Just Breathe...and Notice

Like, TOTALLY failed

My plan to post everyday has not gone well. 

And yes, I blame you.  Yes, you.  Where are my topics?!?!?

Because I have so much time to fritter away, instead of bettering myself and/or the world around me (or hell, even doing the laundry), I drew you this (it's the 80's version of me):

 

You're welcome.

This is not, like, a total non-sequitur because there will be an 80's party this weekend.  Not because it's my birthday or anything.  Just because it seemed like a totally radical thing to do on a Saturday night.  You, like, know?

I have a love/hate relationship with the 80's (don't we all?!?).  On one hand, it was high-school -- and high school sucked.  I was the kid who manage to make myself look more like a dork with each passing day -- and just when I thought I couldn't be any MORE of a geek, I managed to miss the bus on the way home from a field trip. 

This in an of itself would not have been all bad, except for the part where the police officer offered to catch the school bus for me.  And, by catch, he meant chasing it down the Palisade's Parkway -- with full lights and sirens.  Nothing spells "no chance of a prom date*" like stepping out of the cop car and onto a bus of teenager tormentors who are laughing and yelling Blitz (the moniker that stayed with me until after I graduated). 

Did I mention I was wearing clown make-up while this was happening?  And that I wound up in the ER that night because the cop ran over my foot as he sped away sputtering with laughter? 

I only wish I were kidding -- or even exaggerating a bit.

This is basically how the 80's went down for me.  It was one big social gaffau -- I was teased, tormented, and humiliated on a daily basis.  All while wearing lots of synthetic fabrics in fluorescent colors.  You know, so as not to draw any MORE attention to myself.

But still -- it was the EIGHTIES!!  And at (almost!) 40, there's nothing more fun then sitting around trying to convince your girlfriends that your clothes and hair were, LIKE, totally more horrifying than theirs.  And comparing how many cans of Rave hairspray you used a week.  And taking about our crushes on Ricky Schroder and Scot Baio.  My favorite 80's daydream?  I was a back-up singer for Stevie Nicks and engaged to Scott Baio.  Planning our wedding around my touring schedule was no easy task -- it took a full-semester's worth of algebra class to work out all the details.

The 80's also had wine coolers.  God-bless Bartles and James -- I got drunk for the first time on some awful peach-flavored concoction.  I'm still a little hung-over from that night.

And the music.  OMG -- the music!!  Sting, Madonna, Guns and Roses, Bon Jovi, B-52's, and those god-awful dance/rap bands. 

Joy and Pain.  Sunshine (and what else, what else) and Rain?...

Dressed in Yellow, She Says Hello...

It Takes Two to Make a Thing go Right...

Anyway -- there will be a party.  With 80's fashion, 80's music, and lots of great stories about our mis-spent youth.

I hope to escape without the utter humiliation that shrouded my first trip through the 80's.  I'm not very confident...

 

* I did have a prom date, although I'm not quite sure how. He was a Morman, and might have felt compelled to try to save me.

W.W.C.B.D?

What would Carol Brady do?

Specifically, what would Carol Brady do if one of her sons (let's say the one that happened to be 8 at the time) asked her over and over and over (let's say, I don't know, 9 times!  which she knew, because she counted) if she would rather have an unarmed battled with an alien or a robot?!?

Got that?  Alien or Robot.  Everyone unarmed.  So who would you fight?  Don't worry if you can't answer now because I'll be sure to ask you again in 5- to 7-minutes.

Do you think Carol Brady would muffle a string of obscenities before saying "oh, hey, Lady Gaga" and turning the radio up as far as it would go?

And do you think she would have been proud or embarrassed by the mad base that was rocking her minivan?

What do you think?  Huh, huh?  Really.  What do you think?  No, I actually want to know?  Which one?  Proud?  Embarrassed?  Why?  Proud, really?  What do you think?  Why?

Wait -- I can't hear you.  The music's too loud...

The Cake. It has been taken.

I have to interrupt the oh-so-inspiring diary of my new non-complaining status to share this with ya'll.

You'll thank me later.

We all know that I worship and adore Rich.  He's truly a prince among men.  Among his many wonderful qualities is a general tendency towards organization.  As a rule, I tend not to understand his organizational process, but it works for him.  Seriously -- ask him if he knows where his first-ever organic chemistry test is and he can produce is it less than 10-minutes.  We rely on him to keep tabs on things like passports, birth certificates, and the list of wines we like.  And while his version of neat-and-clean is vastly different from mine, he's hardly a slob (nor is he the one with obsessive-compulsive disorder, so one should consider the perspective). 

So I think I've established that he's generally orderly enough -- except when it comes to his valet, which is his own little version of Monica's Closet.   His valet sits on a shelf in our master bedroom closet and is the repository for anything and everything that comes out of his pockets at the end of each day.  It is a Valet of Shame and I typically deal with the slovenly disarray by simply averting my eyes and conjuring up some of Rich's more endearing qualities.  That tactic can only work for so long though --- eventually the inside of my eyeballs start to itch and the only balm is a nice 30-minute purge of the offending space.  Most of these cleansing rituals are accompanied by some general annoyance at the pounds of useless crap I find and destroy.

Today was different though.  Today took the cake.

Here's a sampling of what I found during today's purging:

• Receipts from every place he's been for the past 4-months.  He's pretty much screwed if he ever tries to hide an affair -- the guy saves every scrap of paper he touches.  Hoard much?

• Rocks of various shapes, sizes, and colors.  Note that this is RICH'S valet.  Not Ean's.  Unlike Ean, Rich is 42-years old with an ivy-league education, MBA, and a job that involves computers and legal-ese .  He's not a geologist or archeologist.  I can't conceive of any reason why the man walks around with rocks in his pockets.  Any ideas?

• Dirty tissues.  I know he just had a cold, but EWWWWW!!!!!!!!

• Three watches.  None of them work.  Perhaps this is related to why his is compulsively late.

• Two cell phones.  Not working.  (see also, hoarding).

• An expired credit card

• A dental mold.  Who the hell keeps a dental mold on a valet?  Who the hell keeps a dental mold period?  I suppose it could come in handy if I ever had to identify his body-- but then again, he's probably not getting very far, what with the broken watches, dead cell phones, and expired credit card.

• A tooth.  An honest-to-goodness tooth.  An actually piece of human dentition.  A FUCKING INCISOR!!!

I only wish I was kidding.

My immediate thought was that he decided to supplement our income by taking up organ harvesting, but I quickly realized that it was one of the kids' teeth that the tooth fairy had probably deposited in his pocket one night.  And, like I said, everything from the pocket eventually winds up on the valet.

But still.  A tooth?

I called him, because I couldn't NOT share the horror of finding a TOOTH on a valet.  He didn't answer, but called me back a few minutes later.  How does one share this finding?  There's just no graceful or tactful entry into that conversation other than:

"Dude.  I found a FUCKING TOOTH on your valet.  You're a sick asshole".

God, I love him.