1: time the words “put your ding-dong away” came out of my mouth yesterday.

92,284: times I’ve reminded Alex that his penis is PRIVATE.

92,284: times Ben has laughed uproariously when I said this.

67: times I wondered how on Earth I was supposed to survive living in the Sausage Factory for the next 18 years.

98,273: times that my daughter has insisted that both she and I have penises too.

82: times The Twitter has asked me if I’m really a dude.

1: person who had to tell me she was unfollowing me on The Twitter because I called Blogspot “the Supercuts of blogging platforms.”

1: blogspot blog I myself own.

2: bunnies scampering in my backyard whom I have named “Thor The Impaler” and “Professor Mittens.”

Too Ashamed To Admit: hours I’ve spent playing Angry Birds.

3: the fewest number of pieces one can break a stick of dry spagetti into.

0: boomsticks I currently own.

Too Many To Count: boomsticks I WANT to own.

2: rose plants didn’t survive the winter.

3: days I moped about the loss of my roses.

4: camera apps I have on my iPhone.

0: camera apps used in the picture

0: pictures (I’ve taken) that are better than this.

1: reminder I’m giving that we HAPPILY accept submissions on both Band Back Together and Mushroom Printing.

I got invited to some PR event this weekend in LA.

PR companies seem to have my address wrong – I get invited to stuff in NYC and LA, under the assumption that I actually live in either of those places and not stuck smack-dab in Chicago, the middle of the country. Perhaps PR companies assume that no one would ever consider living outside of the coasts, and to those PR companies, I would like to offer myself as evidence that people do, in fact, live in the Midwest.

Either way, I’m getting the itch to take a trip (yes, I’m still planning on the Epic Road Trip) and for upwards of an entire minute considered going to this event, just to get the hell out of here.

I can lock the kids in the basement with a litterbox and a fresh bowl of bowl of food and water, right? What do you mean, “kids don’t watch themselves?” That’s bullshit!

I have serious reservations about tripping it out to LA. LA is a great city, of course, if you’re a model or an actress, which is where I lose out. I’m neither. I’m a writer.

When I first posted a picture of myself on my blog, I had people say, “Wow, you’re prettier than I’d have expected.” Which is one of those weird underhanded compliments I never know how to respond to. Do I write ugly? Do you think I’d be ugly because I’m a writer?

I don’t know.

But I do know that LA is land of the beautiful and Illinois is the land of crooked government officials.

So I always feel a wee bit insecure whenever I travel there. Maybe I’m pretty for a blogger, but I’m not shampoo-model pretty and I am okay with that.

The last time I was in LA was a year and a half ago, in the middle of a cold-ass January. I happened to be freshly out of makeup when I arrived, so I made a bee-line for the MAC store, where I required the assistance of a man who probably modeled for Prada when he was not matching skin tones at the MAC store.

When I told him that I needed some powder and that stuff you put under your eyes to remove black circles, he took one look at me and tisked before flouncing into the backroom.

Minutes pass.

Finally, he emerges, breathless, and tells me that he had to go hunting for this particular shade. I looked quizzically at him as he applied it.

“Well, you’re just so…pale!” he sputtered out, then immediately reddened underneath his own makeup.

“We Midwesterners prefer the term, “sluggish,” to “pale,” I replied.

He laughed.

“Besides, how would YOU look if you didn’t see the sun for nine months of the year?”

He laughed harder.

Then he invited me over for dinner at his partner’s house.

I didn’t accept, of course, because I’m from Chicago and I know that “being invited over to dinner” means you’re going to be dismembered and stored in an upright freezer.

Probably.

On Friday, I was sitting around, wearing ass-grooves into my chair while chatting on IM with Jana and Crystal, when it dawned on me: we needed a theme for May’s World Tour. And not one of us had any good idears as to what it should be.

I went off to vacuum, which is what I do when I’m Deeply Thinking (okay, sometimes I eat tater tots)(potatoey goodness seems to make my mind all free and shit.) It dawned on me, mid-vacuum-session that this month, it was time to confront our fears.

Shit, I thought. Now it’s time for me to figure out what I am afraid of.

Blech.

Sure, I’m afraid of earwigs, the color orange and the Facts of Life Theme Song, but really, without some extensive CBT therapy, I’m not sure I could fix any of those. At least, not in a month.

However, I do have something I am terrified of. Something I didn’t admit to myself. Something I had to both confront and let go.

(no not Little Debbie Treats, you assholes)

For the rest… BB2G World Tour: May Edition

Anyone who has dealt with chronic pain knows that eventually, you hit a wall. By the time I was seated in my neurologist’s office, silently diagnosing him with GERD, I was in such sorry shape that if he’d said, “what you need to do is grind a ballpoint pen into your eardrum until you hit your brain,” I’d have fought him for his own pen and done it right then and there. Anything to get rid of that pain.

I’d already been on a dose of something I called The Max, or occasionally Dope-a-Max and it had lost it’s efficacy. As we decided to increase the dose, my neurologist warned me that the higher the dose, the more likely it would be that I’d suffer “cognitive impairment,” which, I don’t need to tell you Pranksters, was the last thing I could have used.

Alas, I went up in dose, accepting that I would probably turn into the Aunt Becky equivalent of a gigantic vegetable, hoping that I’d at least be a kicky exotic vegetable like Chinese Broccoli (with stylish hair) or something.

I bought a notebook to jot down the things I’d previously relied upon my memory for. I accepted that I could no longer just “send an email” without having to look up the address to ensure I wasn’t sending it to the wrong person. I lived in a fog, existing one moment to the next rather than planning for even a couple of days into the future.

I was miserable. Probably more than I’d let on.

The headaches were manageable for awhile, but the gaps in my brain’s functioning made me frustrated and sad. I missed being able to say, “oh yeah, April 18, that’s the day I’m going to Take Over The World, Like Skynet, With Better Hair.” I missed being able to tweet at someone without having to copy/paste their Twitter handle.

Once The Max stopped working to keep my headaches at bay, I switched to something else, hoping to regain some of my cognitive function, as well as manage my headaches. I’d done over two years with The Max, and I was tired of it.

I’d been told that the side effects of Dope-A-Max were reversible so I expected to slowly regain my ability to manage the tasks that used to leave me frustratedly crying at the computer.

And who knows. Maybe they will.

But right now, I feel the gaps in my mind are so large that you could drive a semi-truck loaded with watermelons through them.

Mmmmm…watermelons….mmmm.

What were we talking about again?

Hi Auntie Becky!

I hope you don’t mind my calling you that because I see only one aunt on my mom’s side because of distance, and the relatives on my dad’s side of the family except for my Uncle Steve and his wife Heather consider me the spawn of Satan. I also have one honorary aunt and uncle. So I have three people who allow me to call them “Aunt” or “Auntie.”

I would consider it the utmost honor if you were to contemplate being my fourth aunt I’m allowed to claim. My twin brother is allowed to claim the 13,000 or so (I would say 144,000 except that they’re Mormons and not Jehovah’s Witnesses) on my dad’s side, so your inclusion would help to even the score between my brother and me ever so slightly. Please don’t agree to be my twin brother Matthew’s Aunt Becky because absolutely nothing would be gained in the name of approaching equality if you were to do so.

I told you a convoluted story earlier that I assume reached your site (primarily because someting to the effect of “your message has been received” popped up after I clicked on the “ask” button) concerning multiple fractured bones, an attempted sexual assault, a broken prom date from last year, and another proposed prom date for this year. (If for some reason the message did not reach you, consider yourself lucky. It’s a truly depressing saga.)

I’m a bit unsure as to the format for receiving answers. Are questions addressed in your regular column on a more or less weekly basis, or does it happen more randomly, or do the replies appear somewhere other than at this site?

Are you able to answer most of the questions submitted to you, or are you so inundated, as was the late “Ann Landers” AKA Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer,*** that receiving a reply from you is a “luck of the draw” sort of thing, the odds of which are the approximate equivalent of getting one’s hands on one of Willie Wonka’s much-coveted golden tickets?

If I seem not quite in possession of the few faculties I ordinarily possess, it is because a therapist at my inpatient mental health treatment facility just gave me Klonopin because I had an especially vivid and persistent flashback nightmare. I’ve been granted access to my laptop while we’re waiting around for the Klonopin to kick in and have its usual effect of making me fall asleep.

I usually can’t have my laptop between the hours of 11:30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. I’m not usually under the influence of mood-altering substances because my psychiatrist believes that the figurative demons that haunt me are best treated with forms of cognitive therapy.

He prescribes drugs only for extreme situations. An extreme situation is defined around here as one in which the staff manning the main desk between the hours of 11:30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. are required to put down their People magazines, smartphones, or TWIGHLIGHT novels and deal with problems we adolescent***** patients are experiencing.

We are expected not to experience problems during these graveyard hours. We’re supposed to be asleep now so that the facility can maintain a light staff during these times and so that the staff who are inconvenienced by having to work these hours can be compensated for the incovenience of working the graveyard shift by being free to use their Smartphones, to read their books or magazines, or to sleep at the front desk in relative peace. They should not be supervising or dealing with crazy adolescent***** patients during these hours.

If we had any manners or any sense of decorum whatsoever, we would have the decency to schedule nightmares, flashbacks, and panic attacks between the hours of 7:00 a.m and 10:45 p.m.

The reason I am pestering you at this hour, in addition to the simple fact that I can, is that I am sincerely interested in seeking your opinion regarding the advisability of accepting the prom date offer that has been extended.

The boy who invited me deserves a timely response. This does not mean, of course, that either your customary schedule for the delivery of replies or your usual method of selecting which questions merit responses should be altered in any way. My emergency is not inherently your emergency.

If there is, however, a way I can be informed as to the likelihood of a forthcoming reply, as well as the time and site at which said reply might arrive if indeed my question is selected to be adressed by you or your staff of worker bees, such would be highly beneficial both to me and to the boy who was kind enough to extend the prom invitation.

This is, of course, assuming the prom invitation was extended sincerely and was not just one more big fat joke created for the purpose of making my otherwise miserable existence even more pathetic than it already is. The last comment, by the way, was facetious in part, although is also reflective of the level of paranoia that plagues me from time to time.

The boy is more nerdy than I, if it is possible to be more nerdy than I. The one thing in this whole mess of which I should be relatively certain is that his invitation is sincere.

Still, what should be and what actually are sometimes are not necessarily one and the same. The weird set of circumstances that have befallen me have caused me at times to question, sometimes jokingly but at other times with more than a hint or seriousness, whether the universe is truly out to get me.

In conclusion to this bizarre missive, which if read by any of those who have power to impact my course of treatment, may result in my inpatient treatment continuing until I reach the age of thirty-one, I have a simple request.

If you have an opinion as to whether a school prom is a place a person should go who was physically injured, had a prom date broken off as a result of the physical injuries, and then was physically attacked in an unrelated incident, with an attempted sexual assault thrown into the mix, followed by a brick projected through my bedroom window, the benefit of your wisdom would be appreciated.

If you find any or all of this difficult to believe, you are not alone. My therapist at this facility found the story so incredulous that she wouldn’t even take my parents’ words as adequate validations. My high school counselor had to vouch for the authenticity of my story.

Your loyal reader,

Alexis

Dear Alexis,

I should hope that I can adopt you, seeing as I think you’re not only incredibly hilarious, you’re Mormon, which means you might actually stand a chance at getting these tired bones into Heaven some day. And I will refuse Matthew’s request to be HIS Aunt Becky because, well, obviously.

I don’t generally have any order to the questions that I answer and unless the answer is something that eludes even my magical fingers, I answer everything I get. Eventually.

Also: I don’t believe I received an email from you before or I’d have answered it. Because we’re related and all that shit.

SO.

Should you accept a prom date after your hideously disastrous prom last year?

I say yes. Prom, I remember, was a lot of fun. Although, I missed one of the proms because I was too wasted to get there.

(this is me telling you not to drink or do drugs, lest you end up like Old Aunt Becky.)

That said, I can see how prom might bring up old memories and make you feel all flashbackish and that, of course, is no good.

So I think you must make a Pro/Con list and figure out if it’s better TO go than to sit at home and not go.

You can even COLOR CODE it.

(my inner nerd swoons)

Let me know what you decide to do. Hopefully, I’m not too late. I’d planned to write your question last weekend but was stuck, incapacitated on the couch, vomiting into a hat.

————-

Pranksters? Any advice for our Prankster friend? Should she go to prom after a vicious assault last year?

Also: in an entirely unrelated question, what constitutes an “emotional affair?” I’m not asking for me or anything, I’m just not sure I understand the term and I want to before I answer a separate Go Ask Aunt Becky.

Wednesday evening found me on a train headed downtown. In a bizarre bit of strange luck, I found myself about to go speak to a writing class about blogging, which had filled me with all kinds of ennui. Especially since I didn’t have any black turtlenecks OR Woody Allen Glasses.

I figure that’s what a Liberal Arts Degree teaches: how to properly dress as a “writer.”

(well, that and how to excel at Ultimate Frisbee)

I spent minutes agonizing over how to properly dress before I threw on something I’d found under my bed and called it “good enough.” I figure I write in cat-hair coated Happy Pants and a t-shirt, so really, anything was a step up from that. We all know looking the part is half the battle.

I used to take the train to and from school and I’d completely forgotten how much I love to people-watch at the train station.

I stood near someone I deemed a “Real Housewife of Chicago,” based upon her spray tan and knee high boots coupled with a gigantic fur coat.

It was while talking to her that I saw him: he was The God of Luscious Mustaches everywhere and I was betwixt. Dressed head to toe in Spandex, listening to an iPod, and wearing the thick-rimmed glasses I so desperately required for that class. Certainly, I could have crushed his twiggy body for the glasses, but once I saw the mustache, I knew I could never harm him.

It was too perfect.

Perhaps I could get a PICTURE of his ‘stache. I contemplated how to do that (The Twitter had the best idea: pretend to be Canadian and ask for a picture with him) and couldn’t figure it out before he was lost in the breeze; on a different train car. The chance of a lifetime, and I’d wasted it.

I spent the rest of the train ride mourning all of the things that might have been; me and his mustache.

Somehow, I’ve managed to get on with my life. But the image of his mustache, carefully playing on the top of his lips, will haunt me forever.

(an artist’s representation of the mustache)(the part of the host will be played by Moby).

Did I mention he was a ginger with a Hitler Mustache?

It was truly a work of art.

Or something.

I was in the gas station a couple of weeks ago, purchasing something or another that required ID to prove that I wasn’t under 18. A lighter? A Lotto Ticket? I don’t exactly recall. I do recall this, however.

Straight-Faced Lady Behind The Counter: “Can I see some ID?”

Me: “Sure!”

(rifles through bag)

Me: “Here!”

Lady Behind The Counter: (inspects the ID thoroughly for a good minute or five)

Me: (confused) “…”

(aside: I am not ALWAYS confused. Just normally).

Sea-Hag Lady Behind The Counter (suspiciously): “Your license is EXPIRED.”

Me: “Uh, no it’s not.”

Lady With A Face Like A Melting Candle Behind The Counter: “YES IT IS.”

Me: “Turn it over.”

(in Illinois, safe drivers get a sticker to put on the back of their cards to renew it) (we all know I’m Captain Motherfucking Safety)

Sea Hag (even more suspiciously): “Well, the picture doesn’t look ANYTHING like you.”

Me: “Okay. Since when do license pictures EVER look like you? In my last one, I looked like a dude.”

Sea Hag (tries to stare me down): “Is this REALLY you?”

Me (OMFG): “YES. Like I would pretend to be a thirty-year old to get a lighter.”

Grumbling, she did ring me up, her eyes wide once I whipped out my Big Girl Credit Card.

I walked out of there, giggling. Who would voluntarily PRETEND to be me?

As IF.

————–

Now is the time on the blog when we LINK!

My friend wrote the most amazing story about Amelia. I’d love it if you gave it a peek. (she made me cry)(I love her for it)

I wrote on CafeMom about being excluded from the Mommy Clique.

And again about Barely Surviving The Plague.

We’ve had a series of amazing posts up on Band Back Together. You guys are all welcome to post there and on Mushroom Printing. Seriously, we’d love to have you.

I got a call from Amelia’s preschool teacher yesterday. Breezily, she told me that she’d “found a tick” on my daughter.

A Tick.

TICK.

(Needless to say, if my house hadn’t been properly bathed in bleach before the Barf-o-rama last week, it is now.)

Now, I have no problems with bugs. In general, that is. Sure, mosquitoes are annoying, but they feed the bats that live in the gigantor pine tree where I plan to construct my panic room. Ants are kinda…cool. I mean, you learn a little bit about those assholes and their social structure and suddenly, it’s not as annoying that they’re crawling on your hands as you carefully prune your roses.

(fire ants are, for the record, blazing assjackets)

Earwigs are another story. Creepy fuckers.

And wasps, well, I’m allergic to them. I had an incredible colony of them growing in my birdfeeders last year – something I didn’t realize until late in the summer – and when I tell you those fuckers were everywhere, it was like they were stalking me or something. I must’ve had Wasp Sonar attached to my head or something.

It’s not the pain of the sting or the use of the Epi-Pen I’d need to stay alive, it’s knowing that I’d have to call 911 AFTER the first dose for an ambulance to properly treat me. My doctor warned me that most people with wasp allergies need a second dose.

I’ve taken epinephrine after a particularly bad reaction to some IM painkillers and let me tell you, that shit makes you feel like you’re dying. It’s temporary and it’s a hell of a lot better than actual death, but still, I’m not exactly ready to be all, HEY KIDS, WANNA WATCH MAMA SCREAM ABOUT HER HEART? I figure I’ll do enough damage to them in the long-term; they don’t need to watch a team of paramedics work on their mother.

But ticks, I don’t know much about them, besides the whole “Lyme Disease” thing.

Immediately, I thought about all of places ticks could be hiding.

LIKE ON THE BIG ITCHY BUMP ON MY LEG.

I’d assumed the bite on the back of my leg was a spider bite and left it at that. I mean, I live in Chicago; we get spiders. Sometimes, we get bitten.

Besides, I used to work at an outdoor restaurant that had spiders in the rafters. The morning chores included removing all spiders from the rafters, lest they poo on someone’s cheeseburger. By the river, man, those spiders got to be huge.

But this bump, man, it was huge. It was probably teeming with Tick-Babies. In fact, what if *I* was turning into a Tick? Like the Great Tick Mother or something. What if I was infested with Ticks? WOULD MY HAIR FALL OUT WHEN I BECAME A GIGANTIC TICK?

I didn’t know. So I did the only rational thing I could do: I made my mother look at it.

Now, for all of the problems she and I have had, she’s about the most level-headed and non-hysteric person I know. Her answer (and mine) for most problems is, “eh, it’s probably nothing. Go drink some water and lay in the sun awhile.”

Dave’s mother, on the other hand, called to tell him that she was flying somewhere for Easter and had taken out Death Insurance for the trip; payable to Dave and Dave’s brother. (My response: “what the fuck is Death Insurance? And how much is it worth?”)

Complete 180 from my mother who would have called the policy bullshit and pointed out that “you’re more likely to die in a car-crash on the way TO the airport than to die on a plane.”

She’s just like that.

So I made my mother look at the bump that was most certainly riddled with Tick Babies to tell me if I was dying or not.

Me: “OHMYGOD, IS THIS A TICK BITE?”

My Mother: “No.”

Me: “AM I DYING OF TICKNESS?”

My Mother (rolls eyes) : “No.”

Me: “AM I GOING TO TURN INTO A HUGE BALD TICK?”

My Mother (rolls eyes): “No.”

Me: “WHAT THE FUCK IS IT, THEN?”

My Mother: “Looks like a spider bite.”

Me: “Oh. Well, then. I’m starving.”

Sorry Pranksters, it appears as though I will live another day. (Hopefully, not as a tick.)

————-

Now that we’ve ascertained that, what are YOUR weird-ass fears?

I’m not a big fan of brands. I know that’s the big push in social media right now: branding yourself, but I think it’s kinda missing the point. What happened to writing because you love to write?

Anyway, I digress.

I was recently gifted a necklace from Tiffany & Co, a place that I’m fortunate enough to own many pieces of jewelry from, although not the type of jewelry that screams, “I bought this at Tiffany & Co,” because I’m not a fan of advertising for brands. Even brands I love.

(yes, I know I have an FCUK sweatshirt, but come on. That’s Comedy Gold)

The necklace was a gift from Dave’s previous employer for 5 years of dedicated service. That necklace is not enough.

I didn’t talk much about the problems I had with Dave’s job; not when so many of my Pranksters were facing far bigger economic issues than my own. I didn’t want to hurt anyone who reads my blog by complaining about my piddly problems.

Besides, I know better than to discuss money on blogs. It’s not classy. (we ALL know I put the “ass” in “classy”)

But I did have problems. Big ones. Bigger than I could have explained.

Like anything big, it started small. Dinners left cold as he had to take care of some work issue or another. Movies half-watched, leaving me on the couch alone, wondering if he’d be back to finish. Eventually, I learned that he wasn’t coming back.

I stopped waiting.

Work was what mattered to him and by proxy, it should matter to me, too. I mean, I told myself, it put the roof over my head and food in my mouth, and really, so what if my partner is emotionally checked out even when he’s sitting next to me? So many people had it so much worse. How could I be upset?

But I was upset. I was hurt. I felt abandoned…because I had been.

Rather than things getting better over time, they got worse. The kids and I became horrible distractions, things that got between Dave and work, and he’d snap at us for asking simple questions like, “when will you be done?” or “what do you want for dinner?”

I was known as a “(insert company name) Widow” at age twenty-five.

He started a new job last week, right after gifting me the Tiffany & Co necklace.

I’ve wondered on and off what I should do with it; something that was given by the very company who kept me in house and home but without a real partner. I considered selling it. I considered donating it. I considered marching it into the (insert company name) offices and giving it back; telling them that it wasn’t worth nearly enough.

In the end, I’ve decided exactly what I’m going to do with it. I’m going to get it engraved.

What’s it going to say?

“SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH.”

It seems only fitting.

Purchased at the pharmacy on Saturday night:

• 1 box vinyl gloves (in a kicky purple!)

• 1 bottle Maalox regular

• 1 bottle Maalox extra-strength

• 1 bottle body lotion

• 1 bottle Imodium

• 1 bottle Pedialyte

• Tin of Bag Balm

• 1 box Chewable Pepto-Bismol

• Air Freshener Spray

The teenage cashier looked mortified as she rang up my purchases until I said, “oh we’re just having a party tonight. Celebrate the whole Jesus-Thing.”

Then she looked very, very frightened.

————

How was YOUR Easter, Pranksters?