Yoga time

My body is about as flexible as Rick Santorum’s views on morality, so I’m not exactly sure why I not only bought a Groupon for 5 yoga classes, but talked Charming into buying one too. We’ve been together over 7 years – it’s not like he hasn’t figured out I’m completely graceless by now.

But regardless, we bought these classes, and yesterday we attended our second practice. I always thought yoga was for teeny tiny, super-lithe people who are already athletic and flexible to begin with. I love when I’m right.

During our first class, I tried to get into child’s pose.



After pushing on me like a wooden whack-a-mole game for several seconds, the instructor eventually gave up and let me kind of hang out somewhere on my knees while holding onto the floor for dear life.

By the end of the class, my feet and my ass actually became acquainted (intentionally) and my spine was as loose and malleable as a Democrat’s. 

So on the off chance that this post somehow inspires you to take up yoga (“hey, I probably can’t suck as much as she does”), here’s a list of things I’ve learned from my experience thus far: 

1. Don’t wear a loose top with a regular bra, or you will spend the entire 75 minutes making J. Lo’s Oscar dress look conservative. 

2. Yes, that smell is coming from you. Now really streeeeeetch and get your head down there… 

3. Rocking back from standing to sitting is much more difficult when you’re 5’7 compared to 5’0. Those extra few inches do not make for a soft landing. 

4. I am not an elevator or a cactus or a pigeon or a warrior or a goddess – I’m just an awkward human being trying not to fart in the middle of class. 

5. There are muscles somewhere between my shoulders and my chest that have never been used before. Awakening the sleeping giant is a bad, bad idea. 

6. Resting your belly on your thighs is way easier when you have a few extra pounds of fluff. Score one for the pudge! 

7. Don’t try to cheat and move your hands further under you when the instructor is mercilessly pulling on your hips. Wait until her back is turned. 

8. I don’t like chanting “oooohhhhmmmm” – it makes me feel silly. 

9. Watching the 250+ lb girl do a yoga toe grab when I can barely sit up straight with my legs out is insanely depressing. 

10. My knees don’t go that direction. Or that one. Or… oh crap. 

Have you guys ever gotten off to a rough start with a new sport or hobby?

More than just a bad hair day

I kind of wanted to write a post about the fact that, somehow, despite my best intentions,* I ended up watching the Oscars last night.

*By “best intentions,” I mostly mean I really, REALLY didn’t want to watch the NBA All Star game.

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it a little odd that all these people are being recognized for acting, yet when they get up on stage to present, they can’t get through a 30 second sketch without looking like complete tools. With the possible exception of Melissa McCarthy. Jesus god that woman is funny.

But rather than commenting on the fact that Angelina looked like a geriatric Olsen twin, or how good Emma Stone looked in Lindsay Lohan’s former career, I’m going to whine about how stressed out I am, because this is my blog, and if you want an Oscars review, go read Jezebel or something. No wait, don’t go, I’m sorry, I’m just kind of emotional right now. Hugs?

Since August, I feel like I’ve just been moving from one disaster/tragedy to the next. My grandfather died, then my stepbrother, then Charming’s great Uncle, then Charming’s grandfather, then my uncle, then my grandmother was in the hospital twice, my step-grandmother is still in and out of the hospital, Charming’s brother was in the hospital, my great uncle is in the hospital, and Charming’s aunt had to have emergency surgery for a cancerous mass on her back.

Forget the Rule of Threes, this has been more like the Rule of You-Are-So-Fucked-Hahahaha-Love,-God.

On top of that, I’m desperately trying to juggle two grad school classes (two of my last four before I graduate in August), numb the pain in my face until I can have these wisdom teeth pulled in 3 ½ weeks, keep an eye on my grandmother who is simultaneously recovering from surgery and having her soul slowly destroyed by the spawn of satan, lose weight because that is always an issue for me, pick health insurance, either find a new job or get made permanent at my current job, maybe buy a house, and plan a wedding (oh yeah, that). Naturally the horseback riding, which is one of the very few things that keeps me on this side of a shiny metal door and padded walls, has fallen by the wayside.

Last Saturday, I had a total meltdown. I was trying to curl my hair (with my hair straightener – nifty trick from my stylist whom I would love to see again one day. I miss him.) and the left side curled perfectly, but the right side kept looking awful. So I tried re-straightening it and curling again, but that didn’t work. So I tried curling with a curling iron. But then the two sides didn’t even come close to matching. So I tried curling gel. Which just made my hair gross. And somehow, two hours later, I was sitting in the bathtub, shaking violently and trying to talk myself out of vomiting. Over fucking hair. And I hadn’t even found an outfit yet.

I know I have a lot going for me, I know I have a wonderful fiancé who – despite his inability to recognize when I really don’t feel like arguing over whether or not the hamster should be allowed to run around on our bed – puts up with my crazy shit, and I know the end is in sight, but sometimes, I’m not sure I’ll ever get there. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to breathe normally again. I’m not sure if I can get through the next 6 months without completely self-destructing.

And all of this from a bad hair day. Imagine if I’d had Milla Jovovich’s stylist… 

Masturbation is murder, too

While Virginia is still being stupid about the forced-rape-probing thing (although new intelligence seems to suggest their idiot Governor is less gung-ho about banishing women back to the kitchen than originally thought), I thought I’d discuss the other bill those barely-literate cavemen down in VA are trying to pass into law.

Following in the [barefoot and pregnant] footsteps of Mississippi, the VA House has passed a ‘personhood’ bill that says that “unborn children at every stage of development enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of the commonwealth, subject only to the laws and constitutions of Virginia and the United States, precedents of the United States Supreme Court, and provisions to the contrary in the statutes of the commonwealth.”

Holy crap, y’all. All we have to do is move to VA, and we’ve got THOUSANDS of little tax-deductions just scattered about our uteruses (uteri?). Think of the tax refunds! Do I have to name all of these unborn children, though? I (fortunately) don’t have that many dead relatives to name them all after…

Of course, this might create a problem during that time of the month. My body is committing murder against my unborn children! Clearly, someone should bring a class action suit against our collective uterine linings for periodically failing to provide an adequate life-sustaining environment for all of our unborn children. Aunt Flo is a murderous bitch.

I think this means all women should get more votes, too, right? I mean, those eggs have been in there for at least 18 years – developed or not, they’re old enough to vote.

And while we’re at it, we need to ban male masturbation, because obviously that denies millions of “children” the opportunity to be born. If they get control over my body, I should get some control over theirs, yes?

Virginia trying to make Mississippi/Florida look less horrific. Succeeding.

The (shockingly Republican-controlled) Virginia Senate just passed a bill that requires women to have an ultrasound wand shoved up their ladyparts if they want to have a (still legal in the state) abortion. Right now, it looks like the (wait for it… you guessed it! Republican!) governor is planning to sign it.

Next they’ll be voting to make themselves the “wand” holders. Also, to overturn the definition of ‘rape,’ since clearly those sluts should have just kept their legs together.

State delegate Todd Gilbert, fighting hard to out-ignorant Rick Santorum, said: “the vast majority of these cases [abortion] are matters of lifestyle convenience.” Yes, well, how dare I get in the way of this rape-baby’s right to be a parasite inside my body for 5-6+ months until it’s a viable human being on its own.

Because logic is just for poor people who can’t buy Congressional seats, some members of the VA Senate are arguing that the woman agreed to be penetrated once already when she got pregnant, so why shouldn’t they be able to stick the filthy fingers of the law up inside her as well? I know Congressmen tend to think they’re gods, but they’re definitely not doctors.

I hate to keep dredging up the Holocaust references, but this is starting to sound a bit like the Nazi medical experiments. “Well… how about if we shove a large, hard object up her vagina and see if that makes her change her mind about the abortion??”

The state is mandating a medically unnecessary procedure be performed on women, against their will.
Anyone care to take bets on whether this would have passed if the forced penetration was being done to a man, instead?

Chutzpah!

I feel like I write about Mr. Google Problem Santorum a lot, but can you blame me? He’s the Dubya of our time. Except more hateful.

I want you to read this quote – really let it sink in – while you remember Rick Santorum’s various campaign platforms:

"I think it's really important for you to understand what this radical element [Occupy Wall Street] represents. Because what they represent is true intolerance."

True intolerance, folks.

My people have a word for this. The word is “chutzpah.” Loosely translated: balls.

This man has balls, to in one breath advocate for second-class rights and citizenship for people who live a different lifestyle than him, and in the next, call someone else intolerant.



Santorum then continued to ride roughshod over those silly little trivialities called ‘facts’ by talking about the California 9th Circuit Court’s decision to overturn the ban on gay marriages: “What they said was that anybody who disagreed with them were irrational and the only reason they could possibly agree is they were a hater or a bigot.”

What they, you know, actually said was: The ban on gay marriages “serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples." To-may-toe. Toh-MAH-toe, Mr. Santorum?

Because in my book, upholding human dignity doesn’t make you a “hater.” But being an ignorant, homophobic, turd-droplet does make you a bigot.

And by the way? The court’s ruling was based on that piece of paper … whatchamacallit… tip of my tongue … oh yeah! The Constitution. Not Mr. Santorum’s personal moral preferences. Kind of as it should be. Funny, that.

Nightmare daydreams

Am I the only one who makes up completely ridiculous, improbable scenarios in my head, and then proceeds to stress about them non-stop?

Because if I’m completely alone in this, there’s a good chance I’m even more crazy than I realized and my alter-personality that has never existed/escaped before is suddenly going to take over and go on a murderous rampage and I’m going to end up in prison contracting HIV on my face from unsterilized tattoo needles. I’m getting a teardrop, a la Crybaby, in this scenario, in case you were wondering.

Charming’s mother sent us her [surprisingly reasonable] list of desired guests for our wedding [*cough* at least his parents follow directions *cough*]. And I noticed that she wrote on there that a particular cousin is angling to have her kid invited to the wedding.

Charming and I have already decided no kids, but naturally my brain starts to wonder what would happen if she just showed up with the kid anyway.



He’s actually a perfectly nice kid (at least from my brief experience with him), but my completely irrational left brain turns him into a willful little monster who runs out of wherever we’ve stashed him and spooks the horse I’m riding down the aisle and suddenly I’m lying in the mud (why is there mud at my wedding, damnit?!) with broken bones and messed up hair and the horse has gotten loose and people are telling me it’s my fault and then I’m flipping out at all of them and calling off the wedding.

My stomach is tensed up in knots, my chest hurts and I’m on the verge of having a panic attack about calling off my wedding because of my own completely hypothetical, not-even-a-chance-it-would-happen, ridiculous nightmare-daydream.

Because these are the productive things I do with my time.

Why can’t I turn this ridiculous creativity into productive things, like writing fiction, so at least I could get rich off my insanity?

Delicious slut candy from a vending machine

Between Roethlisberger, the Penn State sex scandal and that train wreck Christina Aguilera, not a lot of good stuff has been coming out of Pennsylvania lately.

But Shippensburg University (the Towson of the north) is changing that.

The university has started selling Plan B pills from a vending machine.

How brilliant is that? Rick Santorum was on campus last night, you took a shot every time he said “family values,” got wasted within 30 seconds, had unprotected sex with 4 (6?) different frat brothers … normally you’d be fucked (literally), but now you can just go pop $25 in a machine and buy a little peace of mind.

The machine is located in the student health center, in a private room accessible only by students (all over the age of 17), and negates most of the stigma/embarrassment of having to go to your local CVS and get the once-over by the creepy pharmacist before being given a pack. I’m not sure how you get past the stigma of being seen going into That Room (“No, no… I just needed a private place to pee in a cup, and the bathroom was taken…!”), but it’s a start.

I love this idea. While I’m more or less ok with the idea of needing adult consent to buy the pill if you’re under 17 (if you’re 14 and having unprotected sex/pregnancy scares, a [responsible] adult really should know about your whorish ways), anything that increases access to and reduces stigma of women’s reproductive health care options is A OK by me.

Because, you know, if you don’t get that MRS degree mommy and daddy sent you to college to attain, you might just have to make decisions for yourself one day. Ones that don’t just involve which sauce to make with the pot roast for your bread-winning husband’s dinner.

Wisdom teeth and wedding dresses

Saturday, Charming and I stumbled out of bed at 7am to make the 40 minute drive to southern Maryland for a dentist’s appointment. Normally I have the good sense to fear anyone coming at my face with pick axes and other small, metal torture devices, but this time I was excited.

I had plunked down $2900 online for a Groupon, and I was getting Invisalign.

While I most people might normally be a bit leery of daily-deal dental health care, I’d already had 2 different consults for Invisalign (one in Austin, before we moved here, and one in Rockville a couple weeks ago), and the price was right, since I don’t have dental insurance, so I was ready to do it.

I worried about my breath, as I always do at the dentists – even though I brush and floss regularly (and especially before a dentist appointment), I’m sure they’re going to get all judgey on my oral hygiene.

Then I suffered through the x-rays. I have the world’s most awful gag reflex – professional prostitute was crossed of my list of potential career options pretty early on. Silver linings.

Then the dentist, who kept taunting me with her huge, white, glistening smile, informed me that I’m not a candidate. Even though I’ve had two past consults who were ready to take my cash. Not until I have my wisdom teeth removed.

I like hot doctors as much as the next red-blooded American gold digger girl, but I’m not all about unnecessary surgery to remove teeth that have never bothered me.

She did show me the x-rays, and the fact that the bottom two wisdom teeth are impacted, so it sounds like they were going to need to come out eventually. So I’m resigned to the fact, but the problem is, I still don’t have dental insurance.

I bought some cheap-y private health insurance through Aetna, in case I get hit by a bus (or fall off my bike), but the teeth are on their own. Charming and I are still trying to figure this one out (fingers crossed for a big tax refund…) but if anyone sees a Groupon or LivingSocial for elective oral surgery, let me know!

After the Invisalign letdown, we headed up to B-more to do some wedding dress shopping.

This was my first time ever trying on a wedding dress, and let me tell you, it is weird. The consultant kindly turned her back while I attempted to wiggle from my bra into a strapless, corseted torture device without losing too much dignity.

Then I stood there in black Spanx, clearly-visible granny panties, and this ridiculous see-through strapless corset thing (a man invented this, I’m sure) while the consultant came at me with this frothy Stay-puff Marshmallow Man-sized pile of ivory froth and told me to ‘put my hands together and dive headfirst!’

The consultant seat-belted me into this thing from the inside, and I robot-walked to the pedestal, terrified of lifting a knee and tripping on the endless piles of train. I felt like one of those unwieldy school mascot costumes who had tipped over and gotten stuck. Except I was upright, and somehow, I looked like a bride.

My grandmother got teary-eyed, and my mom immediately started having visions of princess gowns with even more froth. I just got sweaty. The consultant very-tactfully never mentioned the eau-de-I-swear-I’m-not-old-enough-for-this-bride-to-be.

I tried on a gorgeous strapless James Clifford (the original Jim Helm, as our other consultant pointed out 72593491 bajillion times) and another lovely strapless with a lace overlay that covered my chest. I dunno – the lace thing had some name, but that name didn’t involve Louis Vuitton, so I wasn’t paying attention.

I tried on the princess gown for my mom, and looked just like Barbie (well, if she’d quit being anatomically incorrect) plunked down on top of a roll of toilet paper.

Then they thought I should try a mermaid dress. You know, just to see.

I have hips that, on a scale from J. Lo to Jabba the Hut, make Jabba look svelte.



I explained this, and my mother rolled her eyes, and they attempted to stuff me head-first into this thing.

45 seconds later, they decided maybe bottom up would be a better method.

So they wiggled it back up off my head, and had me step into it. One consultant pulled from the front, one from the back, and with seesawing motions, they managed to get the thing over my rear end and into place. The first consultant finally broke a sweat at this point.

I looked like a straight-up 50s pin-up model, with hips to put even the most experienced birthing sow to shame, but I could. not. move.

My knees were forced in by the material of the dress, and were grinding against each other like teenagers at a public high school prom. I had to bend sideways at the waist and extend one knee out sort of half-sideways, half-behind me to get up onto the pedestal. And I slid off the edge with both feet together like a chubby penguin when it was time to come down.

Needless to say, I will not be wearing a mermaid gown.

We didn’t find *the* dress, but I think I’m a little more prepared for our trip to Kleinfeld’s next month. Don’t make me look like a cupcake, a toilet paper roll cover or a large slug-like alien, and I might just say yes to the dress…

The devil at the wedding

I wrote about my crazy Aunt once before, then pulled the post because it felt a little mean, even for me.

But now I’m bringing her up again, because eventually I’ll have to make a decision about whether or not to invite her to our wedding.

Now I’m not talking underwear-outside-her-clothes crazy or even Rick-Santorum-would-make-a-great-president crazy. This woman is the-ice-cream-man-wouldn’t-serve-my-children-ice-cream-because-he’s-persecuting-us-and-now-I’m-foreclosing-on-my-house-and-writing-to-the-ACLU-because-I’m-being-chased-out-of-Arizona-crazy. Did you catch all that? As if Arizona would persecute her. I mean, come on … she’s not Hispanic.

When my grandfather was dying, everything was about her. No one else – not even my grandmother – was entitled to a moment to grieve because this woman is just not physically or mentally capable of being aware of anyone other than herself. She’s a vicious black hole who sucks out every emotion you have, then warps it and twists it to make herself look like the poor, beleaguered victim. No matter what you do.

One day, her two daughters walked into my grandfather’s hospice room, where we were all sitting vigil, and they didn’t acknowledge her enough to suit her mood. So she stalked out. Left her phone and disappeared for several hours. A 50-something year old woman throwing a hissy fit and hiding because of an imagined slight – I grew out of that around age 5.

I was the last to leave that night, other than my grandmother. As I was leaving, preparing to make the hour-long drive back to DC, so I could collapse into bed, exhausted, sleep 3-4 hours, wake up, go to work, and drive to Baltimore again to spend the rest of the evening by his side, the prodigal Aunt returned. And I just knew she was going to raise hell for my grandmother.

So I headed her off at the pass, turned her around, and sat her down in the lobby area, where other families were reminiscing or crying quietly over their beloved family members. Imagine that luxury.

And I spent over an hour and a half desperately, incessantly trying to pound the idea into her head that this HAD to be about my grandmother – that she needed to stop worrying about the petty things and start looking after her mother.

All she could do was sob pathetically and go “You’re such a nice girl, how did you turn out so nice? Why don’t I deserve nice kids?” A) My mother wasn’t a narcissistic, psychotic she-devil, and B) At least two of your children are actually doing quite well – no thanks to you – if you’d stop being a fucking brain-damaged skeletor-faced bitch for two seconds, you might see that. Oh yeah, and C) I’m not nice to people who don’t deserve it.

And after my grandfather passed, the Aunt remained an uninvited house guest at my grandmother’s for over THREE weeks. Not out of some altruistic, if warped, desire to look after her mother. No – it was to get the free housing and food, to have my grandmother do her laundry and pay for her medicines and walk her dog (that she brought with her from Florida and foisted off on my grandmother) and run her errands and fix her car.

And then, instead of just leaving, she made my grandmother pay to fly one of her daughter’s friends up from Florida and let him stay in the house for several days so he could help her drive back down to Florida. With a bunch of my grandfather’s furniture.

There’s so much more than this – these are just the tip of the raw wounds that fester at me and make me want to keep her as far away from my wedding and my future as possible.

But do I really have the guts to just not send an invite? My grandmother is helping to pay for a lot of the wedding – will she back me? I know she recognizes some of the issues with my aunt, but she’s always been a bit of an enabler as well.

If I don’t invite her, Crazy Aunt will turn on everyone else, too. She’ll blame my father, for poisoning me against her, my grandmother for not caring enough about her, my cousins for telling lies about her, my mom for not raising me right… the list goes on.

But if I do invite her, she’ll drive my grandmother nuts in the days leading up to the wedding. She’ll have to stay with her and feed off of her soul like the parasite she is. She’ll wonder aloud, every few minutes or so, who is going to put together such a nice wedding for her daughters, and why no one ever did it for her. She’ll be jealous of the attention we get as the bride and groom. And god knows who we dislike enough to seat with her.

So I truly don’t know what to do, short of arranging an unfortunate accident involving a stake and several cloves of garlic.

What do y’all think?