Fun With Feathers (no, not THAT way, you sick freaks) Giveaway

My first Blogiversary is coming up on September 4th.

That's right, I've made it one whole entire fucking year. THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE DAYS, YO! and I'd like to apologize to all my faithful readers for subjecting you to the horror that is Zipbag of Bones.

All of those names that I've called you? All the vicious rumors I've started about you (wait, I don't think I told you about those. never mind.)? All the offensive remarks that I made about your mothers and your penises? I am SO sorry.

But really, no I'm not. Dumbasses.

In honor of this ridiculously unlikely occasion, the occasion of me actually following through with something, I'd like to send one lucky Zipbag of Bones reader a very special AUTOGRAPHED, first edition publication.

It's a book called Rosie Red Bottom (A Comedian With Feathers), and it debuted in July to rave reviews! This book, written by my very own Aunt, Donna Mann, is about the adventures of an African Grey Parrot named Rosie who perches with her human family in Wasilla, AK (yes, she CAN see Russia from there), and includes tips, tricks, resources and strategies for anyone considering adding a bird to their household.

Aunt Donna really encouraged my writing habit when I was a kid, helped me copy my stories, type cover letters, find publishers, and send my brain-spew far and wide - a very exciting endeavor for a ten-year-old literature junkie. She also busted me looking at my first Playboy.

And now she has an actual book (and a blog!) of her own, with pages and chapters and a cover and EVERYTHING, and I'm very proud to have a published writer in the family.

I know the subject matter of Rosie Red Bottom is just slightly a-typical for this website (you're usually more likely to find inter species porn banter than inter species co-habitation manuals) but I figured what better way to celebrate my first year of successfully disturbing and offending the Interweb than to give away an actual book!

So to anyone in the U.S. or Canada (I guess I think I'm made of money)((or maybe I'm drunk)), there are two ways to enter this awesome giveaway:

1. Leave a comment on this post between now and Friday, September 4th at 12:00 p.m. noon Minnesota (aka Lutheran) time.
   
2. Tweet this contest and tag with #RedBottom between now and Friday, September 4th at 12:00 p.m. noon Minnesota (hot dish) time. YOUR TWEET MUST BE TAGGED!

You can have up to two entries in the giveaway, one for each entry type, but if you leave two comments, it will count as just one entry, and if you tag two tweets, it will count as just one entry. I'll delete duplicates because I'm an evil bitch like that.

I'll use randomizer.org to pick a winner after the deadline! And then I'll taunt the rest of you losers, unless you want to nominate me for a Nobel Peace Prize for all the good humanitarian work I'm doing here at Zipbag of Bones, or a Lifetime Achievement Award for all of the bottles of wine I'm single-handedly consumed, in which case I'll draw a second place, phallic-shaped trophy and fax it over to you.

Because I'm a giver.

BON CHANCE, TOUT LE MONDE!

Kate Gosselin's Hair Files Custody Suit

AP - 1 hour ago

Wernersville, Pa - In a press release Wednesday, Kate Gosselin's hair announced its intent pursue custody of the eight Gosselin children. Sources confirm that It has obtained legal counsel and has filed a petition with the Berks County courthouse.

Says her hair, "After speaking with my attorneys, I believe it is in the best interest of Gosselin children that I be granted full legal custody. It's all about the kids, and it always has been, and I feel that I am the best equipped to care for them. I will do everything in my power to make sure they are happy and healthy."

Until today, a shared custody arrangement had been agreed upon between mother, Kate Gosselin and father, Jon Gosselin, who star in TLC's reality series Jon & Kate Plus 8 with their twin daughters and five year old sextuplets. The estranged pair originally agreed to alternate living in the family's million-dollar home in Wernersville, PA so that the children, Mady, Cara, Hannah, Aaden, Collin, Alexis, Leah and Joel, could continue to live in the home.

All of that may change now that Kate Gosselin's hair is seeking a permanent role in the children's lives.

"Kate has a history behaving irrationally," says hair. "I truly believe that she's been blinded by her bangs, and I take full responsibility for my role in that. In the early years of our relationship, I was long and blond, and that's part of what attracted Jon to Kate. We had some good times, the three of us together. But over the years, we drifted apart, and Kate began cutting me out of her life immediately following the births of Mady and Cara. When Jon decided to get plugs, I knew it was the beginning of the end."

Gosselin's hair, known for it's "reverse mullet" style, has enjoyed the media's attention for years.

"At first I was uncomfortable with the lack of privacy," it says. "But I was able to realize that hey, this is my job and this is how I've chosen to provide for those kids. The kids are happy, that's all that matters."

Since the divorce rumors were confirmed on the the show's season premier June 22nd, Kate's hair has been thrust into the paparazzi's lense with renewed gusto. It recently usurped Sarah Palin's hair for the title of Halloween Costume Craze of the Year. Online costume sales at BuyCostumes.com have rocketed in recent months, thanks to the unveiling of the Eight Is Too Much wig.

When asked how she feels about the attention, Kate's hair said, "It's hard. I love the Kate I used to know, but now I'm not sure that I want to be a part of her head anymore. But there we are: splashed all over the news every day. I look forward to a time when I can just be me again. But the kids come first."

Kate Gosselin's hair will not be featured in the newest episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8 which airs Monday August 31st on TLC.

Kate, citing a "falling out", wears a pink cowboy hat for much of the show.



Onion Breath is my newest brain spew, conceived with the evil intent of conning someone into giving me an internship at The Onion. Because that? Is where dreams come true. I'm not above sleeping my way to the top if that's what I have to do, but this route seems like the lesser of two evils. Although now that I'm a serious journalist, perhaps I should clarify that this is the lesser of two evils for me, not for you, obviously. I'm sorry.

Things You'll Find In My Backpack

• An eyelash curler
• Dr. Crazy Sock's home phone number
• Pepto Bismol tablets
• A ponytail holder
• Instructions for assembling a flare out of nothing but the under wire from my bra and the blood of two virginal maidens (you know, in case of emergency)
• Cough Drops
• Imodium A.D.
• The travel-sized Family Feud game
• A toothbrush & toothpaste (no worries, the floss is in my purse)
• Chapstick
• A tampon
• My Nintendo DS
• A t-shirt
• A locket of Gray's chest hair (to remind me of him when I'm 100 years old and finally finishing up my coursework)
• A flask
• My writing journal (I know, I was surprised by this, too)
• A blanket
• Chex Mix
• Skittles
• X-rated playing cards
• The Communist Manifesto

Apparently I think I'm going to summer camp instead of night school. I wonder if I should think about getting some textbooks and pencils and shit...

In any case, wish me luck! Looks like I'll need it.

Juicy

These little fellows are as ripe as they're going to get and are starting to fall off the vine, the vine which happens to climb all over the arbor, the arbor which happens to be positioned directly over our deck, the part of the deck which happens to support our deck chairs, the chairs which happen to be where we sit outside smoking, which I was doing last night, which is how I came to step on what I thought was a gigantic green booger. IN MY BARE FEET.

Time to prune, yes?

I Feel Old (My Baby Brother Is Awesome)

Dear Five Head,

Today is your second day of the fifth grade. That's right, I said FIFTH. I know, I'm having a stroke, too. I would have written this on your first day of school, but our mother didn't remind me until she'd already dropped you off at school with your Star Trek backpack and your 3-pack of glue sticks. My heart wrenches a little, the image of you marching through those double doors and into the unknown: your first male teacher, a new, shortened recess, more homework, new friends, lost friends, and of course, because it's a private Christian school, there is the ever-present threat of The Rapture (supposedly reassuring, they say, but it always scared the crap out of me).

I cannot remember how exactly is was that you got to be ten years old. Last I recall, you were a squealing, rambunctious toddler who delighted in squirming away during diaper changes and running naked and laughing through the house, begging to be chased. I remember you watching Tarzan over and over and over and over and over, and now when I see that movie, I think of you and cry a little. How when you cried, I paced the front sidewalk with you in my arms, singing Edelweiss and Smile and every other song ever written, until at last you slept.

Remember the time? No, of course you wouldn't, you were too young...you were learning to play catch with a Nerf ball and you flung it with such force that the ball rocketed behind the recliner sofa. You were adamant that I retrieve the ball (I presume that's what you meant by, "SCREEEEEEEE!"), so I stood on the couch and leaned over it's back...

...just enough to kick out the footrest of the recliner, which hit you in the chest and knocked you backward with such force that your head bounced off the coffee table behind and you stumbled forward, hitting the end table with your forehead.

In that instant, I was sure that I'd killed you and the feeling that shot through me was one that I've never felt, either before or since (except the time when you began choking on your spit up, but that's another story entirely), and I scrambled to your side just in time for you to stand up, shake your head a little as if trying to un-scramble whatever had been knocked around in there, and you laughed. LAUGHED. The living room furniture was no match for your gigantic, built-in helmet.

And now you're a straight A student, the top of your class, and a volunteer at school and at your church. You've taken that head-helmet and filled it with Spanish and multiplication tables and trivia (disgusting world records among your favorite). You love to read. You are an amazing artist, never without your notebook and pencils, always finding inspiration in the world around you. You are an inspiration, buddy.

Whoever could have guessed that you'd go from blond ringlets to stick-straight brown hair, from stinky diapers to stinky farts, from Elmo to Transformers, from bottles to a very specific, NON-SALAD diet.

I miss who you were then, but not as much as I love who you are now.

I hope your second day of fifth grade is freaking AWESOME, little brother.

XOXO,
Cat

In case you end up, like, finding a cure for cancer or bringing out world peace or something, I'm taking all the credit. Dude, I read to you ALL THE TIME. What? The Ugly Duckling TOTALLY taught you important life-lessons.

Higher Education Is Scary

This whole thing is totally random. Blame Keely.

• School starts next week. I'm taking English Literature and Shakespeare. There's really nothing to say beyond I. AM. SCARED. Hold me!
  
  
• I'm trying to cram in as much pleasure reading as possible in the next 6 days because (please refer back to bullet point #1). I mean really. DAMN.
  
  
• We're going back to Wisconsin on Thursday for a couple of days - one last hoorah before the weather turns, which is kind of funny because if anything, the weather never "turned" to summer here, so basically we're going to enjoy our last weekend of shitty weather before school starts. Because (please refer back to bullet point #1). What was I thinking?
  
  
• I mean, I LIKE Shakespeare and all. I used to read him all the time in high school. But his words are wordy and word-filled. Not to mention...WHAT THE FUCK DOES "galliard" MEAN? I have a feeling this will challenge me in a challenging sort of mental challenge.
  
  
• Did I mention this is an upper-division level course? Which means I don't have to just read stuff, I have to understand it, and then I have to create arguments about it and then defend those arguments, but of course the ability to do all of that goes back to the point about understanding it. And it's Shakespeare, ya'll. Not exactly Dick & Jane, if you know what I mean.

• OLD ENGLISH! ::weeping and gnashing of teeth::

• Throw on top of that an English Literature course which begins with such light reading as fucking BEOWULF. Are you familiar with the joy that is Beowulf? NO?!? Then consider yourself blessed by god. I lived through this hell back in high school and I am just so pumped to do it again. Truly.
  
  


• Have I mentioned bullet point #1 yet?

The Price of Fame

I've sunk to new lows for you people: stalking deformed animals for your viewing pleasure. I might as well paste "Flab Beach Bodies" all over this post just to sell more copies. I don't think I can make it in the tabloid world. I'll have to leave that to Courtney Cox and her lipstick vibrator.

Nevertheless, here is the best shot I could get of Mr. Albino Squirrel. I literally followed him around the neighborhood until I was close enough that he didn't wind up looking like a Q-tip in the damn picture. Did I mention I was just wearing a t-shirt? I can still hear the neighbor's laughing as I turned back towards the house, and one lady asked, "Did you get it?" meaning the shot, and she was totally snickering. Bitch.

"MUST HIDE ACORNS FROM RACCOON."

"QUICK. AM BEING FOLLOWED BY HUMAN."

The white raccoon has proven more elusive than his rodent counterparts. I spent most of Saturday peering out into the yard through the rain, watching for him to make an appearance. And then I remembered that raccoons are nocturnal so I planned an all-night stake-out, but Gray convinced me that the chances of the same white raccoon showing up at a specific location on our property three times in one week was incredibly unlikely, so I decided to cheat and instead of a picture of our albino raccoon, I provide you with this:

This is a dead albino raccoon. I know it doesn't look like a raccoon, but it totally is one. Hence the confusion at our house.

Now I Want To Make Him Into A Hat

All of the wild animals in our back yard are turning white. WHITE. I'm pretty sure there's a serial Animal Bleacher running amok in the Longfellow neighborhood, and I'm going to DO something about it.

I cannot stand idly by, waiting for some kind of Cruella De Ville wanna-be to destroy another innocent woodland creature's chances of hooking up with other woodland creatures. STRIPES WERE MADE BY GOD, people. It's just not natural to take that away from them. It's all they have: they eat acorns, for christ's sake.

And I'll be damned if I'll let a white (animal) supremacist infect the superior, liberal group-think of our closely knit, bluer than balls, upper-middle class community by heartlessly and repeatedly dunking helpless animals in a giant vat of bleach. Or maybe it's peroxide. EITHER WAY. It's just wrong.

I began noticing the problem a few weeks ago when I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Albino Squirrel. At first, I thought he was a Swiffer Dust Wand, just blowing in the breeze, so I almost chased him down and snatched him up for use inside the house. I'm on a budget, don't judge me.

But do you see? THAT RIGHT THERE is what the government likes to call RACIAL PROFILING. It happens even to the best of us. I've made my peace with my faults.

Recently, I began seeing other albino squirrels and then I realized that maybe there is a whole family of blind, white squirrels and that they're crowding out the regular old grey squirrels which is totally possible because when I was in Vancouver, all I saw were black squirrels, GIANT ones, and it was sort of ironic because I don't remember seeing any black people the whole time we stayed in the city, but now that I think about it, it totally makes sense because Vancouver is surrounded by all that ocean and everyone knows home boys can't swim.

So remember when I told you about the raccoon? Well, I didn't mention this part because it sounded so ludicrous at the time that I wanted to spare Gray's reputation and only post about the fact that the raccoon scared the manhood out of him, but now that I know that a serial Animal Bleacher is on the loose, I feel it's my duty to flesh out these details. I didn't tell you the part of the story where Gray exclaimed that the raccoon was white. Like ALL white.

Being the rational, animal-color-knowing woman that I am, I said, "Psh. It must have been a opossum." (Now that I typed "opossum", I'm not sure if I'm supposed to use "a" or "an" in front of it because I know you use "an" when the word starts with a vowel, but in this case the vowel is silent, and it sounds funny to say "an opossum" out loud. God, English is hard.)

But he insisted that it was, in fact, a WHITE raccoon. I was convinced he was mistaken. Until last night. (Pretend there's dramatic music emphasizing my suspense-filled pause right here...)

Last night, I was sitting on the deck with Gray & Veronica* when I heard a creeping noise from the direction of the driveway, which I immediately assumed what the sound of the devil coming to take my soul, but when I strained my eyes into the darkness...a pair of yellow eyes strained back, and everyone knows the devil's eyes are red, so clearly it was some kind of animal.

Gray also heard the noise and when he turned to look, the animal's head popped briefly up so that all three of us could see that it was a gigantic WHITE raccoon.

I raced to get a flashlight so that I could seek out this mysterious creature and marvel at it's lack of markings, and just as I knelt on the ground with my face under the deck, Veronica decided she wanted to stomp from above and "scare it out". AT MY FACE.

I quickly abandoned my raccoon-level post and retreated to bed, but as I lay in the darkness, those glowing raccoon eyes haunted me. "Help me, I've been bleached by a madman," they said. "I am no longer welcome at home and must live amongst the herd of albino squirrels across the street. THEY EAT ACORNS," those eyes said.

Then and there, I resolved to stop the monster that is stripping the Longfellow creatures of their respective markings. Whoever he is - whatever he may be capable of - I will find him and I will put an end to his twisted games.

And then possibly I might have him color my hair. I don't know, we'll have to see how it plays out.

*So I asked out landlady-slash-roomie what she wanted me to use as her anonymous blog name (obviously, nobody wants to be associated with this particular blog), and she came up with Veronica. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to write her as the Archie version or the Mars version.

Gay & Gay, In Different Ways

During a thunderstorm last weekend, Gray sought out the shelter of our garage in order to have a smoke, and he happened to glance up and see a gigantic raccoon come waddling across the deck and down the stairs towards him, presumably looking for shelter. It disappeared under my parked car. His first reaction was, "Shit! What do I do? WHAT DO I DO!?" (manly, huh?). Then he decided not to jump out and roar or make other noise or startle the animal away, but instead - get this - to just ignore the raccoon. Pretend it wasn't there at all. Hope it would go away without any man-raccoon interaction whatsoever. Moments later, he saw the big guy come waddling out from underneath the car, heading in the direction of the open garage door, so he pretended not to see it, like it was some kind of accidental run-in with an ex-girlfriend at a bar: I see you, I think you look about as mean and contagious as I remember, so I'm going to make believe that you're just part of the scenery and hope you happen to notice me and just waddle away. Apparently, that's exactly what happened. The raccoon saw he was not alone in the garage, made a slow and deliberate about-face, and disappeared back under my car. I wonder if this will work on my mother?

So we finally watched Twilight on Friday, Gray and I, and when it was over, he looked at me and said, "I'm embarrassed by how much I liked that movie." And then the very next day, he googled the New Moon trailer and played it for (himself) me. Then he rewound the trailer because he didn't catch the release date. Then he asked if Jacob would have a larger role in New Moon because that's what the trailer suggested, and he said he liked Jacob just as much as he likes Edward, and he hopes Jacob is in the next movie a lot. Like, a LOT lot. That's when I began to worry about the fact that he didn't mention any of the chicks in the movie, and so I told him that, for the sake of his manhood, I was going to pretend like he did not just ask me that question, but then he kind of whined until I gave in. Then he speculated on whether it would be called "New Moon" or "Twilight: New Moon", because apparently that is an important distinction (In case you're wondering, he thinks it'll be subtitled like the Lord of the Rings series). And later still, he asked if it would be "weird" for us to watch Twilight two nights in a row. Strangely, I feel vindicated for all those times Gray conned me into wasting my life, 15 minutes at a time, watching episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

My car is back in the shop. Again. Possibly with a leaking water pump, possibly with a legion of stick-wielding demons, and despite the fact that I've already paid a mechanic to fix those problems and despite the fact that the mechanic did not fix those problems (apparently, they fixed other, non-check-engine-light-causing problems), I am not freaking out. It is surreal. And yesterday, someone said, "You sure must be having a great day today," and when I asked why she thought so, she told me I seemed extra, ultra, vomit-inducing happy - that I was just about squirting happiness everywhere, and then I wondered where exactly happy juice comes from, but I figured it must be my mouth because that's the only place I can squirt from and not be arrested. For reals, ya'll.

I think I've been replaced by a pod person.

Placebo, Placentia

I was quite nervous about meeting my new general practitioner on Friday afternoon, partly because I get this sense that everyone assumes I'll be hawking my prescriptions, which is completely ridiculous because I'm about the last person anyone would really suspect of selling drugs, except that I see myself from inside my own brain and I know it's totally possible that if my career as an exotic mud wrestler doesn't pan out, I wouldn't be completely opposed to making a living by handing out prescription strength Zantac to kids on the playground.

I was also nervous about the same thing I always fear when I talk about my personal struggles with a member of the medical community: I was afraid she wouldn't believe me.

Crazy, right? I mean, it's not like I was heading in there to ask for a bunch of pain killers and tranquilizers, I was going to ask about how we should treat my dysthymia.

But people do this thing - you know...the thing - where when they see you for the first time, they look you up and down (some more subtly than others) and decide they've got you figured out. For some reason, all of my life, when people give me the Once Over Assessment, they end up thinking, "Bland. Safe. Together."

Not the worst assessment, I guess, if you consider words like "necropheliac" or "ass-muncher" or "Minnetonka soccer mom". But still, nowhere near "exciting", "breathtaking", "intelligent".

People are always BEYOND shocked when they learn that I smoke (on and off, presently on), that one of my favorite words is "fuck", that I listen to speed metal (instead of Top 40), and that I'm a 26-year-old divorcee living with (and madly in love with, I should add) the 33-year-old former friend of my ex-husband.

It's like I give off some kind of Goody Two Shoes vibe. Fuck.

I was worried this doctor is going to see me as perfectly happy and healthy and not at all depressed, after all, what could I possibly have to be depressed about? I love my job and my house and my boyfriend and I'm finally finishing my degree and I have a whole liter of Smirnoff in the cabinet at home...But on the other hand, I guess that's what characterizes depression: the inability to feel happiness when you're actually happy.

So Dr. Legs walks into the exam room - she's almost like a young Marlo Thomas, all legs and pencil skirt and jet black hair in a flipped out bob , half up in a barette. Her nametag says "Tricia" instead of the "Patricia" I was told I'd be seeing, and for some reason the familiarity of that name tag put me at ease. "I'm a friend," the name tag said. "I WILL medicate you."

And because my insurance won't cover Lexapro, at least not until I've tried and failed with tho other medications first, Dr. Legs feels I may see results from trying generic Celexa (Why I keep wanting to say that I'm taking Cialis?!?! My erection is just fine, thank you very much.) and already the placebo effect has taken hold and although I've only taken two days of half-doses, I went an entire weekend without anxiety (possibly unheard of for me, Sundays are usually pretty bad because I'm home alone) and I literally lay on the couch yesterday flipping between HGTV*, FLN and recordings of the Atlanta housewives ALL.DAY.LONG. I didn't even clean, ya'll.

I didn't clean and I didn't even have a stroke or anything. Do you know what this means?!

Of course, it probably helped that I'd done all the laundry and most of the projects on Saturday, but still. I don't think I've ever spent an entire day on the couch just relaxing, not even when I'm sick. It gives me heart palpitations.

And this morning when I realized the check engine light had reappeared on my dash (the same check engine light that cost me $1,000 in repairs LAST WEEKEND) and that my heater was no longer blowing hot air (give me a break, I know it's summer, but it's cold here in the morning!), instead of freaking out about what this might mean for my poor, drained Emergency Savings Fund, I reacted in a rational, human being sort of way and said, "Fuck it. I'll just drive until I start seeing smoke."

Much healthier already.

*Ok, so I was watching an episode of Good Buy, Bad Buy and this couple was considering purchasing a home in Placentia, California. PLACENTIA. I googled it, it's a real place near where my cousins live in Brea, CA. And there's only one letter separating "Placentia" from "placenta". And that is enough to keep me entertained for the rest of my life.

My Dad Gave Me Herpes

So I had this really disturbing Twitter exchange with Chris O:

Me: Can I actually die from a canker sore? I think it might be killing me. That, or the fact that it's pinched in the crack between my teeth

Chris: @zipbagofbones Aren't canker sores a form of herpes? Not to give you something else to stress about but...

Me: @mycatatemybrain I googled it and found that in fact, canker sores are ulcers, not herpes. My cold sores, however, are herpes. Thanks Dad.

Me again: mycatatemybrain I should explain that my dad gave me herpes but not in an incestual kind of way just in the appropriate father/daughter way

OHMYGOD I'm making this worse: @mycatatemybrain cold sore herpes, not genital herpes. THOSE I got from Obama.

And I realized that not only is "incestual" not a word, but I basically just accused my own father of incest, which is what everyone is going to assume because they know I grew up in the Ozarks, and now I feel like I should explain that my father didn't molest me, he just kissed me when he was covered in herpes. Or maybe he shared my fork. Or possibly he licked an envelope and then left it laying around and then I licked the same envelope later on and I caught herpes via envelope glue. It was the 80s. You know, before stickers were invented. Back when you even had to lick STAMPS, people. We didn't know as much about herpes then as we do now.

And now I realize that I just implicated my father in a child-labor, envelope-sealing ring. So in order to defend my dad's honor, I'm going to play in the Spin Cycle today, and I'm going to re-post this entry about my herpes.** You're welcome, Dad.

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Ok, well Wendi made the mistake of asking what I do with chapstick, what could I possibly do that makes me happy? Then she went and tried to renig, something about how she didn't really want to know or something, but I know the truth. She is DYING to hear the sordid details. I've been living with this secret for a long time now, and it's time to get it off my chest. I was begging for help, you see, when I listed chapstick on my list of Happy Things. I was hoping someone would go on ahead and call me out on that one, so I wouldn't have to live in secret shame any longer. Well, thank you Wendi Adams, for liberating my madness, as it were.

You really wanna know? I mean REALLY? If not, click away from the page now. Before it's too late. The image of the following words will forever be burned upon your subconscious mind and you'll dream nightmarey dreams in which giant chapstick tubes chase and devour you for the rest of your days on this earth.

What do I do with chapstick that makes me so damn happy?

I put it on my lips.

SHOCKED SILENCE AND GASPING FOR BREATH AND RETCHING OF BREAKFASTS!

Yeah, ok. Maybe it's not THAT big of a deal since, you know, it was made for lips and stuff. But honestly, I LOVE it. I HEART it. I would DIE without it. I have...let's see...two chapsticks in my living room, one by my bed (for midnight chapstick emergencies), two in my bathroom, two in my purse, one in my car, and one by my desk at work. OH and one in my glove box (so that's two in my car). And this, my friends, is me running dangerously low on chapstick.

Now, when I say "chapstick", I do not in fact mean "Chapstick". I'm from Arkansas guys, I say "Coke" when referring to any carbonated beverage, I say "Kleenex" when I really mean tissue produced for the picking and wiping of noses, I say "hooker" when I mean female humans. So when I say chapstick, I mean sticks of goo made for smearing across lips to provide moisture retention and miniscule UV ray protection. I do not discriminate by branding. WITH ONE EXCEPTION: Carmex.

Now you Carmex executives, don't get all in a tizzy and start slapping slander suits on me and whatnot. I'm sure that in the hands of your average consumer, Carmex is a perfectly delightful product which provides soothing relief to lips across the globe. In the hands of an addict, such as myself, Carmex was like a loaded gun. A loaded gun full of pain and suffering and knashing of teeth. They claim it is not addictive, that no ingredient in their product causes addiction, and that the FDA approves their ingredients and all that. See here for info. But I tell you man, once I started down that path, I was hooked like a hooky hooker with hooks in her. I couldn't go an hour without applying it, or my lips would chafe and crack and, yes, even bleed.

I started using Carmex as a kid (at the recommendation of my pediatrician, no less) for the purpose of assisting my poor mouth in recovering from cold sores. I'm like some kind of cold sore breeding ground. I get them all the fucking time. As in, I just had one last week and it finally went away and this morning I woke up with two more. I get them when I'm stressed, ovulating (or apparently when I'm undergoing the endless D&C period), sunburned, sick, or when the weather changes drascically in any direction. I'm pretty sure I can blame my dad for this, who also gets them frequently, so don't start in with the STD lecture or anything. Mouth herpes? Check. Genital herpes? HOLY CHRIST NO! (Although, is it supposed to burn when you pee?)

For those of you who suffer from cold sores, you know they are hard to prevent, impossible to cure, and take forever to get rid of. I seem to have the breeding variety as well. Once, I had so many on both my lips that I looked like Bubba from Forrest Gump. I swear to god, no joke. I went to the hospital that time. I took L-lysine supplements as a kid. I've taken Rx meds for genital herpes to prevent them. I've tried all the topical products known to man. Nothing stops them, and honestly nothing gets rid of them any faster. In recent years, I've been poking them with a sterilized pin when they get all full of stuff, and keeping rubbing alcohol on them with a cotton ball to dry them out. At least then they are not quite as smack-you-in-the-face noticible. Everything else is expensive and a total waste of money.

Anyhow, Carmex felt great on my ailing lips...but then I had to use it all of the time.. I couldn't switch from Carmex to regular chapstick without suffering. Eventually, I weaned myself off the hard stuff. Chapstick is like my methodone folks. Clearly I still have addiction issues. I have to have the stuff coating my lips at all times of the day or they hurt. I know I should cut back, I have a family to think about. No, wait. No family. But still, for my very own good. I need to stop the madness.

I think this is what Metallica meant when they wrote Master of Puppets.

**So I just re-read this post and realized it's got almost nothing to do with my dad so it didn't really defend his honor. Especially when paired with the post about how he likes to have sex when I'm in the room. You'll just have to trust me, he's awesome. And not at all incestual.

Need a New Nickname Since "Bitch" No Longer Applies

Tom Cruise, if you're reading this, you might want to close the browser, take another hit of acid, and return to your space ship. Or you may want to jump on my couch. Either way, fuck off.

So last winter was rough on me, mentally speaking. Actually, all Minnesota winters stretch the limits of my sanity, but last winter was singularly terrible and I hit new emotional lows in which, hourly, I counted reasons left to go on, ticked them off on my fingers as a reminder not to just quit, and then when I realized I only needed one hand to count them, that's when I knew it was bad.

No amount of writing, no amount of vitamin D overdoses, no amount of whining or sleeping or hating everything...NOTHING HELPED.

And then I broke my arm, and it was either the flurry of activity (and subsequent inactivity) which kept my mind occupied, or it was the magical happy place that is vicodin that made the anguish more bearable, but by the time Mummy Hand returned to the tomb, I was more or less shaking off the fog that is my seasonal hell. Er, depression.

So everyone made me promise that this year, I'd follow through on my annual pledge to be proactive about my mental health and to get some help before winter gets me. I've made this promise before, every year since I moved to Minnesota, actually (except for that first year when I decided that getting drunk and calling the cops on myself was the best coping mechanism at my disposal)((I blame Obama for that one, and also the fact that I was 18)).

Yesterday was my first counseling appointment with Dr. Crazy (who really should be downgraded to Dr. Golf Socks, but it just doesn't have the same ring to it, huh?) who listened to me describe what I feel are my most troubling symptoms (suicidal thoughts, the desire to etch my name backwards with blood on every available surface while crab-crawling backward and biting heads off rats, the overwhelming urge to try lutefisk - you know, the usual symptoms of depression).

Then he listened to my concerns about what I always thought might be an anxiety disorder that I live with even during the "human" months of the year, and then I filled in the details of my family mental health history (which, when I said it all out loud in a row like that, sounded eerily like an episode of Jerry Springer, and when I mentioned this to him, he did not disagree).

Then I filled out some basic screening forms, and as Dr. Crazy Socks (good compromise, no?) perused the scores of those forms, he tapped his pen on his lips and said, "Hmmmmm," which either meant this was about to turn into a scene from my Taboo Anal Pleasures VVXI video, or he was thinking really, really hard.

And then he sort of surprised me by explaining that he thinks my anxiety isn't the primary concern, but instead is a symptom of what he called "smouldering depression" (dysthymia), something for which he thinks I can probably thank genetics (so the giant nose and the absent adult incisor aren't the only things my mother passed along to me)((remind me to send a thank you card))(((full of spiders))).

During the late winter months, it's likely that I dip down into major depression due to the lack of sunlight and the temperature-induced isolation. But he feels the major concern is something I never realized I had: the low-grade, smouldering depression. The fact that my "normal" isn't normal for other people, it's below normal. Kind of like my I.Q.

He asked me if I could tell him how much of every year do I feel depressed and I honestly couldn't answer because I'd never thought about it in those terms. So instead, he took a piece of paper and drew a line graph: the horizontal line represented time or months of the year, and the vertical line represented moods over that time.

The very top of the graph was "euphoria" and the very bottom was "major depression", and he said that the horizontal line in the middle was what healthy people consider "normal".

IMMEDIATELY, I understood what he had asked originally. Without further explanation from him, I pointed about half an inch below the "normal" line and said, "THAT'S my normal," and he said, "Yes, I think that's true," and so now I realize maybe why I hate everyone all the time. I guess I just figured I was a bitch.

So Dr. Crazy recommends medication to try and get my brain chemistry to realign it's "normal" (I need to find a general practitioner for that) and he also recommends counseling to teach my brain now to stop thinking like a depressed person (I'm seeing him again next Tuesday), and I think by the time winter strikes I'll be better prepared to handle it.

Of course, the lack of dead baby this year should help, but even so: THERE'S A CHANCE I WON'T WANT TO DIE THIS YEAR. Do you know what this means?!

It means I won't lose 4 months of the year to a fog of sleep and pain!
It means this blog might suck a big dick!
It means I'll need to find something new to blame on Obama!

Gray and I have discussed the fact that this winter is our final shot at making a life here in Minnesota. We are living in a house that we LOVE that is near to things we LOVE TO DO and people we LOVE TO SEE (except my Jill who might as well live in Iowa at this point) with jobs that we LOVE TO GO TO. I will be MEDICATED and less likely to drive off a bridge!

THIS? Is our last chance.

If I cannot be happy in Minnesota this winter, we will be making plans to move on, and I'm not sure that I want to do that when I've built so much life here already.

Plus...FUCK. If I have to move Gray's t-shirt collection one.more.time. so help me god I will burn them all, and then he would be left naked, and I don't think I have the heart to do that to you all.

Melty Hair

Ya'll, the Housewarming BBQ was so much fun and went off with not one hitch unless you count the thunderstorm which drove our guests into Spider Town (aka the garage) and the food turned out to be delectible and we had more than enough beer for the masses (and nobody even drank wine, so I've got, like, an entire case of it ALL TO MYSELF) and most of our good buddies were able to make it to the party and they brought me even more wine and they brought Gray beer and we were given several very thoughtful gifts and complimented endlessly on the work we've done to the house and we got to spend some time with the fascinating new neighbors and their hyper-verbal children and everybody had a great time despite the massive thunderstorm which rolled overhead no more than 3 seconds after Gray lit the bonfire...

...in fact, we had such a great time that I should have known I was going to pay dearly for my contentedness and relief. Such is the life of a pessimist. So it goes.

So in preparation for Gray's annual family reunion on Saturday, I was drying my hair using a round brush like I've done every single morning for the last 8 million years, except this time because I owed a debt of contentedness and relief to The Universe, and probably because my blow dryer is 5 years old, instead of my hair winding up dry, it wound up melted.

And when I realized I smelled burning hair, I started to panic and thrash my head about this way and that, and then I got really close to the mirror, close enough to realize my pores are getting bigger (WTF?) and that's when I saw the dark circle in my hair.

It was about the size of a dime, and in my head I went NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and I'm pretty sure out loud I went, "No no no no no no no no no no no!" and then I brought my arm up to touch the dark circle and I could hear all the demons of hell cackling and I could smell the brimstone that awaits me in the afterlife, and my arm was all moving in slow motion and I had time to think, "Dude, my eyes are REALLY big right now".

And when finally my trembling fingers reached up to touch the dark circle of my melted hair, they jostled the melted area and it all fell away from my head in clumps and tiny little frizzes, and my life flashed before my eyes and then I died.

These are what I call my Eyes of Displeasure. They fit nicely within the Face of Displeasure, something I've been wearing all weekend, thanks in part to my $1,000 in unexpected emergency car maintenance.

Thanks, Universe. And by "thanks", I mean "Fuck you".