Category Archives: Ah, Regrets

Your Words Burn the Air Like the Names of Candy Bars

Posted on by

All I’m going to tell you is that when you need a job you’ll do things you didn’t quite expect. You know that I was an evictress, and that I worked retail in the past. When I first moved to Seattle I had a tiny bit of money and no prospects, unless you count getting mad booty, which always happens when you move to a new town. Unless it doesn’t. Condolences. Well, there was the Canadian corn salesman who kicked me out of his van after he discovered all I wanted was his hot, slightly butter-scented body. Ah, well.

I flipped through the want-ads daily in between moodily riding the bus making myself damn deaf listening to Rocket From the Crypt and Louder Than Bombs. One day there was an ad up for a “telephone interviewer.” HMM, curious. Was this telemarketing? Not quite. It was calling people up and asking them nosy questions twenty hours a week. One job was for King County Health or something and involved me asking people both how many times a week they ate vegetables (“Hmm, five.” LIES.) and how many firearms they had in their house (“NONE OF YOUR GOTDAM BIDNESS THIS ARE AMURICA COLD DEAD HANDS ETC.” oic.).

There was a man who got hired at the same time as me, my oh my I would look at him and drool would literally form in my mouth. He could not have been more my type had I drawn him myself. He was an artist and a recent transplant from the Midwest, and like me, needed a crappy job to tide him over until he found something more satisfying and fulltime. I followed him around. I hung on every word as he talked about his next project or painting. He found out I was 17 to his 25. WAH WAH WAAAAH, thank you for playing.

But I hung in there and we started hanging out together, having lunch or exploring Seattle together. I heard his sad story about his rilly terrible break up with his clingy anorexic girlfriend and how he wasn’t looking for a serious relationship. Awesome, neither was I. He was with me the day I turned 18–we got a slice of chocolate cake together at a cafe that was where Rosebud is now. What was it called then? I had a glass of merlot courtesy of my fake ID.

A few weeks later, we were at Ileen’s. of all places (neither of us liked sports, but the beer flowed nicely there). It is important for you to know that I have always been the Sultana of Subtlety. Once when I seduced a man in a field I just basically peeled off all my clothes and stared at him until he did the same. I ensnared a high school fling by calling him up and saying, “Hey, come over, let’s have sex.” I KNOW, Smooth Operator was written about ME, right. Well, this artist guy and I were staring at each other across the table and I said, “Say, when’s the last time you had sex?” GOOOOAL!

But the one thing I really, really remember about that job was that there was a lifer there. Most telephone type people burn out quickly, but she was in it to win it. She placed one call after another like a robot, and hung up after rejections and moved on to the next call like it was all nothing. I felt bad about bothering people, though I did get the occasional “OH BOY I LOVE SURVEYS!”. She was terse and weird and had a long-ass I Dream of Jeanie ponytail, but muddy brown. And the kicker was that she kept a picture of Commander Data on her desk. Not Brent Spiner, Commander Data. It was kind of soft focus, too.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Death and Technical Writing

Posted on by

Yesterday was pretty weird. Imagine me saying that like Larry David: “Pretty preeetty weird.” It started off normally enough, considering that I had just scheduled yesterday’s job interview at 5 p.m. the night before. I was hustling to fill out an application, gather writing samples, and defuzzing my favorite interview shirt. I was mentally girding myself to speak with five people in a three-hour gantlet, finishing with the recruiter, which kind of made it six. It was exhausting, but I feel like I made a connection with all five of the people, including the person I would be a direct report to. They may feel differently. And HO SNAPPLE I have another interview tomorrow, which also involves writing. I am not ready to tell you about my retail training yet, but I will soon.

As I was walking out and daydreaming about a nice glass of wine as I dematerialized into a puddle on the floor, I noticed I had a message. Franny’s grandpa called, and I figured he wanted to snag her for the weekend. It was not what I expected: Franny’s grandmother died yesterday morning.

I have never written about her. She was my mother-in-law for eight years. When Franny was one or so, they announced that she had early-onset Alzheimer’s. She was still in her 50s. I did not know the woman who became confused, and then later frequently violent, as she was described to me. I knew only a woman who was quiet and gentle. They say at the end she was refusing food and water, and ripping out her IV. On some level she was done.

I returned the call and got Franny’s dad instead of who I expected. “Want me to bring Franny?” I said. “I’ll be nice.”

I brought a big bottle of scotch and the kid. We talked about politics and drank and talked about old times. We tried to remember where we got the clawfoot tub that lived in our backyard for so many years. It was pretty weird having the new wife there, though in reality I am the odd one out now. Probably in the end she will have more years with them than I did. SeaFed always seems subdued now, older, diminished in his power.

It was nice somehow, though. It felt like an old family gathering. Any annoyance I felt at SeaFed was always put on hold at those times, because I always enjoyed talking to his parents. Franny’s grandfather mentioned that Auntie Jaguar is coming up to see him and that we should all get together. I hugged him before I left and he said, “You can’t get away, you can’t choose your family.” That and his mention of having a big reunion made me realize that the past, when we were all together was some of the best times in a way. I always clicked with him in a really perfect way and I felt like I was his third child, not the feckless one or the bossy do-gooder, but the prickly, funny one.

SeaFed had a couple of moments where he actually said some nice things to me, about how I was with his mom. About how I was the first to cry when they announced she was sick and the first to get up and hug her, and how that meant a lot to her. Stupid starchy WASPs. Of course that’s what you do. You cry and cry until you’re all empty, and then you start over. I think his new wife fits in better than I did–she seems nice and calm. Franny’s other sister sidled over to Franny gently and stroked her hair and face, whereas Strudel jumps on Franny and says “DO YOU WANT TO PLAY FUCK YEAH CAPS LOCK!” Probably Auntie Jaguar likes having complete bossy-control over his family now. Franny tells me stories about being disciplined by Auntie Jaguar that makes her jaw clench as she tells them.

Sometimes I feel a lot of regret in leaving that family, but still not SeaFed. I think about if I would have stuck around so I could have reaped the benefits of all that time and love and history. It was being loved, even at times I was terribly uncooperative and contrary. But having SeaFed around…it’s like living with a donkey in your house so you can hear the bells on its harness tinkle sometimes.

Franny in mourning
stays away from school today
autumn leaves swirl down

In Which Nicholson Baker Can Suck It

Posted on by

I am sucking down Mad Men like it is 2007 and I am Britney Spears with a Big Gulp of Purple Monster before me.

Likes:

1. Child “abuse”
a. Children with plastic bags on their heads
b. Children mixing drinks
c. Children being told to sack up and go to bed

2. Constant Smoking and Drinking*
a. At work
b. After work
c. Before work
d. During the commute
e. With your spouse
f. In a house
g. With a mouse
h. In a box
i. With a fox

* Makes me regret not smoking constantly, or at all**
** Makes me remember old relatives who died horribly of Cancer of the Cirrhosis in the ’90s.

3. Stylistic Stuffs
a. Clothes
b. Music
c. Women being exploited at “nudie bar” somehow mitigated by the fact that I cannot see each individual rib.

Dislikes:

1. Egregious Littering/Resource Hogging
a. But I know that people are running after and picking up the beer cans chucked in the woods.
b. Also, three-mile long Cadillac, lol.

2. “Sweetheart, Make Yourself Useful and Get Me a Glass of Water.”
a. I can’t help it, it makes me cringe every time. I keep expecting women to say “bite me,” but they never do. And if they speak up they spend more time apologizing after.

In Other News: UGH

I have to go downtown today and buy black pants for my job, which starts tomorrow. Yes, there is a dress code. What is the opposite of a dream coming true? I am going to be working in a MALL. I have avoided working in a MALL for 31 years. If Satan chooses to smite me on my way downtown, that is okay at this point. What the hell happened to me?

I have two phone screens in the can at the moment and I am waiting to hear something, anything back about them. They both pay about the same but are different types of writing jobs. I would be happy with either. I guess at this point I feel lucky I am still getting interviews? In the meantime I will be wearing a nametag and making $9.25 an hour, which won’t even cover rent. WOW. Living in Seattle is stupid.

I have been feeling kind of anxious and frustrated lately, because I feel like I am exactly where I was during the last election: tense, not enough money, looking for temporary work. Life Same as Four Years Ago, except now I am probably wiser (read: moar bitter). In a way that situation was scarier because I was pregnant then, but it was also giving me something to look forward to, at least until I lost Strudel’s twin, which I thought was all of Strudel. Now the child is here, and I love her, but her feet keep growing and she keeps termiting my cabinet bare. When I was pregnant the first time, I was like JFC this is hard, but then the baby came out and had to eat and be clothed and put somewhere besides a sack on a nail in the barn, and I was like OH SNAP LIFE JUST KEEPS LEVELING UP. I think I would rather be carrying my children around inside me at a time like this. Maybe I can put them in stasis for a while. I’m sure that wouldn’t mess with them psychologically at all.

Depression Is This Awesome Gift That Keeps Giving You The Clap

Posted on by

I scrubbed my kitchen counters today for the first time in months. And I mean, scrubbed. I always clean up after meals and wipe around my utensil jar and shit when it gets messy, but I have not removed everything from the counter, dusted and scrubbed those objects, and then scrubbed in the cracks for eons.

I cleaned up my window sill, which was dusty and covered in litter from my shamrock and the bugs that my kitchen spider is kind enough to kill for me. In a couple of weeks when the vinegar flies are completely gone, I imagine I’ll be cleaning up her, too. I got up all the faint wine and tomato sauce rings that soak into the crappy Formica and the metal streaks from opening cans on the counter that only Comet seems to remove. I like the cold season sometimes because I can rest assured knowing that I won’t find a fly in my salt pig, at least.

It was long overdue. Regular readers probably know that my kitchen gets some heavy-ass use, and this would probably be a food blog if those were invented in 2001. *waves cane*

I was thinking today as I scrubbed of all the hours I have spent cleaning rental houses, and all the rentals I have spent cleaning in my life. It’s kind of a bummer but not disconcerting to me to see the edges crumbling like it was in the brief period I was an owner. And this house is crumbling. The people who built the townhouses across the street helpfully told me that it’s leaning. I know. I know that every time I spill something and it rolls into the corner. They built the driveway next to the foundation. Interestingly, the neighbor’s unit leans even more than ours. Sometimes I lay in bed and worry that at two a.m. someday I will hear a horrible cracking noise and this duplex will become an in-twoplex.

I used to think that I had to own a house to raise children in or I was doing it wrong, but I realized today I have let that notion go. It’s okay that I gave birth in a rental in Shoreline, and that I almost had my second daughter in a nasty apartment on Aurora. The children are still here. It’s not about the place.

Also I am thinking of when I houseshared with my mother in my early twenties and I cleaned the kitchen on a regular basis, scrubbing corners and cracks and getting grease off her canisters. One day she asked me a question out of exasperation that made me think of the old ad with the kid who’s doing drugs and his dad says how did you learn to do this? It haunted my Saturday mornings. That dad was a DRUGGIE. Then I found out that everyone’s parents were doing drugs.

She asked me, “Why do you clean like this? It’s obsessive.”

“One of the guys taught me how to do this,” I said.

“I don’t believe you.”

“But–”

“Who taught you how to clean like this?”

“I learned it from watching YOU, okay? I learned it from WATCHING YOU.”

Two Things, But Maybe Three

Posted on by

Holeee shit I got wicked acid stomach yesterday after goofing around with my system like that. I have to think the scotch set it off. Also, waiting to have breakfast til eleven a.m. WTG, assgenius. Anyway, it finally settled down around ten. Sometimes nothing works! I tried a whole cornucopia of things yesterday, and the only thing that worked was time.

Today on Blogher I bring you crack journalism about miracle berries, and I am enjoying the sweet potatoes out of this imagining of the presidential candidates (and more!) playing D&D. Just wait til Ron Paul shows up. Oy. Via BK.

In Other News: HOW IS ERROR FORMED?

Et tu, toolbar?

Day 47: I Eated The Cameraman

Posted on by

Dear Goddamned Diary,

Now my big kid is dragged down into the flu pit, and I am waiting for her little sister to follow. I was feeling guilty by the end of the weekend because I was so sick and out of it that I was just kind of waving the girls away or shrugging at them like I was Courtney Love mated with Edina Monsoon. Franny was acting like she was missing me but I could hardly stand to be touched, really. I always try to remember when I was six and my mom got food poisoning and I was convinced she was going to die and leave me with my stepfather forever. That felt pretty bad. I try to be somewhat present even when I am fucked up if I can.

Of course when Monday rolled around I was mostly back on duty. All the sudden I could see dirt again and the groceries that didn’t get quite put away and the mail piled by the door and it made me cry a little inside. And then by Tuesday Franny was running a 103. I slept with her on the futon last night, because she rocket-vomited up her “meltaway” Tylenol so fast it was like I had fed it to her on a boomerang or something. So it was me, her, and a bucket. I think she is feeling a little less neglected now. I am hovering in the 100-101 range with a sore throat that is making me want to drink paint.

This morning I took her out to la supermarche and I felt bad to do so, but I was out anyway because of course the cat ran out of pills this morning. Franny dragged around behind me making glib comments about whatever popped into her head. Everything was “Like, wow, there are purple streaks in my eyes and the grocery store is really funny the room is moving up and down” I thought, if this is what she would be like on drugs, then we should Just Say No for that reason among many.

Then this woman in a weird outfit came up behind me and asked me if I worked at Wendy’s. Because all Wendy’s employees have red braids, just like the girl on the sign. MOST hilarious joke EVER. I have not heard that four trillion times by people who think they are just as funny as you are. You know what I think is a funny joke? Me punching you in your jellybag. She got away though, and I just stood there, too stupid to go all howler monkey on her ass. It’s for the best, really. I can take my braids-of-hair-neglect out. Other people’s problems are not as easily fixable.

Also, I will stop breaking bad on Hulu because it saved us during the barferie in the dancerie stage that we went through last night. Seven-going-on-eight-year-olds really, really enjoy Alf still, as it turns out. Thirty-year-olds enjoy Alf less than when they were nine. Then I made her watch 90210 with me. Mwah ha, vengeance was mine. Naw, I think she liked that too. I have seen this kid spend several minutes staring at a paused video or show. Hell, I have seen her staring happily at televisions that were off and cold.

I have an update on my neighbor situation: on Sunday when I was still feverish-er and super out of it, I spent a couple of hours reading on my fainting couch in my front room, next to the picture window. This affords me an excellent view of the comings and goings of the neighborhood cats, that were coming like some kind of steady cat pottyin’ commuter train, next stop, the Poop Pit that is my neighbor’s yard. I think I saw four or five cats in an hour. I have been advised by a few wise people to video this, and boy, am I considering it.

Also, if you missed it, I wrote an article on the SecuROM fiasco over at Blogher on Friday, which is probably mostly of interest to gamers. I think more gamers read me here than over there (if I had to guess) so I thought someone might be interested.

Aaand the sex blog thing fell through, which had nothing to do with me. I feel funny when I don’t link stuff or have to say “nevermind.” A lot of times I wait to tell you til it’s a sure thing, because it’s more fun to write about sure things, which I thought this was. It sounds like I’m making things up sometimes, I swear. Hey! Someone just gave me a gold Camero, which I…have no way to take pictures of, yeah. Tune in next week when it gets repo’d!

You’re My Density

Posted on by

I am feeling all ugh ugh angst today. I have been hesitant to write about this, because it’s just kind of an ugly blotch on my life right now. I have this ongoing thing with my neighbor, unfortunately. When we first moved in, he had a bachelor party that went for two nights that led to some drama, since Strudel wasn’t sleeping well then and I was short on sleep anyway. When it went to two a.m. the second night I stuck my head out the window and begged them to shut up. So after the parties were over, he talked to us, and I thought it was water under the bridge.

Two years later, I am about to leave town this July for Oregon, and some other neighbors knock on my door with “We just thought you should know, your neighbor is very angry that your cat is pooping in the dirt by his apartment, and he’s telling people that he’s calling animal control.” This was the first I’d heard of it, and we were leaving the next morning, so I called the cat sitter and had her keep the cat in while we were gone. For the past two months she’s been in the house or in the fenced backyard, which she cannot get out of.

We had drama again last night, which culminated in him repeatedly telling me that he was going to kill my cat if he saw her out again. I tried to tell him that I keep my cat in now, but he didn’t believe me…the evidence is that there’s still cats shitting in the dirt outside his door. His neighbor tried to tell him the same thing, that the cat stays in, but he was so angry he was not hearing it. He also accused me of calling his landlord after the two-day party, and assured me that his landlord doesn’t care about any of it. I suspect that someone else called the landlord, because I sure didn’t.

So he thinks I am a landlord caller with a poop gun. Somehow, for reasons which are unclear to me, the fact that we are bad parents (?) came into play as well. The personal insults–whatever. I’ve heard worse. I guess this explains why his terse hellos have disintegrated into death glares lately.

I should have knocked on his door after we came back from vacation, but I was hoping that keeping the cat in would smooth things over. I never thought it would escalate to the point of him threatening to kill my cat. I’m not worried about that, because I know where she is all the time, and she uses her litter box and sleeps 18 hours a day, as an elderly cat should.

I dunno. How do you deal with neighbor problems like this? I feel like at this point he is not going to believe one word that comes out of my mouth.

Bulletin From Your Vagina-American

Posted on by

WOW I’m a fricking genius. Longtime readers may know that I have special issues with the wetting myself (once, I swear) and being able to pee in public at all. Well, friends, today I had an interview for a job I would enjoy having, I think. I put on my foncy lady clothings and took the metal shit out of my face and tied my hair back into a bun so awesome that undead Melvil Dewey would have immediately taken me as his unholy bride right on the spot.

Look at this, disclosure within disclosure! I have also discovered the wondrous world of Spanx in the past six months. Let me say, you cannot hide what is there. It will not go away. Where will it go, into some kind of weird vacuum hammerspace (“Yeaaaah, I’m only a tubbo on the weekends, thanks.”)? But it will make things smoother. Ensmoothen, if you will, and I know you will. So you can look nicer in your foncy lady pants.

Of course I had purchased the one that was best for wearing under thin summer dresses, and as such provides a fair amount of coverage. So much coverage that you don’t even have to pull them down while you’re out and about. They have this weird gussety thing, and you just kind of…pee out of that. I know, I know. Doing it the first time scared the pickles out of me, because it just sort of feels like you’re wetting your pants or something, but it worked, and all the other times after that, EXCEPT TODAY.

Did I mention I had an interview today? Yeaaah.

I took a loooooong drive to get there, nom nom nomed the coffee all the way there, stuck in traffic, etc etc and slammed a big glass of water before climbing into the car. I was doing the carseat peepee dance by the time I got to within a block of the interview site. LO! There was a giant department store just calling my name.

I wanted to pee and pick up a magazine (No, Jessica Simpson, I don’t want to hear about how you Found Love Again, please choke on your hair extensions) to kill some time, since I am appropriately afraid of the commuting situation in this town and left very early.

I went into the bathroom and got ready to do my thing, positioning myself over the toilet in a way that seemed like optimal deployment. Some ladies, I know, can fire it off with no mistakes or trouble, and can even go standing up, but I am one of those who can get all cockeyed and pee on my leg and stuff. No homo. I was just having that thought, “Gee, this would be terrible timing for me to OH GOD OH GOD what is that FEELING NONONONO!”

There I blew. The pee went all cattywampus and ended up soaking into the edge of the gusset. No NO NOOOOO! I couldn’t stop, though, I had been holding it too long. The problem soon spread about a bit, as it all wicked around. I hopped around in the stall desperately, trying to contain the wetness with wadded toilet paper and prayer. Blot, blot, blot, Jesus God, I am going to be that person at the interview, Spanky McWettibutt. This is my Fergie Ferg moment. It was middle school all over again: EVERYONE WILL SEE AND EVERYONE WILL KNOW. I will be that weirdo who leaves the wet spot on the seat. I can’t untuck my shirt. Should I take it off? Then I will have nothing. I can’t go commando to this important interview.

I imagined myself cramming the moist Spanx into my purse and then them somehow jumping out at the interview (like I wouldn’t just leave them in the car) like a snake in a can of trick peanuts. Nice to meet you, BOINGWETSPANX.

I blotted. I flushed. I tucked and emerged, remembering that no matter what I do, I will do it clunkily and with as little grace as humanly possible. I looked at my butt. I looked at my front. Butt. Front. Butt. Front. BUTT. FRONT. Rhythm! I started to dance. “WHAT IS LOVE? Baby don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me, no more.” I remembered that it was 9:15 in the morning and snapped out of it, making a hasty exit from the large department store bathroom.

I sat down in the car with my legs open a little bit like I had seen dudes do, as if I had nuts to mash or something. I waited til it was almost the appointed time. I peeked into my crotch a little, like it was the aforementioned snake in the can. I could see my pants looked a little darker. Oh dear. It would be hidden by standing and sitting, I reasoned.

I walked into the interview. I smiled. I sold myself like crazy. How was your day?

If you are having no luck with comments, I always like to get an email. (sj at this site.) But not you, Nebulon. No one likes your style.

How to Tell If Jobhunting Is Getting to You

Posted on by

Adblocking every other avatar in forums you frequent on the grounds that they are TOO DAMN ANNOYING is probably a sign of something. Probably not everyone should die in a fire. It’s probably me.

Send off resume again, believe own hype. This is a GREAT cover letter!

Inbox: 0

Inbox: 0

Inbox: Devistate her with your Penis of the Soul Hammer

delete

Inbox: 0

Develop chinks in one’s own personal hype armor. Maybe I am not resembling anything bomblike?

Nap

Watch Dr. Horrible AGAIN.

Imagine a dreamdate with Yahtzee, though he is on the other side of the world, and would have to, you know, agree to said dreamdate along with various other problems with this scenario. I imagine us at a government auction, followed by a meal composed entirely of stuff we stole.

Look around house for stuff I can sell.

Look around others’ houses for stuff I can sell.

Realize that Fingeree and Fingerdoo are the only ones who understand me.

kqandjolrei.jpg

This morning the bacon I cooked was shaped like Italy. I cannot help but think this is significant.

In Which I Blow Off Life Without Rescheduling, and Sexy Mama May (Installment 2)

Posted on by

I’ve been kind of quiet over here because I’ve been disorganized and unmotivated and also chickenshit about grabbing brass rings. There is a brass ring that I want REALLY BADLY and I almost grabbed it yesterday, but I did the equivalent of falling off the carousel, scraping my chin, and having my dress fly up over my head, so I am still recovering from that. Is it better to try things and have life say NO, YOU SUCK, or is it better to not try and then go home and flagellate yourself? I guess it’s case by case, but I’m sure if I pulled up my shirt my belly would be yellow. Being pathetic is EXHAUSTING and embarrassing. I need a nap and a boot to the head, in either order. Mostly the boot.

So, when I feel like this, a good first step is to try to do a little writing. One thing I haven’t gotten the hang of is writing for other companies on here, because you know I just write whatever pukes out of my head that day. But to write with a Theme and On Time is another matter. On the other hand, if people ask me what I’m doing right now, I get to say “I get paid in sex toys.” HUR.

This story goes back to the amazing year 1998, when I was in college. Actually, it goes further back than that, probably back to the awful time when I started sprouting boobs in grade school and the words “mosquito bites” started getting tossed around. I was in denial about this, because I was convinced there had been some horrible mistake and it would be revealed that I was a boy after all. In my neighborhood, the boys did the fun things, like kickball, spitting, and fist fighting, while the two girls who lived nearby practiced for when they were going to get on the pompon squad, combed Barbie hairs, and gossiped. No, I didn’t want to hear about the time you saw the “thingie” of the girl on the next block and it was like four inches long. WHAT?

One day teeny bras appeared on my bed. I ignored them. A few days later I was threatened. “You may not leave the house until you put a bra on.” JESUS GOD NO. Like that won’t be noticeable as I was rounding the bases. I had seen the poor, poor super-early bloomers, the girls who had lady-sized racks in the third grade. I had run interference for some of them as the boys attempted to corner them in the coat room and snap the boinginess out of their bras. I saw one of these friends in tears as she asked the teacher for a safety pin to fix a broken strap. Wearing a bra separated you, not just from the boys, but from the other girls. Suddenly you were all different, like a Bodhisattva or Zombie Jesus, with your purse full of mysterious and embarrassing items, and bra lines under your shirt.

Then I outgrew my dirtbike and was denied a larger one, and was instead given a ten speed which I hated and only used later, when I was grounded off my car. My petition for a basketball hoop was denied on the grounds that “no boys live in this house.”

What I learned from this was that being an older girl was bad, bad, and lame. I began to hate my body and see it as a prison that made me different and kept me away from the life that I loved. If I wore any shirt that clung to my body, older boys (and sometimes creepy men) began to notice me and talk to me. I didn’t want to be talked to like this. I wanted to play with my friends.

I knew, of course, that my body was going to ignore what I wanted and turn me into a woman whether I liked it or not. After a couple of years I accepted what I looked liked and even got a little girly. I thought, well, this isn’t so bad. Then college came, and my hips followed.

Stretchmarks ripped across my hips and upper thighs. My clothes didn’t fit right, and I had no idea how to dress myself in any way that even approached looking attractive. Phoenix was so hot, I didn’t even care, really. I threw on a pair of shorts and a baggy band shirt, and went on my way. Since the shirts were so loose, they obscured my waist, making my fashion statement, “I am a cube.”

I got lazy in the heat, choosing to hide out in the air-conditioned libraries, and gained twenty pounds. My mother was going through her cyberchondriac phase, and diagnosed me out of the blue with polycystic ovary syndrome. “WHAT?!” I said. “Well,” she reasoned. “You have irregular periods (not true), you have acne (give me a break! I was twenty and lived on the surface of the sun), and you’re obese (hey, let’s leave my college chub out of this, please). You should go see a doctor about this.” Lucky for me, I had the sense to ignore her.

Then I had my first child. Well, it’s all downhill from here, I thought to myself cheerfully. But it wasn’t. Is it bad that feeling like a deformed freak for most of my life was actually helpful after I had kids? When I was younger I read a lot of old Hollywood stars’ biographies, and the beginning of Liz Taylor’s always stuck with me. One of Liz’s earliest memories is of knowing that her mother blamed her for “ruining” her figure and her “perfect waist.” I had never worn a bikini. Until I was twenty-five, I had never worn a tank top. I had no perfect image of myself to ruin.

It was all up from there. I survived spawning, and found out that I was a good mom, most of the time. I got more interested in how I looked, initially because I realized that how I dressed would effect how others treated me and perceived me. I was out of college and I didn’t want to scuff around looking like a teenage boy anymore, with my sneakers and Husker Du shirts. Then I realized that I liked looking nice for its own sake. For myself. HEY! I even had a waist, even if it wasn’t as small as it was ten years before.

I know a lot of these kinds of “witness my special self of steam transformation” stories often end with “and I learned to love my body again, even though my boobnibblers had done horrifying things to it.” I guess what I am trying to say, is that becoming a mom made me care in a good way about my appearance, and care less about if I looked weird or bad or large butt syndrome. I learned to love my body for the first time. FUCK IT. I are conquering queen, behold my subjects that I have shot out of my own body. Being proud of yourself and what you have done can go a long way towards making you feel confident and attractive, and yes, even the “s” word. SEXAY.