Hit by a Pitch

I was pretty sure that this year’s holiday card would be much more awesome than last year’s. I briefly considered enlisting the help of a professional photographer, but that shit’s expensive. We’ve made several technological advances around here, including but not limited to acquiring a full-size tripod and a wireless camera remote and having a child who has reached the age where he is capable of fake smiling on command at least some of the time. (My favorite part of last year’s card was the way it reflected the interplay of the yin and yang of life as symbolized by the juxtaposition of the word “JOY” with a child who appeared to be anything but joyful.) (Just kidding.) There’s no way in hell we couldn’t get at least one decent picture of all three of us.

This year, part of our Thanksgiving festivities included a full-on photo shoot in our front yard. As always, that was pretty sexy. It required me putting on makeup (to be fair, this takes only like 5 minutes now that I’ve officially decreed that glasses are the lazy woman’s eye makeup) and, in an inexplicable move that would’ve baffled even people who knew me in high school when I actually dressed like this, dressing up like a 70s goth prairie hippie (you should’ve seen the skirt and the boots).

This didn’t go well for a number of reasons. First, we witnessed an ultra-creepy Suburban rear-end a parked car, reverse, and drive away. Then Soren realized there was absolutely no reason to smile at a camera on a tripod. Then he determined that the fact I wouldn’t give him the camera remote was a personal outrage the likes of which he has never experienced in his time on this planet. Then it turned out I zoomed in too much and our heads were totally cut off. We soldiered on and took more shots, but it was all bad. The best shot ended up being something terrible that I cropped to within an inch of its pathetic life before including in my Thanksgiving post, because it sure as hell won’t see the light of day on a holiday card.

Why does the completely top-heavy woman always want to wear short sleeves? I do not know. I do hope, however, that my brother, Brian Urlacher, will give me some free Bears tickets before this season is over. What is Soren pointing at? I do not know. Ben’s hair is still wet. Shoot me.

Then I thought hey, most of the pictures of Ben and me that exist are pictures I’ve taken myself by holding the camera with my left hand and hoping for the best. That might work, and it has the added bonus of being a close-up shot and thereby decreasing the importance of what we’re wearing, the scenery, and my linebacker-like upper body. Win/win/win!

Well, no. There was no “win” about it. Also, I’m suffering from the form of the existential dilemma wherein you recognize that you skew a little smug when you don’t smile and a little crazy when you do. I suppose crazy > smug, right?

Eventually, I realized that our only hope was Photobooth on my Mac. At least then, Soren can look at himself on the screen and be at least slightly entertained, plus I can make sure I don’t have 12 chins.

Well, that’s no good either and it’s terrible quality, but unfortunately, it’s the best we can do. Happy holidays, fuckers, from the hills of West Virginia or wherever the hell we are.

The good news is, if I can scrape some good news off the shoes of our pathetic family photo situation, is that this is not our main holiday card photo. It is but an accent. Behold.

I don’t know. It’s not the greatest card ever and nobody’s going to put that shit on Pinterest, but I suppose it is representative of, well, us. Happy holidays!

Bangs. I always get them and I always hate them.

It’s as certain as death and taxes. As soon as my bangs finally grow out and I am freed from the prison of having annoying hair in my face all the time and the associated problems including but not limited to greasy bangs (and the existential dilemma of whether to wash them more often even though I know that just makes them more determined to be greasy) and sweaty bangs that bug the crap out of me while running (I can’t wear headbands because they, like, move around and also my head is gigantic have you seen it) and bang separation issues, I’ll go right out and get them again.

I made an illustration of my relationship with bangs using my toddler’s LARGE washable crayons. I call it “The Cycle of Bangs” and it is destined to repeat itself over and over and over in my lifetime.

I’m currently in Why?!! territory, headed toward Aaaaah!! Fun times.

Maybe one day I’ll learn.

My mini bar is cash only.

I’ve finally figured out that if you want to make it as a blogger, you have to post alliterative, gimmicky stuff on Wednesdays. I can understand this. It’s hard to come up with shit to write on Wednesdays. You might be coming off a hard day at work, where, among other things, you’re trying to organize a meeting for a group of people with a median age of 97 who have trouble operating technology you and I take for granted. (“The document I submitted wasn’t attached.” It was. “I submitted information to a different person for a different project 27 years ago. Can you find it for me? I’m going to be on Hoarders this week so you can understand the difficulty I will have trying to locate it myself.” I’ll see what I can do. “I’m a mysterious and unknown person you didn’t even invite to this meeting but here I am! I can’t open half of your documents. I’m running Windows Holes in Caves OS.” Of course. Let me save down to .rock format. I hope you have the Times Old Roman font installed on your computer.) You ran your nonexistent ass off at the gym and came home to dinner on the table (yes!) and a grumpy-ass toddler (boo!). You’re tired and uninspired and have no idea what to write about on Wednesday.

I mean, just take a look at the Wednesday blog offerings out there. We have “What I Ate Wednesday” (some food) and “Wordless Wednesday” (_______). I don’t have much to offer in these areas (and I already do “Photo Fridays” with some regularity, which is more than enough contribution to contentless blog posts from one person), so I figured I should come up with my own Whatever Wednesdays. How about WTF Wednesday? I can use it to make fun of myself for stupid shit I do. That should provide enough material for several Wednesdays, should I be so dedicated to pursuing something that probably shouldn’t have seen the light of day instead of never thinking of it again after today.

Speaking of things that shouldn’t have seen the light of day, let’s talk about my bathroom photos. Yes. My inaugural WTF Wednesday is the groundbreaking post wherein I admit the embarrassing fact that I take pictures of myself in the bathroom. And if we’re being honest here, which we are because we are nothing if not brave in confronting our demons on the internet, we’ll admit that I’m not the only one.

Why do people, bloggers (and those weird Facebook women who often show underboob while seductively standing in front of a toilet and have a penchant for friending former NBA players) in particular if my theory is correct, take pictures of themselves in bathrooms? It could be because we’re vain assholes like everybody else on the internet. Or we’re always the ones with the camera and sometimes we worry that one day we’ll pass on and the only photographic evidence of our existence left to our children will be our hideous driver’s license photos. Maybe we’re a little self-conscious about having other people take our pictures because nobody is going to want to take the 27 shots required to ensure that there’s at least one that doesn’t feature an unappealing chin/nose/face-in-general angle. Maybe it’s an innate thing, not unlike the toddler “mine,” that comes to the surface as soon as we’re alone in a bathroom with a camera, which happens quite often when you always have a camera with you.

The good news, if there is good news, is that I now strictly adhere to an unofficial bathroom photo code of conduct (as you’ll see below, I didn’t always). Rule #1 is “no visible toilets, especially, for the love of all that is good and right in the world, no visible toilets with the lid or seat up holy crap.” The other good news in this situation . . . does not exist.

This wouldn’t be WTF Wednesday without presenting the incriminating evidence, which consists of photos I’ve taken of myself in bathrooms over a number of years and voluntarily posted publicly on the internet. These should be marked NSFLife.

*trigger warning: bathroom photos*
Read the rest of this entry »

Some pizza places today don’t know how to take your order. Sometimes, I honestly have had better luck getting my order correct at fast food restaurants at times. It’s sad, it really is.

A good example is that several times I have requested a side of RANCH with my bread sticks, or cheese sticks or cheesy bread as the case may be. “A side of ranch.” Almost EVERY TIME, my order arrived with the default marinara sauce and ***NO RANCH***.  WHY is it that they ASSUME that I do not want the ranch I specifically requested? Don’t you think that’s RIDICULOUS to that I request ranch and yet time after time after time ranch is not what I receive? WHAT is it with people taking your order who don’t LISTEN to what you ordered?

WTF DO SOME ORDER TAKERS NOT LISTEN? WHAT IS THE PROBLEM HERE? These type of order takers need to learn HOW to take an ORDER. If you are taking ORDERS but you do not actually know how to take an ORDER, what does that say about the state of our **world** today? It’s sad, that’s what it is.

In addition to being crazy, I'm Amish.

I feel WHAT IDIOTS are OUT THERE taking our orders and not ***LISTENING**** to WTF WE ARE SAYING?

WHY NOT BRING ME MY RANCH? WHY?!! All I wanted was a side of ranch. Just one side of ranch. And they wouldn’t give it to me. Just a side of ranch!

Other times, I order ADDING or even at a time or two ordered by saying “I would like the bread sticks and I would like to ADD a side of ranch” or a few times I have said “I would like the bread sticks with a side of ranch.”

Here’s a menu description for example:

“BREADSTICKS
Breadsticks baked to a golden brown. With marinara sauce for dipping.”

This means that if I order bread sticks, I AUTOMATICALLY am ORDERING the marinara unless I SPECIFICALLY say I don’t want the marinara, which is the sauce it comes with that I am PAYING for, which at most places, they don’t even charge for extra condiments.

WHY is it that they ASSUME you could ONLY POSSIBLY WANT ONE SAUCE, especially when APPETIZERS are normally SHARED, which means that one person may want ranch, the other may want marinara or both people may want more than one sauce. WHY is it that SOME people are too STUPID to take an order at times?

I shouldn’t even have to say “I would like to ADD a side of ranch” to get both sauces, because the MENU has that I am supposed to get the other sauce, which in this case is marinara. I should be able to just say “I would like the bread sticks with ranch.” Quit thinking it’s totally impossible to have more than one dipping sauce and if it’s free to the customer, WTF should you give a care if you give me both? The customer is already paying for the sauce it comes with in the price of the item.

They should NEVER ask if I want both sauces if extra sauces aren’t being charged to the customer if I don’t say I don’t want the sauce it comes with or if I don’t say it’s a substitution, because the extra sauces are free, so the customer isn’t going to be affected by the extra sauce because it’s on the SIDE anyway, so it’s not affecting the food itself.

Now, if the restaurant DOES charge for extra condiments, that’s when a good employee may ask if the customer wants both sauces, but ONLY THEN. Don’t waste customer’s time asking questions if the extra sauces are free to the customer. I mean honestly if the sauces are free to the customer, YOU SHOULD BRING ME ALL OF THE SAUCES ANYWAY. NOM NOM who doesn’t love sauces and condiments?! !!!

It’s kind of like one time when MY CHILD WOULDN’T GO TO SLEEP and that happened AFTER we had pizza and cheesy bread sticks for dinner and I asked for RANCH on the side either instead of or in addition to the DEFAULT MARINARA and I did not receive the RANCH and I ended up writing a WHOLE ENTIRE BLOG POST IN THE STYLE OF ***SPRINGS1*** with a Suicidal Tendencies reference so obscure nobody will get it because I might actually BE going completely INSANE.

Asking about sandwiches or anything that can be inherently affected and altered in a profound, existential manner by the food that isn’t on the side but is incorporated into the aforementioned item should ALWAYS be asked by the server if unsure, such as just because the menu states the sandwich for example comes with lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles, the customer may not realize it or just didn’t read the menu or whatever, so it’s a GOOD IDEA to ask if they want all those things on their sandwich, even if this practice would be completely ridiculous and inefficient and in reality would annoy me so much if anyone ever did it to me I would start an entire new blog where I would write exactly one post about how much that annoys me and then get like 607 comments and then never even think of that blog again.

I know people make mistakes, but 9 times out of 10, they just deliver-your-food-n-run and don’t care about what’s in the box, which in fact they have probably not even seen, which is tragic. Most pizza delivery employees do not compare the final order to the original order as it was originally ordered by the person placing the order. WTF is that?

And I know I could just make my own RANCH DRESSING, but that is not the point.

Disclaimer: I hope this goes without saying, but I don’t actually think restaurant employees are STUPID.

I need to wear these glasses more often. Or would it be more accurate to refer to these glasses as wearing me? Either way, I love them but they also terrify me. Last year, I had them redone with Transitions lenses, so they can be both regular glasses and sunglasses, which is just about the silliest thing in the entire world but these really want to be sunglasses and I just didn’t have the heart to keep them from fulfilling their full potential even though I really want them to be regular glasses.

Sorry I’m light on content again. Soren got sick and then Ben got sick and now I’m getting sick. I’d like to spend the rest of this gloomy, rainy day on the couch snuggled under a hand-crocheted ripple blanket, which I do not own but fully intend to make one day as soon as I master sewing on my new sewing machine, which is next on the list (I did some sewing in high school so I’m reasonably confident this will be a successful endeavor), and then learn to crochet (I’ve been meaning to crochet a ripple blanket for years). So back to the couch, I was on it, under a blanket that doesn’t yet exist, watching the 900 hours of Rockies coverage that comes with having two games played on one day (and keeping in mind that tonight’s game will be the third in a row we’re supposed to attend but will miss thanks to everyone being in various stages of feeling like crap — I should have a system for giving away our tickets in these situations), and then going to bed early, where I actually fall asleep instead of reading Sports Illustrated, worrying about things, starting to finally drift off, and then being awakened by a raspy, boogery, crying baby who will only fall asleep again after having his diaper changed, ingesting baby Ibuprofen, and having his back rubbed for 57 years. Instead, I’m having a beer and writing a blog post that probably makes me sound like I’m delirious with fever, which I’m totally not, while Ben is doing something mysterious that has resulted in Soren being reasonably quiet even though he’s a bit grumpy right now. I think it involves food. (Haha he’s feeding him grapes like a tiny little Greek god or something.)

Speaking of food, the good news is that I’ve already made tonight’s dinner, less the vegetarian bacon, which I’ll add at the last minute so it doesn’t get soggy. It’s a seven-layer salad. (Soren is totally not going to eat that.) Do you need a recipe for that? You probably don’t, because they’re all over the internet, but I’ve noticed that most of the internet recipes for seven-layer salad have a tragic flaw (I’ll just say — brown sugar > white sugar in this instance). Also just say no to celery, if it’s called for, because celery is one of those things that is necessary only in very limited circumstances (such as stuffing) and tends to overpower the other flavors in a dish. So maybe I’ll give you my seven-layer salad recipe later, not that you need it. xoxo

Song: Fisher-Price Ocean Wonders Soothe & Glow Seahorse
_______
Do you ever get an unlikely thought stuck in your head and eventually kind of freak out about it?

Xochitl is a woman of the streets. Well, she used to be a woman of the streets. She came to us as a pregnant stray and eventually had four kittens, all of them tabbies. Eek. (As you may know, we adopted out two of the tabbies, to delightful former co-workers of Ben in Oak Park, and kept the two who turned out to be kind of special.)

Life on the streets still holds a certain appeal for Xochitl. When we lived in Nederland, she darted out the door one night when Ben came home from work. To say I freaked the fuck out would be an understatement. I think it was on my birthday, too, but fortunately, time softens these stupid memories. I put signs up all over our (thankfully tiny) neighborhood and contacted every animal shelter in the area, including Boulder (as if she’d just, like, walk down Boulder Canyon and go to that Atlas Purveyors place everybody is always talking about [I've never been]). I wandered the streets with eyeliner-tear-stained eyes, calling her name, which we incorrectly pronounce kind of like SO-chee (we like to hand out Aztec and Danish names as if we’re Aztec or Danish, I guess). I found a website that tells you to find your lost cat by thinking like a cat, and if I recall correctly it had some kind of “What kind of cat are you?” quiz, where you pretend you’re your cat answering questions on Facebook and then find out that you’re a Samantha cat. Of course you are. You got knocked up by a tabby. This research resulted in a bowl of cat food being lovingly placed on our front porch.

These were the glory days in Nederland, where I didn’t have a job and spent my days going to the gym and the beer store and my nights talking shit on the internet for hours with a group of women who to this day are totes my internet BFFs. That meant I was home the next day when that crazy bitch showed up on the front porch to eat some delicious cat food. I didn’t want to scare her away, so I slowly opened the front door, totally trying to act all nonchalant and shit. She just walked right into the house and was all, “‘Sup.” (She still kind of talks like an annoying hipster who pretends she and Snoop Dogg knew each other back in the day, but her “back in the day” was in DeKalb, Illinois, so this is doubtful.)

She sometimes still thinks about making a run for it, even though she’s fattened up over the years and has lost any street cred she might’ve had many years ago. The weird thing is that she seems to like snow. She likes snow and sometimes she lurks by the front door when someone is coming in or going out.

This morning, I made my usual trip to the car to drop off all the luggage Soren and I need to get through our respective days. Before the door closed behind me, I thought hey, Xochitl didn’t get out, did she? I don’t even know why that popped into my head. I looked around and didn’t see her, so I piled the stuff into the car, came back in the house, performed the dog/peanut-butter/leaving-the-house ritual, picked up the bejacketed Soren, grabbed my handbag (I’m far too paranoid to leave this unattended in the car because someone might gank my debit card and get that $7), turned on the alarm, and then remembered I had this fleeting thought about Xochitl ducking out of the house to go on a crack-buying run or something. As the alarm counted down (it gives us plenty of time but always puts me a little on edge, like if I don’t get out of the house before the alarm is armed I’ll be trapped in here all day) and while carrying the world’s heaviest 25-pound toddler and a Tokidoki LeSportsac (yay!) bag full of random crap like 72 granola bars and the current issue of Sports Illustrated I insist on bringing to the gym even though I never read magazines at the gym, I half-assedly looked for Xochitl. I saw one tabby. I saw another tabby. I thought oh shit, we’re overrun with tabbies, and I left.

Cat anxiety doesn’t surface again until I’m sitting in my office hours later, and you know how that works? I start thinking hm, the cat didn’t get out, did she? No, she didn’t get out. There was no evidence of a cat escape — no paw prints in the light dusting of snow that was just beginning to accumulate this morning. Nothing. If this were the show Disappeared, we’d have to look elsewhere for evidence because there’s none here. Somehow, though, a random wisp of a thought can become full-on anxiety if you’re not careful. Holy shit the cat is totally gone and we live in the ‘hood and it’s going to be a bazillion degrees below zero tonight. You realize you’re being stupid, but as I am wont to say, that’s never stopped you before.

Tonight when I got home from the gym, the first thing that happened when I walked into the house, before I could even take off my ugly-ass boots (you totally get to wear ugly-ass boots when you live in Colorado — it’s a rule or something), there was Xochitl, waiting to eat the snow I tracked in from outside. “Xochitl!” I said. “I’m so happy to see you!”

Song: Let Me Bang by DJ Deeon (Warning: This song is probably offensive to most people.)
_______
Here is something from my old blog, written in 2007:

There are two types of women in the world.

I’m not saying that women aren’t incredibly complex, nuanced creatures, or that any particular woman fits into any neat and tidy category. Except this one.

There are women who need bangs, and women who don’t.

For whatever reason, I’ve long thought of myself as a woman who doesn’t need bangs. This dates back to my early twenties, when my haircut of choice was a bob, longer in front and shorter in back, no bangs. I’m not sure why I came to this conclusion, seeing as how I have, to put it kindly, an oval-shaped face (or not so kindly, a looooong face). Also, referring to my forehead as a fivehead is probably an understatement. It might qualify as a six-and-a-half head, but I still labored under the delusion that I am a woman who does not need bangs.

I have nothing against bangs, but I really, really hate having hair in or on my face. It’s really annoying, especially when working out, and I am not the headband-the-bangs-off-your-face type, even at the gym (I hate having anything around my head even more than I hate having anything on my face). I also have this fantasy that my quasi-wavy air-dried hair could look sort of beach-sexy disheveled when it gets a bit longer, and the thought of having good hair with almost no effort is very appealing. However, I hate wavy or curly hair with bangs.

Right now, I’m kind of in bang limbo. I’ve had bangs for a while now (I’m not sure what possessed me, but the second I got them I realized what an idiot I’d been to go without them for so long — apparently it takes me a while to learn). I’ve been growing them out, though, and now they’re sideswept bangs that are almost nonbangs, almost long enough to push behind my ear but not quite. This is the worst possible length for bangs to be — they’re always in my face and it drives me crazy. In just a few months, they should be long enough to stay out of the way. I’d be liberated from the bangs.

But then yesterday, cruel, cruel reality slapped me upside the fivehead. We were on our way home from the Nuggets game, and I was feeling bad about never taking any pictures. We also were stuck on Market Street in the most ridiculous traffic I have ever seen (a million people were out for St. Pat’s day, decked out in ill-fitting green t-shirts and sparkly Mardi-Gras-looking necklaces, being drunk and really, really annoying), so to entertain myself, I started taking pictures. The first problem with this is that Ben gets the goofiest look on his face every time he’s having his picture taken. The second problem is that in every shot, I looked like a Russian mail-order bride who had been held captive in someone’s basement for a year before escaping. If you think Tyra Banks has a fivehead, well, yeah, so do I. That thing took up the whole picture, dwarfing the rest of my face, and made me look like some kind of malnourished skeletor (I’m glad I didn’t look fat, but still, this is not appealing).

So the reality hit me right then. I am a woman who needs bangs. I will never again deny this ultimate truth. This Saturday, I will once again have bangs, real bangs, not bangs I just shove off to the side and wish they weren’t there. A while ago, I wrote about discovering my style icon, Jane Birkin. She will be my bang inspiration — I’m going all-out — thick, straight, not sideswept bangs.

I hope you all can learn from my mistakes. If your first response to this post was to think, “Ha, I don’t need bangs!” — are you sure? Really sure? I didn’t think I needed bangs — I thought they were nice, but I looked just as good without them. Not true. I bet most women look better with bangs than without, especially with hair up, because hair up, no bangs is not a look for everyone. Yes, bangs can be annoying — but I suppose I’d rather be annoyed by bangs than live the rest of my life looking like a “before” picture.
_______

Okay, back to present day here. I went back through my photo archives and found the post-Nuggets, mail-order-bride photos from 2007. Here’s one of them. I know it’s not a good photo and this might be the least of my worries, but it’s the kind of picture you’d see on the internet and think, shit, that woman needs some bangs. It’s even worse in the crappy Hipstamatic picture I posted the other day, which is what got me thinking about this stupid issue again in the first place.

These are the kind of pictures you look at and say, oh, how sad for her that that’s going on with her hair, the poor thing. Here, have a hug and some scissors.

The problem is, as mentioned above, I hate having hair on my face. I hate it so much I’d rather look like, well, like I look. I know. It’s bad. And I like thick, blunt, Jane Birkin bangs. But I learned only recently that very thick, blunt bangs can make a long face look even longer. They also make me skew a little — I don’t know — Broncos fan who drinks a lot of terrible beer at bars like the Stumble/Float/Roll/Drift Inn (the kind of place you pass in the middle of nowhere while you’re going somewhere else and say hey, let’s just hang out at the Stumble/Float/Roll/Drift Inn instead of going to whatever super-awesome place you’re going, but you never actually hang out there, ever).

The other problem is that I sometimes have unfortunate bangs. I mean, seriously, what the shit is this? And I swear, this is not me taking an unwarranted opportunity to post a picture of me with Joe Sakic, because seriously, nobody in her right mind would want to post a picture of herself looking like this, Joe Sakic or not. Then there was the time I decided to trim my bangs after having too much to drink and while watching Kansas get eliminated from the NCAA Tournament the year I picked them to win the whole thing. This was during the mysterious dark-brown-hair years, and the result was less Bettie Page, more unfortunate baby-banged moonface girl who’s not even cool enough for roller derby no matter how much she might try.

Part of the problem, too, is that I think in general, bangs look better with dark hair than with blond hair (unfortunate non-roller-derby me excepted). But there are some blond women who look awesome with bangs. Reese Witherspoon, for example. Or Sarah Burke. I think I do okay with not-too-long, thickish, sideswept bangs, even in dorky pictures where Ben and I both look like we just smoked a big fatty outside my cousin’s wedding.

The other problem (Good lord, how many problems could there be regarding something as inconsequential as what I do with my stupid hair?) is that I’m not always sure about the intersection of bangs and glasses, and I wear glasses 99.99% of the time these days (because I like them and because glasses are the lazy woman’s eye makeup). And then there’s the fact that you have to, like, style bangs.

So I don’t know, internet. I hate having bangs and there’s a good chance they could go horribly wrong, but I kind of think I need them. If you’ve managed to read this whole thing, which is probably the most shallow, ridiculous thing I’ve ever spewed on the internet, I want your opinion and I will absolutely do what you tell me.