Yesterday, I woke up and Billy Motherfucking Mays was all:

IT’S VALENTINE’S DAY, YOU DIRTY SLUT, SO GET YOUR LAZY BITCH-ASS UP AND GET READY TO FUCKING SPARKLE ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE.

When Billy Motherfucking Mays is the first voice in your head in the morning, you shut your whore mouth and you listen.

Gingerly, opened my eyes and thought about my plans for the day. I had an appointment with my neurologist who looks, incidentally, like he stepped off the set of a spaghetti Western somewhere (I’ve diagnosed him with GERD)(gastroesophogeal reflux disease)(he should really get that taken care of). Over by the neuro was the mall. At the mall were STORES. At the stores were PRESENTS. Presents for ME.

Today, I thought, was going to be a very good day indeed.

I sat up. Easy-peasy, I thought to myself. Eye of the Motherfucking Tiger!

Then, in an alarming fit of poor judgment, I stood up. Whoops! My bad. My legs felt like wobbly stumps, thanks to the migraine and Imitrex. Well, shit. Hard to take on the world without properly functioning legs.

I hummed “Life’s Been Good To Me So Far,” as I made my way to the bathroom. All right, I cheered. I got my fucking sea-legs.

When I looked in the mirror, this is what looked back;

Woah. That’s hot. I should probably become a model or something.

(BARBIZON, BE A MODEL, OR JUST LOOK LIKE ONE)

I tried to scrub the ugly off my face but it just wasn’t happening. The Ugly Cry has it’s aftermath.

I wobbled down and drank some coffee, giggling at all of the anti-VD Tweets (I have other holidays I feel similarly about) and tried to peck out a post. I’ve been writing in the mornings for so long that if I don’t, I feel like I’m missing an arm.

But I couldn’t.

I was wobbly in the head, too.

Billy Motherfucking Mays piped in:

“SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH AND WRITE A GODDAMNED POST, YOU LAZY DRUG-SEEKING BAG OF WIND.”

But luckily, Bob Motherfucking Ross was right behind him:

“Happy Clouds, Aunt Becky. Focus on the Happy Clouds.”

I tried to see those happy fucking clouds and write my goddamed post at the same time and I just couldn’t do it.

Then it came to me. I needed to go where I’d never (willingly) gone before to do something I’d never (willingly) done before: look at laptops.

We all know that my technical knowledge begins and ends with I push a button and the Magical Elves in the Email Machine come alive! So the very notion going to a computer store for the express purpose of looking at computers for myself is as laughable as me painting my kitchen with my tongue.

Normally, I only go to Best Buy if ambushed:

Daver, My Dad, or My Brother: “Oh HEY there, Becky/Rebecca/Stumpy, let’s go to MCDONALDS!!”

Me: “OOOOOOOOH CHEESEBURGERS.”

(I get into the car like a rube)

Me: “HEY WAIT A MINUTE THERE’S NO CHEESEBUR…GAH, OH MY GOD THE BLUE AND THE YELLOW AND FUCKING SHITBALLS IT’S SO BRIGHT IN HERE. LOUD. LOUD. LOUD. HALP ME HALP ME HALP. MAKE IT GO AWAY.”

Daver, My Dad or My Brother: “You think you’d learn, but you never do.”

Then I hover, invading their personal space, until they get fed up and leave. Alternately, I insist that they buy me something exorbitantly expensive. Like a pony.

To actually want to go to Worst Best Buy is the equivalent to hell freezing over. But I need a lappy and I don’t have a lappy and every time I try and look for one online, this is what it looks like,

And then I get really annoyed because there are so many fucking NUMBERS and I don’t actually CARE about most of them so then I go and watch Dexter mutilate people and feel better until I realize that I still should figure out which laptop I am going to buy because, hi, this staying home all day bullshit is making me twitchy.

Also: I need to take the Internet away from Jimmy Wales and Mark Zuckerberg because it’s time for a GIRL to be in charge. I need to RUB MY VAGINA on the internet, Pranksters, but I have to be able to be MOBILE to dominate the world and shit.

I proceeded into Best Buy after perfecting my GET AWAY FROM ME GEEK SQUAD look in the mirror.

See, if you don’t watch out for them, they sneak up on you and the next thing you know, you have to hear a sermon on why you should buy their stupid anti-virus protection or whatever, but you’re just standing there, mentally rearranging their features kinda like Mr. Potato Head but geekier. So you have to be wary of them. Very wary.

I snuck to the back of the store where the keep the lappy’s hostage, ogling the desktops as I went past.

And there they were: row after row of laptops. Finally, I could stop obsessing about my inability to decide and just fucking decide already. This was too tedious, even for me, to obsess about.

I rolled my eyes at the tiny netbooks. I didn’t need no stinkin’ netbook. Child’s play.

And there it was. A light, a beacon of light, shone down and I saw exactly what I needed. A laptop that said, “hey world, I’m a fucking blogger. You’d better take me and my 17 inches of swinging death seriously or I am going to go all CPU (whatever that means) on your ass. I’ll punch you in the throat if you don’t take me and my oversized screen and too many memory chips and stuff fucking seriously because I am a blogger and this is an absurdly awesome computer.”

A laptop that was absurdly absurd. Too much computer. WAY too much computer.

Just like I like it, baby.

Just as soon as I sell a kidney, Imma get me a fucking big ass 17-inch MacBook Pro. So I can go all (insert a bunch of nerdly phrases that I don’t understand here) on the Internet’s Ass. I’LL SHOW ZUCKERBERG WHO’S BOSS.

Just as soon as, uh, I get it. And stuff.

SO TAKE THAT, ZUCKERBERG. In um, a, um, couple of months…and stuff, I’m going to take over the INTERNET.

#BOOYEAH

When I was a miserable nursing student, one of the things that I did to get myself through the long weeks was to try and find ways that I’d be able to use my degree once I finished. Ways that didn’t involve wiping butts and passing out medication. Because while that is an absolutely necessary job, it’s one I’m terrible at.

But nursing school, well, I’ve made it clear that it wasn’t My Thing, but the skills I have are valuable and I’d like to put them to use so that I don’t put a big mental red X over those two years of my life. If for no other reason than to prove to myself that all of those A++’s were fucking WORTH IT.

One of those things that I always wanted to do was to do a stint with Doctor’s Without Borders because while rubbing feet didn’t appeal to me, working in the field always has. Field medicine feels like real medicine to me.

I was going to do it right after I graduated, but they require a 6 month commitment and at the time, I’d barely seen my own son and I figured that I wanted to see him some before I went off to save the world, one Q-Tip at a time.

After the disaster in Haiti, I was reminded of my plans to become a volunteer disaster preparedness nurse when Dave bounded down the stairs, fooled by the American Airlines hoax. I was all for going until I realized it wasn’t really feasible.

At least, not yet.

I’m still looking to see if I can find another way down there to offer my services and if I don’t make it down there right now or in the coming months, because, let’s face it, Haiti isn’t going to rebuild itself in a week or two, I’m going to make sure I can join every civilian volunteer service corp that I can.

If not for Haiti, then for the next time disaster strikes, I’ll be ready to go.

Because it’s what I’m supposed to do with my skills, I can feel it in my bones. Me and my box of Q-tips and my bottle of medicinal vodka, we’re going to go and try to save the world.

In movies, you always know when the really important moments are about to happen because the music swells and ebbs and the soft focus lens sweeps through while time slows down capturing everything in full panoramic detail. It’s nice, I guess, if you’re a movie goer, and if your IQ is 12, because HI, they don’t normally put stuff in movies that isn’t related to the PLOT.

Anyway.

The day that I met The Daver wasn’t one of those days where I had any idea that my life was about to change. We were just meeting for the Einstein exhibit and breakfast in the city as friends, set up by a mutual friend, but it wasn’t all date-y and I certainly wasn’t impeccably dressed. Neither, I should add, was he.

Weeks later, I woke up in bed with him and I had A Moment. It wasn’t a Hollywood Moment, where we adorably shared breakfast in a perfectly fluffy bed, having coffee and witty reparte with our Chicago Tribune, no. I’m sure I was a drooly mess all bleary eyed and sleepy, and The Daver was actually asleep, but I rolled over and Had A Moment.

(I am not a person who has Moments.)

But I rolled over and said to myself: I am going to marry this guy.

And I did. It was one of those rare defining moments. You only have a certain number of those in your life, I think, where something happens maybe to you or maybe within you and nothing will ever be the same no matter what. Defining moments.

The first time I walked into my microbiology laboratory and realized that for once in a long time I was home. Having my naked, warm son laid upon my chest. Finding out that my son was autistic and that I wasn’t just a terrible mother. Knowing that from whatever destruction I found my life in, I would rebuild myself again and again.

I’ve found myself in sort of a mixture of elation and sadness these days–kind of like chewing on a foil-wrapped candy–while I’m really thrilled by the way things are, I can’t help but feel I need to pay tribute and honor the year that we’re laying to rest in a couple of weeks. Never has a year been more filled with defining moments for me.

When I close my eyes, I can still hear my doctor as clearly as if it were yesterday, “Becky, there’s something wrong with your baby’s head” and I can still remember all of the anxious uncertainty. Her first weeks and months were a gigantic question mark. There were no NICU doctors coming to see us or tell us what was wrong, no group huddles or anything. It was all very, “here’s this, here’s that, you can go home, OH WAIT, NO, WE’RE TAKING HER BACK.”

No one comforted us or held us up.

That’s a lie. That’s a lie.

YOU did. As the year draws to a close, I need to once again thank you, my friends who are more than people who live in the computer to me. In a year full of defining moments, I learned who had my back. You did and I am so grateful for all of you. There were times when I all I could do was read and reread my comments and emails because it was like you were here, holding my hand and stroking my hair. Because you were.

I know that if you could have been, many of you would have been. That means so much to me and to The Daver and it will mean so much to my daughter too. I’ve saved every single email that anyone sent me about my daughter in a special folder, and while I don’t routinely open it, because I can’t bear it, it’s there.

I’m shocked and humbled and honored by all of you. Thank you.

I got word very late in the day on Friday that I’d won Divine Caroline’s Love This Site Award, and the only reason I’d won it was because of you. I admit it, I cried. Shut UP, I’ll fart on your TOOTHBRUSH if you laugh.

Sometime in January or February, I believe, we are supposed to get our gift cards, and when I do, mine will be given to the March of Dimes in honor of my daughter Amelia. Because in the midst of all this fucked up year, I’ve found the silver lining. I’m officially a March of Dimes Mom now and while this has been one of the hardest years ever, I wouldn’t change it.

2010 is going to find me rebuilding myself again*, and I’m proud to do it with my daughter, my sweet ass-kicking cinnamon girl by my side. And I know that you, The Internet, will be there too. Now if you tell ANYONE that I have feelings, I’ll kick you.

What are some of your defining moments o! Internet, my Internet? Why don’t you pull up a chair and a glass of Eggnog and tell Your Aunt Becky all about things that made you who you are?

*Am totally getting a tattoo.

So, I can’t respond to your answers to my last post in email like I normally do because it adds comments, but you guys are FUNNY. And also, most of you corrected my typo from question 4 “your” should have been “you’re” and yes, that was TOTALLY my bad. But you guys are full of THE FUNNY and I recommend that you read all of the answers that everyone is giving because, well, they’re awesome and it proves that I have the best people in the blog-o-sphere, SO THERE.

Next week, I’m going to see if I can get that bitch Mr. Linky to work so we can play that way.

Be sure to enter and play along because it’s fun. And, no, FTC Guidelines Person, I didn’t get paid a cent or get a thing for promoting my friend’s book. I am just a Special Person.

——————-

It may shock and dismay some of you to learn that I have friends. Well, I do. Like Sci-Fi Dad, from Tales From The Dad Side, for example. I overlook his Canadian-ness and like him anyway because I am a VERY special person. Well, my friend Sci-Fi got stood up for an interview, which I thought was actually kind of funny, but after I stopped laughing, I did what any friend who had already badgered her way into an interview with him would do: I graciously offered to be his interviewer.

I cannot believe he accepted, but he did.

Aunt Becky (only 29 minutes late to our scheduled interview time. A personal record!): dude. LOOKIT ME BEING HERE AND STUFF. I’m sorry I am late. I am a very bad friend.

Aunt Becky: So, Sci-Fi, my friend, for the first of my VERY IMPORTANT questions, on your ice cream, do you like sprinkles?

SciFi: No, I do not. I am more of a caramel sauce and whipped cream kind of guy. Oh, and bacon.

Aunt Becky (amazed): Would you put bacon on your ice cream?

SciFi: I would just eat bacon. Why cool it down with frozen dairy?

Aunt Becky: Really, everything is better with bacon.

SciFi: Everything.

Aunt Becky: Do you have bacon in Canada?

SciFi: We do. We have strip bacon AND back bacon (which I believe you call “Canadian bacon”)

Aunt Becky: I thought Canadian bacon was just more polite bacon. Because, you know, you guys are all polite and adorable. Bwahahahahahaha! Seriously, can I just follow you around for awhile so that I may revel in your niceness?

SciFi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cZe4FpCMtk

Aunt Becky: Is that a bomb?

SciFi: No, it’s a 7 minute youtube about bacon making everything better. But I’m more concerned with this misnomer that I am nice. Where did that vicious rumour start?

Aunt Becky: I think it’s just the general belief that Canadians say “ya” a lot and stand around being polite and nice to each other. It’s okay. I’m from the Midwest. Everyone assumes I have thick ankles.

SciFi: Also, I know about Midwest girls and their cankles

Aunt Becky: My ankles are quite prim, thank you.

Aunt Becky: And your cigarette packs have diseased lungs on them.

SciFi: When I was smoking, they had warnings… Now they have gross pictures.

Aunt Becky: ‘SMOKING WILL KILL YOU DEAD.’ Here they just say that smoking may cause low birthweight. Which, uh, okay. If you’re not pregnant or a fetus, that’s okay.

SciFi: People sold imitation stickers that went over the warnings that said stuff like “Smoking makes your penis bigger” or “Smoking is for the cool kids”

Aunt Becky: That’s it. I’m packing up and moving to Canada AND taking up smoking again.

(SciFi is very, very quiet at this proclamation)

Aunt Becky: Okay, so at some point in your life you lived above a strip joint, which had to have been kind of awesome. Was it as debaucherous as it sounded? And did I spell debaucherous right?

SciFi: Your spelling is accurate. It actually was as debaucherous as it sounds, but not for the reasons one would assume. I actually only went to that particular club once; it was overpriced and geared to the rich businessman set.

SciFi: HOWEVER, from my door, it was a five minute walk to seven other (more economical) strip joints and three sex shops

SciFi: I was 23, single, and made more money than I knew what to do with Also, it was Montreal, so the lines are a little more blurry.

Aunt Becky: Please tell me that you bought a large black fist from one of the sex toy shops and allowed someone to beat you about the head with it. Because I really need that mental picture.

SciFi: No, I did not. I never bought anything from the sex shops, and the one time I ventured into one, I was drunk. So I remember little.

Aunt Becky: Okay, so I’m going to pretend that the answer is yes. Because you don’t remember.

SciFi: OK.

Aunt Becky: You’re stuck on a desert island with a choice of either listening to Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears and you have to choose one. Who is it?

SciFi: I drown myself in the water.

Aunt Becky: ….

SciFi: OK fine, if I have to choose, I’d choose Britney, because she looks more slutty in her CD liners.

Aunt Becky: Okay, same desert island. 5 artists that you can have all of their works. Who?

SciFi: The Beatles (because a) they have a HUGE catalog and 2) they are full of awesome)

Aunt Becky: Oh totally.

SciFi: U2 (because I have listened to them since I was in the third grade and love them)

Led Zeppelin (at this point people want to know if I’ll choose something from outside the British Isles)

Nine Inch Nails (and there you go, because I am the god of fuck)

and…

Aunt Becky: Britney Spears?

SciFi: close, but no. Charlie Parker. I play alto sax. For the record, if their catalog was larger, Screaming Trees, Nirvana and Pearl Jam would be there.

Aunt Becky: I had no idea that you could play the sax. Rock the fuck on, yo. How long have you played?

SciFi: http://www.imeem.com/scifidad/playlist/-AeLN7A2/high_school_stage_band_music_playlist/ I started playing when I was 12, so 23 years

Aunt Becky: That would mean you are counts on fingers

Aunt Becky: (math is hard)

SciFi: 35

Aunt Becky: 7463?

Aunt Becky: I mean, 35? YAY! I was RIGHT!

SciFi: (claps sarcastically)

Aunt Becky: So, with the help of The Daver, I have a Lightening Round for YOU. Transformers or Go-Bots?

SciFi: Transformers

Aunt Becky: Transformers or Voltron?

SciFi: Voltron

Aunt Becky: Which Thundercat is your favorite?

SciFi: Panthro

Aunt Becky: Star Trek or Star Wars?

SciFi: Star Wars

Aunt Becky: Jar Jar Binks: awesome or full of the awful?

SciFi: AWFUL

Aunt Becky: (duh)

SciFi: more egregious than Ewoks in terms of marketing to kids

Aunt Becky: Yeah, but less midgets were harmed (says the Daver)

SciFi: true, WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE MIDGETS?

Aunt Becky: *wrings hands*

Aunt Becky: Lego Star Wars? Amazing?

SciFi: Beyond amazing.

Aunt Becky: How did you come up with your tattoo? The large one on the top of your blog.

SciFi: it’s actually a western zodiac calendar that I designed myself using AutoCAD (a computer aided drawing program typically used in drafting) and the Wingdings font. I used AutoCAD to make a perfectly spaced 12-point sun and the font has the 12 symbols of the zodiac.

Aunt Becky (looks around nervously): Is it because YOU are the Zodiac Killer?

SciFi: I believe you have something called the fifth amendment in the US?

Aunt Becky: Uh, yes. Let’s pretend I DO NOT KNOW YOU THEN. Because this is the second interview that I might end up dead if I fuck up. How do *I* end up interviewing all of the badasses?

(frantically signs off)

—————-

In a case of mistaken identity, I’m sure, I was sent a copy of the new show Men of a Certain Age, and let me tell you, in addition to having a Letter To My Newest Television Husband, Dexter, coming on Monday, this show is my boyfriend. It’s awesome.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and use a word that almost always makes me shiver with disgust, but for purposes of this statement, I think it fits: sales make me moist.

The word moist, however, makes me sort of want to die, but that is neither here nor there.

But sales, man, SALES.

I’ve gotten back into coupon clipping, thanks to reading something about it on my friend TJ’s blog after a stint away from it because that does take a little more brain power than blearily stumbling to the store and throwing things into a cart requires. But I’ve also realized that holy shit, there’s a whole THING behind that and wow, I’m not THAT good or devoted (but please, pepper me with your tips, o! Internet my Internet).

Couponing, I think it’s called, seems sort of like a sport and I get that.

Sales, man, that’s where I get off.

Unless, of course, it’s the Black Friday sales, where you’ll find me cowering at my house, as far away from the stores as I humanly can be. Tonight, I’ll venture out to Target, My Home Away From Home and see if I can pick through what is left of the carnage left in the wake of this morning’s mayhem and destruction. I’ll smile knowingly at the glassy-eyed employees and pat them on the back if they don’t flinch when I get too close, and I’ll whisper, “I was a waitress, I GET IT.”

Because I do. Sort of.

I know that a lot of people turn it into a game, a hunt, carefully choosing their morning path, gathering up sleeping bags and going out the night before to camp out in front of the store so as to be the first in line for that $100 flat screen television. I’m sure that battle lines are drawn and should anyone dare cut in line or attempt to push ahead, there would be brawls and blows to the face.

But I wouldn’t know about that because my dimply butt was fast asleep in bed, dreaming of cheesecake and turkey and shopping the Black Friday deals online. I’ve never been out to a Black Friday sale in the wee hours of the morning and I have no intentions of ever doing so.

It’s not because I don’t like sales or because I don’t like competition, because, Internet, you know me and I like both. But I can see myself conforming to mob mentality and fighting some bearded 50-year old woman for a pair of 0.00000001 carat diamond earrings set in lead just because everyone else wanted them.

Or maybe getting into a heated fight between some bar owner over a set of naked lady bar glasses/popcorn maker not because I have ANY use for them, but because at $100, WHAT A STEAL! And what family with two boys and one small baby girl doesn’t need to see comically large nipples while they drink their juice every morning?

I could see myself filling up my truck with my junk, not thinking twice about plunking down for a Miley Cyrus Ultimate Dance Party Karaoke Revolution because I could, a cultured set of fresh water pearls even though I am not 97 years old, 483 DVD players for all of those DVD’s we’re switching over to Blu-Ray, and the Kate Gosslin cookbook JUST BECAUSE.

So it’s a good thing that my chubby self stays home and in bed, surfing for donkey porn and deals on Amazon.com. The Internet, it just got more beautiful than ever.

Except for that whole donkey porn thing.

*shudders*

———————

Since I never worked retail, I’m living vicariously through you, The Internet. I’m in dire need of some Black Friday stories from the retail side of it or the shopping side of it.