Now admit it, Internet, you thought one of two things when you saw this picture of me in my Emo Glasses.

Either you looked frantically around for the red and white striped sweater and stupid beanie penis-shaped hat.

OR.

You expected the picture to come to life and pull out a guitar from some behind the bookcase and a hidden book of beat poetry. Then you expected it to sing a song about feelings, comparing feelings to a) flowers b) colors c) something completely incongruent, like ketchup.

Whatever you expected, there you have it. A picture of me, circa 2005, taken by this adorable moppet:

with a camera that had seen it’s better days. We returned from our honeymoon, only to download the pictures and notice that it appeared as though the lens had been smeared thickly with Vasoline for every. single. shot we’d taken.

Even the one like this:

showcasing both my awesome cornrows and my floppy, saggy boobies (it actually was the dress)(like I would lie about that)(seriously, I would tell you about my pooper and lie about my saggy boobies? As if.) that appears to have been taken underwater.

(and I realize that I look mighty dour to be on my honeymoon in beautiful St. Lucia, but I wasn’t unhappy, just very, very ill. Like, I should have stayed at home in bed ill. Plenty of sleep and antibiotics when you’re dead, right?)(right)

And I’ll round out an entry about absolutely nothing with a shot of my daughter, whom I alternately call “Doctor Love” or “Twinkle Toes.” Okay, now that is a total lie, because I call her “Goo” but that’s okay because she’s wearing shoes that I would give my left testicle for if I had such a thing:

Dear Shoe Manufacturers,

Please make shoes like this in my size.

And for shits and giggles and to present further proof that I am not only certifiable but also nuts, there is this,

My cat among the orchids.

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And let me congratulate my friend, Mrs. Soup (that stinking hippie who took me to see Dave Matthews Band) for winning the contest, Aunt Becky Travels The World And Does Stuff!

In second place, I have Aunt Becky Does the Dirty South from my friend Amy D!

And in third, NOBODY puts Aunt Becky in a Corner! (now, more fitting than ever).

Winners, please send me your addresses to becky@dwink.net.

Hooray!

Today, my column over at Toy With Me airs over there, and I’m talking about The Undercarriage. If that’s not PC enough for you and you’re not feeling the raunch, I will present to you an oldie, but a goodie down below (pun actually, for once, not intended).

If you are, I’d be much appreciative if you’d swing on by and visit me at my new home away from home. I’m still feeling a little insecure because, obviously.

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If I have subscribed to your blog in that Google Friend Connect Doo-hicky Whodilly Thing, I hate to inform you of this, but it’s probably not working. Especially if I haven’t been back in WEEKS and you’ve posted. So, if you’d be kind enough to leave a comment here, I’ll add you PROPERLY to my reader.

Stupid reader drama messin’ with my doggy style.

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Also, today is the last day to vote in my contest so be sure to cast your vote for your favorite “Aunt Becky Travels The World And Does Stuff.”

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Some time in 2004 right before nursing school started for me again, I went to the eye doctor, with, among other things (like the ever-popular glaucoma test), the intent of getting a new pair of glasses. While in 3rd grade, getting new glasses was totally Full Of The Awesome, much like my spatter paint scruntchie* (complete with matching oversized shirt!!), it kind of loses it’s luster after 20 odd years.

I went alone because, well, it’s boring and dull and I can totally drive after they dilate your eyes because I’ve been doing it since Jesus was my classmate and I rode a dinosaur to school while wearing my hyper-color t-shirt.

Given the choice to come back at a more suitable time, let’s say, oh I don’t know, maybe when I could have actually read something that wasn’t on the floor or twenty plus feet away from me, I opted for the Wrong Way.

Two paths lay before me and I chose the one WRONG TRAVELED.

Door Number WRONG.

Oh yes. I decided to pick out a pair of glasses while my eyes were dilated. Alone.

They looked pretty cute on, I was completely convinced, my hazy recollection being one of looking extra-specially adorable, with the slightest touch of studiousness. I marched up to the surly cashier lady, ordered them happily, pink tint to the lens, per usual (cue rose colored glasses jokes now) and went back a week later to collect them.

I walked jauntily into the store, sat down at the counter and gave them my last name.

I waited a couple of minutes, marveling all of the ugly glasses that the store carried. We had the Iranian Taxi Driver Glasses, made so popular by white men with handlebar mustaches in the late 70’s/early 80’s (my father himself favored them).

Then there was the rack of the HUGE late 80’s/early 90’s school marm hexagonal pink glasses made famous by Sally Jesse Rafael and worn by women and children for long enough to be immortalized in many a class picture. I mused about how fortunate I’d been to escape that trend somehow.

I laughed to myself, chuckling about how my taste was eversomuch better than other patrons, congratulating myself HEARTILY for my awesome choices in glasses.

The smiling clerk returned after digging through a large bin of new glasses and handed me my prize. I greedily opened the package, hardly glancing at the frames before shoving them onto my face.

I looked eagerly into the strategically placed mirror and my happy, expectant look was quickly replaced by one of horror. The big black plastic frames, the angular edges, the thick frames all winked merrily, reflecting the sodium lights above me.

They carefully, thoughtfully, emotionally reflected one gigantic loser.

I had accidentally bought EMO GLASSES! How, oh HOW did I buy EMO GLASSES? These were popular among the whiny college rock bands who sing deep and meaningful songs about deep and meaningful feelings and EMOtions. These were things that I not only openly mocked, but things I openly mocked OFTEN.

“Oh no,” I whispered to no one in particular. “How did I do this?”

Now I had to WEAR EMO GLASSES! IN PUBLIC!

I shuffled away, tail between my legs back to show my (now) husband/then-boyfriend who was happily scarfing down a couple of bagels at Panera.

His eyes widened like saucers as I approached, whether is was my dirge-like march or the glasses now adorning my face and I slid into the booth across from him. Being the terrible liar that he is when I asked what he thought, he said diplomatically, “They’re…nice.” But his eyes told me the truth.

I looked like Lisa Loeb.

Possibly Waldo.

Well, I told myself as I bit off a chunk of his bagel and chewed bitterly, at least they finally fucking found Waldo.

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*If spattter paint shirts come back into fashion please, PLEASE put me out of my misery. PLEASE, Internet?

Now, you’re saying, Internet, because you are not only devastatingly handsome but ALSO witty and brilliant, which hardly seems fair, Aunt Becky, you haven’t had a good breakup in years. And you’d be right.

Sort of.

You see, I’ve been suffering in silence, my friends in the computer, not wanting to spill my pain onto your pixilated screen until I was ready to fully admit the truth to myself. Always the hardest to admit these things to yourself.

But it’s time. Brace yourselves.

I, (deep breath) have broken up with my old friend, my old BEST friend, my standby delicious zero-calorie nectar of the gods soft drink, Diet Coke.

I know. I KNOW.

Be still my heart, for it still flippity-flops in my chest so when I think of it.

While The Daver performs a merry victory dance on the grave of our failed relationship I am stuck screaming at the universe, flailing my hands at the heavens screaming “WHY GOD?” at the sky to no avail. No one hears my cries. No one responds.

And I am alone. Utterly alone.

Surrounded by my three children, loving (disease-man-cold-ridden) husband, two dogs, two cats, bunny and 57 orchids yet completely alone. I cry.

Alone.

My heart is black. Like my coffee. (except my coffee has skim milk and equal. well, fake equal, but black sounded better, like more dramatic and stuff)

And I am alone. Heartbroken.

So good-bye, sweet friend. I will always, always *sniff* love you. I am so, so sorry that the wretched beast Topamax has come between us, making your sweet caramel colored deliciousness taste remarkably like battery acid.

Now go, JUST GO. GO BE WITH SOME OTHER WOMAN (or sassy man) WHO WILL LOVE, HONOR AND CHERISH YOU like I am no longer able to.

1) Elvis, “Always On My Mind.”

Now, my parents let me teethe on “The Wall” and The Dead, so it goes without saying that we rarely listened to Elvis in my household growing up. But once I heard him on the oldies station, I was hooked. The first trip that The Daver and I took was down to Memphis, actually, and we fully intend to go back with the crotch parasites once they’re old enough to not make us insane in the car.

Anyway.

When he sings, “Maybe I didn’t love you quite as often as I could have,” I get shivers and then he crescendos into “You were always on my mind” and the tears start. They never really erupt into full-blown sobs, but the lump in my throat persists.

Because who hasn’t taken someone they love for granted?

(mental note: tell The Daver I love him)

Hey, The Daver, I love you.

2) Elvis Costello, “Good Year For The Roses.”

I never really got into Elvis Costello when all of the emo kids did, probably because I was never really emo. Although, under the spell of some particularly strong dilating solution, I did pick out–and woefully purchase–some emo glasses. The other group of people who were into Mr. Costello were the Really Smart People; a club that I am clearly not a member of.

I don’t remember the first time I heard it, but I remember feeling like the air had been sucked out of the room when he sang, “But at least you thought you wanted it, that’s so much more than I can say for me.”

If you’ve ever been in a committed relationship where someone else broke that commitment (one way or another) those simple looking words, really just drive that home. The song is heartbreaking, if you’ve been there, or if you imagine you’ve been there, and it’s worth a download or a listen.

ALSO, if you have roses? You can do like I do and casually remark to your spouse, “Hey, it’s a good year for the roses.” And then snicker.

I am a very Simple Person.

3) The Cure, “Pictures of You.”

Say what you will about the goths, but they certainly know how to feel things (wait, isn’t that a staple of the emo kids too? WAIT, ARE THE EMO KIDS AND GOTH KIDS THE SAME? I am so confused)(and obviously ill-informed) and no one knows how to feel things and sing about them then Robert Smith of The Cure.

Well before you had Twilight, you had this, “You were stone white, so delicate, lost in the cold, you were always so lost in the dark,” and you just knew he meant it. It even made someone as un-goth as me kind of yearn to shop at Hot Topic.

For a second.

But the song is haunting and it’s true and it’s absolutely a great breakup song.

4) Guns ‘n’ Roses “November Rain.”

Now it will either come as a dreadful shock or explain EVERYTHING when I share with you that most of my dearest friends are metal heads. Hair metal, especially the more commercial stuff, is the stuff I cut my proverbial milk teeth on and listening to it is like being transported back to high school.

While I never had big hair (I am a child of the 90’s), and the 80’s were something that saw me in grades measured in the single digits, in high school, we listened to hair metal like we’d discovered it ourselves. Which, we had. I even moonlighted occasionally on my friend Scottie’s metal radio show–Midnight Metal Madness.

I do feel I must tell you that I never actually listened to November Rain while mourning a break-up, but knowing that I could have is good enough for me. In fact, what I did sob post-break up while listening to were both Don’t Cry 1 AND Don’t Cry 2, but November Rain has such a fucking awesome guitar solo (marry me, Slash?) that I cannot ignore it.

5) Damien Rice, “Delicate”

This song is pretty much the opposite of hair metal in every way you can imagine: it’s like a guy in a coffee house singing the hell out a song and it’s good because you know he means the shit out of it. He’s kind of Jeff Buckley-ish but Irish. And, um, alive.

I think this song is probably best to listen to if you’re feeling especially duped by someone. Toward the end he climaxes (cue Bevis-like laughter) with this:

“And why’d you fill my sorrows
With the words you’ve borrowed
From the only place that you’ve known
Why’d you sing Hallelujah
If it means nothing to you”

And it’s perfect.

It’s worth a listen.

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Your turn, Internet. Breakup songs. I want your favorites.

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Be sure to cast your vote for your favorite entry in “Aunt Becky Travels The World And Does Stuff.”

Voting ends on the 15th of September.

Since I am always wondering whether or not I should join the ranks of blogging, I am wondering how you figure out what your boundaries are as far as what you allow yourself to blog about?

I just cant figure it all out? be myself, kids with real names or not, pictures of kids or no, etc etc….. everytime I think yes I am going to do it, I get hung up in the details and am too afraid to start.

Hm, blogging, good question.

There are, of course, a ton of different opinions when it comes to blogging, because what would life be like without a zillion different people all claiming to be Know What’s Right? (answer: boring)

Anyway.

So, on the one end of the spectrum, you have the people who feel that absolutely under no circumstances whatsoever should one put out on The Internet stories and/or pictures about your family. Why, there could be a Pervert looking! Or a Child Molester! Or Your Mother-In-Law!

They have a point: one cannot, even with a password protected blog, control who reads what they write.

Then you have the people who make up nicknames for their children and spouse, and often blur out their faces, so as to be as anonymous as one can be on The Internet (which we all know is never completely anonymous). I know a lot of people who go this route and mostly, especially in the cases of using initials rather than actual nicknames I get confused and click away.

(also, any variation of “Hubs” or DH is slightly more saccharine than necessary)

My brain is raisin-sized on a good day, and I am not about to fill it clear up trying to remember if FJ is Son #1 or Son #2 because life is too short. So my advice for anyone who wants to go this route: please, PLEASE give your kid a fake NAME. A REAL fake name. I can remember a name. Initials I cannot.

After this, you have the people like me, who use their real name, but don’t include everything about their life. Yes, you know my name because I am NOT clever enough to come up with a pseudonym and I do not believe that I am not interesting enough to warrant one. I find the cloak-and-dagger stuff a little silly, so I don’t bother.

BUT I SEE WHY OTHER PEOPLE DO.

I often do include pictures of my children, although not with every post and I do not blog exhaustively about them. Because, while I find them endlessly entertaining, they are just like any other child and I don’t think that their every syllable deserves a post. I, on the other hand, am ENDLESSLY fascinating.

(that was a joke)

So my advice to you, o! aspiring blogger is this: you must blog for the only person that matters: you. Because I have been at this for many years and am still waiting on both fame AND the legions of screaming teenage girls.

Whatever you do, make sure that you are absolutely comfortable with whatever it is that you do, prepared to own your words at any cost, because you never know whose eyeballs they will wind up in front of.

I hope, Gentle Reader, that this helps,

Love,

Aunt Becky

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All right, The Internet, dish. I want your take on this.

Throw your questions at me for next week’s round of Ask Aunt Becky. I’m getting some sweet ass questions that I can actually answer. Shocking, I know!

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Be sure to cast your vote for your favorite entry in “Aunt Becky Travels The World And Does Stuff.”

Voting ends on the 15th of September.

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I have been nominated for a couple of awards, two on my sidebar at the top and one here. They do both annoyingly require registration, but if you’d be inclined, I’d be thrilled.

Seriously, thank you to all who voted. I owe you deep tongue kisses. Or vodka. OR ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Why NO, I didn’t make that cuppy-cake. Of course I did not. Because if I had, it would not have been a) symmetrical or 2) frosting-ed. I am many, many things, none of which springs to mind is “aesthetically oriented.”

But that picture is important, not because it clearly shows my bully-ness as I am taunting my son with a cuppy-cake, because not two seconds after this shot, I gave him the delicious slice ‘o’ heaven, but because it fully solidifies that he is my son.

Historically, Alex has eschewed anything cake-related in favor of gnawing on, well, anything else, including, but not limited to edamame and well, lately, air. But now, NOW he sees that cake is next to godliness and occasionally allows me to ply him with sugary, springy goodness.

Anyway.

I was going to come here and whine to you about my My Grains. Give you a list of my symptoms and complain bitterly about what a pain in the pooper it is to find a cure for something that could be caused by, well, anything.

It would have been a rousing, self-serving, irritating post, full of long-winded descriptions of each of my symptoms, along with their possible causes, the likes of which, along with discussions of my recent colonoscopies are better suited for Thanksgiving Dinner Table Discussions (don’t all clamor to thank me at once, those of you who will, no doubt, be stuck with me at Thanksgiving).

I decided against it.

It served no purpose, this post I’d half written, other than to prune down my readership and annoy me later when I realized what a sniveling baby I was being. I have nasty migraines and they suck and 50 million red fire ants don’t give a shit.

So today, armed with my Topamax and Vicodin (which, squee!), I am going on a mission. No, thankfully not Mission: Manband.

I am dragging The Daver out to make a care package for my friend Heather, who is pregnant and sick as fuck. You, of course, know Heather and Maddie and Mike and Binky. If you do not, I’ll give you a moment to go and catch up and come back.

HEATHER, GO AWAY NOW AND EAT SOME MASHED POTATOES OR DORITOS OR SOMETHING.

I MEAN IT, HEATHER.

So, I want to make a care package for Heather, not really for Binky, because Heather is the sick one. I’ll make Binky one once my niece or nephew makes his or her debut, but this time, I want to make something for Heather.

Any ideas, Internet?

First, I am sunning myself with an old, navel-grazing post of mine over here today:

Because why aim high, when you can aim low?

(that is not a trick question)

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Second, don’t forget to vote for your favorite entry in Aunt Becky Travel’s The World, Making Mischief.

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Be sure to submit your rockin’ questions to Go Ask Aunt Becky because, obviously.

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And lastly, the dorkiest post, well, ever.

Like any addict, I’m not really sure when it started, although I seem to remember it first after Amelia was born. Besides sticks of butter and cupcakes, one of the few things that would comfort me were cut flowers. Every week, as I dutifully churned out batch after ever-loving batch of white cupcakes, I’d go to the store and buy myself flowers.

A vase of fresh flowers cheered me up in a way that only Vicodin normally could.

At some point, my cheap-ass nature won out and I realized that for the same $20 a week, I could buy a real! live! plant! that I could keep for longer than 5 days. Midwestern winters are notoriously brutal, and seeing even the slightest sign of plant life is welcome.

(my front yard is so over-landscaped that I genuinely cannot find anywhere to stick tulip bulbs)

In that manner, my first orchid was bought.

Because he is a good, kind man, The Daver didn’t point out, as he sat among the cats, dogs, bunny and kids, that I needed something else to take care of like I needed a hole in my head.

Nor does he gently mock me like he could when he comes home from work to find another couple of plants sitting in the sink or sunning themselves merrily on the printer. Although that may be a product of his inability to notice anything other than unopened cans of cheese-whiz or his Linux box.

He shares my love of plant life in the same way I share his love for gadgets, which is to say, not at all. Of all the things I could get into, especially with the streak of alcoholism that runs a mile wide running rampant in my genetic code, this is probably the most healthy.

Unlike the alcoholic gene, though, I do seem to have inherited some of my father’s *ahem* OCD tendencies. Because if one orchid is good, ten is better, right? RIGHT?!?

(shockingly, I am the same way about plants as I am about soap. Did you see that movie with Jack Nicholson, “As Good As It Gets?” When he opens his medicine cabinet and it’s stocked with like 25 of the same bars of soap I nodded appreciatively while everyone else laughed. Someone had to explain the joke which, I should add, I still don’t find funny.) (probably because it is NOT funny)

Slowly but surely, I’ve added to my collection, quickly outgrowing the small Southern facing window by my computer. I’ve begun researching the different diseases, had to treat a few, and started collecting different types. While I am afraid of vaginas, and orchids look remarkably like vaginas, I seem to be fascinated by studying them. The orchids, not the vaginas, you pervies. Freud would, no doubt, have a field day with that.

(Freud can also kiss my lily white butt)

As the orchids in various stages of life slowly creep outwards, spilling off the table and onto other surfaces, I’m starting to feel like I’m doomed to be a crazy cat hoarder, except without the cats. I guess when I die alone in my apartment, the orchids, unlike the cats, won’t eat my face. Thank God, I suppose, for small favors.

My youngest son seems to have inherited my love of flowers which makes me completely appreciate how a parent could push a colorblind kid to paint just like mom did, because man, does that feel cool to be like, “ALEX likes flowers TOO!” Hearing him shriek indignantly, “Come ON Mom, socks and shoes ON” when he hears me mention “greenhouse,” because he’s that jazzed to go see flowers gives me a huge sense of pride.

So at the greenhouse, after we examined the koi fish, which were deemed “cooool” I asked the greenhouse guy about some special moss that I was specifically looking for, and he claimed ignorance of such a thing. While he showed me what might have been reasonable substitutes for some, I declined his offer, preferring to drive my fat white butt (with cranky toddler in tow) across town.

He laughed, saying something like, “yeah, this probably wouldn’t work for someone who names their orchids,” like those-crazy-assholes. I sputtered out a “heh-heh” and ran away as quickly as possible before he realized that I was thisclose to naming my plants after my television ex-husbands.

On our anniversary, after scoring a prescription for both Topamax and Vicodin for my My Grains, I’d requested a quick stop to pick up a new orchid. (shut UP) But, not being totally in season, there were no orchids to be had (there were, however mini-roses! SCORE!). Really, buoyed by the ever-hopefulness–followed by the inevitable letdown–that a new prescription brings, I was okay with this.

But, The Daver, he suggested that take a trip to a nearby orchid greenhouse. That’s right, 4 acres of swinging orchid awesomeness.

(shut UP)

And as I roamed the aisles, sweaty and smelly, happily picking up new species to try my hand at growing destroy what is left of my window space, while contemplating how to make it to an event that I will affectionately call Orchid Stock*(certain to be filled with little old ladies), I realized that the greenhouse guy wasn’t that off base.

It’s time to find some new television husbands to divorce.

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*I am not kidding**

**Want to go with me?***

***No, seriously, please? I’m pretty sure I’d get launched from the car like a particularly chubby missile if I tried to trick my family into going with me.

(The Daver was cunning in his ruthless choice of wedding dates. While my birthday falls smack dab in the middle of nothing (but IS, my French Friends, the day AFTER Bastille Day), Dave’s birthday is the kickoff of Dave’s Days. With the notable exception of the 9th, it’s a three-day Lovestock with my husband as the central star. Can you blame him?)

When I was a kid, I never imagined myself as a bride. Always one for sparkles, diamonds, flowing rivers of pink taffeta, as an adult, this shocks me that I didn’t have–or petition for–a mini-bridal dress. Although, now that I’m thinking about it, my mother may have banned that as she banned Barbies and guns*.

My parents are still happily married (or gently resigned to each other) so I wasn’t jaded by the stress of divorce, marriage and Being A Bride wasn’t on my radar. Being a ninja was, but not a bride.

After Ben was born, although I’d been briefly engaged to his father, I still never thought that I would get married. I figured that I was slotted walk the world as a single mother, and while I frequently wondered where I was going to get the male perspective to teach my son how to Be A Dude, finding a husband wasn’t something I thought I would do.

Until I met The Daver.

You know that annoying thing that married people say to single people where they’re all, “I knew it when I found him?” It’s bloody irritating to hear when you’re single because not only is it entirely cliched, it’s self-serving and obnoxious (hey, kind of like me!).

I knew it when I found him. Dave was The One. Like it or not, we were going to be together for a long, long, unbearably long time. Some day, I will write up Our Story, and The Internet can barf at it, because I totally would.

6 years we’ve been together, 4 of them married. It feels like 60.

I look back at pictures of when we were first married, before Alex was born and nearly destroyed me. Before Amelia was here. And we look so young. Happy and young.

It’s been a hell of a couple of years and I’m not sure I’m saying that with a smile or just as fact: it’s been a hell of a couple years. But somehow in the chaos and the uncertainty, in all of that, we’re still here and we’re still happy. Not as young as we were, but happy.

For our forth anniversary of wedded bliss, I got a power washer. And an orchid. I know this because I bought them myself. Because after 4 years, I’ve learned my lesson. I’d buy myself a card if that wasn’t just kind of weird and pointless. I mean, would I sign it myself, too?

(answer: probably)

I used to think that the measure of a good relationship would be wanting to be a better person because of that person. I don’t believe that anymore. Now, I know that the measure of a good relationship is being a better person because of it. And I am.

The Daver, he makes me a better person.

We’re like Bert and Ernie. Cheese and Macaroni. Peanut Butter and Jelly. Mr. Wilson and Dennis the Menace (I will let you GUESS who I am).

Happy 4th, The Daver.

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

–ee cummings, “somewhere i have never traveled”

(anyone else humming “Jungle Fever” now?)

*I am not kidding.

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Be sure to cast your vote for your favorite entry in “Aunt Becky Travels The World And Does Stuff.”

“This is no longer a vacation. It’s a quest, a quest for fun. I’m gonna have fun and your gonna have fun. We’re gonna have so much fucking fun they’re gonna need plastic surgeons to remove the smiles from our fucking faces. We’ll be whistling zippity-doo-dah out of our ass holes!”

–National Lampoon’s Vacation.

So here it is. The moment you’ve all been patiently waiting for. Or not. The entries for Aunt Becky’s Travels The World And Does Stuff are below, and numbered. Vote for your favorite, tell nay beg your readers, your Twitter people, your family and friends, whomever you can con into voting for you to vote for you so that you can win a gigantic bag of BlogHer swag!

Voting will last for one week, and on September 15, at 11:59 PM, will dramatically cease. If all goes well (read: I can figure out the results without a Gideon’s Bible, a stack of tequila and a bottle of uppers), and it should, the winner, along with several runners-up shall be announced on September 16.

The entries are numbered in (presumably, but one can never be sure) the correct order and a poll is nicely embedded at the bottom. Choose your favorite and vote for their number. Please, don’t vote more than once per person because that would be cheating and no one likes a cheater. Unless the cheater SHARES.

Good night and good luck.

1) First, I tackled Florida, because I was in dire need of some R and R. Too many Sausages, not enough sleep. Sadly, my pasty white butt did NOT tan.

2) Then, because I am a highly skilled nurse, I examined and cared for a wee puppy. I might have gotten a little misty at the cute overload.

3) Then I traveled to Canada, land of hockey and, hm, nice people? where a small girl named Munchkin played a game with me. And Aunt Becky smiled when she realized the small girl could not read. Aunt Becky is not, of course, intended for small children. Or people with heart conditions. Please consult a doctor if you have an erection lasting longer than 4 hours.

4) As further evidence of my R-rating, I offer you proof of my debauchery with my girl Beautiful Mess. Aww YEAH!

5) Aunt Becky returned to her PG roots with a couple of dinosaurs and some Storm Troopers. And of course, some cuddly kittahs. DO NOT EAT THE KITTAHS.

6) After nearly being eaten by dinosaurs and ATTACK KITTAHS, Aunt Becky traveled to a land of bobble-headed kids–not unlike her own–and rednecks.

7) Having been a Damn Yankee (a word, I should tell you, that online Scrabble does NOT recognize because it is an assbag), for most of her life, Aunt Becky had never been to The Dirty South to meet Cardboard Brad. Until, of course, NOW.

8 ) And then, Aunt Becky needed to work through the injuries sustained on Amy’s watch, so she went up North and went Skidoo-ing.

Which, of course, we all know is good for healing. Because, obviously.

9) Then off to Canada for some soccer balls, condoms and tampons, Aunt Becky traveled.

10) Knowing that Her Aunt Becky adores Dolly Parton, Aunt Becky was taken to Dollywood. Squee!!

11) Then, it was time for some vodka and ribbons. And it was goood.

12) In a stunning fit of Awesomeness, I took my favorite food group, besides butter, and turned myself into it: Stuff on Sticks.

13) And nothing screams “Aunt Becky” like road- tripping it to Iowa. I turned into The Other White Meat.

Mmmm, porky.

14) After all that fried food, I figured a good fight might help me digest the food. My ass, it was kicked.

15) In a stunning fit of the utmost drunkenness, I was seduced and had a foursome with an old friend. We invited Ben AND Jerry. And maybe some ice cream and romance novels. And fish food.

In Part Number B I wondered: why do waste management centers always smell like poo and farts?

16) Then she learned to play the ukulele (also: need to learn to spell that properly), cuddled a fussy baby, and then was placed in mortal peril. OH NOES!

Aunt Becky was cornholed before hitching a ride on a monkey’s ass, and eventually hoofed it back to safety on a moose’s toe.

It. Was. Rad.

17) After being so violated, Aunt Becky decided that the best course of action was to go back and get re-socialized at preschool.

Start at the beginning, right?

18) It worked, for awhile. Then, she was part of an encased meats sculpture. We all know that “Aunt Becky” is synonymous with “encased meats.” And maybe “Lipator.”

19) Other things that Aunt Becky both loves and requires include toilets and boobie beer steins.

Welcome to Germany! Aww, YEAH! Pass the beer. AND the boobies!

20) Then, in a supreme effort of defiance, screamed “NOBODY PUTS AUNT BECKY IN A CORNER!” But after that, she held a friend’s hand as she went into her PET scan. HELLS YEAH TO REMISSION, BABY!

And I SWEAR your husband and I were just talking!

21) After that, I went to hang with my East Coast bitches, where I flung poo at small children (wouldn’t you?) and drank copious amounts of tequila. I’m starting to think I’m going to have a hell of a time detoxing after this is all over.

22) Where else would a wanna-be microbiologist go but to a lab to grow some bacteria. Oh, and play with some wicked cool weapons. Rock. Music. Fucking scientists are awesome.

23) Down to the land of Florida, my business card traveled to Take Aunt Becky To Work Day RJ Flamingo. Watch as I get rowdy, Xerox my own ass, drink some mighty fine coffee and wish like hell I lived down there.

24) Swallowing my hatred for DMB groupies, I went with Mrs. and Mr. Soup to a Dave Matthews Band concert. While I groaned and complained about it, we had a freaking BLAST. Cool Ranch Doritos and hot groupies are Where It’s At.

25) After a quick bath in bleach to rid myself of the Pachulli from those damn hippies, I drown my sorrows in tequila. LOTS of tequila. Which we all know gets us all fucked up. I’d tell you more, but then I’d have to kill you.

26) Then, I pimped a friend’s Escalade by being in the car with her after we baked *wink, wink* cupcakes. It was hot. She tried to make me go to rehab and I said, no, no, no.

27) I annoy babies. Obviously.

28) We can only hope that I make people–especially awesome babies— poo rainbows. Because that would RULE.

[poll id=”2″]

Good luck. And good night. Yo.

Dear The Daver,

Sometime this spring, in March or April, I don’t remember and I’m WAY too lazy to go back into my archives and check (I know you’d appreciate this because your roving sock colony has made it everywhere in the house EXCEPT down the laundry chute. In Casa de la Sausage, Laziness Abounds)(Also Abounding: Bad Attitudes and Penises)(Penii?), when either I was waiting on the pathology report from my cervix or the pathology report from my mother’s biopsy, I turned to you and said wearily,

“Is this what life is? Is it one non-stop shit-storm after another?” I may or may not have cried then, depending upon how wrung out I was feeling.

I was genuinely asking you, not whining (as I usually am) and hoping that my irritating voice would lead you to break down and buy me a new Coach purse. Thankfully, you saw that I was serious, looked me in the eye and said simply, “I don’t know.”

Then we laughed, one of those mirthless laughs that don’t come with any real humor because there comes a point when all you really can do is laugh. Or have a nervous breakdown. But laughter is a hell of a lot more efficient than having to go through the whole locked ward, Nurse Ratched thing.

Not to be all maudlin today–although “maudlin,” like “cacophony,” is a word I must use more–because I don’t mean it that way, but more like, well, holy shit, we fucking made it. I think this, if nothing else, warrants a Wayne’s World-esque headbanging session to “Don’t Stop Believing” or “Sky Rockets At Night (Afternoon Delight).” And then maybe a celebratory drink or 31.

Because we did, it, Baby, another whole year around the sun, you and me and the kids and the dogs and the cats and the bunny and it’s done. And while there were times when I thought that I couldn’t breathe with the blackness and pressure and fear of it all, the one thing in this whole crazy mixed up year, the one thing that I can say is this: in all the darkness, I could always see you.

The world could fall around us and you and I would stand there, amidst the rubble, gripping hands like life-vests, grimly picking up the pieces and occasionally laughing at something. In our darkest hours, we have each other.

I remember sitting in the cafeteria of the hospital the day after Amelia’s brain surgery, just the two of us, as she slept in her PICU bed. Exhausted but happy, we sat quietly and ate our breakfast.

At some point, I noticed that they were playing “Smoove Jazz” on the radio, you know, the crazy cornball crap, and I turned to you, started dancing like the guys from SNL, and said, “You know, this is the sort of song that gets a girl in the moooooood.” What sort of mood, I did not specify, but I don’t think it matters.

We both cracked up. We laughed and laughed and laughed. We laughed until we cried, both of us spurting tears out and they rolled down our face onto our shirts. We laughed until people around us openly started, wondering if we’d somehow escaped The Locked Ward, and we didn’t care.

Finally, we caught our breath and you looked at me and said, “God, it felt good to laugh. To REALLY laugh again.” And we did and it did and we do and we will.

Happy Birthday, love of my life. I’d hope for a less wild year, but I think if it were, we’d be living someone else’s life.

Sitting there in your pajamas & all the time in the world & if I could keep any moment it would be this: watching you & holding my breath with the wonder of it all. (The Story People)

Happy Birthday, Dave. Without you, none of us would be here.

—————–

Deadline for entry into my contest to give away all my BlogHer swag is September 8th, tonight, by midnight, CST. If it’s in my inbox by that time, we’re all good. I’ll get all of the entries up at some point today and voting will begin tomorrow!

My second column is up here today, so if you’re so inclined, check it out.

Also, if you would like, I have been nominated for a couple of awards, two on my sidebar at the top and one here. They do both annoyingly require registration, but if you’d be inclined to cut a bitch vote for me, I’d be tickled pink.

I figure that while most of the world will be off barbecuing delicious encased meats and getting sloppy on cheap beer, my spam bots will be bored and lonesome. So for you, my spam bot friends, I provide this gratuitous Mimi shot.

She always looks horrified by life when I get the camera out. Maybe I smell bad.

Then there’s this that Alex picked out in our not-so-subtle-you-need-to-think-about-getting-out-of-diapers way.

So far, all we’ve managed to do is to scare the hell out of him.

(any good potty training wisdom out there?)

All that I DO know is that I really think that I need to install something that cheers for me after I take a crap. That would be AWESOME.

Mimi says (and I quote), “Peace out, my bitches.”

I don’t know where the fuck she learned to swear like that.