I started work at age sixteen (no, not uphill both ways in the snow) in a fancy restaurant. Before I could serve tables, I had to turn 18, so I spent those years as a hostess. I’m telling you – you’ll never learn more about people than you do if you are forced to massage egos – very expensive egos.

It was there, at the now-defunct Mill Race Inn, that I learned about Valentine’s Day.

That’s not to say that I didn’t know about VD Day before working there – I simply didn’t understand the great lengths people went to to create the “perfect night.” I also didn’t understand the ire that was evoked by having a “perfect night” go awry. I don’t know how many people pitched fits when they didn’t get sat at the perfect table, but it had to be in the hundreds. One perfectly normal looking woman actually got down on the floor and began kicking and screaming. In the middle of a crowded restaurant. With no shame.

Valentine’s Day was always a cluster of fuckery.

I personally haven’t had a typically romantic Valentine’s Day regardless of relationship status – one year I ordered us a heart-shaped pizza. Other years, I went and purchased myself something shiny. It never mattered to me much.

Most importantly, it never changed the way I felt about the holiday – I love Valentine’s Day. Pink, puffy, glittery hearts type of love.

When Ben was a baby, my best friends and I found ourselves (rarely) single at the same time on VD-Day. Rather than mope about our doomed relationships, as we could easily have done, we decided that it was high time to start a new tradition: Lesbian Valentine’s Day.

No, no, we didn’t do a Four Girls One Cup kinda thing – that’s for amateurs. Instead, we fed my (now-deceased, overly large and awesomely adorable) cat bacon cheeseburgers. We ate Wendy’s there in my living room, the lot of us together, laughing and talking until late in the evening. They’d interrupted my studying for the evening – something that I rarely allowed to happen – and we had one of the best Valentine’s Days ever.

So what if we weren’t drinking Cristal atop the Hancock building? So what if no one had purchased us baubles and trinkets? So what if we didn’t have a special someone to tell us all the reasons we were worth loving?

We had each other.

We had Lesbian Valentine’s Day.

We also had Big Pink.

Yep, my best friend bought the lot of us Big Pink – the world’s best vibrator.

I will tell you here and now, it was by far, by FAR, the best Valentine’s Day gift I’ve ever gotten.  Even better than the heart-shaped pizza and the diamonds.

Although, I’d have been pretty happy with a Shut Your Whore Mouth Shirt (that’s the perfect VD Gift, I’ve seen), had I created any at that time. P.S. I started a Zazzle Store, which I’ve been working on in pieces. That shit is confusing.

What’s your favorite VD-Day memory?

Since moving The Guy On My Couch onto my couch, we’ve had a lot of desserts around. We all know I can’t cook. Shit, I’ve burned Jello and tried to microwave a can of SlimFast (not recommended, by the by), and not been even the slightest bit put off by it.

But the Guy On My Couch can cook. He LIKES to cook. He also likes home repairs and would probably clean the pool if the one I had wasn’t four feet across and made entirely of plastic. And no, you cannot have him for yourself. MY Guy On The Couch.

(he doesn’t know that he’s never moving out)

Anyway, he likes making desserts for the crotch parasites, who, in turn, love him more than they love Mario. Which is a lot.

This week, he made them a cake. A white cake with chocolate buttercream frosting THAT DIDN’T COME FROM A CAN. Did you know that you can HAVE frosting without using a can?

(my next invention: aresolized frosting)(PATENT PENDING, MOTHERFUCKERS)

It’s not been a great week for Child Behavior around these here parts – I’m sick, you’re sick, we’re all sick, which means I have three extraordinarily crabby children fighting over who gets to the top of the stairs first and who gets to use what cup (despite having three identical cups).

So I haven’t been doling out the cake. I figure, why reward bad behavior? The cake has been largely untouched by the rest of the house, since, well, it looks better on your ass than mine.

(hey, have you been working out? You look HOT in those pants).

I woke up this morning to see this:

The remains of the cake.

The vultures have been steadily removing frosting from the top of the cake when I was too busy playing Angry Birds or watching dancing cat videos.

You can’t help but laugh.

Wait, what’s that next to the cake? (hint: it’s not Hong Kong Fooey)

Why, it’s one of the Twitter Klout Perks I got!

With Klout like THIS how could I ever want anything else?

Seriously, does ANYONE want a Banana Hanger? Because I keep thinking “Banana Hammock” and laughing, which means it’s going to stay in it’s box for the rest of eternity (or until I get low on my “throw/donate one thing away every day” resolution).

P.S. Klout, you are a genius.

Dear Nintendo,

I was not a Nintendo Kid. I was not a part of the Nintendo generation. I mean, technically, I should’ve been – the NES came out when I was at the absolute right age to be enchanted by your two tiny Italian plumbers, trying to save the princess from um, someone mean.

I’d have known the NAME of this “mean person” except that my parents were all “video games are stupid! They rot your brain!”

Apparently, Nintendo, that only applied to the NES games. My brother happily played his Zork games on the computer. And the following Christmas, just as Super Mario 3 came out, I was given a Sega Genesis.

For a couple of months, I happily plugged away at my Sonic The Hedgehog game, always wondering why a wee blue hedgehog cared about getting rings or beating some evil genius villain. About the time I got Kris-Kross “Make My Video,” I realized I was the only fucking kid on the block with a Sega Genesis. Everyone else had, you guessed it, a Nintendo. Or a Super Nintendo. Or a Super Nintendo hold the lettuce sub mayo.

Sure, my system had better graphics, but Mario could wear a raccoon suit! HOW COOL WAS THAT?

Answer: ludicrous.

Eventually, I ditched video games forever. I’m no gamer girl.

When I had kids, I expected they’d be like me – they’d prefer to read books (with pages!) rather than waste their time moving badly animated characters around the screen.

Nintendo, I was wrong. I was so, so wrong.

We got a Wii for Dave (under the pretense of being for Ben) after we moved into our house. Well played on that one, Nintendo. The Wii was used for awhile until, well, it wasn’t.

Then the kids switched to a Game Boy or DS or whatever the hell the hand-held video thingamabob was. Soon, I had not one, but two sons obsessing over beating level four or five-niner or whatever. I bit my tongue – I remembered being the only kid on the block unable to talk about how “cool” the “Mario raccoon suit” was. I remembered, Nintendo, feeling saddened that no one wanted to see my Kris-Kross “I Missed The Bus” video.

A couple of weeks ago, Nintendo, my eldest saved up all his cash to buy a new Wii. See, Nintendo, our old Wii had stopped working months before. I was not saddened, but my children, well, my children were prostrate (not prostate!) with grief.

And now, now Nintendo, we have a Wii. We have two Game Boys. We have Mario candy and Yoshi figurines. We have two boys who want a “Mario” themed bedroom. We have a mother who is banging her head against the wall, still saddened that no one wants to see her Kris-Kross video.

Nintendo, you are a crafty bitch.

So for now, you win, Nintendo.

I know Sega will make a comeback any day now. And when they do, the whole WORLD can see my mad video making skillz.

Love,

Aunt Becky

This is a guest post from my friend Barb, who wrote to me after she read my post on Monday, The Middling Place. She’d sent it to me as an email, but I strong-armed her into allowing me to share it with you, Pranksters. It’s a beautiful post about special needs parenting.

(I’ll probably steal it again for Band Back Together, because I am a jerk like that)

P.S. Barb, I love you.

I, too, live in the Middling Place. Off and on since November 1987.

We will never be able to be completely away from there. It is as much a part of you and I as our livers or kidneys. After a while, you will know when it’s time to be there, the Middling Place.

You feel the cold fog press over you as though someone has thrown burlap trimmed with heavy metal weights over your head. You try to peer out through the gaps, see the world around you, feel the sunshine on your face. Shivering, you watch the images of what may have been. Your child growing up “normally.” Walking, talking, and laughing. I’d even accept the tears.

You see her standing outside of Life, looking in at the others. They are growing, and dancing, sneaking kisses, driving and going to College without much thought. Does she know she is different? Does she feel what I see?

As the seconds and minutes and days and years tumble into the heap called ‘Life,’ you learn to control your tears and overwhelming sadness. ‘Fake it ’til you make it,’ you always say. But when that deafening call sounds within your heart, your soul, your entire being, you know can no longer ignore it.

You’re commodious: ‘I can handle anything” facade crashing noiselessly to the ground, landing as shrapnel at your feet.

You turn and limp wearily to the Middling Place.

You glance back at your parents, your husband, and your other children. You are regretful to leave them, but you have no choice. You are carried away by a force stronger than yourself and soon you relent and let it take you. You are being eaten alive. Gobbled by the ferocious monsters’ hunger, ripping at your flesh, tearing your heart out, laughing clamorously, and finally injecting you heavily with Guilt.

Blame and Fault become your champions, reminding you of the day you sat in the sun too long, or had a sip of your husbands wine or didn’t sleep enough or swam in that river. Her pain, her disfigurement, her disabilities, is of your own making.

Finally, struggling, stumbling, exhausted and weak, you get up on your feet. You straighten your clothes, wipe the tears, and fix your hair. We can’t allow her to see. She can’t know she is the reason.

Back where she is we practice, prepare educate and train, make plans and see ‘Professionals’. We try anything we are told will help her.

She begins to speak! One word, two words, three words in a row! We count for years! Warmed by the silly sentences she utters.

She’s walking now, that jilty gait, like she will spill over at any moment. You valiantly let her go on her own, cringing inside as you imagine what the possibilities are.

“I love you,” you tell her. ‘Yes’ she says. I want to snuggle her, wrap her in my arms and cover her with kisses. She rejects me, cringing as though I am poison.

One day though, she will bring some artwork, a picture of the two of us, she and I, maybe sing a song, and let me touch her hair. Clap, clap clapping loudly through the house will make you smile, because you know she is happy. Her enthusiastic attempts at jokes will make you laugh for days, repeating them to friends who will never understand.

This is our life.

We wish they were different, yet at the same time, we don’t ever want them to change. We love our babies.

They make us stronger, more insightful, more perceptive than before she was here.

Before the Middling Place.

After obsessing (I’m being kind here) and beating my brain against the wall, trying to allow myself to get over that stupid lump in my throat and just. fucking. do. it, I manged to, this year, talk myself out of talking myself out of planning a birthday for Amelia.

(did you follow that? I barely did)

I had my reasons. They sounded good rolling around in my head. I had my convictions. I held onto them in my grubby ass hands like a bottle of vodka. I didn’t NEED to throw her a party for her – she’d be happy eating Mouse Pizza while I suffered epileptic fits near the pee-smelling ball pit as we all contracted some mysterious Oregon Trail Disease.

That much is true.

She couldn’t care less if we had a zillion people over or if we went and played SkiBall until my arm threatened mutiny. I know my daughter and that’s the truth (truth time – she’d prolly giggle if my arm did, in fact, fall off)(if my severed stump of an arm did fall off, tho, I’d like to hope it would get me 100,000 points on Skiball).

But I had to do it. It wasn’t for her. Or Alex. Or Ben. Or The Guy on my Couch. Or even The Daver.

It was for me.

It was a way to challenge myself to do something that I was entirely certain I couldn’t do. Something I wanted so badly to do. Something that meant well more than eating sugar until we passed out.

It meant that for one day – one single day – I could tell my demons to fuck off, go back to bed, and leave me be. I could drown my anxiety in my little girl’s smile. I could show the world that while I had been knocked down, I wasn’t planning to be knocked out any time soon. That my demons could threaten me all they want, but they weren’t going to stop me from living.

I did it.

It’s a small victory, for sure. A child’s birthday party isn’t exactly the penultimate of challenges, however, it was one. more. thing. I couldn’t properly do. If PTSD hadn’t taken enough away from me, it tried to take that, too.

I call bullshit.

Since throwing the party, it’s as though a minor weight has been taken off my shoulders. Certainly it’s not the first or last challenge I’ll face, of this I am entirely aware. But it is a challenge. And I took that challenge, stared it in the face, and told it that I was, in fact, going to beat it into submission, if I had to go eye of the motherfucking tiger on it to make it scream UNCLE.

It did.

I’m one step closer to kicking PTSD in the taco.

And that feels fucking great.

—————–

How do you battle YOUR demons, Pranksters?

(Also: Band Back Together (which I know many of you are a part of) as well as my own site were nominated for a Bloggie this year. If you’d like to vote for one of the many deserving nominees (myself not included), you can do so here.)

Dear Netflix,

I’m not entirely certain why you added to my list of recommendations, the show Hoarders, but since you did, I had the compulsion (see what I did there?) to watch it. I’d never seen the show, Netflix, because I figured that seeing 10,000 empty bottles and rotted animal carcasses was not exactly my idear of a good time. Now, if they’d showed people eating their weight in Captain Crunch, that’s another story. In fact, you should make that a show. I’d so be there.

Anyway.

For the first time ever, I chose to watch the show.

First, let me say that watching mentally ill people do wacky things isn’t my idea of a good time. I know mental illness. I HAVE a mental illness (PTSD IN DA HOUUUUSE!). I work with mental illness on Band Back Together. I’m intimately familiar with it and generally have no need to watch other mentally ill people be, well, mentally ill.

But you got me there, Netflix. You did. Since you told me I “should” watch it, I did.

I’m going to be honest here – I wasn’t as horrified as you might think. I’m not sure that’s an entirely good thing, though.

But I will give you some props, Netflix, for suggesting I watch Hoarders. Never, ever, have I wanted to get up at 11PM and clean my house. Never. Ever. And the only reason I haven’t done so yet is that I realized I’d wake up sleeping children which, Netflix, isn’t exactly full of the awesome.

Frankly, Netflix, I’m in debt to you. It’s like you somehow read my blog and knew that I had a super sekret (read: lame) resolution this year. No, not the whole, “not become Lil Wayne” thing, because that’s sorta a given. It would take a hell of a lot of sizzurp to turn me into that….um…thing.

But it’s made it hella easy for me to WANT to go down to the basement and somehow dry out 9,473 cans of ancient green paint to throw away. I suddenly cannot WAIT to donate my old clothing to charity. My children’s toy bins full ‘o’ crap shall be emptied!

(I think, Netflix, I’m going to donate some of the nice kids clothes to the Band Back Together auction this spring, because an Internet Garage sale seems awkward)

My resolution, thanks to you, Netflix, will be fulfilled.

So to you, Hoarders (and Netflix), I am forever indebted. Although, you do owe me some bleach for my eyes.

Love,

Aunt Becky

P.S. If you recommend I watch Intervention, I’m canceling your ass.

P.P.S. You should know better than to suggest I watch the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. That’s just cruel.

7: cans of paint bought in the last 2 weeks

9,284: cans of half-used paint found in my basement, all of questionable color and/or origin

2: light fixtures bought in last two weeks

2: light fixtures that need to be disposed of in such a way that NO ONE will ever know they came from my house.

1: little girl who is determined she will be a “big three” as opposed to a “little three.”

0: times that has made sense to me.

15: bags of lollipops purchased to make topiary trees.

10: times I was given the stink-eye by the cashier who is probably suspecting that I have a hoarding problem and is therefore looking for evidence of dead cats somewhere on my person.

0: dead cats in my house.

0: percent certainty this is, in fact, true.

12: cupcakes eaten to fuel the sugar-rush that this level of cleaning and renovation requires.

36: cookies needed to back up the cupcake sugar rush

9: number of wrong cuts made by The Guy On My Couch while replacing mouldings

13: length in feet of wasted moulding caused by those cuts

2: people who think it’s hilarious that he can’t remember which way the angle goes on some of those cuts

0: times I have believed that “moulding” is a real word.

1,028,928,002: times I have been certain that “logicate” is a real word.

30,000: number of people who are probably showing up at my house this weekend.

30,000: number of people who are probably going to criticize my bad taste in decor and/or inability to make my house look like a magazine.

30,000: number of people who I will try to pawn aforementioned light fixtures off upon.

0: times I have understood why boob lights are all the rage.

0: boob lights currently owned by me.

0: other types of ceiling lights available for those of us who do not want to think, “HOLY FUCKBALLS, CHECK OUT THAT BOOB ON MY CEILING!” every morning.

9,726,043: minutes I have spent trying to understand boob lights.

Your turn, Pranksters. Pull up a nice glass of vodka and tell Your Aunt Becky what is going on with YOU today.

This may win for most epic picture of the year. Altho, it’s still January and that picture is butt-ass old, so far, he is NUMBER ONE in my life.

Also number one, these posts (a lie):

I wrote about my new obsession. And it would be RAD if you could comment on it.

I also wrote about Amelia. I’m wicked proud of it.

We’re doing a birth defects/birth injury/birth trauma carnival on Sunday on Band Back Together if’n you want to join us!

So go read, then come back and tell Your Aunt Becky what YOU’VE been writing about this week. Let’s do a link-up, y’all.

“You should start a blog,” The Daver, circa 2003

“What the fuck is a ‘blog’?” Student Nurse Becky, circa 2003.

I had plans – grand plans – after graduation. Most times, they involved things like “never wiping old person ass again,” or “taking a nap,” or “eating thousands of cheeseburgers,” and “taking over the universe.” Upon occasion (generally when I was sleepy and/or drunk) I wondered what I would DO with the rest of my life. I simply couldn’t visualize it.

But it was that one statement, made by a much younger Daver that started me down a path I’d never expected. I became a blogger.

It was through my first blog, Mushroom Printing, I learned that I could write – albeit not very well. Like anything, it took years of practice and several good editors before I really learned what made a blog post good. And I might argue that I’ve never learned that trick.

It wasn’t until I started writing Mommy Wants Vodka in 2007, shortly after I turned 27, that I realized how powerful a voice could be. It was then that I began pouring myself out onto a blank WordPress screen. What came out was sometimes good, more often not, it was bad, but it was mine. Those words were mine.

Out of a twisted branch of a conversation I’d had many years before, I found my voice.

I’m not about to sit here and tell you how GREAT my voice is or that I’m SO RAD to be a blogger because some company gave me a yacht*, but I am going to tell you that through that voice, I found myself.

There’s no dollar amount, no traffic spike, no amount of comments that can ever compare to how powerful that is.

I went black yesterday to protest SOPA/PIPA (which I keep thinking of as “SOAP” and “Pippy Longstocking”) not because I am certain that these bills will be shutting me down – I don’t know that – but because I love my Internet. The verbage on these to bills is vague enough that something – anything – can happen.

Certainly, as someone who’s shit’s been stolen, I dislike piracy. I’d like to be able to take those who have stolen my material, passed it off as their own, and shove them in a hole and make them listen to the Facts of Life theme for days.

Let me be clear: stealing shit? That sucks. Buy your own fucking movies – I do. Come up with your own blog name – I did. Write your own damn words – I do.

That aside, those laws freak me out.

And I owe the Internet a debt of gratitude I can never repay. For helping a lost girl find her way. That is worth more than any yacht**.

I mean, where would I be without my crazy dancing cat videos?

*Bwahahahahahaahhahahaha!

**BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Or a mushroom print.

I know I’m MIA today, but I wrote this. It needs your sweet, sweet Prankster love.

Hopefully I’ll be able to crawl back from my January cave soon. This month is bullshit, Pranksters.