to you at the beginning.

If you're anything like me, you read the directions, warnings, and labels and tampons were no different. Being a closet hypochondriac, I immediately developed a fear of Toxic Shock Syndrome. I didn't understand what it was, I just knew if you left one in too long, you could get this dreaded disease which could lead to DEATH!!! I did decide that the reward outweigh the risk, but I did worry about this for many years. One time I lost one up there. When I got home I couldn't find it to save my life and I remember waking my mom up to tell her. She told me not to worry about it that it would come out in time. Well that was easier said than done. I thought this was an emergency. The next day I was either bored or trying not to think about it and so I went outside to jump on my trampoline. Lesson number 2 girls; If you get a tampon stuck "up there," don't freak out. Find a trampoline and jump on it until you feel it dislodge. It will all be ok. You can probably get to this before TSS sets in. If the trampoline doesn't work, well me being a closet hypochondriac, would advise going to the ER or your doctor.

Well that's all I got on what might be the most awkward recurring event in a girl's life. I survived and so will you. In fact you might even be able to go through a check out that a boy is working at to purchase feminine products one day. But maybe not. But that's ok too.

Babies Can Explode Poo

2008-12-14T15:17:00.006-06:00

Many of us took babysitting jobs when we were younger to earn extra cash. My first job came at 11 and I babysat a 5 year old boy 2-3 days a week for 8 hours a day. In reality I was being paid to hang out with him, keep an eye on him, feed him, and call 911 in case of an emergency. He didn't wear diapers so no bid deal right. It was a breeze. The lesson I learned, kids are great, kids are wonderful, kids are easy.

A few years later I took the job of babysitting a baby. I didn't care for the diapers but I liked having a job. Shortly after, a 2nd baby came along in the family and then there were two.
One particular night when I went over to babysit, one of the kids was a little sick. They both might have been for all I know. But the parents weren't concerned. They'll just sleep. It'll all be fine. Well as soon as they left I'm pretty sure I remember both of them crying nonstop. (It's entirely possibly that I'm remembering the 2nd child only because the first child was so inconsolable that it seemed like two babies were crying. I know they had a 2nd baby, I just can't guarantee that it was there this particular night as my memory is terrible these days.) I did everything I possibly could to get this baby to stop crying. If only I'd brought earplugs, it might not have been so loud.

Next thing I know, I'm changing this baby's diaper and he explodes poo while the diaper is off of him!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! I WAS NOT GETTING PAID NEARLY ENOUGH TO TAKE CARE OF AND CLEAN UP EXPLODED POO!!! None the less, one thing my mother did teach me was to be a conscientious person and worker. A slightly lesser person would have just walked out or called 911 or perhaps even called the parents to say they were out of there in 5 minutes whether they were there or not. Not me. I probably had all kinds of horrible thoughts running through my head as I cleaned up the baby and his poo, and the surrounding casualties of his exploded poo. Remember, he exploded poo between diapers. Oh let's not forget he was still crying and screaming. You would be too if you exploded poo everywhere.

I don't ever recall my mom telling me just how disgusting babies can be. Especially when they are sick. How awkward or potentially dangerous to learn this lesson without being prepped for it. How do you explain to the parents that you are just too busy to come over again? EVER!! No matter how far in advance they call you. "Your kid pooed all over me and you didn't reimburse me for the trauma." This is the last time I remember babysitting, but that is likely because it was the most memorable babysitting session. I do know I started a tax paying job as soon as I turned 16 which would have prevented me from babysitting any more. YAY!!!

The lesson I walked away with was "I'm NEVER having kids." Loads and Loads of people have told me it's completely different when it's your own kid. Maybe, but the exploded poo still stinks regardless if it comes from your kid or not. Anyways after many many years, I've potentially softened, or not, but the new lesson to be taken away from this is to make your sons and daughters babysit a sick baby before they are allowed to date. They may need to babysit it several times. But the baby needs to scream and cry the whole time and explode poo at least once or twice. This will be the best possible birth control you can give them. Don't hesitate to give them a booster session if you think they need it.

There are Drugs to Fix Acne! What!?!?

2008-12-10T17:06:00.008-06:00

I got a bad case of acne not too long after I got glasses. So if you get the picture, they were glasses in the late 80's that covered half of my face while magnifying my acne problem. My glasses were big until I got contacts at 14. Many of you know what I'm talking about because you had the giant clown glasses that magnified your acne too. I digress...not really those glasses were traumatic.

Anyways back to acne. I tried everything over the counter treatment from Stridex pads to tinted creams to help cover them up. I tried cutting out cheese, and chocolate and everything else the beauty magazines said caused acne. That's when I discovered that they were all full of baloney. Because I still had a problem and I didn't have my favorite comfort foods. So not only was looking at my face causing misery, I had nothing to superficially treat that misery.

After I was allowed to start wearing makeup, I found that liquid foundations and bases and concealers just seemed to draw more attention to the problem rather than hide them. Maybe it was all in my head but to me it was the absolute worst problem in the world. Thinking back, I know I didn't have the worst case of my classmates, but again I was the center of my own world so I had the worst problem EVER!!!

So I found a liquid to powder makeup that I liked and seemed to not overly draw attention to my problem. I believe this was my freshman year in high school, so I'd suffered for more than 3 years by that time. So this makeup had Noxzema in it. Turns out, I'm allergic to Noxzema. I got a rash on my face mostly around my mouth. So I went to the doctor and was referred to a dermatologist. This was where I was about to learn my lesson.

You might think the dermatologist would tell me that there are drugs to clear up acne, but he didn't. I'm guessing that the rash was bad enough to minimize the acne problem. So he gave me a prescription for tetracycline and sent me on my way. Well it worked. And I noticed that as long as I was on it my acne seemed to be cleared up too!! What you mean there's a miracle cure for zits?!?!! What The!!!!! why didn't I know about this before???? Who knew??? Was there this big conspiracy to keep this from me?!?!?!

Needless to say I went back to my doctor and told him my revelation and asked for drugs. And he obliged. That pretty much got me through high school and college. I finally outgrew it more or less. I still have a problem now and then, but nothing like I had back then so I can handle it. After I got on drugs I found out some of my other classmates had been on drugs almost from the minute they got their first zit because their parents took them straight to the doctor so they could avoid the awkwardness of being a pizza face along with the big clown glasses. And for some braces too. I guess I should look on the bright side, I didn't have braces. But I always thought they were cool back then. All the cool kids had braces. Not me. Sigh. I guess I can remember wanting glasses before I got them. But I never ever once said to myself "I'd like a nasty bad case of acne all over the place!! All the cool kids have it. I want it too!!!" Never once did that thought cross my mind.

I had a hard time looking boys I had crushes on in the eye because I assumed all they saw was the infestation on my face. How could they not? That's all I saw!! Oh and the cute girls with clear skin bitching about their one or two zits that they got once a month in the bathroom mirror to you. How rude were they?!?! Thank God for drugs!!! While I still had an awkward high school life, it wasn't so much due to the incessant outbreak on my face. I'm over it now. But you can bet if we have kids I'll take them to the doctor as soon as we see a problem. They'll probably not inherit my bad skin though and will have perfectly clear skin, and I will grow to resent them rather than live vicariously through them. So they're destined to be screwed up and they aren't even born. So they don't need the burden of acne to top it off.

You Will Grow a Mustache

2008-12-07T18:24:00.002-06:00

First off the point of this blog is in no way to bash our mothers. Some things they didn't teach us because we were embarrassed to ask, or they didn't think to teach us these things because their mothers never taught them. Who knows, in some cruel way, maybe it was to toughen us up by coping with and surviving these awkward moments. I already ran this past my mom and she's well aware that it's not a shot at her. Just an attempt to laugh at some of the things we didn't think were so funny at the time. Perhaps we still don't think they were so funny, if that's the case maybe we can call this kind of a group session to discover we're not alone.

I don't know how many of your mothers taught you about mustaches, but I was always under the impression that that was one of the big differences between men and women. Men can have them and women don't. (I know this doesn't seem like a terribly awkward thing, but I'm starting out light to get the hang of this and ease everyone into the spirit of this as well as get readership going, which will take time). So when I discovered that my peach fuzz was no longer the color of a peach a couple of years ago, I didn't know what to do. Who knew that it gets darker with age?!?! Perhaps I'm the only one who didn't know. My mother never told me what to expect and how best to handle this.

Do I shave it? What if the myth turns out to be true for me that it will grow in thicker? I don't need or want my husband to see or feel stubble from me because that would be just awkward.
Do I bleach it? What if the chemicals make my lip fall off?
Do I wax it? What if this hurts like hell? What if it hurts like hell and doesn't work?
Do I pluck it? Do I really have time for this?

So first I tried bleaching but that didn't seem to last very long. I also saw some other lady that obviously bleached it which I thought made it look worse and she had blond hair on her head. It looks natural but what do I know. Anyways I thought it actually drew more attention to the upper lip area so I decided to try something else.

Plucking came next. Did you know just how painful this is!?!? Son of a!!!!! And it's agonizing because it's one little stache hair at a time and a very sensitive area. And the little canyon under the nose is worst! I kept this up for awhile but begrudgingly so. I was starting to consider shaving.

One day I was at the store and decided to get a little waxing kit. You know the kind you put in the microwave and rip off like a band aid. So after 2 uses the microwave no longer sufficiently melts the wax. And it conveniently leaves behind the dark hairs. I thought it was supposed to rip out your mustache, but instead it targets only the light hairs for removal. What rip off. I found myself still plucking. Oh, and this last time resulted in 2 little zits. As if acne didn't traumatize my pubescent years enough, it has to come back and haunt me when dealing with an aging problem!!!

So it's either plucking or perhaps trying the Nair removal and run the risk of burning my skin and having a red lip for who knows how long.

You know what, I'd be ticked off to find out that my mom didn't have a mustache and that's why she didn't teach me about this. Because daughters should never have to deal with more awkwardness than their mothers.