When I started the Bringing Aunt Becky Back project in January, I knew that I was sort of at an impasse. Things couldn’t possibly go on as they had been because I was miserable and I’d BEEN miserable for so long that I couldn’t see that the bad days outnumbered the good.

It was time to either continue sinking or try desperately to swim for surface.

A lot of that meant that I had to face the things that were tied around my legs, trying to drag me down, whether or not I wanted to admit that they were there. I tend to be a “LOOK AT THE SPARKLE UNICORN SPRINKLES, PEOPLE” because I’d rather not talk about the 400 pound elephant in the room. Hell, let’s feed him some motherfucking vodka and get this party STARTED and ignore that elephant, why don’t you because really, he just lives here.

Slowly, I had to examine the things that were tying me down and threatening to drown me, accept them, and then cut them off. Because holding onto all of those things was only making me sink deeper and at night, the demons threatened to drag me down to the bad place.

A lot of those hurts weren’t easy to let go and many of those things will forever be a part of who I am because that is what happens: the things that hurt you define you in some small way. Past events, those dictate how you will react in the future.

One by one I examined them, and carefully, I bid them goodbye, remembering that I am a better person for each of the things that I went through. I can’t tell you how many nights I sobbed, maybe not sure why, maybe entirely sure why, letting things go.

I was afraid that when I was done, the person left standing would be someone I didn’t recognize. It has been probably a good 5 years since I’ve been in a space where I’ve been genuinely happy, and when all was said and done, who would be the person left behind?

Shockingly, perhaps not-so-shockingly, the person left standing when I chipped away all of ties that bind, and finally resurfaced for air, was precisely the same person who was standing there before. Exactly the same person.

I’d figured that all of the shit of the past years: the isolation of being alone with the kids, the struggles I’ve had to find my own way, watching my parents both hit rock bottom and then get into recovery, raising a special needs kid, drama with the baby daddy, birth defects, post partum depression, miscarriages, migraines, prepartum depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, being ditched by two of my best friends, the isolation of having a husband who works 80-120+ hour work weeks, all of that, well, I figured that would make me a different person.

In December, this was my New Years Post:

“While Amelia has thrived and continued to place at or above level for every single test that she’s been given, I’ve sort of managed to tread water this year managing to keep my head mostly above water. Lately, I’ve been drinking gasoline to keep warm.

I’m not sure it’s working.

I was diagnosed with PTSD stemming from her traumatic birth and I don’t know if it’s that, or PPD or some other weird acronym, but I’m not sleeping well or eating well, and some nights I manage fight off the demons and others, I’m slain by them.

But I’m hopeful. I’ve been here before and I’ve always managed to claw my way back out of the hole and into the light again.

So I approach 2010 full of renewed hope for the future, because no matter how full of the darkness I feel, I can feel the light on my face and I know it’s all around me. Soon it will be within me.

I am hopeful.

I have hope.

Happy New Year.”

Today, I can tell you, Pranksters, that the light shines brilliantly not just all around me, but from within me, too. There will be days when my demons win because there always are, but today, my demons are at bay.

I am hopeful.

I have hope.

*In the light we shall see light.

One of the best things I learned in high school was not the phrase “semper ubi, SUB ubi” (always wear, UNDERwear) (oh, that AP Latin humor gets me every time), but that the one way to make sure that no one hassled you was to look as though you looked like you knew precisely what you were doing. If you LOOKED like you knew what you were doing, you were probably not setting fire to a locker somewhere. Probably.

It was an early version of the ‘fake it ’til you make it’ adage that they teach people suffering from mental illness, and it’s a good life lesson. Should I ever put together Aunt Becky’s Guide To Life, along with “Pants First, Then Shoes,” that will be up there high on my list of things to master.

I’ve always been remarkably good at it, maybe it’s because my home life was chaotic, maybe I just have a good p-p-p-p-poker face, I don’t know. But I always look like I know precisely what I am doing. And for the most part, I have always simply known that what I was doing was precisely what I should be doing for that time. Even during my blasted nursing school days, whether or not I was HAPPY, it was what I should have been doing because I knew with certainty it must be.

I never waffle much with my decisions, especially my decisions about how delicious waffles are, and I never much struggle with uncertainty. For me there is a single path to follow, and I simply follow it. It’s very dogmatic to be me, I guess, and even though my decisions aren’t always right, there’s never so much as a shred of doubt in them while I’m making them.

Lately, though, I’ve been struggling. Floundering, even, although when I say that, I think of the fish and then I giggle because I think of that Faith No More video with the flopping fish, and then I remember how much I fucking love Mike Patton.

But my decision to be a writer was something that came about as a shock to me. It was like I realized I could dip my head underwater and breathe without a mask. I simply didn’t know that I had any talent for it, and once I did, I was beyond stunned, because you think you’d know if you could do something cool like breathe underwater, right?

I’ve gone after it, balls to the wall, because I realized that this was what I was supposed to do. But for the first time in my life, I became doubtful. Was this really what I was supposed to do?

Where my path before had been brightly lit with gaily colored lights and lighted disco sidewalks (hey, this is MY path, Pranksters and I would bejewel all of you if I could), it turned a murky, cloudy grey. I couldn’t see what I was supposed to do next. I was all kinds of turned around and suddenly a mist crept in and I couldn’t even tell which way was up any longer.

I don’t even know how long I stood there alone, just standing and waiting for a sign. Months, probably. I’m not a big step-on-a-crack-break-your-momma’s-back kind of Magical Thinker, but I needed a sign from God, from you, my Pranksters, from ANYONE to tell me that Yes, YES, a million times yes! this was what I needed to do.

Yesterday, I got it.

All at once, the mist evaporated, the lights turned back on, the disco lights began flashing under my feet and suddenly I could see that I’d been facing the right way the entire time. I’ve always been facing the right way. This IS what I was supposed to be doing all along. Eventually, I will succeed.

In the meantime, I just have to remember that it’s not all given to me to know and that it’s not all within my power. I got my sign, and now it’s time to do my part.

It’s going to be another long, strange trip, but I’m beyond ready and more than thrilled. I’m going to buckle up and hope I don’t shit my pants along the way.

Much.

After devoting the past decade to raising my adorable crotch parasites, I thought that it was high time to unearth who I was again. As excited as I was by this prospect, I’m going to be honest, Pranksters, I was terrified. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to think about myself in terms more than “do I have to pee?” and if so, “how long can I hold it before my bladder explodes, bathing my guts with a fine mist of pee?”

It’s the part of parenting that’s hard: the loss of self.

I love my children, but I lost myself along the way. It’s not hard to do. Kids are loud and annoying and shit, it’s easier to think about their needs because they’re so damn demanding about what they want because that’s what they’re designed to do. It’s survival of the most annoying and kids win that hands down. I know this because I was a bloody irritating kid, too.

This past month has probably been the hardest yet for me. A number of unrelated issues have blindsided me; my PTSD from Amelia’s traumatic birth has resurfaced as the scar on her head is stretching and bleeding. The precancerous cells on my cervix are back. Ben’s autism has become so difficult to manage that we need more outside counsel.

The issues aren’t insurmountable, but some days, it feels like it. But, not one to dwell on the negativity, there are good things afoot as well.

I went back on Weight Watchers and am now living my life in 2-point increments. It’s not a glamorous diet, and while I’ll never lose the baby weight like those people on The Biggest Loser or my cohorts doing the South Beach Diet, it works. Since I get overwhelmingly chubby when I gestate, I’ve used it before.

Turns out, we need depressingly little to eat to survive.

(I HAVE A GLANDULAR PROBLEM, PEOPLE.)

Bwahahahahahaha!

Anyway.

In addition to counting every motherfucking calorie I put IN-to my mouth, I’m also exercising like a fiend…when I’m not wearing next to nothing thanks to my new tattoo, that is. Turns out, I have to restrain my sweater kittens, lest I knock myself out cold when I’m jogging. And yes, I am using my TONY LITTLE GAZELLE. Imma have to get myself one of those hats with the fake blond ponytail hanging out the back of it just because.

In less boring news, I bought some new make-up. Now, I like make-up, so I know that when I say things like “DAVE BETTER GET ME A CHAINSAW FOR MOTHER’S DAY” you probably think that I’m a gigantic Beefy Mc-Manstick, but no, I like Chanel and Prada and MAC and diamonds and all kinds of sparkly stuff. But it’s been ages since I’ve gone out and spent a bunch of money on girly stuff just because I wanted to. So I did. And it felt great.

Probably the best thing that I did for myself was to book a vacation with my home girl Angie. I was just going to go visit for a weekend, but she was all, “come on a cruise, whore!” and I was all, “fuck yes!” So I’m going. By myself. On a real vacation. In May. Not a long one, but still, I am going on vacation by myself. Me! The person who can’t manage to drop a deuce alone is going to be alone for days. I might hurt myself relaxing.

I can’t wait to have more exciting news like, “I became President of Target” or “I’m having an Uncrustables baby” but maybe next month, Pranksters. Maybe next month.

How are you doing, my Band of Merry Pranksters?

Entropy.

A week ago if you’d said, “Aunt Becky, are you okay?” I would have happily said, “Fuck yes, I’m full of Awesome!” And I wasn’t lying to you, I was full of Awesome then.

Then Entropy reared her ugly head and smacked her bitch back down with randomness and uncertainty and Aunt Becky fell back down. In information theory, Entropy is a measure of uncertainty and randomness. In social systems, total Entropy is chaos and anarchy. In the body, Entropy the breakdown of all of the different systems as we age.

Entropy. Randomness. Uncertainty.

I’ve struggled with those burdens much of my life and I know that those are the spaces where I will grow and change and be reborn. As many tears as I will shed in the coming weeks; as many nights as I will toss and turn, I will come through the other side stronger and better.

The things I’m struggling with now, they’re not new issues and I’m remiss to even address them because someone will pop up and remind me, “Well ACTUALLY, Aunt Becky, those aren’t such bad problems! You know, there are legless people in Africa who WISH they had those problems.” And then I will be on the defense about why I am upset and that’s not the point.

It’s time to plow my cart and bones over the dead, whip those skeletons back out of my closet and teach them the Foxtrot. It’s time to be reborn again. I can feel it.

It’s fitting too, because today is the day that I’m getting my Phoenix tattoo finished. Of my three tattoos, it’s my favorite. The other two are excellent, of course, as well, but this one, this one is the most beautiful, biggest, most elegant, and most important of them all.

Because out of chaos, order will always emerge. For all of us.

Always.

I’ll be back later with more pictures.

Love you, Pranksters.

————————

Why don’t you tell Your Aunt Becky about YOUR tattoos? Do you have any? Do you WANT any?

————————-

Over at Toy With Me talking about my Treehouse of Horrors!

So wow, huh. If you’re reading this in a reader, I suggest you come and take a look around. Come see! Come see! It’s pretty! *claps up and down like a chimp*

Anyway. I kind of need your help today. But don’t worry. It’s actually not, like, HARD.

See, ages ago, when I rode a dinosaur to school and Jesus was my classmate, I was fortunate enough to land myself a couple of agents, Michael and Kristina of Ebeling Literary Agency. I had a book proposal that was full of The Awesome, everyone said so, and it was only a matter of time before someone eagerly snatched it up.

Then the crash of Aught-Eight happened.

The publishing world, along with the rest of the world, got burned when the economy plummeted and while everyone agreed that my stuff was great! My numbers just weren’t high enough.

But Your Aunt Becky, she is many things. And she is a tenacious beast, so Round Two of Book Proposals were drafted, incidentally, as Amelia was born, and sent off to publishers. Again, the publishers were interested, but worried. They’d been burned badly. People weren’t buying books in such droves.

New vs. old media! Cats and dogs, living together, mass hysteria, Pranksters!

Publishers, it turns out, they like numbers. No one has said that I don’t have talent or appeal, because if LOL Cats can get a book, I should probably be able to score something.

It’s a numbers game. Publishers want numbers. They want to see big Twitter numbers, big Facebook Fans, huge subscriber numbers, all of that stuff, publishers want.

Along with my new site design, I have a new page up at the top left corner called, brilliantly “The Book.” If, my agents think, I can get a ton of people to fill out their names and email addresses saying that, “uh, hai, we’d order her book, publishers would be swayed over.

But if I need numbers, I need your help, my Mery Pranksters to get them. Blog it, Tweet it, beg people on the street, just please help Your Aunt Becky out.

It’s not money or a credit card I need, it’s just names and email addresses of people who might be willing to buy my book. Consider it a PRE-pre-order. Ask your coworkers, your mom, your dad, your friends, your IMAGINARY friends, whatever.

The higher the numbers (they’re looking for numbers, I emphasize, not your NAMES)(it’s not The Man looking for you, people), the better it looks. And really, this beats me coming around banging on your door and peeking creepily in your windows. WHICH I WILL DO.

I did door-to-door sales for Girl Scouts and I’ll do it again if I have to but I am not going to look cute in a costume designed for a third grader and mark my words, I WILL wear it.

In return for signing up, I will HAPPILY send you a chapter of my book (soon). Really, nothing about this sucks.

Just don’t make me hold a bake sale because seriously, that will make no one happy.

So, Internet, while you’re exploring my new site design and admiring all of the hard work that went into it, done by the disjointed efforts of The Daver, Your Aunt Becky (Sherrick Harks), Keeping You Awake and Mrs. Soup, won’t someone think of the NUMBERZ? By no means is it complete, but sometimes, you have to just get ‘er done.

Let’s get ‘er done.

Can you help me? Please?

I distinctly remember being in the 5th grade, sitting around at the end of class picnic and having to listen to everyone else prattle on about what they were going to “be” when they grew up. I only knew I wanted to be something that made me boatloads of cash without doing any actual work. What job that was, I had no idea.

To be honest, at 10 years old, I’d never thought about future career choices.

So when it came to me, I simply copied whatever the person before me said. It happened to be “a secretary.” At age 10, I wanted to “be a secretary when I grew up.”

I didn’t know what a secretary did, only that it saved me from saying “something that made me fistwads of cash,” or worse, stuttering blankly. Everyone else seemed so sure of what they wanted to do.

Every time I said that I wanted to be a doctor, people sort of patted me on the head and said a condescending “there there.” But a secretary, that seemed to be an okay choice. I turned 10, by the way, in 1990.

I never did find out what a secretary did until I became a nurse case manager in 2006, and I didn’t really let anyone deter my decision to become a doctor until I had a bouncing baby crotch parasite make that decision for me.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it, because I was always at the top of my science classes, but that it just didn’t make any sense. Especially with single motherhood looming. So nursing it was, and nursing I hated.

I’ve left the sort of nebulous idea of what I was going to be when I grew up idea to fester until I really had time to pursue it. I plan to go back to school to get my PhD in virology (study of viruses)(I make myself sound so nerdly)(wanna make out?) when the kids are older. But for now, I’m making a go at writing.

And because I’ve never been able to be very successful at anything that I’ve done besides sit at home and eat bon-bons* and watch soap operas, I feel like I need to make a success out of myself.

To prove to myself that I can do something.

Maybe that sounds dumb, I don’t know. But because I’ve never really had the opportunity to have some sort of career that I actually liked or felt like I could be any good at, I am earnestly saccharine about making this work. And I will make it work because that’s what I do: I make impossible situations work. Eventually.

(Like the time I ate a whole box of cupcakes in a day)

I don’t go to work and have co-workers and meetings and bosses and feedback and a desk and a commute and coffee breaks and status updates and a help(less) desk and a supply closet. Sometimes I wish I did.

My day is surrounded by small people who poop their pants and teeth on my legs. I love them with all my heart, but I love me too.

I’ve been beating myself about the head with a mallet trying to figure out how I’m going to make something of myself. What I’m going to make out of myself.

I flash back to the 5th grade picnic every time The Daver and I have the same conversation (tri-weekly) that I had that warm, spring day:

The Daver: “What are you going to do? Because you’re miserable here.”

Aunt Becky: “Is this a multiple choice question? I can totally beat those just by guessing. I’ll go with letter C. Always best to go with C.”

The Daver: “I’m serious, Becky.”

Aunt Becky: “So am I, The Daver. C is always the way to go**.”

The Daver: “You need to figure out what to do with your life.”

Aunt Becky: “Wow! Since you put it THAT way! Okay. I’ll draw up a list of options.”

(draws a stick figure of The Daver with Aunt Becky cutting off his head. Doodles blood spurting all over the page. The draws “HEEELLLPPP MEEEEE! I’M SOOORRRYYY! bubble coming from his mouth)

The Daver: “Are you done?”

Aunt Becky: “Yep. I figured it ALL out.”

(wanders off)

It’s not that I don’t know what I want to do with my life, or even how I want to go about doing it, it’s just that these things take time. I’m a writer and the market for writers–even those with agents–isn’t hugely sprawling right now. So I wait.

I sharpen my knife, I pollute the Internet, I try to get my name out there without committing murder and I wait. Eventually, things will happen. My Empire is being assembled.

Bit by bit.

What else should I do while I wait, Pranksters? Because Daver’s right, I can’t live like this forever. I need stuff-n-things to do. Interview me, give me jobs, make me do things, help me, Band of Pranksters, I beg of you. (At least until the weather warms up.)

*WTF is a bon-bon?

**this is a lie.

—————-

I am totally going to make more of those cards available for (free) download. I’m in the middle of a site redesign, and I’ll have a whole page devoted to it because honestly, writing those was more fun than I’ve had in ages. BUT, I need to find more of the post cards that are FREE and not copyrighted.

So, Merry Pranksters, if you know where a certain Aunt Becky can find those (or if you want to make the images yourself and give them to me to use), it’s on like Donkey Kong.

If I were the sort of person that kept a day planner (hint, I’m not), the month of February would have exactly one task: SURVIVE. I don’t mean to sound all OH THE HUMANITY!! on you, it’s just the one month of the year where things just go horribly wrong.

If Caesar was all “Beware the ides of March,” Aunt Becky is all “Beware the month of February.”

Anyway, so I’m kind of in a bad place. I’m feeling pretty low because it’s Chicago and Ass outside right now and tired of myself and tired of being inside and kinda ready to get a sex change and move to Detroit. It seems like a wise idea, right? Don’t answer that.

So last night, I was lying in bed, not sleeping because that’s what people who have insomnia do: they lay in bed and they don’t sleep.

When I lay there, I think of a couple of different things:

1) I try to imagine all of the ways I’d kill the people who come up with the commercial jingles that run in an ever-loving loop in my head while I am lying there, not fucking sleeping. High on my list are the Daisy Sour Cream people and whomever cast Jamie Lee Curtis in the Activia commercial.

Because I’ll give you a motherfucking dollop of Daisy with my glock.

Also, I don’t want to think of your colon, Jamie Lee Curtis. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I don’t want to think of your COLON.

B) I think of all the words I will ban when I rule the world. Like hymen. And moist. And juxtapose. Because there was this AWFUL girl who sat at my lunch table in high school who was a pseudo-intellectual assbag who was all “juxtapose” ALL THE TIME.

Like, I could eat a sandwich and she’d be all “that sandwich is a juxtaposition of life.” And then I wanted to kill myself. Maybe with a bomb.

Last night, though, because I was feeling particularly vitriolic, I decided that what I needed to do was to create a line of horrible greeting cards for people that I hate. Not like funny cards designed to make you laugh, but cards that say what I really WANT to say.

I’m pretty sure it’s a cash cow waiting to happen. Or at the very least, it’s going to make damn sure you never have to waste a stamp on someone you hate again.

(yes, I made these cards)(no, not the PICTURES. What do you think I am, TALENTED!?! Yeah. RIGHT.)

I’m sure with all of the sleepless nights I have, I could go on and on and on and on. The market will be huge for my cards, I can feel it.

I’m off to wait for Hallmark’s call. I’m positive they’ll be all over my idea.

—————

I’m over at Toy With Me, talking about weird guys I want to have The Sex with. I just realized that I left my new husband David Cook off there which pretty much makes me the worst wife ever. Which, DUH.

My typical emotional continuum ranges something like this:

I need a damn nap <-> Where is my Britney CD? <-> I can haz cheeseburger?

The elements change places somewhat, but really, I have the emotional range of a turnip and the depth of a small puddle of mud. I’ve always considered this to be something of a bragging point.

When I stuck my toe into the waters of mental health this summer before realizing that my mental health benefit blows ass, I made mention of this to my therapist, and rather than giving me a nice purple lollipop, he seemed alarmed.

Apparently, requiring a stunt double to cry isn’t a good thing.

Anyway, the one thing I learned in my appointment is that I needed to start at square one and relearn all about emotions. Nothing makes you feel more like Gimpy the Clown than realizing that you don’t know anything about actual emotions.

Perhaps I should go back to preschool and relearn colors too (because I’m colorblind too).

(shut up)

(no, really, shut up)

Part of Bringing Aunt Becky Back is trying to figure out who I am now.

My life took a different path when I inadvertently got knocked up with my firstborn at age 20. While my friends (and ex-boyfriend, his father insert other term here) were out crawling bars, I was dealing with colic, late night feeds, and a special needs child.

I scrapped my life’s plans to go to nursing school, which I hated. I graduated with high honors anyway. Got married, and domesticated, even though I’d never wanted that either. Stayed at home where I’d always wanted to be the one who did something else with her life.

I’ve never, ever done the things I wanted to do because it never made sense. I’m not sad about it, and I’m not sorry about it.

These are all facts, pure and simple. Dave knows them, I know them, everyone knows them.

But I’ve also never given myself the chance to feel anything about it. There are people in the world with no feet, after all, so how could I feel sad that I ended up where I put myself?

I should have given myself the opportunity to grieve the dreams that I gave up to do something else. Even if other people would kill to be where I am, I am not other people.

I can feel a change coming down the line. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that nothing is permanent except for change, and what I’m going through right now is growing pains. Something big is on the horizon. I can feel it.

Or maybe it’s just a cheeseburger and a nap.

Oh. And I want that purple lollipop now.

One of the big things I was going to do this year, besides my normal To Do list which consists of “Survive,” was to start to pull myself out from behind the diaper pail and figure out who the hell I was now. Thanks to various circumstances, I’ve been kind of trapped in the house for one reason or another for the past three years.

While I haven’t reached Howard Hughes levels of creepiness by keeping my urine in jars, or growing out my finger nails to freakish lengths, it’s not been easy for me. I wasn’t cut out for this stay-at-home life style, and if I could figure out what it IS that I was good at besides, you know, being independently wealthy and shopping all the time, I’d do it.

Luckily, thanks to a stroke of mad genius and a couple of things that couldn’t have possibly been coincidence, I found something that I could do. I started to write, thanks to The Daver, who insisted that I start telling stories to people besides him. Probably because he wanted me to stop pulling him out of meetings to tell him about purchasing castles* in the area.

Then, I was contacted by Mr. Toy With Me out of the clear blue sky, who asked me if I’d like to come write for his site. Which, I mean, a sex column? Kind of the job I was born to do. I’m crass and gross and I always take stuff to 11.

I realized that while I waited for my book stuff to happen, I could do something else besides write on my blog. The Internet is ripe for the writing, I determined, with fist pumped to the sky, 2010 would be The Year Of My Empire.

And? It’s been a good year so far. I’ve managed to not only get out of the house, but I’ve gotten away from my children for two whole nights in another state. The downside is that now I want to permanently live in another state where it’s not always Ass Hot or Ass Cold.

Ah, California, all that I can’t leave behind.

I’ve also managed to get my hairs cut and a super-villain streak dyed into it. Which means that I’m also looking for a litter of puppies to make into a coat, but you know, that’s probably just fumes talking here. For me, this is huge.

Because I tend to put off being good to myself until I FEEL better about myself. It’s dumb because it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. I’m still carrying some baby weight, so I should punish myself for some reason, even though that’s not quite fair. I’m not exactly rolling in free time, and really, my sanity has been more important than my waistline.

Speaking of waistlines, I’ve been adjusting that, too. At least, I think I have. I threw out my scale, because after years of being on WW, I got tired of having my week dictated by a half a pound variance. But, I’ve been on the Spark People and using that. It’s free and it’s awesome because you can use your MEASUREMENTS rather than your LBS.

And? I dropped one pants size already and am about to drop another (thank you, Topamax, for making me never want to eat again).

Probably the weirdest thing that I’ve done this year is to become a business owner, which makes me feel like I should invest in some power suits and some accordion folders for all the important documents that I barely have. Also, I should boss my cats around more since my kids just look at me like I’m stupid.

Yesterday, though, Stage Two, wherein I get shaded! Tattoo You! Or Me!

Here is Stage 1 (the BEFORE picture):

Here is after:

And another angle:

And lastly, this is what I call a Twitter Bait and Switch. What I tweeted was “Naked Lady Boobie Pictures.” The link gave you this picture.

And that, my friends, is not naked. I am barely a lady (unless you are being sarcastic). Also, I am not annoyed at all. I am bemused by my tattoo-ness.

But I am freshly inked and very, very happy. Also, very, very sore. I will get the color finished in 2 months or so and then? I want the OTHER side done. With…something.

So how are YOU doing on getting YOUR groove back, my gnomies?

*Yes, there are castles out here. No, I don’t live in one. But I am 100% sure I’d be cooler if I did.

When I was a preteen, I was convinced that my parents were inhumanely inhumane because they were so cheap that they wouldn’t spring the extra two bucks a month for call waiting. For someone who lived with the phone glued to the side of her head, this was a BIG DEAL INDEED. What if I missed a Very Important Phone Call? I mean, someone could have seen someone pass a note in class and if I missed it, I might diiiieeeeee!

Oh, like you weren’t dramatic as a thirteen year old.

It wasn’t until later that I wore them down and they got cable TV, either, so I was stuck watching the crappy network channels. Oddly, I became sort of enthralled by infomercials. They were like their own little comedy goldmine all rolled up into a neat 30 minute package.

The announcers–pre-Billy Mays, whom, you should know, I mourned heavily–bounded from one side of the room to the other, all convinced of the merit of a product that even I knew was probably bullshitty garbage. And yet! And how! But wait! There’s more!

When I decided that 2010 was the year that I needed to bring Aunt Becky back from under the pile of dirty diapers and Lego bits, one of the first things that I did was to get a piece of exercise equipment. I love the gym like it was my job, but getting to the gym is about as easy as teaching my cat to use the microwave, so I figured I should bring the gym here.

But! Wait! There’s more!

I was going to LEARN from the mistakes of my friends! And my parents! I wasn’t going to drop thousands of dollars on a nice piece of equipment that would sit there, gathering dust and laundry.

I’d remembered seeing a small, fold up elliptical machine at The Sharper Image a couple of years ago for a couple hundred bucks. Which? If you’re going to buy something that’s not going to be used very often, why not go cheap and portable?

Well, turns out Sharper Image doesn’t make it any longer.

An Amazon search brought me to something even cheaper. I didn’t recognize the name, but I didn’t give a shit. For $80 plus free shipping (order now and you’ll get bonus good reviews!!) it doesn’t exactly have to scream out “I LOVE YOU AUNT BECKY!”

Universally, I got this response when I told people what TYPE of elliptical I got, “Bwahahahaha!” Exercise equipment does many things to me, but it doesn’t normally make me LAUGH, so I had to investigate.

Turns out that I bought a piece of exercise equipment from this douche:

This would be Mr. Tony Little. He sells The Gazelle. And he’s a DILL-BAG!

The unfortunate side-effect is that now I will be unable to stop thinking of Tony Little as I exercise now. He’ll be right beside me, his stupid flouncy pony tail flopping up and down while he yells, “Show me those big old pecs!”

Or maybe he’ll motivate me by telling me that the Gazelle can help me by healing my mind, body and spirit. He and his big, freaky, shiny arms. I don’t WANT my mind, body and spirit healed, Tony! I WANT TO FIT INTO MY SIZE SIX JEANS! I could give a shit about my spirit!

I don’t need to share my exercise room with a dude who looks better suited to be making 80’s era porn. Because that makes me want to shower in bleach, not work my ass harder.

I knew I should have stuck with Jillian Michaels and her 30 Day Shred.

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Bloggies? Me? WTF?