When Ben was a couple of months old, I went back to work as a waitress. I’d waited tables for years before, so I was eagerly hired at the new pizza place that opened up in town. In a sea of newbies, I was a Master of my Trade. Queen of the Kingdom.

The general manager of the restaurant was a guy I’ll call Phil (although, I am stating for the record, this was not his name) and he was a decent guy. For an over-worked underpaid restaurant GM, that’s a huge thing.

He’d show up on the weekends and despite occasionally trying to get us to unsuccessfully have team building meetings at 5PM when the dinner rush was beginning to discuss things like “selling more pizza,” and often telling a server who was so slammed that she was eyeball deep in the weeds to “smile more,” I always liked him. Probably because he called me “efficient” which is a label–unlike ‘stupid bitch’ which I am called quite often–that I had never before heard.

Hokey and corny, yes, but Phil was a good guy. Which meant we’d often mock him behind his back–although, I must add, not unkindly–and try to do our best Phil impression. This often involved frowning a lot and bursting out conspiratorially with the often-heard “I think someone is stealing cheese,” and by far and away the best impersonator was one of the managers, a mexican dude named Cesar.

One Saturday night after close, Cesar, who was the night manager, pulled from the manager’s office this large cloth contraption. Mystified, we all grabbed our smokes and gathered ’round, our piles of tips left on the tables near the halfway rolled up basket of silverware. Cesar was laughing so hard that he was crying. Although this wasn’t uncommon as he was known for his excellent sense of humor, we all clamored to know what the hell was so fucking funny.

Once he’d caught his breath and wiped the tears, he turned around the cloth contraption he was holding. On the back it had been brown but on the front, it was red. With large circles of purple and dots of grey felt and slices of green felt. It took us a moment to realize what we were looking at, but we all saw it at the same time.

“Holy SHIT,” Amy–another server–yelled. “That’s a gigantic fucking pizza suit.”

And it was.

Phil had bought us, for no reason we could ascertain, a gigantic triangle-shaped pizza suit. I can swear to you, The Internet as my witness, that I have never, ever laughed so hard in my entire life. It was a typical Phil thing (it is killing me, I should add, to not tell you his real name not because it’s an exciting name, but because I can’t think outside the effing box) to do: pointless yet hilarious, hokey yet comedic, and one of those things that no one else would think was a good idea.

I mean, sure, I do sometimes see those poor fuckers, dressed up as a taco or a sandwich on the side of the road. We live far enough from stuff that driving from place to place is a necessity, so these people merely stand listlessly on the side of the road, wilting in the heat and freezing in the cold and choking on the exhaust of Escalades and Bentley’s. And I will tell you that I have never, ever, EVER stopped to eat somewhere because they had a person dressed as a chicken sadly standing at the side of the road.

If anything, I keep driving and pretend for both of our sakes that it never happened. I had not seen an actual humiliated person standing there, dressed as a large Chicago hot dog or a milk shake. Seemed healthier that way for all parties.

Anyway, there we were, a cluster of servers, bartenders and delivery drivers, staring slack jaw awash in awe of the possibilities that only a gigantic felt pizza suit would provide.

Which.were.endless.

Part Number B will air on Monday.

No, this picture has nothing to do with anything. But it cheered me up a bit, so, you know.

—————–

Back when I was 15, like all hot blooded teenagers I was learning how to drive.

Between my father’s obvious terror at the idea of being in the front seat of a car driven by his daughter and my mother’s out and out refusal to drive with me, I was stuck researching other options so that I may actually get approved for a driver’s license sometime in the next 14 years.

The other option came in the form of my over-18 years old friends, whom I was allowed by the state to drive with.

So one day, I was tooling around with my friend Audrey as we drove out in the more rural areas outside my town. I figured that this was probably safest alternative, considering that there was little to no traffic for me to hit with my car.

On one of the winding roads, just as you came over a hill was a farm. And on that farm they had some chickens.

And those chickens saw fit to cross this road at THE EXACT MOMENT I DROVE UP THE HILL.

It was a blind hill, so I couldn’t see anything on the other side of it.

The next thing I knew, I ran over not one, not two, but an entire flock of chickens. My car was awash in chicken feathers and poo.

I screamed along with the poor chickens.

I slammed on the brakes and turned to Audrey, tears pouring out of my eyes and she grimly informed me that I needed to go back and put any of the chickens that weren’t dead out of their misery. This was an even more horrifying prospect to me, who now just wanted to climb back in bed and wrap myself in the comfort of a large vodka.

I liked chickens, I did! I thought they were cute and sweet and I was happy to have them around. Opossums, however, I would have happily run down with my car, bike or even my boot clad feet. They were mean, they were nasty, and I hated them. But chickens!

My heart shattered loudly at the prospect. Becky, MURDER OF CHICKENS, I could see the headlines now.

But no. I couldn’t sit their daydreaming while there were more chickens to maim! I executed a 14 or 47 point turn and drove my Car of Doom back, crying and blubbering on and found the chickens. Well, some of them. Thankfully (I suppose) for my guilt-ridden conscience the ones that were dead were, in fact, dead, and the ones that weren’t had moved on to less dangerous car infested pastures.

As we drove away, me still weeping over the dead chickens, my car covered with carnage and feathers, Audrey looked at me and said,

“Why did the chickens cross the road?”

She waited a couple of beats as I grimly held onto the steering wheel at a perfect 10 and 2 position.

“TO GET RUN OVER BY BECKY.”

I was highly unamused.

• Most blogs have about a one year shelf life.

• There is such a thing as over-posting, but I’m unclear as to what that is.

• Blogging takes a ton of work. Really, it does.

• The trolls will come and they do not read most of what you say before they chew you out in the comments.

• It’s really up to you whether or not you allow the trolls to have their say on your blog.

• No one will read you for a couple months. It’s okay. Soldier on.

• If you want people to read you, read other blogs.

• You may be 1000% certain that you are The New Dooce, but you’re not. Now, you might be as talented as fucking Hemmingway, but you’re not going to get the same press that she did. No press = no instant popularity.

• There’s more politics than you can imagine in blogging.

• If you want more comments then comment until your fingers bleed.

• Get a reader and subscribe to the blogs you like. Comment the shit out of those blogs. People will (eventually) come.

• I’m more likely to comment on your blogs if you’re a loyal commentor on my blog.

• There will be bloggers who will NEVER visit your blog no matter how many amazing and witty comments you leave. Period. Move on if it hurts your feelings.

• Begging for comments is distasteful.

• Support each other as best as you can, in good times and in bad. Every comment helps.

• Every couple of weeks, some new trend will piss off a number of (especially) mom bloggers and they will become annoyingly polarized.

• Resist the urge to chime in about Your Take On This Trend. Seriously.

• Every time the Today show features Dooce, there’s a bazillion start up blogs that believe (hehe) that you can $40,000 a month blogging. Maybe if you’re Dooce that’s true, but for the rest of us? Bwahahahahaha! I don’t mean to sound mean, and if you do manage this, pat yourself on your back for me but don’t get your hopes up.

• Whenever one of those stupid blog contests gets started, everyone freaks out. It will blow over.

• If you’re totally blocked for ideas about a post, describing the boring minutiae of your day is probably not titillating to others. Write it if you must, then delete it. Hopefully that will get your juices flowing and you can write about something more interesting. A turd of a post will always look like a turd no matter how you dress it up.

• Talking shit about anyone–especially behind their backs on your blog that they presumably don’t read–is a bad fucking idea. Password protect those, or better yet, don’t write them at all. Although they may be satisfying, remember, those are the posts that the very same people you talk about may find. It’s a smaller Internet than you think it is and you’re not as anonymous as you think you are.

• If you don’t want people to respond in a negative manner, then don’t let it all hang out there. Not everyone will agree with you and there are people who will happily tell all of the ways you are wrong. You don’t have to like it, but if you put it out there, you do have to deal with it.

• There is something about being able to hide behind “anonymous” that makes people say really dick-ish things that they probably wouldn’t say to your face. It can hurt, I know this, and people will get you all wrong and it will suck, but if you don’t want to deal with it, go private or password protected.

• Your feelings will get hurt. I promise you this.

• Although most of your followers will wish you well, there will always, ALWAYS be a contingent that hopes that you will fail. And fail badly.

• Sarcasm doesn’t always translate well through the written word, so be careful when you use it.

• Music on blogs is universally hated. If you want to put it on there, it’s wise to leave the playlist on mute and allow other people to turn it on should they want.

• Don’t clog up your sidebar with crap. Especially blinky crap. Because it makes the page take like 40 hours to load and then people will click away because who really wants to sit there, waiting for the page to load?

• Don’t put shit on the Internet you wouldn’t wear on a tee-shirt.

• Beware of the donate button. It causes many people to be very, very mad.

• Begging for money pisses people off.

• Constant self-promotion can be a real turn-off.

• Meme’s, although a nice tool to get the writing juices flowing, are usually boring to read. If you like doing ’em, then fuck it and do ’em anyway.

• Edit your posts. Edit them religious.

• Paragraph breaks are a necessity. I cannot read anything not broken up by paragraphs.

• The background of your post needs to be something that is appealing to the eyes. Some colors (especially pink, which is a favorite color of mine) although lovely, leave the reader squinty and headachey. Check out what your finished post looks like YOURSELF and see if you can read it without adjusting your monitor.

• A black background is very, very hard to read.

• If all your tweets on Twitter are links to stuff that people can buy from you or ways to get a zillion followers overnight, you’ve probably pissed off a good portion of your readers.

• There is such a thing as over-sharing.

• Remember that your kids may one day read whatever you’ve written, so choose what you share (especially about them) well.

• Writer’s Block does end.

• Don’t lie. And for God’s sake, don’t fake a dead baby. I don’t even have words to describe people who do that sort of thing.

• Don’t idolize the success of another blogger. Also, don’t hate them for it. In blogging, you often get what you put into it. And the higher you climb, the more pressure there is.

• Be kind to other people. You gain nothing by being cruel.

• Blog for yourself, not for other people.

• Stuff on the Internet–even the stuff you erase–is never, ever, EVER gone. EVER. So make DAMN sure you want to live with whatever you say.

• Remember, it’s all supposed to be fun. Enjoy what you write, take pride in it, and if someone else comes along and tells you that you suck, tell them that Aunt Becky told them to shove it up their pooper.

————-

What am I missing here?

You: Five-foot ball of (presumably) woman with wisps of white hair on the top of your head, yet normal looking bright yellow hair to your shoulders on the sides, almost like that guy from Rocky Horror Picture show. You were as tall as you were wide wearing an indiscriminately grey sweat suit with running shoes that looked like marshmallows.

While I initially thought that there was something wrong with you (perhaps you were out on loan from one of the many area hospitals on a Day Out program or something), once you opened your mouth to berate your frail 100 year old (give or take, how could I be sure?) mother for being “a big stupid idiot,” I realized that no, you were just a huge bitch.

I mean, sure, older people can be kind of annoying (especially when they talk about their various medical maladies during dinner, or recount their last colonoscopy as you eat chocolate ice cream), but come on, the woman was clearly looking at a box of tissues. This may mean she has the sniffles, but not that she’s an idiot.

The way you dragged her up and down the aisles, making sure that you’re gigantic self blocked the entire aisle as you loudly waxed on and on about your collection of cats and their various maladies while telling her how much she sucked was pretty deplorable. I was going to say something to you, but I was afraid you would sit on me and that would be the end of Aunt Becky.

AND WHAT WOULD THE INTERNET DO IF ANOTHER MEDIOCRE BLOGGER STOPPED BLOGGING?

Anyway.

You wouldn’t know about my blog.

You were too busy making damn sure that my husband, The Daver and I would not be able to get in front of you so that we would not (I presume) beat you to the pork skins that you filled your cart with. Had you known that I do not eat pork and this would, no doubt, be a moot point, I am certain that you would still have blocked me with your blueberry shaped body.

I only came into contact with your face, which bore a striking resemblance to a melting candle, I must say, after The Daver and I thought we’d shaken you. But no, we approached the frozen food section of the store–where I was trying to buy eggs–just as you and your poor decrepit mother did. And although there was more than enough room for the lot of us, you blocked us with your cart. I noticed you’d bought only Friskies and fried pork skins.

When Dave tried to steer his cart around you (we were not gorging ourselves on all the free samples of ice cream they were shilling) so that we could get our eggs and move onto another section of the store (perhaps pesticides? That information is neither here nor there), you did a most odd thing.

Not only did you deliberately try to run into him with your cart, you then did the “talk to the hand” gesture in his face. Which, for a ball-shaped fat white lady, looked even more absurd than you can imagine it did. He narrowly escaped with only a minor scratch on his leg, but, you done fucked with my husband.

Bad idea, lady.

I waited until the right moment, as you were making a frantic beeline to the frozen pizzas and just as you thought you’d done showed me, I came up from behind and totally blocked your ass. You had to use all your muscles to stop your cart from t-boning mine.

The look on your melty face was priceless. And I just wanted to say a hearty, ‘Thank You.”

You made my year.

—————

Who’d YOU miss a connection with, Internet?

From the ages of, oh, I don’t know, 3 to 24, my brother hated me. Unresolved issues, a sprinkling of jealousy and a (now ex) wife who fanned the flames of contention with her equally fcuked-up relationship with her own little brother made for a gigantic cluster-fuck of a relationship. For years I was baffled, then sullenly resentful, then I got over it.

You can’t make people (even family) like you. Period. End of story. Fin as those wily French say. Or is it the Eye-Tal-Ians? I can’t be sure.

(Years later, thanks to my sister-in-law, we get along just fine, thankyouverymuch, to the shock, I think, of us both)

But back then, when I was a teenager and he was my current age (28), he and his shrew of a (then) wife who shared my name (first, then last) bought a house in St. Charles, not too far–maybe 5 blocks–from where I live now. The only difference is, my house is in a 70’s construction subdivision, and his house was one of the original in the town. And, because he has a penchant for the dramatic and macabre, the old house he bought wasn’t any old house.

No, not a bit. Not MY brother.

It was built in 1837 in the heart of what was then downtown St. Charles, by a builder whose wife was a member of the spiritualist movement. Her name was Caroline and she believed that she could send and receive messages from the dead. As a famous medium of her time, she held many seances in her home, including one for Mary Todd Lincoln, who came to St. Charles in hopes of communicating with her deceased husband Abe.

But no, the macabre doesn’t stop there.

Once Caroline passed away, one of her daughters picked up right where her mother had left off, conducting seances in the same house. Her daughter later married a man who was an undertaker. The house was then used as a funeral home with one of the basement rooms used as an embalming and viewing room. The name of the undertaker is still etched into the glass on the front door, my brother happily pointed out when we came to tour the house.

(To think I was happy that my own home had central air.)

Anyway.

My brother and his then wife bought this home in the later 1990’s when I was a teenager. Shortly after this, my brother began to travel for business, leaving the country for weeks at a time. Also around this time, my former sister-in-law asked for a divorce. Even less reason for Aaron to be home.

So, when he was gone, I was occasionally asked to house sit, which confounded me: here I was, 18 with a boyfriend, and I was asked to stay in a house ALONE without parents, by my brother who hated me? Surely, there was a catch.

Turns out there was.

For someone like me, who firmly didn’t believe in ghosts, I wasn’t scared by the rumors that the house was haunted. Sure, the chalk painting on the wall in the basement (later, I learned, was the embalming room) of a wide-eyed girl with the phrase “JUST A PURE GIRL” underneath it was a little creepy. But St. Charles is an old town and between the houses I’d been to that had passages for the escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad and all the other old weirdness, I chalked it up to nerves.

He’d bought a creepy house.

End of the ever-loving story.

But no.

One night, after I’d promised my mother that I would pop over there to water the plants and hang out so that it looked occupied and lived in, I dragged my then-boyfriend over with me. Figured we’d listen to some music, hang out without any interruptions and maybe get a chance to have The Sex.

But no.

We pulled up, parked and walked in after I unlocked the door. It was like walking into a wall of unease. All merriment, all joy, all laughter was suddenly just gone. Sucked out of the both of us, like we’d entered The Vortex of The Fun-Free Zone. I eyed him and he eyed me back. The disenchantment was mutual, but we were going to power through it. Maybe it was just nerves or something.

But no.

We walked around the house and if we’d been actors on a stage, the directions would have read “The couple walks about, trying their best to act normal.” Very awkward and highly unexpected for the both of us. I went to the CD rack to pick out a CD as I knew my brother’s collection was far better than my own, hoping, I guess that a little familiar music would still the feeling of disquiet.

But no.

We sat down on the rug in front of the stereo and began to listen to some Mazzy Star. Okay, I thought, maybe it was just a case of The Nerves. Then the phone rang. Startled beyond anything, I jumped up, my heart thudding unhappily in my chest as I realized I was sweating profusely. Better answer that, I thought as I went for the handset in the kitchen. Give the illusion that someone is home, yeah, that’s the ticket.

(my brother hates to talk on the phone, so in hindsight, this was NOT what he’d have done)

Having been somewhat of a phone aficionado for most of my life, I was shocked that I couldn’t answer it. I tried to answer it, I pushed the right buttons on his new-agey looking phone, but no one was there. On and on it rang, Tim and I looking frantically at each other like answering this fucking phone won us the right to live or die. I couldn’t manage to answer it. No way, no how.

Then, just as the phone stopped ringing, the sirens downtown began to go off. The house wasn’t super close to the police or fire department, but the sirens were loud and close. All of a sudden, I got a vision of a car wreck somewhere close where people I loved had died. Popped into my head out of the clear blue sky. My whole body was covered head to toe in goosebumps and I began to shiver uncontrollably in the warm summer air.

It was then that I knew we had to get the fuck out of there before something Really Bad happened.

There was a murderer there and I could smell his sickeningly sweet cologne right behind me with a knife and a gun and a rope and i was going to die like this, in this creepy house, there was a fire about to start oh my god a fire a fucking fire and we would be trapped, burnt to a crisp, the gas main oh my god the gas main was going to suddenly pop a leak killing us quietly while we slowly drifted off into a never-ending sleep DANGER!DANGER!DANGER! red danger, red danger!! the porch was going to collapse on us wow it must be unstable holy shit got to go got to go, killing us in a load of dusty horsehair plaster where we can’t get out and crushed, oh my god crushed the swarm of bees in my head, oh my head, oh my god, my head.

I took one look at Tim who looked back at me, both of us ashen under our summer tan, and we ran. We fucking bolted from that house as quick as we fucking could, panting and breathless. I called my mom to beg her to come and lock up after me because I couldn’t do it. My hands were too shaky to work the key into the lock.

Aaron sold the house several years later, had a couple of good laughs at my experience with the ghost, whom he claimed “hated women.” My mother, conversely, loved the ghost in that house who, apparently, loved her back. So the ghost, just like anyone else, had preferences.

It sounds so flimsy when I retell it here, because I can’t inject terror into your body like it was injected into mine. The analytical side of me says that what happened was just a stress response to being in the house of someone who didn’t like me particularly. It says it that I was feeding off the emotions of my surroundings and letting it overtake me. It says that there’s no such thing as ghosts.

The irrational, emotional side of me, though, doesn’t agree. The emotional side of me calls bullshit.

————–

Do you believe in ghosts? Have you had anything like that happen to you?

Operating on about 3 hours of sleep combined, my husband of 40 hours sat across from me shoe-less, his shirt up around his pasty nipples while another man rubbed him up and down. While an awkward woman rubbed my butt and patted down my vagina, our eyes met. Without attracting any more attention, I mouthed “I’m sorry.” His eyes smiled right before the man grazed his balls with his elbow. Then he wasn’t smiling anymore.

It was all my fault. Honestly.

Later, he expressed, several screwdrivers to the wind, that this was his first experience with being singled out and searched by airport security.

Mouth full of egg and cheese biscuit and several screwdrivers drunk myself, I slurred, “Well, dude, at least they didn’t take you to that back room.” I took a long drag off my drink, “Because that shit is WHACK.” I paused. “And hey, the let me keep one of my lighters.”

The Daver looked less than pleased.

“I’m sorry,” I said, chastised. “It’s all my fault.”

But was it? Was the issue with having a face (presumably) like a terrorist my fault? Certainly I’d been stopped by customs and security more times than I could possibly count, singled out from a crowd each and every time I flew since I was a small child. My father and brother, who turn equally brown skinned in the sun, get it also, but not as bad as I do.

I can’t put a toe into an airport without securing a nice frisking and potential strip-search.

While I can easily claim that I *am* an asshole, the moment I hit the airport, I turn into the mentally challenged sister from Hee-Haw. I’m all “Golly Gee,” this and “Jeepers, Mister,” that with a side of “Gee wilikers” thrown in for good measure. You’ll never see a more ridiculously PC, G-rated version of me.

And still. And yet. And how.

I’ve learned to show up to the airport extra EXTRA early. I’ve learned that flip-flops–even in the dead of winter in Chicago–are the footwear of champions, and I know to wear loose baggy pants for easy up and down access.

But this begs the question. Why me? Was I marked as a potential terrorist when I was a baby? Is this on my ever-fucking Permanent Record?

I’m going to California on Friday at the ass-crack of dawn and I’m certain that on each leg of the trip, I will be searched up and down, and God forbid I pack the wrong toothpaste or something, because I am hoping to catch each connecting flight.

(What the hell can’t I pack anymore anyway?)

(also, LA, here I come!)

And if I do end up in the clink, let it be the California clink, where not only can I make Heather bail me out, I’m sure my cell-mates will look like models. Maybe they’ll make out with me.

When I was an overly dramatical kid, I used to read a lot of books where the heroine would say something deep and meaningful to herself which the adults would later find both profound and amazing. While I would occasionally try and wax poetic about this or that in a sad attempt to emulate the book-girl, the adults never seemed to be that impressed with me.

(note: they still aren’t)

So when we were at the antique store and I rhapsodized on about how many people had looked into the antique mirror before me–people in Olden Times (quote, unquote)–I was surprised when my mother didn’t clap me on the back and buy me ice cream for my witty observation. She merely uh-huh’d me in the that’s nice dear tone and went back to looking at serving bowls.

In hindsight that was a kind of cool way of thinking about old things like that. I grew up in a house that Antiques Roadshow would love to sink it’s pearly teeth into and it was safe to say that my bed really had been slept in before by someone else in Olden Times (quote, unquote). The silverware we pulled out for the holidays had been in someone else’s mouth–a mouth I’d never even seen before. The mirrors really had reflected the image of an ancestor or two.

Who were these people who once used the stuff that I now used? What did they like? What did they hate? What would they think about the pithy observations of an irritating 8 year old?

If I’d been the type to daydream, I’d have had a field day there. I’m more practical than that, though, and it was nothing more than a passing observation.

But that was the first time I’d ever thought about an inanimate object having a sort of an independent memory attached to it. Like it might come with it’s own story. I’ll call it a karmic memory because I’m not sure what else it would be (scent memory is what is on the tip of my tongue, but it’s not the right phrase), and that fits best.

For 8 years, I’ve had an engagement ring. It’s sat there sadly unworn in my jewelry box, occasionally seeing the light of day when I’d rush into the box to find my pearl necklace or snake ring.

It was purchased for me and given to me by Ben’s father after I’d gotten knocked up. I can’t tell you why either of us thought that getting married was a good idea–I’d never really thought much about marriage at all–but I suppose it was a life-line in a sinking ship.

Any port in the storm.

When I slipped that ring onto my finger, though, it changed me. Not into the crazy bridezilla who obsesses endlessly about table linens, but into someone I didn’t like. That ring, that cheap ring that Nat begrudgingly shelled out for while complaining about conflict diamonds and American greed, weighed a thousand pounds, a loosely hanging noose around my neck.

I only wore it for a couple of months, feeling inexplicably shameful and often hiding my hands so as not to have to comment on it when people wanted to gush over my engagement. A couple of months, I wore that diamond unhappily, unsure of how my life had taken such a drastic turn for the crap, and then I took it off in a fit of rage.

When he didn’t come home one night, instead sauntering in the following morning with a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary look on his face, hickeys red on his neck, I took that ring off with an angry “you stuck your dick in HER?”

My son rolled about in my stomach, oblivious to the chaos surrounding him.

I kept the ring.

I don’t know why.

Maybe so that I could give it back to him if he asked.

Maybe to give to my children to play dress-up with.

Maybe I just didn’t know what to do with an engagement ring that was just…wrong.

It was like a reminder of an alternate universe every time I’d open my jewelry box to see it nestled there, next to my other, treasured diamonds. A shameful reminder of where I’d been and how bad things were. Maybe I kept it to remind myself of how far I’d come. How hard I’ve worked to get where I am. How I should never compromise who I am for someone else.

Maybe I was just too lazy to figure out what to do with it.

I sold it today.

Today is not a day that means anything to me. It was a gray morning, it’s a lovely sunny afternoon now, it’s June and June is one of my favorite months.

Today has no significance to me whatsoever.

It’s Saturday, tomorrow is Sunday, yesterday was Friday. It appears to be a good day today, my kids are happy, I have a load of laundry in the dryer, although this is Nat’s weekend with Ben, he never called me to pick him up, so Ben’s home today; his real home. We’re having burgers for dinner later.

I didn’t wake up with the intention of selling it, the idea struck me out of the overcast gray sky: why not put it to bed? Why not rid myself of that burden? I’ve paid the rest of my debts, why not this one too? Maybe the gold and diamond will help someone else build something that I hadn’t wanted.

It’s gone now. Over. It’s been over for years, probably doomed from the start.

My memories, my pain, my hate, it’s gone now.

$40.

That’s what I was owed. That’s what I got.

It’s more than it was worth.

So here’s the button should you want to vote for me. Should you NOT want to vote, I dig that too. It’s a simple process, hand to God.

I am also up for the other two Bloggers Choice Awards displayed so kindly on my sidebar, and should you want to go through the annoying registration, I would be most thrilled. If only so that I could beat Dooce, who wins everything.

I also wanted to let you know that–should you want to be bored stiff–I am on Facebook as I am a lemming. A stupid, stupid lemming. My full name is at the bottom of your screen. We should SO be BFF.

I am also on Flickr AND Twitter. Because of the aforementioned lemmingness.

————-

Okay, so that top shit was written this morning when I was anxiously awaiting the Early Intervention people.

Dave and I handle adverse situations differently. While I am busy wringing my hands and preparing myself for the worst possible outcome, he calmly expects the best of any given situation. I’m not exactly Chicken Little, instead I’m his cousin, Aunt Chicken The-Sky-Might-Fall-Soon-Better-Prepare-Now and while I do appreciate Daver’s rose colored glasses, honestly my way has proved to be more useful for me.

Neither way is either wrong or right.

Amelia had her meeting with the therapists this afternoon, and all week I’ve had a sort of heavy-rock-in-my-guts type feeling. Not because, you see, I was terribly concerned about what they would find–shocking, I know–but because, I guess, I didn’t know what was going to happen. Which to me is worse than the bad outcomes. Dave, on the other hand, was optimistic and unconcerned.

Today, I have to eat my words (with a side of fava beans): Amelia, it has been determined, is (so far) normal. Completely meeting her milestones, ripping ass and taking names. The therapists will be back in a couple months to reevaluate, because her diagnosis is an automatic qualifier for the program, but so far, she’s spectacularly…normal.

I’m so beyond thrilled that I’m in shock. Tonight, the champagne will flow freely, but today, I will simply gape, slack-jawed at my daughter. My principessa.

I’m not worthy.

Part I is here and Number B is here.

I’d tried to explain to Matt, after the initial upset, that I really just wasn’t that into him. But after he’d simply call me and breathe into the phone heavily, I gave up and stopped answering the phone altogether. I had a roommate who never left the room and an answering machine to catch any other calls, so I turned into sort of a telephone-a-phobe.

Which angered me greatly. Known for talking paint off walls, the forced exile of my phoneness made me feel trapped. Feeling trapped by some creepy guy with lips like two pieces of fleshy liver made me irate.

Working in my favor after awhile was my new boyfriend. Not because he had done or said anything to Matt, but because I now had one.

Matt got the hint. Matt also got angry.

Soon enough, I was back to my telephone-o-philic ways and felt free enough to call Matthias again without fear that Matt was going to burn down my dorm. It was concrete anyway, I reasoned, but I did try and make sure to call when Matt was at class.

One night, the lot of us were sitting around plotting a trip with our new fake ID’s to the local college bar, and we decided to see if Matthias wanted to come along with us. I picked up the phone, dialed and was dismayed when Matt answered. Never one to back down even when I should, I asked to speak to Matthias.

“He’s not here,” Matt spat and slammed the phone down.

“Fucker hung up on me!” I said angrily, depressing the off button while my face flushed scarlet. “What a fucking dill-bag!” I’d been prepared to let the whole I’m-stalking-you-creepily-thing go and let bygones be fucking bygones, but now? All bets were off.

“Let me try,” Pashmina Stimpy (her name is STIMPY. I was Ren, she was STIMPY on our old blog.) took the phone forcibly out of my clenched fist. She dialed the number.

“Hi, this is Stimpy, can I please speak to Matthias?” She used her most professional sounding voice which made me crack up. She listened for a moment and then hung up. “Dude. He hung up on me, too!”

Oh hell no.

The phone was passed to Stimpy’s roommate who called. “Hi, this is Stimpy’s roommate,” she said cheerfully, “Is Matthias available?” I was beet-red, trying to stop the laughter. “Oh FUCK no,” she said as she hung up. “Dickhole hung up on me too!”

James, an RA from the guys floor below was next. “Hi Matt,” he chirped, cheerful as a clam. “This is James!!! Is Matthias there??” He practically bubbled the last sentence through the phone managing, I noticed jealously, to sound entirely sincere while doing so.

After Matt hung up on him too, we all were roaring with laughter. They’d all kept me away from Matt’s creepiness for months before and were suitably freaked out by him. But not, obviously, freaked out enough to have some fun.

The lot of us ran down the hall to my room where we persuaded Vanessa, my roommate, who was also well aware of the antics of Matt’s weirdness, to call. Like everyone before her, she was hung up on. My sides ached from laughing and the tears had wet the front of my shirt completely.

But now we’d run out of people to call him, so we headed back to Stimpy’s room to have a smoke and decide what to do next after James did my makeup so that I could pass as a 28 year old Greek chick (I was 19 and not even close to Greek). I ended up looking somewhat like a transvestite, but it was only appropriate. Calling Matt had left us all in a punchy mood, so we giggled like schoolgirls at everything.

It was Stimpy, I think, who had the next brilliant idea. And it was a brilliant one.

“Hand me the phone,” she commanded to James, who handed it over, mystified. She grabbed it and dialed while we stared at her. What the hell was she doing now?

“Hey Matt, this is Stimpy,” she cheerfully reintroduced herself. “Hey, I’d just called, and I know I asked if Matthias could call me back but, you know, I’m going out to the library now, so you don’t have to tell him I called.”

I told you it was brilliant.

One by one, we called back, asking Matt to ignore our previous request to have Matthias call us as we were all going out somewhere or another. By the time it was my turn, he’d taken the phone sadly off the hook.

The best part of the entire situation was that Matt now avoided each and every one of us like we were diseased plague-ridden rats. We’d see him walk past The Ashtray–which we were trying to fill with butts–and wave wildly, and he’d turn the other way, pretending not to see us or answer our frantic “HI MATT’s!!”

He never bothered me again.

Mature? No. Highly entertaining? Abso-fucking-lutely.

———

Stalker stories? College stories? BRING IT.

Part I is here.

And there’s this:

My plea to you to help me try and not be spanked so badly out there. They won’t spam you, and all you have to do is enter your email! It’s simple to vote and damn, I know you’re out there, my sweet lurkers. Why don’t you come out of the dark? I won’t bite!

So there we were, sitting there, Pashmina, Matthias, Pashmina’s roommate and I. Newly minted members of The Loyola University Polo club. After a brief moment of congratulating ourselves on an idea well played, the idea was shoved back away to make room for more pressing issues: namely, would my roommate break the Bubble Chair again?

(answer–although the suspense would be grand– Yes. Like me, Vanessa didn’t seem to learn from her mistakes)

The fall pressed on as Matthias searched high and low for stables and horses the rest of us just sort of forgot about the Polo Club. But we were still often in each others’ company.

One mid-winter Friday night, Matthias invited the lot of us to his apartment which felt so grown-up and urban after living in the shoe boxes we referred to as The Maxi Pad (why yes, we did think we were clever!) for wine and pasta. Oh! How Continental we all felt! We also felt like alcoholics, as we’d each gotten a bottle of wine to bring with, making the total bottles of wine somewhere near 7.

Dinner was eaten off paper plates and the wine was happily dug into by all of us, including Matthias’s roommate, Matt. Whomever had paired them together was obviously a joker.

Wine has, and probably always will, in addition to making me swell up like the Michelin Man, gotten me hammered as fuck.

So, we were ALL suitably toasty when we started to play a game, sitting there on the floor passing the wine bottles around. The game was, of course, a favorite of mine: Truth of Mother-fucking Dare. There’s very little I won’t do or won’t answer truthfully (a blessing AND a curse), so I was stoked.

The game, as we were all 19 or so, immediately took a sexual tone. Someone answered describing losing their virginity, someone else discussed fantasies, and I’m pretty sure that someone streaked, but my memory is suitably foggy. Eventually, it was my turn.

The question must have been something or another about The Sex, for the life of me, I don’t remember the specifics, but my answer was, in drunken drawl, “I *snort* I dunno. I *hic* just like *hic* sex.”

It was a most unfortunate choice of words that I would pay for for months after.

Because Matthias’s roommate lit up like a Christmas tree. We’d been talking earlier because I am chatty and I could tell he thought I was cute (obvs: wine goggles), but there was no interest on my part. He just wasn’t my type.

But between the stupid comment about sex (to be fair, the rest of the comments were much, much more raunchy, and had I been any less drunk, I’d have been more descriptive) and the fact that I responded to him in a conversation, he was smitten by the time the night was over.

In yet another gigantic error in judgement, we’d made plans to hang out the following weekend when we were both home as we’d discovered we lived in the same hometown. By the time that weekend rolled around, and I was home, I had no real desire to hang with him and told him as much when he called my parents’ house. I wasn’t being unkind, just wanted to see my other hometown friends. I forgot to call him back and promptly forgot that I’d forgotten.

This, apparently, was the Wrong Thing to do. Because when I returned to school the following Sunday, my roommate informed me that someone “named Matt had called about 10 times.” She looked a little freaked out. I felt a little freaked out.

Over the next week or two, he called non-stop and had taken to hanging outside around our dorm, his eyes glinting creepily as he scanned the crowds for me. Maybe he just wanted to sell me some Amway, maybe he wanted to tell me that he’d discovered the key to world peace, maybe he wanted to give me a check for a million dollars. I won’t ever be sure.

Because the constant calling and skulking about the Ashtray (the gigantic fountain in the middle of the quad, outside of our dorm. Seen from above, it looked like, you guessed it, a large, concrete ashtray) had made me skittery and nervous with a touch of anger thrown in for good measure. Because now I couldn’t even call Matthias without fear that Matt would pick up and tell me that he’d been sacrificing kittens in my name.

He was just that kind of guy.

Part III will air tomorrow. Sorry, y’all.