I wanted to say thank you to all of you who read my post yesterday about anxiety and commented and emailed and stuff. It’s a weird thing for me to be dealing with, and I’m not sure how exactly to handle it. Anxiety, that is, not blogging, because, hell, I’ve been blogging so long that dust comes out of my fingers when I type.

I’m fortunate enough to have a doctor who is quite possibly the World’s Greatest Person. Like, I know I’m constantly giving the Nobel Prize for Awesome out to random things, like the guy who invented the bacon cheeseburger, and the person who made this picture:

If you don’t think that’s the greatest picture ever, I will fight you.

My doctor deserves the medal for Awesomest Doctor Ever.

Getting help made me I realize how long I’ve been pretending that everything was okay when it was not. Problems are bullshit. Denial is a bigger pile of bullshit.

The first order of business is to start thinking like an editor. I’m cutting out any excess [words] noise. Getting rid of everything I no longer require (I wrote about that on Curvy Girls). Literally and figuratively (when in doubt, throw around big words and hope you’re using them properly).

Then? Organization, Pranksters. After, of course, many hours of snow cone eating and dancing cactus videos.

CLEARLY.

—————-

I realized I’d forgotten to announce The Winner for the Shut Your Whore Mouth Shirt Contest yesterday, but by the time I realized it, I’d already put up my post about being all anxious. It seemed so vastly incongruent to be all After School Special, “Pranksters, I’m struggling and anxious,” then, OHMYGOD, WINNER! #UNICORNBLOOD trumps #TIGERBLOOD!

But today, in a completely random post, I can announce it.

QCMAMA, come on down! You just won a Shut Your Whore Mouth Shirt! (soon to be available in PURPLE)

———-

This seems like an excellent time to tell you about Robert, the Worst Date of My Life.

Remember when coffee shops were like the new black and suddenly, they sprung up every-fucking-where? This was after that. One of my good friends worked at a coffee shop attached to a small, local video store, in one of those combinations that seemed like a good idea, but really wasn’t. One of his coworkers was a guy named Robert, and I should have known by his foppy haircut that he was Bad News for someone Like Me.

But, I was between boyfriends and when he asked me on an actual date, (I had boyfriends, not actual “dates,”) I accepted. What’s the worst that could possibly happen? I reasoned, even after uncomfortably noting his extremely well-manicured fingernails and soft palms.

Robert, it seemed, was the worst that could happen.

The night of Our Date, I met him at the coffee shop and he chivalrously offered to drive to the multi-theater complex located a good 45 minutes away. Okay, I thought, anyone with hands like that was probably not a rapist or axe-murderer.

And he wasn’t.

Robert was of a completely different ilk.

Robert was Mr. Sensitive Pony-Tail Man, sans pony-tail.

Now, I’m all for a guy who likes to talk about His Feelings without the use of hand-puppets and other props, but Robert took things to a whole new level. A whole new level that made me so uncomfortable that, had we not been in a car on the highway, I might have had him pull over so that I could show my own feelings. Vomity-type feelings.

In that 45 minutes, I learned this: Robert was 22 (I was 18) and lived at home with his mother. He’d had a long-term girlfriend who he’d recently broken up with because she’d moved away to be a part of some traveling Renaissance Faire and he couldn’t handle the distance. They’d tried, he informed me, and his mom was pretty mad at him because they’d racked up massive phone bills.

Apparently, Robert’s answer to being so far apart was to spend each night on the phone, sleeping together.

Yes.

You read that right.

They “slept” together. On the phone. Listening to each other snore.

I’ll wait while you vomit.

….

….

….

….

I appreciate romance as much as the next person, but that’s just plain old creepy.

He waxed on and on about his ex for the entire car ride. Clearly, he was not only co-dependent, but also still not over her. Ugh. By the time we arrived at the movie theater, I was ready to go see a movie – any movie – by myself. But, no. Cell phones were still relatively new, weighed about 6 pounds, and cost hundreds of dollars to own. I had a snazzy gold beeper instead.

Snazzy wasn’t about to get me away from Creepy Robert.

Oh well.

So, before we went into the movie of his choosing, I insisted he buy me the biggest vat of popcorn they had and a bucket of Diet Coke and some Junior Mints, because, well, then the date wasn’t a total loss. I wasn’t normally the kind of girl who did such things, but I’d just spent 45 minutes listening to the virtues of Megan, The Most Wonderful Renaissance Princess Ever Who Also Played Dungeons and Dragons And blah, blah, fucking BLAH.

I considered this my tasty and delicious therapist’s fee.

I’d been too busy craning my neck around to see if I knew anyone who I could bum a ride home from to notice what movie Robert had chosen for us to see, but it was no surprise that he’d chosen the lamest movie ever: Ever After: A Cinderella Story.

I dry-heaved.

Instead of focusing on the riveting plot (I’d have chosen a movie like Die Hard), I listed the Periodic Table of Elements in order my head: “Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon…” Then, claiming “bathroom break,” I went into the lobby and played air-hockey with a couple of twelve-year olds.

When I came back, Robert was openly weeping.

Not at my absence or anything, but at the movie. Apparently, it was very touching and I had missed it! O! the humanity! O! the emoting! O! the beauty!

O! the vomitus!

I took my seat next to him and he sobbed so loudly that people began to turn around in their seats to stare at him. Not a single other person in the theater was tearful, so I guess it hadn’t been that emotional.

I was mortified. I was with That Guy. I had no idea how to handle it.

So I patted his leg reassuringly and said, “There, There.”

He wept louder.

The ushers came.

They asked us to leave.

The entire ride home, he babbled about how “beautiful” and “true” that movie was. I just stared out the window, willing the ride to go by faster, wishing I’d worn a mask.

When we got back to my car, he professed his love to me. I suggested that he “rescue” his “true love” from the Ren Faire.

He agreed.

Then he called me so often that I had to block his number.

The Moral of This Story: Never, ever date a guy with soft palms.

It dawns on me as I sit there, my left butt-cheek falling asleep, that I could be somewhere else eating a bagel. Like Paris. Or Detroit. Or learning the Swahili phrase for “pants are bullshit.” Or washing my car. Okay, maybe not washing my car. It was like -900 degrees out. Washing my car would be like that scene in the Terminator with the Nitrous Oxide and the robot.

I smile, imagining my car shattering in the car wash, until I remember I’m probably sitting on barf germs. I hate barf germs.

My iPhone isn’t getting any signal in here. Stupid AT&T. Should be named the iCAN’TPhone because I haven’t been able to make a phone call since I got the damn thing. Hm. I really could use some mindless interaction from The Twitter right about now. Or maybe a Vicodin-Chip cookie. Or some vodka. Because my heart feels like it’s going to pound right the fuck out of my chest.

When the hell did this HAPPEN?

When did I start feeling stretched as taut as an over-tuned violin string? Why did I feel like the pressure to do more; to be more, to constantly outdo myself was omnipresent? Like I couldn’t ever possibly manage to live up to my own unrealistic expectations? Like I had to somehow be everything to everyone. Like if I didn’t constantly prove myself, I would cease to matter. I would cease to exist.

When did this start? And moreover: how could I make this stop?

These anxious racing thoughts; this anxiety, this had to stop.

Admitting that I had a problem the first step, I know from Al-Anon, and doing something about it was important. Hence the bagel-craving and the barf-germ-coated chair in my doctor’s waiting room. And, of course, the urge to flee so that I could learn Portuguese or Mandarin or really anything but admit that I had a problem.

I’m so tired of problems. I’m so tired of having something wrong that I barely want to admit to myself that I have a problem. Between migraines and my lazy-ass missing-in-action thyroid and insomnia, I can hardly stand to be in the same room with myself anymore without wanting to punch myself in the teeth. Problems are bullshit. I hate problems. Maybe I can make a “Problems Are Bullshit” shirt. Because they are. Bullshit, that is.

Maybe this isn’t ACTUALLY a problem. Maybe I can just ignore it and it’ll get better on it’s own.

Except it hasn’t. Because that’s what I’ve been doing. And it’s not working. Clearly.

Before I could do anything, though, the nurse poked her head into the waiting room, “Becky?” she trilled calmly, clearly unaware of my churny guts.

I sighed, put my iDON’TWORKPhone back into my purse and followed her back.

“What seems to be the problem?” she asked kindly.

“Well,” I started, looking at my hands, ashamed to be admitting this to anyone but the people who live inside my computer. “It’s sorta like this…”

My love of encased meats is the stuff that legends, dreams and the occasional nightmare are made of. Hot dogs (and diamonds) are probably the quickest way to my heart. They’re probably part of my heart by now, if you want to be technical about LDL’s and triglycerides and stuff, which I’d rather gloss over, thankyouverymuch, because that would prevent me from thoroughly enjoying my encased tube of lips and buttholes.

In my spam folder, nestled firmly between several notifications of “I NEED YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE” and “You won 750,000 in Premiere Oil Lottery,” I got a gem of a PR pitch.

I don’t, as you can imagine, get a whole lot of PR pitches. I swear and even though I’m pretty sure the *hums* Winds of Change are blowing through the advertising world and I’d bet we’re going to see a lot of changes in the world of marketing and advertising on actual blogs (not just the ones that are saccharine sweet), we’re not there yet.

(I’d asked on The Twitter a couple weeks back if I should write about “Crappy Ex-Boyfriends” or “Making Money Blogging” and people responded, of course, to “crappy ex-boyfriend” not seeing the obvious joke I was making)(speaking of that, I need to choose a winner in the Shut Your Whore Mouth Shirt contest)(tomorrow, I’ll announce it)

So I don’t get a lot of PR pitches which is just as well. I’d rather not subject you guys to what amounts to an ad because, well, there’s plenty of blogs out there that do that already. And I chafe at the idea of doing some ad agencies job for them without getting paid their salary. A $4 coupon isn’t a salary. My readers, my blog, and my space is worth a hell of a lot more than some crappy coupon.

Okay, I may need to lay down a second before I stroke out.

But this gem of a PR pitch was superb.

It was for corn dogs.

I love corn dogs, Pranksters. I could write a thousand posts about corn dogs and still not get close to how deeply I feel about corn dogs. They are sublime. Hot dogs, on a stick, covered in, uh, corn something, then deep-fried. Often found at the Fair, along with mullets, monster truck rallies, and cotton candy, I consider corn dogs to be one of Nature’s Perfect Foods.

(let’s disregard how unnatural corn dogs are, okay? Okay.)

But this pitch, oh, it had me rolling. I was dying. DYING. Let me give you a taste. I changed a bit of it around, but not the insulting (to you) bits:

Blah, blah blah. Here’s a video we want you to put on your blog. Your readers will like it, they will choose their own adventure and pick the outcome of the video.

If they choose the correct path, there’s a coupon at the end for them!

Please share this funny video on your fabulous and amazing blog. Your mom readers, who juggle the demands of everyday life and need quick and easy snacks, will truly appreciate this video and coupon.

Now, Pranksters, I like to think that I know most of you. I read your blogs (even if I haven’t been commenting – which, blame Google, who messed it all up for me) and I keep your comments pinned up on my wall.

I’d like to say this: I don’t think ANY of you would appreciate a video about corn dogs. Or, rather, a video about corn dogs sent to me by a PR firm.

I know I wouldn’t. But, I think there are some videos about corn dogs that I would watch.

I would totally watch a movie about killer corn dogs.

A corn dog so conflicted by it’s love of cheeseburgers that it turns Emo? AMAZING. That would be a true work of art.

Those are movies about corn dogs I’d happily watch. Just, you know, saying.

While we’re on the subject of truly superb spam, here’s the best thing I’ve gotten in years, possibly ever:

I’ll let you think on that. Because it’s spam. And I heart it so hard that I might cry.

Now, let’s talk about awesome PR pitches YOU get. Or spam. Or videos about corn dogs that should be made.

Really, the possibilities here are endless.

So Pranksters, it’s time for the March Edition of the BB2G: Bringing Happy Back World Tour, which is like New Years Resolutions except awesome (New Years Resolutions = Bullshit).

So get your glorious asses over there and join up. Mostly because you get that glorious badge. Which isn’t QUITE as awesome as the Best Picture on the Internet, but close.

Dear Aunt Becky,

How should I handle a little effin’ biotch who recently made my sweet angel cry at school?

My daughter is nine and has a heart of gold. Everyone she meets always compliments me on her lovely sweet personality and how she would not hurt a fly. Well yesterday, she told me about a girl at school who say behind her in assembly and made some really nasty comments about my child, calling her an ugly cry-baby with a big head!

My child just doesn’t understand this type of cruelty. She made me so sad when she looked at me confused and said “but Mommy, she doesn’t even know me!”

Please help, I’m so incensed with rage I’m trying hard not to head out and find this little shit and pinch her effin’ head off!

If there’s anything that pisses me off more than bullying, I’m not sure what it is. Do you remember when we were kids and we had kids that were total assjackets to us and the answer was pretty much a standard *shrugs* “kids will be kids?”

I do.

Or, at least, I remember my brother going through it. He’s a lot older than me and I’ll never forget watching my big brother – my strong, smart, tough big brother, who I thought the world revolved around – as he was tormented, endlessly mocked and beaten down, because he had a stutter. Oh yeah, bullies and I, we’re like peas in a pod. If peas in a pod want to watch each other burn to death in a fiery blaze of bullets.

Anyway.

Yeah, so back then, no one dealt with bullies. Now? The schools take bullying more seriously. AS THEY SHOULD.

My eldest was the target of a bully in Kindergarten and the school actually ended up suspending the child after the bullying continued. Ben’s emotional range isn’t quite as normal as a typical child (he’s autistic) so when he was being bullied, he was less upset and more confused by the whole situation. I, of course, was the one who was flaming pissed. Ben’s about as kind and gentle as they come.

So, what do you do about it?

Well, first, I’d try and talk to your daughter about what happened with the girl, let her know that it’s not her fault, and that you are, of course, 100% on her side. Kids don’t always know that you’re on their side unless you SAY it, and if you’re acting angry, sometimes they think that you’re angry at THEM.

Tell your daughter to talk to an adult the next time it happens. A teacher, you, another parent, a sibling, anyone. She needs to tell an adult that she’s having problems with a bully.

The second thing she can learn to do is to stand up for herself without getting upset. The bully wants to get the victim upset. Tell your daughter to not let the bully see her respond emotionally. She doesn’t have to be an asshole back to the bully, but she doesn’t have to take whatever the bully is throwing out lying down. She can respond with a joke back or a firm, “Whatever,” and then get out of the situation. If the bully doesn’t get the reaction that she wants, she’ll stop doing it.

If she can learn to do that (which is extremely hard, I know) it will do wonders to foster her self-esteem down the road.

The third thing she can learn to do is to stand up for others who may be targeted by bullies. Sometimes, you just need SOMEONE on your side. I think every single one of us understands how THAT feels.

As for you, Prankster, I’d call the school if the bullying persists and see what their policy on bullying is. I imagine that your school now has some policy on bullying in place, what with all of the proof that bullying in the early days leads to all kinds of problems in later life.

Now, I’m giving you the link to a book that an actual online friend (I have friends? WOAH) wrote about bullies. He sent me a copy which I gave to my nine-year old son, Ben (the one who’d been bullied) and Ben has read it no less than 879 times. Seriously, he loves it.

It’s called The Skinny on Bullying and it’s been heartily endorsed by my son. So, there you have it.

Now, Pranksters, I know you’re going to have a honking buttload of better information than I do to give this Prankster, so please, share away.

My friend Mitch sent this to me and I scoffed indignantly at the name of the picture: “The Best Picture on the Internet.”

Certainly, I said to myself, this cannot possibly be THE BEST PICTURE on the Internet. I mean, really. The Internet has porn and 3 Wolf shirts and who can forget (no matter how hard they try) my infamous Epic Soul Portrait? This couldn’t possibly be The BEST picture on the Internet.

You know what? I’ve thought about it for a week now.

It really, really is. This is the best picture on The Internet.

Pranksters, THIS is TRULY the best picture on the Internet. I challenge you to disprove me because I know that it is impossible.

This is possibly the best picture in the world.

I have many irrational fears. I suppose you could just say, “I’m irrational,” but since this is my website, I’m going to tag on the part about fears and pretend that lalalalalaa I’m totally, completely, entirely, 110% sane.

Shut up.

I’m deathly afraid of earwigs. My earwig phobia can handily be traced back to the time when, many years back, when Young Aunt Becky actually drank a live earwig that had been evilly lurking inside a Diet Coke can. That’s the stuff nightmares are made of.

I’m also afraid of fish, the color orange and anything sung by Rush.

But the one that is most impactful is my fear of Garage Sales.

I like a good bargain like I like Orange-flavored Hostess Cupcakes (read: love) and I love weird, eclectic things and Garage Sales are notorious havens of such finds. Why once, I got a Plexiglas Goat’s Head for a penny! If that’s not a win, I don’t know what is.

I also love to purge my house of excess crap. I don’t like…well, I don’t like stuff. With five people under one roof, you can imagine how quickly stuff accumulates. I’m not a hoarder and having a bunch of stuff around makes me anxious(er) and twitchy(er) so every couple of months, I go through the house and remove everything we don’t need. When I’m done, I feel like I’m on top of the world. I’m all Leonardo DiCaprio King of the World, Bitches! I’m high on freaking LIFE. Stuff, BE GONE!

So the stuff is out of our closets and moved to a second location: my garage. That’s all well and good until I realize (as I have today) that I must now move it somewhere…else.

The obvious solution (and what I normally do) would be to donate it to the Salvation Army. There’s a drop-site within a mile from my house and I can load up a couple of bags and easily drop them off.

But there’s always that niggling voice in the back of my head that suggests that maybe, just maybe, I could have a Garage Sale! Maybe someone would actually WANT some of my stuff! Like all of my old Williams-Sonoma Cookbooks that I never used because, let’s face it, BUYING cookbooks doesn’t mean you suddenly BECOME a cook!

(who knew?)

Maybe someone would give me a dollar for one of those cookbooks! Or what about all of my hardly-worn Calvin Klein pants that I outgrew? (ungrew? I don’t know. I lost weight and now they don’t fit) Or those toys the kids never played with? SOMEONE MIGHT WANT AN AWESOME TOY FOR THEIR KIDS.

This is what the voice in my head says. For a brief moment in time, I listen. My eyes glaze over, and I think that it might be nice to make a couple of bucks. Hey, I could buy my laptop and start planning my Epic Road Trip to visit the Pranksters! The wheels in my head begin to turn. Slowly. Creakily.

Then, Cold Hard Reality bitch-slaps me across the face.

I think of the people who will haggle with me over a coffee cup I’ve reasonably priced at a whopping ten cents. I hate to haggle more than I hate anything. In fact, I’d rather give it away than have to haggle with Garage Sale People.

So I’m left back at Square One. A Garage full of Sale-able stuff that I guess I’ll just donate to charity. Unless you Pranksters have a better idea.

I hope that whomever ends up with that Williams-Sonoma Cookbook set knows what the hell “creme fraiche” is. Because I sure as hell don’t.

————-

Do you have any better ideas, Pranksters?

I started out a post this morning about how I missed having BFF’s and I got about halfway through and realized how WHINY it sounded. So I scrapped it. Sometimes, I think, things are better left unsaid. Or, at least, they’re better left unblogged, until such point that I can not sound like a sniveling whiny assbag.

Which will occur at a quarter past never o’clock.

Instead, I thought that I would share with you, Pranksters, a second glorious snapshot into the formative years of Your Aunt Becky. Back in the day before I was Aunt Becky.

And mostly, I should add, it should give you a good inkling as to why I am the way I am. Or, at the very least, it should give you a nice chuckle.

For those of you who don’t know, my parents were hippies. Nerdly hippies, but hippies nonetheless. My older brother and I weren’t allowed to have guns of any sort and I wasn’t allowed to play with Barbies (there was something about “skewed body image in there). I imagine that he wasn’t allowed to play with Barbies either, but I never asked and I sorely doubt he’d have wanted to anyway.

Well, I loved princesses and makeup and dresses and diamonds and pink and sparkles.

My brother, well. Yeah.

So this is what happens when you ban things like that:

(I’m pretty sure they made me take off the tiara for the picture)

And then there was the time I was in a bar fight.

Or actually, I just insisted on dressing up my cat in baby clothes. That’s what you get when you dress up things with claws in baby clothes. (Hey, I never claimed to be smart.)

But let’s just go ahead and say it was “a bar brawl.” It sounds better that way.

So, this one time I was a Catholic School Girl. No really, I was.

And I have the ten-yard “fuck you stare to prove it.”

Look, I still have it:

That Hairy-Eyeball Death Stare has prevented SCADS of unwanted advice from well-meaning strangers over the years. Seriously, Pranksters (especially those of you with new babies) I suggest you develop one.

I’m pretty sure this is the second-best-picture on the planet.

See, I don’t know if I told you this story ever (I probably did because it’s awesome) but one time, when I was like twenty-three, my mother gifted my sister-in-law MATCHING sweatshirts that had cartoon cats on them. Cartoon cats lounging on stacks of books. It said, “Cats. Books. Life is good” or something like that.

Now, my sister-in-law and I aren’t like old cat people who wear cat sweatshirts. She buys $900 underwear and shops at Anthropologie and other boutique-y stores. Got love for cats, but neither of us wear shirts with, uh, cats on them. Or any such cartoon animals. So we got them and were like.

….

….

…

uh.

huh?

It was bizarre.

I hadn’t realized UNTIL TODAY that the Cats, Books, Life Is Good shirt wasn’t the FIRST time I’d been horrified by a Cuddly Animal Sweatshirt. Oh no. I must have been five in that picture. The look on my face says it all.

When I was born, my dad, brother and grandfather got into photography. And when I say to you, Pranksters, that someone in my family “got into something,” you might think, “oh, they probably bought a Polaroid camera and took some snapshots,” but you would be WRONG. There would be whole alters erected to your WRONGNESS.

Because the Sherricks, they do not get INTO things in a small way (see also: my orchids)(see also: https://mommywantsvodka.com). No, they get OBSESSED with them. Hobbies? We don’t need no stinkin’ HOBBIES.

I grew up with an actual working college-appropriate darkroom in my basement. We have every kind of camera lens, camera, tripod, camera bag, photo paper, film type, chemical, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

I’ve had a camera shoved into my face since the moment I emerged from the womb with “a face only a mother could love” my entire life documented endlessly for posterity. I cannot tell you how many pictures I’ve had taken. I could give Britney Spears a run for her money.

Which is why I look incredibly sullen in many of them.

Like, for example, this:

Because that? A BAG of JELLYBEANS HALLOWEEN COSTUME? That’s freaking awesome.

But the best picture I came across today was this.

Who the hell are those people (I can hear you through the computer, Pranksters)?

And THAT, Pranksters, is why I’m like this. Part eleventy-five.

Back in July or June or something (dates, like geography, punctuation, and fractions, are not my strong suit), I lost my pants. While you might think that’s not particularly notable because I seem to be the type of person who is always losing things like my wallet, my iPhone and my children, you’d be wrong.

See, I lost my pants in my house. Specifically, my bedroom.

Let’s be clear here, Pranksters. My bedroom isn’t particularly large or filled with dark, spooky crevices or haunted by gnomes or anything. I simply woke up one day, decided to forgo my typical “pants are bullshit” mantra for the afternoon and wear the only pair of pants that I owned (at the time). I was in the middle of my lose-the-baby-weight-crusade, which meant that I didn’t own more than one pair of pants. A missing pair of pants was a pretty big deal, indeed.

Understandably, I was a little upset. If for no other reason than it meant that if I didn’t find them, I had to go pants shopping again, something I enjoy about as much as a colonoscopy.

I made posters:

Sadly, even my crappy MISSING WHORE PANTS poster turned up nothing. I even went so far as to clean out my Magical Closet, which turned up several bags of loose diamonds* and a coupon for free pants (thanks, Gap!), but my whore pants remained recklessly in the breeze.

The Mysterious Case of Aunt Becky’s Magical Closet and Her Disappearing Whore Pants remains unsolved. The pants? They’d clearly taken off for greener, sexier, less flabby pastures. Probably the twinkly and exotic lights of Las Vegas.

I’m sure they’re happy, lovingly cradling the buttocks of someone else in some other, more glamorous locale like Detroit or Kathmandu. Besides, I comfort myself, I got a free pair of pants and some diamonds out of the whole deal. That’s kind of a win, right? RIGHT.

What I didn’t realize is that my asshole pants took something ELSE with them when they disappeared (no, not my sanity. That disappeared years ago).

My thyroid.

Apparently, my thyroid gland is lathered up in coconut oil, wearing a jaunty sombrero, sipping Mai-Tai’s on the shores of some remote beach somewhere while being fanned by a gigantic ficus branch, my missing whore pants nearby doing the Electric Slide, drunk on cheap tequila.

It’s unfortunate, really, because I don’t think that Gap sells replacement thyroid glands in sizes 2-14 and while I suppose I could search my Magic Closet, I’m fairly sure I won’t find an extra one there.

(pithy aside! When did Gap sizing become so deliciously…flattering? Seriously, now Pranksters. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Gap, but holy balls, I’ve never been so pleased to strap on a pair of pants in my life. Perhaps I should rethink my “pants are bullshit” stance to say, “sometimes pants are bullshit like when they say numbers that make me want to go on a killing spree or collapse into a puddle of The Sads.”)

I suppose that in the end, I should be pleased that it’s just my thyroid that’s gone missing in action and not something like my intestines or liver. You know, something irreplaceable.

Not like my brain or heart, both of which I’ve been living happily – cheerfully, even – without for years.

*a very long story

The last roadtrip I took was a “BBQ Tour of Memphis.” It may have had a snappier name, like, “Beef and Pork and Ribs, OH MY,” or “Let’s Call Into Work Fat” or something.

Either way, I earned my first nickname, “Leadfoot,” when I learned a little something about Southern Illinois: law enforcement has very little to do beyond design and execute elaborate speed-traps for people who like to drive over one hundred miles per hour on the highway. I also learned another fun fact: BBQ Spaghetti is, in fact, the least appealing food on the planet.

The More You Know, and all.

Consider that my blogging PSA for the year.

Anyway.

I didn’t design or execute that particular roadtrip but I did tag along. I jump at any excuse View Postto go to Memphis. That roadtrip, as I think of it, was the last time I remember feeling free. Life got pretty tough after that, and it’s been pretty tough (although not without it’s shiny points) ever since.

You can tell that I didn’t design that roadtrip, though, because it makes sense. Things I tend to design, well, they don’t. This is why I need a partner on my adventure.

Roadtrips I design have been as follows:

“Let’s go Down South to buy sunglasses.”

(“down south” is anywhere south of Chicago off I-47)

“Let’s take a bunch of left turns. Wherever we end up, that’s where Elvis will be. Or a natty pair of shades! Or that weird drink with the blobs floating in it.”

(Do you remember that drink? That shit was nasty)

“How about we go down to U of I Champaign/Urbana for some Chinese Food? By the time we get there, it should be morning and that Chinese place will be open!”

*shrugs* “We’ll know it when we get there. Let’s just GO.”

———-

I tend to lack common sense which is why I surround myself with people who DO have common sense so that I don’t decide to invest my life’s savings (read: five dollars) in Fry Daddies and Twinkies because *shrugs* “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

So that’s kind of why I figured that if I was going to, in fact, get in the car and drive around, I should probably meet up with you Pranksters. I mean, I’m sure there’s a significant number of you who will lead me into situations where I will be forced to yell, “SOMEBODY GET THIS FREAKING DUCK OUTTA HERE,” alternately, “WHERE THE HELL IS ALL THE DUCT TAPE AND WHY AM I NOT BEING SPOON-FED ORANGE SHERBET?” but most of you are probably smarter than me by a shocking margin.

I’m pretty upset that I still haven’t found a duck OR the proper WordPress Plugin to allow me to see where you guys are physically located (besides inside my computer). I assume, though, that if you’re anything like The Twitter, you’re mostly located in:

1) Texas

B) Kansas City

37) LA

Ba) My mind.

So, that should narrow it down until I get the plugin hacked and working properly. It also allows me to procure a laptop, make “arrangements,” download every song about ducks and roadtrips I can find as well as find a proper traveling companion. I assume, though, that by now I’ve scared off everyone who might have considered traveling with me.

Figures.

*sighs*

I wonder if I can program a duck to talk to me.

Also: what Mission should this roadtrip have? Like, do I collect snowglobes or guns or different cheesy shirts from each truck stop I visit or something? Or pictures of amazing, luscious mullets? The Roadtrip needs a name and a purpose.

Also; also: even if you’re not actually coming with, you’re virtually coming with because the computer is a magical box powered by gnomes and a trainwreck is always awesome to watch as it unfolds.

Before I get into the meat-n-butter of anything, I have to fling some confetti and bacon around. While the rest of the world was watching a very intoxicated James Franco (um, I’ll have what he’s having thankyouverymuch) on the Oscars last night, The 11th Annual Bloggie Winners were quietly announced.

Mommy Wants Vodka didn’t win. That? Was fine by me. Because Band Back Together did.

I’d started Mommy Wants Vodka in 2007 precisely because I’d so desperately craved the community I’d seen on other blogs and what I found was so much greater than I’d ever imagined. I’m the first person to mock blogging as narcissistic and self-absorbed but I’m also it’s number one fan. I’d totally wear a BLOGGING IS NUMBER ONE shirt while waving one of those NUMBER ONE fingers around in the air.

(mental note: pack NUMBER ONE finger for next conference)

Band Back Together represents all of the best bits of the blogging world: the community, the empathy, the story-telling, the feeling of same-ness, the support, the love and the compassion. A win for The Band is so much more important than anything else. Including bacon and sprinkles.

(I fully expect to be struck by a bolt of lightning from the bacon gods now)

So congrats and a big thank to everyone (and I do mean everyone. It’s not my site anymore. It belongs to The Band) who has worked to make the site what it is.

And watch out, World. The Band is just getting warmed up.

———-

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do next and I’ve realized that what I really need to do is to get some perspective. I need to blow the cobwebs and dust out of my brain and give my mind a chance to really wander.

It’s been so many years since I’ve really given myself a chance to do that. My choices have all been made with regard to the common good for so long that I don’t even know what I want anymore. I don’t even know how to begin to process what I want.

That means that I need to get out for a little bit. Live a little. Take a chance. Be brave; really brave. Do something different before I stagnate myself into actually believing that I do give a shit if my floors are clean enough to eat off of them.

I need to dust off my disco boots, fill my iPod until it’s bursting with new music, pack a bag and I need to go. I need to wander for awhile. Just me and the open road.

Someone mentioned in the comments that perhaps I wasn’t actually interested in self-publishing a book; that maybe I’d rather just take a “book tour” type of adventure, and I think that’s spot on. Shit, I’d love to write a book, but first, I’d rather know exactly what kind of book it is that I want to publish.

I need to go on an adventure, in search of My Happy. My Happy is out there somewhere, I know it. Perhaps it’s in a diner in New Mexico or a bar in Arizona or on a deserted street in Louisiana. I simply don’t know. But I intend to find out.

I’m tired of waking up and feeling bored by the drudgery of daily life. I’m tired of waiting for things to happen. I’m tired of praying that I’ll find my way; hoping that I’ll see a sign somewhere in the tea leaves. It’s time to make my OWN way.

It’s time find My Happy.

————–

I don’t have any timetable or route or any of those other “details” worked out yet. Hell, I still a laptop (and possibly a car) and a real, live companion to make this happen. In fact, I spent quite awhile convinced that Kansas City was actually a state (it is not a state)(nor is Las Vegas).

But I wanted to know where-ish you guys lived. Because if I’m taking a trip, it’s to visit with my Pranksters. You know how I’m always threatening to show up at your house drunk and warble “God Saves The Queen?” The time for that is soon.