Last night I had an overwhelming desire to treat myself to a mud mask... and so I did.
Now this morning I'm feeling all swiney and what not. My eyes are puffy; my hair is unruly; I feel tired. I was going to fix some bacon for breakfast but when I opened the butcher paper, I inexplicably started to cry and shake my fist at God screaming, "Why? Elmer was one of the good ones!"
I often snort when I laugh. It's an embarrassing life long thing which means I've actually been coming down with the swine flu for more than thirty years. I expect my case will be the most severe ever and scientists will want to study me. Hopefully they'll also want to talk to The Today Show about it because I would enjoy being interviewed by Matt Lauer.
I'll probably lick him so we can be swiney together.
I don't have a fever yet, but I feel quite pre-feverish so I'm certain I'll have one at some point. I'm not sure if vomiting and diarrhea are symptoms of the swine flu but I am hoping so. I need to lose 10 pounds and I'd prefer to do it without bending at the waist or giving up ice cream.
My glands are definitely sort of a little swollen, my ear lobes are burning, my fingers feel plump, my elbows are dry, I can't say phenopropanolamine and my coffee tastes funny. There is no real pain to speak of but that probably has something to do with the handful of preventative pain pills I took that were left over from Mr. Man's last back surgery. I chased them with tequila just to be sure. No sense in risking my health.
Naturally I'm calling in sick to work today. The CDC did say to stay home if you are feeling icky in anyway plus I have an overwhelming desire to avoid showering and just wallow around. If you feel that way you should probably join me and do the same. Oink.
So here it is and here I am. I'm forty-five years old. Holy hell.
Where did my life go when I wasn't looking? I really need to stop drinking my breakfast 'cause I would swear that just yesterday I was 21 and wearing pleather.
Constantly drunk or not, you can't be on this side of the dirt for forty-five years and not learn at least a couple things. Because it's my birthday and I'm in a good mood, I'll share these valuable life lessons with you. Please send cash 'cause I don't share for free.
I have learned that although some people might see me as a failure at marriage, I am in fact wildly successful. The proof is in the pudding: I get married all the time ergo I have a tremendous passion for matrimony and am at least good enough at it to be invited to do it again and again.
I have learned that I am a procrastinator. I'll tell you more about that later.
I have learned that my friends are my family. Truly. They bring such joy to my life each in their own way. Some are funny; some are fabulous sparring partners; some are solid rocks on which I can always depend. No matter what amazing presence they bring to the table, all are so far beyond anything I deserve.
I have learned that I cannot speak a foreign language no matter how heavily I pour on the fake accent.
I have learned that my uterus is like Harry Potter as it has magical powers. It produced the most perfect girl and the most perfect boy in the big, wide world. I no longer have use for it but I will happily lease it out to the highest bidder. It's only been used twice and comes with a gold Timex my gynecologist lost in there in 2005.
I have learned it is kinder not to waste my time and yours pretending I like you if I don't. You should be out trying to find someone who can tolerate you for more than ten seconds, not having me blow smoke up your...nose.
I have learned I have an infinite capacity for love. I feel it, say it and show it many, many times a day. The more I love, the more I want to love.
I have learned that I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. I enjoy people who teach me.
I have learned to love husbands so much I would happily move to North Dakota if their legislature would pass a pro-polygamy law. The law of course would state that women can have as many husbands as they want at one time. Can you imagine the time I would save?
And finally, I have learned that I am happy. There are periods of time that are happier than others and there are moments in time that feel like the exact opposite of happy. But, at the end of the day when my joy and heartache are weighed and measured, joy wins out by far. Life is not nearly a long enough journey to expect or settle for anything less.
As a birthday present to me Dear Reader, please do something wonderfully and completely out of character for you today. Be silly, take a risk, be shameless. Just be happy - and know that the OCD Chick loves you!u
Give me one good reason I shouldn't run away right now? I know I've threatened like 8 million times to flee, but this time I mean it. I do. I'm not even kidding.
I am so sick of being me that I can't even stand it.
I'm tired of my hair. It's all stringy and flat and not even a color that you would see in nature.
I'm tired of that one weird discolored spot on my nose that looks as though a bird crapped on me and I was too distracted by my fire batons to wipe it off.
I'm insanely tired of having OCD - which is the only kind of tired you can be when you have obsessive-compulsive disorder. I swear on all that is holy if I have to straighten the knobs on the stove just one more time, I'm gonna.... Hang on. Be right back. Please hum the theme to Kojak while I'm away.
Had to touch the damn knobs.
So here's the thing then. Some days I wake up and I'm loving life and grinning from ear to ear and humming the theme to Kojak and I think to myself, "Collette," which is what I call myself on the good days, "Collette, you are gonna rock 45 like no other."
But then there are the other days. The days I wake up and I lie very still wondering whether I'm in fact waking up from a decades long coma rather than a single night's sleep. What else would explain my having aged twenty years so quickly?
"Gertrude," which is what I call myself on the bad days, "Gertrude, you are a washed up, fat faced, hollowed out shell of your former self. I can't even bring myself to look at you."
Gertrude is a bitch.
I often wonder whether I'm having a mid-life crisis. As I said to a friend only moments ago, I feel as though I am one gold chain and a sports car away from being a pot-bellied, forty-something man chasing after twenty year old tail.
Yes I said tail and I'm not even sorry. Forty-five year old women are rarely sorry.
I feel I should get something pierced or tattooed or lifted or plumped. I am overwhelmed by a gnawing desire to change my name and commit a crime. I lie awake nights plotting how I might convince AC/DC to let me be their drummer.
Technically I cannot play the drums, but I do quite well on the shifty thing in my car so it's all good.
God help me, I gots to fly. I gots to jet. I gots to pack my red wig and my rhinestone bustier and do something that would get me a ticket to incarceration here in the Midwest.
Be warned that I won't be back before the big 4-24 birthday meltdown and if all goes as planned, I won't be back after either as I will be in hiding with my stalker, Toad Suck Guy. I figure if anyone can keep the feds from finding me, it's a seasoned stalker with a big truck and a keen knowledge of hinky behavior.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Why you punish me? You wash away my dreams.
I'm staring right down the barrel of my forty-five. April 24th is my birthday... and I'm turning 45 years old.
Don't wig out. There is no need to alert law enforcement. I don't have a shiny gun in my hands. I just found it an entirely dramatic thing to say. Attention seeking behavior is one of my top four character flaws.
My birthdays are never what I expect them to be and frankly never quite what I want them to be. In my head, April 24th is cause for great celebration requiring a tuxedo clad swing band, a cake that has at least ten tiers and one gilded horse drawn carriage which, of course, will deliver me to my party amidst an enthusiastic throng of well wishers.
Never happens. I think it's because my husband has no idea what a throng is. Or maybe he knows exactly what a throng is but has experienced some difficulty in finding anything in excess of a mildly interested throng.
In the absence of a shindig that Oprah would want to attend, I am giving myself ten birthday wishes for my forty-fifth year. That's right. I am granting myself my own wishes, which I always felt genies on TV should have done. Not giving yourself what you want when you hold all the power seems a silly thing for a genie to have missed. Turns out it's also a silly thing for the OCD Chick to have missed.
Wish #10 - I wish I had ruby red and insanely sparkly red shoes. (These will do nicely.) They are a highly practical thing for me to grant myself as I will need them when I attend the gala.
Wish #9 - I wish I would be invited to a gala. I should also probably add a co-wish addendum to this one by saying I wish I knew what a gala is and whether insanely sparkly red shoes are appropriate footwear for such a thing. If they are not, I would like a substitute stand-by wish which is a case of Moon-Pies.
Wish #8 - I wish for a trip to the beach. Not just any beach though. North Myrtle Beach. I've seen lots of beaches and for my Southern girl self, North Myrle is the place I am most comfortable. I also enjoy the fact that I'll likely be the only chick on the sand sporting insanely sparkly red shoes.
Wish #7 - A monkey.
Wish #6 - I wish I would never have to use, type, look at or spell that number.
Wish #5 - World peace. (Had to be done. I don't need any bad mojo stank all over me.)
Wish #4 - I wish to go to Houston in the next couple months to see and collaborate with my Texas honeys Ryland and Kristi. Since both of them are exceedingly blonde and beautiful and smart, my sub-co-wish to this wish is that I would trick them into thinking I too am smart. So smart in fact that they have to carry a dictionary with them when I speak just to follow the conversation.
Wish #3 - I wish Kristi and Ryland would not be hatin' me because I show up wearing insanely sparkly red shoes they don't even have. Don't hate girls.
Wish #2 - I wish that anyone who has said mean things to me in the last 24 hours to 24 years would sprout back hair akin to a wool sweater; fall down someplace that is packed with people who will point and laugh; and be licked in the face by a smelly homeless woman who just ate something she found on the ground.
Wish #1 - I wish that this time next year I am here with a face full of Botox to talk about the exciting new sitcom, book,movie and line of action figures based on Wiping the Crazy off My Face. If I were you I'd go ahead and pay for yours now by sending me $99.95 per action figure. Hey, that's not bad at all since the OCD Sher doll is anatomically correct.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ I won't have to wish any more...
My having been MIA for a bit has alarmed some readers. Specifically the official stalker of Wiping the Crazy off My Face. Rest assured I have not been napped nor have I sustained a head injury that rendered me unable to type. I'm back now after my court-ordered, I mean completely voluntary, period of writing rest.
Today was dog grooming day in the House of Sher. The two Yorkie brothers smelled like monkey ass and their appearance was such that looking like a monkey's ass would have been a step up.
Yes, there are places one can go to take Yorkies to be foofed and primped. What you need to know about that is I am both too soft-hearted and too cheap to toss my boys in a box and take them there. Mr. Man has filled my head full of dog groomer horror stories so dramatic and Steven King-ish, I can't bring myself to do it. Plus it costs as much as roughly 50 pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and nothing is worth that sacrifice.
Tanner is the smallest and weighs in right at 3.5 pounds. Buddy is the youngest but the bigger of the two. He weighs about what a small Volkswagen does. They are very different dogs. Tanner loves getting a bath. He runs to the tub and tries to stand tall enough on his hind legs to see the water running. I believe it's because he likes to have his penis washed.
Which would explain why Mr. Man does the exact same thing.
Buddy on the other hand cowers when anyone says anything that even remotely rhymes with "bath". He climbs to the back of the sofa and sinks down as low as he can in the mistaken belief he is somehow wearing sofa camo. I always know where he is simply because it's hard to miss a Volkswagen sized thing shaking so violently the pictures on your wall are rattling.
The bath part is bad enough, but when you factor in having to also bust out the dog hair-cutter thingie, the scissors, and the dog brush, Buddy just damn near has an infarction.
Today was such a day. I put down pads on the bathroom floor so that I might cut his hair because it's only rained enough in my city to justify Googling "how to build an arc in 800 easy steps out of things you already have around the house". No way I could do it outside.
I plopped him down and fired up my high quality trimmers and began mowing away. He was OK so long as I only planned to work on the center strip of his back. He even licked me on the nose. But as it began to dawn on him that I was maneuvering him in such a way so that I might get near the only thing he has left of his doghood, he did what I suspect the smallest guy in an Arkansas prison cell does after his cellmate tells him he reminds him of his sister.
He sat down and clinched the ground with his butt cheeks like a tornado was about to blow through the bathroom.
I tried talking to him. "Buddy listen. If you think this is my ideal way to spend a Saturday you are sorely mistaken. I would much rather do just about anything other than shave your behind but I do it because I love you. Now release your death grip and allow me to shove this sharp electric razor between your legs."
He did not comply.
I resorted to shaming him. "Look at your brother Buddy! Tanner thinks you're a big baby. He's laughing at you because he knows a dog with no anal hair is a happy dog. See his ass? See how nice it looks?"
He was not persuaded.
I tried bribing him. "Would you like a cookie? 'Cause I only give cookies to dogs whose behinds look like Brazilian dog butts."
Nada.
At this point I began to accept that Buddy was never, ever giving up his rear end without a fight. "Fine," I said to him. "I'll finish up with your face and ears and then we'll get back to your no-no place when Paw-Paw gets home."
He was greatly relieved. That is until I ran the trimmers over his giant Dumbo ears and nicked one of them. He did not cry. He did not even flinch. What he chose to do instead was bleed as though I had attempted a kidney transplant in a war zone. There was blood all over his ear, blood all over my WHITE T-shirt and blood all over the towel.
Because I am excellent in a crisis situation I sprang into action. I grabbed my cell phone just before I hit the ground and managed to say to Mr. Man, "Get home right now."
That's right kids. The OCD Chick had to lie down on the disgusting dog hair covered bathroom floor in short order before I involuntarily laid down. My upper lip was sweating and tingly, my face was clammy and the bathroom was spinning.
Mr. Man came home to find me sprawled out, covered in so much hair and blood I looked like I had fought off a werewolf attack. Even in the face of my own demise I was ever the loving, caring, nurturer. I whimpered, "Check Buddy! I think I chopped off his ear."
Buddy strolled over to him like it was no big thang and as he stepped right over my head, his unshaved Yorkie ass passing right above my nose, I swear on Rock Hudson he whispered, "That's how I roll, bitch."
Stupid ghetto dog. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ This is what Buddy has been playing on his iPod all afternoon now:
Me and a couple of the boyz waz worried bout you. tooks this pitchur so's youz coud see we waz worrid. I ain't in the pitchur.
TSG
Dearest TSG - Official Stalker of Sher,
Easy there baby. Don't go getting all kinds of worried over me. I'm all good. I've been hanging out doing the three things I do best: drinking, eating frosting, and getting married.
Please note were it not for #1, I wouldn't be nearly as successful at #3. Number 2 is just 'cause I like it like that.
I realize I should be writing. This I know. However, things have been decidedly unfunny in my life lately. Not to worry. It's not like anything particularly wicked is going on. I just am not all a giggle. I think it's the lack of clowns in my daily diet.
My motto has always been when life hands you lemons, eat a clown cause they taste funny. Well actually my motto has always been marry 'em first, ask questions later.
But then again you already know that about me.
I'll be back soon. No worries Honey. Not for nothing, but could you put in a word for me with the guy in that picture with the sweet sleeves? I'm diggin' on his hair and his come hither look. I would so go hither for him.
xoxoxo
Here's a Blip for you TSG 'cause I know you love me anyway.
Yes. I know that I have not posted the remainder of the interviews promised to you. Yes. I know that the only thing that gets you from one moment to the next there in your prison cell is the hope that I have posted a new read for you. Yes. I know the square root of some stuff. (But I'm not telling you cause you'd get all uppity and nobody likes an uppity reader.)
I have a very good reason for not having finished quite yet. Very good. Probably the best reason you've ever heard.
But I'm not telling you as we have established you have a tendency to let knowledge go to your head. You should work on that.
I tell you what I've NOT been doing with my time. I have certainly not been spending all of it on Blip.fm. That's for damn sure. I don't blip songs both day and night just because I can. I don't blip all day while I'm working so that I have fresh music to listen to as I do what it is I do. And I most certainly would never miss the morning news, my son's birthday party or an appointment with the local neighborhood gynecologist because I can't stop blippin.
Especially since I know he specializes in women who blip. (And the gynos who love them.)
It is a vicious internet lie that I would rather blip than eat and if you believe it when you hear I've had a device created for me that will allow me to blip with no hands, you should know that's just gossip pure and simple. There is no device. I had to hire a tiny man to do it for me.
His musical tastes differ from mine somewhat, but he'll blip non-stop without payment so long as I let him wear my heels once in awhile without judgment.
My room is now and has always been a safe environment for tiny men.
If you wanna know what blippin is, you must get at once to Blip.fm and do the math yourself. (Hint: the answer is the square root of the sum of a fast moving train leaving Montreal at the same time as I was leaving one of the ex-husbands plus the cost of beans in a non-bean producing country times seven.)
Sure I'll follow you when you sign up if you post your link in the comments, but don't get all weird like we're engaged or something. I follow approximately 9000 people and you will likely get lost among the masses.
Unless that is, your icon picture just happens to be a monkey. Or Michael Buble. Or an I Heart Sher sticker. Was that a hint for my stalker? I sorta think it was.
