Rain

It's raining, yea, it's raining, soaking our parched earth, finally, maybe, my flowers will bloom.

And if I'm lucky, the power won't go out here at work and ruin not only this post but the rest of my computer-intensive day.

It's like fucking Death Valley in Michigan.

We walk and drive and breathe in the mist of humidity day in/day out/day in/day out, and the whole world looks hazy...sky...ground...objects blurred, our eyes exhausted in the salty, crusty remains of blinking. We wear the air like a coat made of dryer lint and warm water balloons, not to be shaken off. Even in air-conditioning, a semblance of ourselves is claustrophobic and closed up, because we know eventually our lives will lead us outside, and there's no air conditioner big enough to blow a path to our cars, to our stores, to the pool and to ice cream. We are all slo-mo and replay, pushing like Harold Lloyd through the windstorm of evaporated water, waiting for the drops to band together and just finally...please...rain. Ninety degrees in the shade. One-hundred percent humidity. Last winter we begged for this, and now we complain...and we bitch and moan, "Please, just one day of snow!"

And now the thunder, and the lightning, and the rumbling, and the splatter of loogie-sized rain on the skylights.

Wish that I were in bed, naked, not alone, in a quiet house, cold air blurting from the vents, sleepy and not sleeping, gentle caresses, the children reading safely in their rooms, a long weekend ahead, bills paid, prospects, a full refrigerator, a happy cat, the phone off the hook.

Instead...oh my real life...sitting bolt upright at a computer that froze up this morning and might do so again, a dozen projects to be done today for marketing people who are now on a week-long vacation (yeah, thanks, bastards), I have no window to look outside, and suicidal-guy-in-loveless-marriage in neighboring cube is sighing loudly and...fuck...divorce her already...we'll all thank you for it. Too much soap-opera with other co-worker who yesterday told me confidentially that he and his wife were separating...political espionage on the other side of the building...when is payday?

I am plying with coffee. I am staring at today's stack of cds...Gorillaz, Mike Doughty, Dean Martin, Tom Waits...wondering which to play first. I am trying to be unnoticed. I have a burning in my chest, between my breasts, something like sleep mixed with caffeine and stress and a longing to be somewhere else.

I read Walt Whitman last night and realized I suck as a poet. That thought is consuming me.

Also the thought of sex toys. A good friend at work is recovering from a hysterectomy, and I promised her we'd go shopping for a new dildo for her. And what would be good for someone with a refurbished uterus? A womb with no view? Do we worry about length? Or go for broke? What about lotion? Can you buy one that talks, tells you you're sexy before it gets to work on your puddin'? Yeah, maybe I can think about that today.

But first.

Some Dean Martin, I think.

My Obsession

The lovely Orange tagged me with a book meme last week, and I've been sweating bullets about it. (Not Bullitts, that's Steve McQueen.) Because it means revealing my most out-of-control obsession.

I love books.

Sigh.

I learned to read at age 4, and my mom tells stories about how I'd never sleep, I'd keep the little light on near my bed and read all night unless they caught me. I read nearly every book in the elementary school library, and had a pretty good jump on the high school one before I graduated.

Can this scream "geek" any louder? I ask you?

I can't go into a bookstore without buying something. There are stacks of books in our house half-read, not read, totally read and re-read. The boy-child and girl-child love to read, as does Sergei. So this little obsession gets no respite.

You'll have to excuse the size of the meme, I had such trouble paring down my list. Well, I'll stop gabbing and just get on with it. (Get on with it!)

Number of Books I Own: Not including Sergei's law books, but including the kids' books, we have approximately 1,600 books in the house. No, I'm not kidding. The kids rooms have bookshelves, there are 4 small bookshelves in our bedroom and small stacks on either side of the bed, a large bookshelf in the living room, 2 in the dining room, and several tubs of books in the garage because we have no place to display them. Oh yeah, and we have oodles of cookbooks in the kitchen, but I didn't include those either.

Last Book I Bought: I bought two at the same time:
1) "Candy and Me" by Hilary Liftin. She explores her life-long obsession with candy as it marks various events and times of her life. I can SO relate to her, as the sight of a candy counter in a dime store sends me reeling for my checkbook.
2) "The Bean Trees" by Barbara Kingsolver. I was told I had to read her. This book was recommended, and I'm not disappointed.

Last Book I Read:
The very last book I read was "Dancing Barefoot" by Wil Wheaton. It contains stories that originally were posted on his site. His writer's voice is so like a buddy, ya know, the way people really talk, like you're there. Plus he's my total geek crush, ya know.

Before that, I finished "Magical Thinking" by Augusten Burroughs in a manic inhaling, whilst traveling to see my sister-in-a-far-off-state last fall. I read it on airplanes and in airports, which was pretty hard to do since there's lots of sex in it, lots of gay sex, and those airplane seats are ridiculously close together, and 'blowjob' and 'fuck' and 'cum' just jump off the page so loudly. I had to read it with my nose stuck in it so as not to offend, but I LOVE the way Burroughs writes and couldn't put that thing down.

Okay, here's where things get out of control. The two books above are books I've finished. However (and I'm biting my lip with shame and amusement at this) I have tons of books I'm currently reading, that are half-read or one-quarter, or almost done, or just a few pages in. When I get a few minutes, sometimes after Sergei is in bed or on the weekends, or in hospital ER waiting rooms, I'll pick one up and read a few pages. I feel really bad that I haven't finished them, because they're all SO good, but there's just so many books out there and I can't stop buying them, and reading a few chapters in, and finding another book, and reading part of that one, and it's really outta hand. So now, for shock value, I will list the books I'm currently working my way through. In no particular order.

1) "Candy and Me" by Hilary Lifton (half-done)
2) "The Bean Trees" by Barbara Kingsolver (1/4 done)
3) "Take the Cannoli" by Sarah Vowell
4) "The Nick Adams Stories" by Hemingway
5) "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
6) "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
7) "Why Things Break" by Mark Eberhart
8) "The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering" by Frederick Brooks
9) "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers
10) "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman
11) "The Sound and the Fury" by Wm. Faulkner
12) "Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings by Mark Twain"
13) "Barrel Fever" by David Sedaris
14) "Everyman's Poetry" by Pushkin
15) "The Persian Boy" by Mary Renault
16) "DeCapo Best Music Writing 2001"
17) "Man's Fate" by Malraux
18) "Hoot" by Carl Hiaasen
19) "Breathing Lessons" by Anne Tyler
20) "Verses That Hurt - the Poemfone Poets"
21) "I'm Just Here for More Food" by Alton Brown

And waiting for me to crack their sweet little covers are:
"America" by Jon Stewart
"Paper Lion" by George Plimpton
"Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" by Al Franken

Tap...tap...tap...you still awake?

Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me:
1) "Frederick" by Leo Lionni. I read this as a child, and bought a new copy several years ago to share with my children. "Frederick" is all about art, and beauty, and daydreaming, and what the humanities bring to our daily lives. Frederick is a mouse, and while the rest of his family prepare for winter by gathering food, Frederick sits and gathers colors, and words, and memories, even though the other mice make fun of him. During the cold winter, once the food is nearly eaten, Frederick sustains his family by reminding them how warm the sun is, how happy they'll be soon, he's a poet and lifts their spirits. I always wanted to be Frederick, and still do.

2) "ee cummings complete poems 1904-1962". My third-grade teacher had us memorize some of his poems ("and the goat-footed balloon man whistles far and wee"), and I was stunned to discover that all those rules of grammer we were being taught were sometimes totally unnecessary. Cummings broke every rule, and sometimes you have to hack through the jungle of superfluous punctuation and choppy words to get to the heart of it. And that's part of the appeal. He's my absolute favorite poet. When Sergei and I got married, our best man (who was a woman) gave us this book. Even though I have other cummings compilations, this is by far the best. I usually reference it when I'm in a naughty mood..."i like my body when it is with your body, it is so quite new a thing".

3) "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I have a lot of Vonnegut books. I love "Breakfast of Champions" because of Vonnegut's illustrations. And "Welcome to the Monkey House" and "Player Piano" and "Slaughterhouse-Five", all that stuff, good, good, good. But "Cat's Cradle" has this sort of spirituality, this other-worldliness, that draws me in. It says a lot for civilization, scary things, self-absorbed things. I find myself sometimes repeating this line, "Nice, nice, very nice/so many different people/in the same device".

4) "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge" by Carlos Castaneda. It's not because of the drugs. It's because of the mind. Castaneda met Don Juan and began studying Native American spirituality, with the added mind-enhancement of peyote, and then he wrote about it. I read this in high school, and for a small-town girl whose sole exposure to spirituality was the boring Lutheran church, this was like finally opening a door and smelling sweet spring air. Spirituality, for me, became something a person could experience outside the confines of a church, outside the Protestant religion, as a communion with nature, reaching inside yourself and pulling yer guts out and taking a long, hard look.

5) "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess. I read the book in college, right before I saw the movie (I can never hear 'Singing in the Rain' quite the same way). A dear college friend gave me the book, looked me in the face, and said, "You MUST read this". I spent several restless days reading that thing. The first day was torture. I didn't understand half the words, which Burgess had made up from a bastardized Russian/Slavic/Gypsy slang dialect, which he called Nadsat. The book has a dictionary in the back, so I was, from page one, flipping back and forth, and back and forth, and trying not only to understand the words but where the hell the characters were in space and time, and finally after a while, the light went on and !voila! I understood it, and the flipping subsided. It's a very violent book. VERY. The good guys aren't always good, and the bad guys are exceedingly bad, unless they're forced to be good, which is a BAD thing. The challenge of this book intrigued me, and the story pulled me in.

HEY! You still awake! 'Cause I'm almost done!

In short, I sit among my stacks of printed pages, my papers that burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit, and long for more, more more. I can't stop. I won't stop. Sure shot.

I'm passing the book meme torch to Lisa, who will someday be a great published writer, and to My Fiend Mr. Jones, who is probably the only other person to watch the latest Project Greenlight besides me, and to the lovely Pisser, who always has something to say, and lastly to Rob Helpy-Chalk, who reads...a lot.

I'm going to bed now.

Spitting Beasts

The people in the marketing department are on crack.

I'm not joking.

They also had a group lobotomy recently.

'Cause they SUCK at planning projects and seem to think, "Hmmm...maybe if I don't DO the things I'm supposed to do, they'll just GO AWAY!"

Daft fuckers.

I'm having to bust ass today and through the week to get year end processes finished because, WHY?, because marketing spent two weeks debating having to do the procedures THEY need to do before the REST of us can do our work. And saying things like, "WHY do we do this?" And we implored, "Because it WORKS!"

Yesterday we had a 'Come To Jesus' meeting and had it out. I/We presented the reasoning side, they presented the lazy side. And I/We won out. Hey, idiots, the IT department DOES know what they're talking about, you smarmy overpaid babies.

The head idiot is 30 years old and just moved out of his parents house (he paid no rent, his mom did his laundry and made his meals, they decked his basement bachelor pad out with a media center...yeah, most of us wanted to bitch-slap him). He's a nice guy, but very very lazy. Seeing that we gave him the rope to hang himself yesterday in front of his boss, he's getting a tasty dose of reality.

Heh heh.

BUT, because I'm dealing with their crap, and because my intended writeup will take me a while (Orange, it's coming, but I'm having to do homework!), I'm leaving you with a link to a llama song that half my family sang repetitively this past weekend, and which I woke up singing this morning, like some bizarre nightmare.

I think you need Flash. And it's obsessive. Sorry 'bout that.

The llama link is here. Turn the sound down. Bring the kids in, it's clean.

The one "L" lama, he's a priest.
The two "L" llama, he's a beast.
And I'll bet a silk pajama
There isn't any three "L" lllama.

XO Kissy Huggy XO

In the movie, "Prick Up Your Ears", Gary Oldman poses this line to a potential lover:

"Do you kiss?"

And he does...and they do.

There was a lot of kissing this past weekend. Oh sure, with the usual suspects, Sergei and Boy-Child and Girl-Child. But as Sergei mentioned last Friday, we went to my folks house this weekend for a reunion, my siblings and their spouses/sig others and all the kids and a favorite uncle dropped by.

And there was a lot of kissing. And hugging. And playful bumping of shoulders and butt-nudges and ribbing about the size of noses and thighs.

I'm not sure if my family is weird in that respect, I have very little to compare it to. With Sergei's various family elements, there is a lot of hugging, and kisses from moms. In my family, guys and girls kiss, sort of a sideways kiss, so I got a peck from my brother, my uncle, my mom, sisters, sister-in-law, and a boyfriend (not mine). My dad gives me a cheek-kiss. My niece and nephew give me a cheek-rubbing kiss.

We all get along, which I guess in itself is fairly abnormal...not saying we don't disagree, but we're not one of those families that argues. We may gossip a bit (and Sergei is chortling right now about that, esp. given the topics of conversation revolving around my black-sheep youngest sister...more on that at a later date), but we don't argue. There's no need.

Several decades ago, some family members were killed in an unexpected and terrible way...by a tornado. Not so much 'Wizard of Oz' as 'Discovery Channel: Killer Tornados'. That marked a sort of change in the entire extended family dynamic. I think everyone realized that we can just go...snap!...at any time. So each time we meet, we kiss and hug just in case.

When Sergei and I did local theatre, there was a similar dynamic, but not so much kissing as playful hugging and rubbing of backs and flirting and shoulder leaning. Well, in the case of Sergei and me, we DID kiss and hug (onstage and backstage) and ended up being the happy married couple. We don't have time for theatre now, with two jobs and two kids and sports and meetings and bills. I go through periods of missing it. The acting part, sure, I miss working that craft. But I think more, I miss the comraderie. I miss going through all the hell that is the rehearsal process and coming out the other side with a good product and good friends, being able to touch someone on the arm and have it mean, "Hey, good job out there!"

With our friends and family, we're not afraid to touch. And we like it when they touch back.

Say "Amen" somebody....

"Duel", sans Dennis Weaver

Dear Obviously Crazy Driver of White Semi:

Hello. You don't know me. You didn't even see me. I was in the green 4-door car you almost killed this morning.

OH! Didn't know you did that, huh? WEEEELLLLL, let's sit down and have a cuppa coffee and chat about just that, okay Mr. Dastardly Bastard Man?

Your truck is very big, very loud, and very imposing, to be sure. However, as I sat at the light near Local University, jamming to some Dave Matthews tune, I sure as hell didn't notice you. I was in my 'just-dropped-the-kids-off-at-camp-five-minutes-to-myself' mode. I tuned out most everything except my caffeine and the bicycling legs of 20-ish college boys as they passed by.

Then you...lurched.

I was startled out of my reverie by your big white box jerking forward mightily, as if you...what...dropped your flask of vodka?...the whore bit down too hard on yer johnson?...you finally woke up and said, where the hell am I? It wasn't just a 'pulling-up-to-the-red-light' lurch. The car in front of you pissed itself. I was beside you, in the right-hand lane, and didn't piss myself, but my forehead got all wrinkly with a 'huh?' expression, because when you lurched, there was a sort of squeal and scream effect, and your truck shook for a while afterward like my belly after a good sprint.

Did you just learn how to drive?

I have reason to believe you did.

As your subsequent behaviour can only be described as the brainless meandering of one who needs to fucking wake up and go through drivers ed again.

Mr. Bastard Guy, that truck of yours makes you sit up very high. You can see more of the road ahead than most of us poor slobs in cars. Did you look at the road ahead? Were you slappin' a bitch at the time? 'Cause any fool could see that the southbound two lanes REMAINED two lanes after the light. Those two lanes didn't magically morph into one lane at the bridge and then back into two.

Did you just get that?

"...at the bridge"???

Because that's exactly where you decided to execute your moustache-twisting Simon Legree "Evil Plan".

Your nice white truck, all big and thundering, whipped it's body into my lane. Not just a gentle "oh, one tire is over the line" thing either, but a Doc Marten shit-kicking rumble of tires and metal and your back tires are at my door and inching closer, and I can't move right because I'm already right, except there's the river there, down the steep imbankment, once I careen through the cement railing that stands guard over it, with huge trees to crush my insides once I finally hit bottom.

You think you're an intellectual, don't you, APE?

I jammed the brakes just as your back end came within a millimeter of my front. By the grace of some higher power, or just plain dumb luck, we missed connecting. You straddled both lanes for nearly a quarter mile, enough time for the adreneline in me to peak and cause beads of sweat on my upper lip, above my mouth which was cursing like bloody fuck. You caused the entire line of traffic to halt, as you wove crazy road tapestries with your enormous bulk. In this lane...in the other lane...whoops, sideways across both lanes. Obviously speeding, obviously not caring.

We drivers tried to stay away from you. But there was a stop light, which...by the way, why did you stop, Mr. Hulk? It would have been your nature to blow through that puppy. Instead, you stopped, and the long line of cars was all because of you. We inched around you, and one nice gentleman used his SUV as a sort of speed bump for you, pulling in front of you so the rest of us could get past. And we did.

My one regret is that I didn't get your license plate number. Your truck was white and unmarked, with no identifying marks or 'How's My Driving' stickers on the back. My desire to stay alive kicked the shit out of revenge, I guess, and I just wanted to get away from you. Far, far away.

So, in conclusion, Mr. Fucking Crack-fer-Brains, you're an asshole. A gen-u-wine prick. I hope that karma catches up to you and the next time you tangle it's with a gang of semis who don't take kindly to your style of driving.

Flipping the finger repeatedly,

Mona

Bigger or Smarter?

I've took the day off work to play with the kids and with my lovely sister, who's in town from a far-off state. Since I'm preoccupied with big decisions (do we go bowling, or just eat ice cream?), I thought I'd pose to you a query that had me stumped this morning.

If you had the choice, would you choose:

a) To increase your bust size/perkiness (for men, penis length/girth) by 50%
b) To increase your intelligence by 10% (based on standard IQ tests)

A stumper.

Comments?

Disseminated

I'm being watched.

Sort of.

We're dealing with new servers and such here at work, and the guys keep popping in my cube unannounced to have me look at stuff. So I've gotta be brief today.

We watched too much reality television last night. The kids like that 'Who Gets the Dog' show, where 3 families try to prove that they'll provide the best home for a pup from the Humane Society. And they announce the winner in a park and the two losing families cry and try to be brave for the camera, and the winning family is thrilled and a little smug. The show doesn't make sense to me, unless you're an aspiring actor and want to get your face seen on cable. I mean, if you REALLY want a dog, why wouldn't you go to the pound or the Humane Society and just...you know...GET ONE? As long as you don't come in with an axe and a recipe for "Pooch Tartar", they'll let you have one! Seriously!

Then after the kids went to bed, there was 'Hells Kitchen'. A bunch of folks trying to be professional chefs have to bust ass to prepare food and set tables, and of course there's the requisite cursing and ratting out and sloughing off. Still, I had to watch. They had to learn, last minute, how to cook frogs legs and...I'm shuddering here...pigeon. BLEEACH. Why? Why?!?

I'm thinking as long as the reality tv trend is here, I need to make my OWN show. As long as some network will pay me a ridiculously obscene amount of money. Here are some ideas, just off the top of my head:

1) "We're Wrestling!". A couple tries to have sex while their children burst in and out of their unlocked bedroom. First couple to have a simultaneous orgasm wins.

2) "Office Supply Whoop-Ass". Hungover office drone arrives at work, only to be assailed at the front door by the company gabber, who insists on questioning drone about the status of some project s/he did a year ago. First drone to silence gabber with a stapler and a dull pencil wins.

3) "Mine...MINE!". Ten women on the Atkins diet are locked in a room with 20 screaming toddlers, 4 stray dogs, a kiddie pool full of mud, a kit for building a balsa-wood treehouse, and a table laden with chocolates, pies, freshly baked bread, wine, and ice cream. Last woman to inhale the contents of the table wins.


I have to bust some internet heads now. Oh, I'm supposed to make some desserts for a company function in two days, anyone have a favorite recipe? Something easy and really good? Preferably something that will put the managers to sleep so we don't have to listen to their incessant blah-blah-blahing?

Smarty Pants, Smarty T-Shirts

When I was in high school, there were 56 kids in my graduating class.

Process that for a minute.

Fifty-six graduating seniors. We were the smallest school around, unless you count that church school that was run out of someone's barn, I think they had 5 graduate that same year.

When I took physics in high school, there were 7 people in the class, and I was the only girl.

When I took calculus in high school, there were 12 people in the class, and I was one of two girls.

The benefits of this extremely low teacher to student ratio were that we a) got a lot of hands-on time with the teacher, and 2) we got to goof off...a lot. We could justify dropping eggs off the roof of the school into the parking lot (near the principal's car) as a lesson in trajectory and speed. We brought in copies of 'The World According to Garp" and "Lord of the Rings" and "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" and read them silently for the entire class period (the teacher did the same). We'd finish the prescribed lesson in 15 minutes and spend the rest of the time discussing space travel and how people would colonize various planets and if you trained your lungs, could you breathe underwater?

Does this make me a geek?

I'm thinking...mmmm...maybe.

When I went to college, I took courses in communication, English, marketing, and theatre. I left math and science behind me. I graduated with a degree in Communication, with an emphasis on Telecommunication. I could work a light board, compute statistics for Nielson ratings, design PR pieces, conduct research, and mediate disagreements.

Basically, I could do everything and nothing.

Several years out of college, I got a job at an employment search company. They had a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer (does anyone remember these?), and I grew to love that monstrosity. It had these incredibly huge floppy disks (7 1/2") and was achingly slow by today's standards, and each time we had to modem information to our satellite office, I'd have to unplug my phone and do this complicated cabling thing to make the modem work...beep...boop...brrrrrrrrrrr!

I felt like the Queen of Data.

That job turned into another, and another, and now I design and test software for various websites and data hubs. I leave the programming to the guys, I'm just the devil-in-their-ears, doling out praise and helpful comments and demanding changes and pulling my hair out. Even though I don't write the code, I can understand it. The guys have always pulled me into their cubes and shown me what they're doing, explaining the commands and code and how it works with our systems, as they genuinely want to share their incredibly big brains with me.

I love my job. I tread the line between creativity and mathiness.

So I was especially geeked this morning to read Wil Wheaton's site and find some links to ThinkGeek, and some jaw-droppingly cool geek t-shirts. I like this one a lot. I also think this is cool but not sure who would get it without explaining the principle.

Take some time and peruse this site, especially if there's a computer guru in yer life. Even though I don't wear t-shirts to work, I can if I'm so inclined, so perhaps I'll put some of these on my Christmas list, and modify them with some strategic cutting of the neckline to show my decolletage, and flaunt SQL code on my uplifted breasts.

"Software" indeed.

Yeah You...Shook Me All Night Long

I don't mean to brag. Or flaunt. Or show off.

But last night, Sergei and I had the best, longest, hardest, wettest hot monkey sex of our 12 years together.

We were up talking and drinking (him = beer; me = Basil Hayden whiskey) until 2:45 a.m., when we decided to go to bed.

"It's early in the morning,
about a quarter til three
I'm sittin' and talkin' with my baby
over cigarettes and coffee...
amd to let you know baby
that I've been so satisfied"
(Otis Redding, "Cigarettes and Coffee")

We went at it for an hour and a half. YES! One and one half hours of unbelievably brilliant sex. Damn. The. Best. Sex. EVER. We did things we never thought possible. I think I surprised Sergei. I know he surprised me.

I'm hopelessly in love. And having trouble walking today. And getting the shitty grin offa my face. And wondering if we have enough energy to do it again tonight....

Not that I'm bragging or anything....

Did I Pass...The Pencil Test?

No.

No, I did not.

And I never will again.

To execute the pencil test (women only): Take a number 2 pencil. Place it underneath your breast. If you can let go of the pencil and it falls to the ground, you passed! If the pencil stays there, held ever so gently between delicate breast tissue and your chest, you fail the test.

However, failing means you have large breasts.

So it's not a BAD thing.

I had sort of a crisis this morning while picking out a bra. I have two types of bras:
1) Underwires with thin cup material, which allows my nipples to show when erect.
2) Underwires with thick padded cups, which allow my breasts to sit perkily and magically suspended, and creates magnificent cleavage.

Generally I go for the thick cups, as I sincerely enjoy seeing my 'two puppies' at an elevation belying my age. But I do enjoy checking my visage out in the mirror at work and seeing two small marbles staring out from my shirt, even though my breasts aren't as high as with the other bra. Some sort of weird female power trip, I guess.

I believe bra manufacturers need to satisfy both my urges. Make a padded cup, okay, that's fine, I'm all high-and-mighty, breast-wise. But why not also make the material at the nipple area thinner, so when our building manager thinks 65 degrees is an acceptable level to set the air conditioning, I can point to my thimbleberries and yell, "The 'thermometers' say TOO COLD! Turn it down, already!"

The lovely Bitch PhD swears by Wacoal bras, which are incredibly lovely. I would love to try them on though (buying bras over the internet scares the BeJeebus outta me). Here's the thing though...I have yet to spend more than 5 minutes or $10 while choosing a bra. (I know, I'm a disgrace to women everywhere.) But really, I'm just holding out for the right bra.

Can I get lift AND nipplage? Anyone know?

Cleanup on Aisle Five!

Home again, Finnegan.

Girl-child spiked a fever at preschool yesterday, meaning she can't return for 24 hours. I'm home again, and have squired her in her bedroom on Disney Princess sheets with a fresh dose of Children's Tylenol whilst I do some cleanup here on the site.

1) This morning I did a terrible thing with a wonderful thing. I ate two (not one, but TWO) slices of white chocolate raspberry swirl bread from my local chain bakery. Me, who usually has Atkins-approved cheese or maybe eggs for breakfast. Me, who makes a cross with my index fingers when passed the bread basket at a restaurant. Now I'm FLYIN', man, look! No hands! Damn carbs freak my body the fuck out. Like this...I can feel every molecule and atom in my body, and they're all doing some contorted tango with each other. My skin is hot, my face flushed, I can feel each strand of hair on my head. My stomach is lurching like I was on the double ferris-wheel. Thoughts scatter, just scraps of paper blowin' about in my noggin. Eggs. I need eggs.

(Much much later.)

2) The girl-child and I had breakfast for lunch. Scrambled eggs and bacon. She had toast and cherries as well. Okay, now I'm not quite so shaky, but DAMN!

3) I've been very neglectful of my Five Freebie Lays. I've had a really difficult time with my current list, and decided last night to excise one of my choices and make another category for him. So Elvis Costello is now listed under 'Gurus'. Having him as a Freebie Lay just didn't cut it somehow, as my lustful thoughts of him were relegated purely to talent. Also, I couldn't move Mike Doughty out of the Floater position because...well...I've grown so attached to him. He was on Letterman Tuesday night and I just wanted to disrobe him and spread jelly on him and eat him like a sweet sweet sandwich. So Doughty has moved into a permanent freebie lay position. Welcome Mike! And congrats Elvis, for the new category!

4) Introducing the New Floater Freebie Lay



Peter Sarsgaard

The eyes. And the voice. I rented 'Kinsey' just to make sure this choice was the right one, and just finished watching the scene...for the THIRD time...where Peter strips naked, asks Liam Neeson if he wants to experience a '3', and kisses him sooo gently. Fock. Liam then pulls Peter's head in and kisses HIM, hard and long, oh fuck, yes! Ooh! Now Peter's seducing Laura Linney! I need to watch this movie again...and again. C'mon Peter, let me be the cream filling in these sandwiches you're making!

Peter seems to pop up a lot in indie films, either as a maladjusted thug or as a well-meaning good-guy. What strikes me from these performances is his ease in front of the camera, his gentle delivery, spoken like a normal bloke. Okay, and his eyes are hothouse 'bedroom' variety, of which I am especially fond. I enjoyed 'Shattered Glass', wanted to fuck him like hard rock in 'Garden State', and am really liking 'Kinsey' and will stop typing with one hand right...now. He's dating Maggie Gyllenhaal, which is okay, since she looks strong enough to hold the video camera needed to catch me riding Peter like he's a champion bull. Yee-haw! Welcome, Peter!

5) Many comments ago, Rob Helpy-Chalk inquired as to my Desert Island Pick. If I were stranded on a desert island with (in my case) a woman, who I would share 'everything' with, who would it be? This took me a while. The famous women I think are fuckable aren't necessarily smart, and vice-versa. I must have someone sexy and smart and funny (ya know, someone like ME). After much deliberation, I finally came up with my choice.
Only to have it dashed to the rocks.
By one Mr. Jones.

Because he featured on his blog the obit of the perfect woman, my perfect Desert Island Pick. Alas, too late for me to do anything about.
Posthumously, my Desert Island Pick is:
Anne Bancroft.
Sexy. Lovely. Bawdy. Smart. Funny. Fucking funny. Hilarious! Her mouth was a deadly weapon with words, she was lithe and focused and charming. "Do you want me to seduce you?" "Um, actually Mrs. Robinson... YES!"

Later I'll find another Desert Island Pick. One who can actually come to my door and lead me to a remote island somewhere. I can't let Anne go just yet.

6) Girl-child is demanding my attention and the dryer is buzzing with a fresh load of dry clothes. I can't get the image of Peter Sarsgaard's naked body out of my head. Hmm...nice way to end a post.

Pills A-Poppin'

It's just a little bit of ridiculous, ya know?

I just got back from the company break room. We have a tv in there, always on to news or sports or something, for those folks taking breaks, it's a nice perk. I had to check something on one of the bulletin boards, write down some information, and as I turned to go, this is what I heard:

"bladder"
"urination"
"overactive"
"dear god in heaven, I just peed my pants...again"

Fuck? What? The?

"Vesicare! For when your overactive bladder just pisses you off."

My subsequent laughter hit 5.4 on the Richter scale. Me and this other guy just stared at the tv with tears in our eyes and our lungs collapsing from the belly laughs.

Fuck, not ANOTHER thing that I have to explain to the kids.

Already we have men with devil horns taking penis-lifting drugs, zaftig women in summer dresses having to wear Depends because their weight-loss medicine gives them "oily discharge", an American cross-section being compared side-by-side with the food that looks the most like them, mysterious feminine sprays, medications that spout relief but we don't know from WHAT, jumping coeds in white pants extolling 'no more accidents!', a pill with 'low risk of sexual side effects' (like what, a penis growing on my hand? what? WHAT?), and a down-and-out faux Pacman dude who can't crawl out from under his black rainy cloud.

Has it really come down to this? Do we need to see these commercials constantly? Really? I don't. I mean, if I want to lose weight or lower my cholesterol or get even hornier (we'd all really be in trouble then), I'll ask my doctor. This is just all so much hoopla from the drug manufacturers, so much eyeball crack, "you NEED this!" sorta crap. So we'll go to our Drs with a symptom and beg, "But Tee-Vee says you need to give me Crap-o-min. I DEMAND it!" Doc says, "Okee-dokey! Here's a scrip!" Pharmacist says, "That'll be $120 please! Not covered by insurance, dude!" And we hand over our credit card and our kids' college funds.

And...and...Canadians are paying 1/4 of what we do for prescriptions...and we're overmedicated.

Can't someone make a pill to make my eyes discharge these commercials, in a not-so-oily way?

Perks

I'm late posting today because I was playing nurse all day to the girl-child, who was home again with a fever-producing virus. Hell broke loose Sunday night once we got home from a long trip. Girl-child fell asleep at dinner, woke with a fever, and later threw up (only once, thankfully). Monday, Sergei stayed with her and the boy-child, whose day camp didn't start until Tuesay. The fever still persisted, along with general malaise and a sore throat. No better this morning, I took boy-child to day camp and made a nest on my bed for girl-child to recline on. We watched kids cartoons all day, we played endless games of 'Guess Who', she held my hand a lot and I kissed her hot hot head.

Playing nurse does have its bonuses.

1) Girl-child and I ate ice cream for lunch. Spumoni. Oh glorious creamy heaven!
2) We both took a 3-hour nap. She slept continuously; I of course woke every hour to check on her or do some crazy quick cleaning thing.
3) I got to hear this all day: "I love my mommy! I love my sweet little mommy!"

Tomorrow she will return to preschool and I to work. But today, I got to chill out with a beautiful young thing in Blues Clues pajamas.

A Little Dip (for the Chip on My Shoulder)

I must stop reading the editorial page.

It pisses me off.

There are times when I read it with interest, with an open mind, and try to be kind to those whose views I do not agree with. Freedom of speech is a good thing.

However.

If you are writing an editorial letter and you know NOTHING about the lifestyle that you are bashing, you should take all your hatred and loathing and self-serving attidude, mix it with water and bake it into a nice little brick, tie it around yer neck, and throw yerself in the nearest deep deep pond of unknowingness.

M'kay?

Early last week an editorial letter was published from a local woman, something to this effect: "I am a 25-year old single mom of a 2-year old girl. I am working full-time to support us and taking college classes when I can. I am asking the president, the governor, everyone in political power, to please please stop cutting money for affordable child care programs. Child care costs so much, and I really need those programs to make a better life for myself and my daughter. Thank you."

I. Love. This. Woman.

She represents all mothers. She represents all people who care about children. She represents Jesus God Allah Mohammad Goddesses everywhere. "It takes a village to raise a child."

Damn right.

Child care is an expensive proposition. I have children who have been and are currently in a child care situation. The place we use is run by the city, in an old elementary school, and has an excellent staff. It's not...NOT...the Taj Mahal. But they have an excellent curriculum, they use students from Local University as staff, they are kind and respected and the children and parents love them. Cost varies, as the babies require more hands-on time and the pre-k can take themselves to the potty and so forth.

Still.

It costs approximately $700 a month to have a child in the baby room.

Seven. Hundred. Dollars. Each. Month.

Yes.

Now, imagine you're a single mother. You're eeking out a living. Where are you going to get that kind of money? If you use our facility, and have a child in the baby room and one in the pre-k room, you will spend $1200 a month on child care.

Question: How can a single mom afford that?
Answer: She can't. Not without help.

I am all for the city, the state, the nation doling out grants or scholarships or funds to help parents find affordable child care. I don't care if my tax dollars are used this way, because these are CHILDREN we're talking about. And parents. They deserve our help.

In yesterday's paper, some local guy wrote an editorial in direct opposition of the single mom's plea. He wrote to this effect: "How dare that woman ask for a handout for child care! In my day, a 'single mom' was a woman who had never been married, and her children deserved a certain bad nickname. She deserves nothing, as that child should never have been born out of wedlock. When I had small children, I worked 40 hours a week and my wife stayed home with them and that's the way it should be. This 'single mom' does not deserve my tax dollars."

The man's name is listed in the paper. And I've never so much in my life been tempted to write him an anonymous letter telling him all about the fire and brimstone that would eat his ever-lovin' flesh once he died. Because that certainly isn't a very Christianlike attitude. And from what I remember, the Bible is all about The Golden Rule and taking care of others, especially women and children.

Who is he to dictate what this woman should and shouldn't ask for?
1) He is a man.
2) He will never birth a child.
3) His manner of speech indicated that he was in his 50s or 60s, and even if he were a woman, he'd have no idea what it's like to raise a child in this day and age.
4) His children were able to stay home with mom because either he made a great deal of money, or they were able to just make it financially.
5) The term 'single mom' is applied to all women who are raising a child alone. This includes divorced women as well as those who never married and are in all manner of relationships.
6) What does he propose this mom do? Kill her child? Give her up for adoption? Leave her child home alone? Marry some ya-hoo she doesn't love or care for so she can give up the title 'single mom'?
7) Does this man have a compassionate bone in his body?

I have to stop. I'm sputtering and waving my arms above my head and clenching various body parts in anger and frustration. It's men like this who should be banished to some new island planet somewhere, who obviously don't care about women or children, who appear high and mighty and spout that statement I often hear from well-to-do Republicans I work with: "If they couldn't afford kids, they shouldn't have had any."

FUUUUUUCK YOU, MR. WILLIAM ATKINS! You are NOT a Christian. You should NEVER be left alone with children. You are a self-serving misogynist. You will receive your day in hell soon enough.

Today is the Last Day of School

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"My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate." -- Thornton Wilder
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Make the Voices Stop!

So Wednesday I'm working, and not working, and driving and not driving, and I wrote down a bunch of stuff to stick in my next post. None of it connects to anything else. And I'm gonna swear a lot and talk about sex. You've been warned, dammit.

1) Wayne Brady. Let's talk about that cat now. I remember seeing him on 'Whose Line Is It Anyway', the American version, and thinking, Wow! He can really sing and isn't he just the clever clever guy. And I drooled over his ass, cause it's a great ass. Nice and round and yummy and bite-able. But then.... Oh hell. Sergei introduced me to Dave Chapelle's Show on Comedy Central. And he did this bit with Wayne Brady. Dear, sweet, Wayne, who all the ladies love. Perhaps you've seen this one? Wayne and Dave go out, and Wayne turns out to be a gun-totin' pimp murderer gansta pusher man. When one of his hos doesn't give him proper money, he says, and this phrase is constantly in my head when things piss me off, "Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch? I'm gonna hafta choke a bitch!" What I didn't understand after I first saw this sketch was my reaction...at first I was amused, then repulsed, then...strangely...turned on. Bad Bad Wayne turned on my sprinker system, and I wanted to shove his round derriere against a wall and do a nasty-girl pole dance on him. Is that so wrong?

2) Okay, all you guys who ain't married to me, listen up here. Just because a girl's on her period doesn't mean she isn't horny. Granted, the first few days can be like a crime scene, and you really don't want to go *there* and she doesn't want you anywhere near *there*. But once things have stabilized, FUCK HER. I mean, geez, she doesn't like the mess any more than you do. She sure as hell doesn't like the cramping, the big ol' belly fulla fluid, the irky way everything just pisses her off, the cost, the excuses, the crinkling in her pockets when she walks down the hall. It sucks, okay? We just have to deal with it. And you should too. Throw down a towel or two, that'll help. Take her in the shower. Just forget the Red Devil is playing around with her naughty bits. Screw her brains out, stroke her hair, tell her she's beautiful. But please, don't look at yer johnson until she does a little recon work, okay? We don't want you all weirded out.

3) I am fully aware that when I'm in public and just happen to be heartily licking a sticky lollipop, or an ice cream cone, or the cap of my pen, I look damn sexy. You can drool, but don't comment. I've heard it all before.

4) I love pork. (I love 'porking' too, ya pervs, but this entry ain't about that.) Swine meat. Oh. Dear. God. Gimme. Pork. I love bacon, I love ham. I love rubbing a large juicy pork loin with garlic and olive oil and rosemary and roasting that succulent dish until it's tender, and eating that meat, and eating that meat, and eating and eating until I'm porked out. I love potted meat. Sausage, scrapple, whatever. Pork! Mona's meat!

5) I am not stalking you. Really, I'm not. If you have any kind of tracking system on your blog, and you notice I'm out there, like, 50 times a day, just relax. I'm often really bored at work. Let me say that again. BORED. Outta. My. Skull. I love my job, but seriously, it's a weird time there, we just lost a guy, we're functioning like motherless ducklings, and my attention span is..uh..what? So I'll do a little work, then I'll pop over to a blog. Then more work, then I'll forget what was on the blog I just read and go back, and peruse their photos or their archives, then get a work phone call and then blow it off to re-re-read the blog post, and my day goes like that. I'm bored. I have a short attention span. I like the act of clicking (and I'm not even talking about masturbation here, but that was a good guess!). If ya all weren't so damn prolific and entertaining, I wouldn't keep visiting yer posts! So rest assured. It's because I love you. I love you and want to see you naked.

6) Now I'm fantasizing about you naked. Yes, you. You're terrific, ya know that? Why don't you come over here and sit down by me. I won't bite. Well, I won't leave marks where they'll show, m'kay?

Water Slides and Drunken College Boys

"You need a beer!"

So sayeth the incredibly cute young dude as he held my car back, Superman-style, in the middle of the street yesterday.

I love living in a college town!

I know a lot of my readers are in a college-setting, either as an instructor or as a student. As such, you can relate to my inner turmoil, the devil-on-my-shoulder wishing to relive my ancient college days, and the angel-on-my-shoulder trying to be a good grownup wife and mother.

Urgh...to choose.

It always amazes me when local folks write the newspaper with inane editorial letters bashing the student population. "They're so loud!" "They just walk up and down the sidewalk in front of my house!" "That music...OH! So pre-verted!"

Okay, for all you complainers who insisted on buying residences in the college slum housing neighborhoods...MOVE, DAMMIT! You can not and will not EVEREVEREVER change the college student population, so don't even try. There are local ordinances that keep the peace as much as possible...if they're too loud, call the cops. If they pee on your bushes, call the cops. If they wear next to nuthin' and walk in front of your house licking ice cream cones in a suggestive manner, APPLAUD THEM! Y'know how many folks would pay good money to see that? You're just lucky, okay? Pull a couch onto your front porch and watch them! Offer to buy them ice cream! Get it? Take advantage of the good stuff, bubba.

My girl-child's preschool is in an old elementary school, which sits right in the middle of college rental housing. The neighborhood is half college kids, half residences, mostly families with small children, so the peace is kept pretty well.

But.

One of the side streets a block away from the preschool has this party house.

In an earlier blog I mentioned a young cute skateboarder who smiles at me every time I drive down the street in front of his house. He lives at Party House. He's probably seen my car a hundred times. He waves. I wave. 'S nice, y'know?

Party House recently installed an inflatable water slide on the front lawn. Not just a slip-n-slide, y'all, I'm talkin' one of those 12-foot high inflatable things that you see at water parks and company picnics.

It's!
Awesome!

Every afternoon when I go to pick up girl-child, the residents of Party House, all guys, are out front slipping down the slide, sprawled in lawn chairs, cans of icy-cold beer in tubs scattered around, and half a dozen comely young girls in various states of undress teasing them with nipply spandex. Loud music blares out, all good college stuff that I hum along to. The guys play football in the street and move slowly to the side when a car approaches. They wave. They smile. It's summer, and school's been blown to pieces.

Yesterday I turned the corner to drive past Party House to pick up girl-child. Three cuties were in the street, the football bouncing like boobies amongst them. My cute skateboarder guy was there. He was wearing a bathing suit and what I can only describe as a 1940's French biker's hat. Damn good lookin', that.

As my car approached them, they did something totally unexpected. One studly guy lay down in the middle of the road, in my lane. My skateboarder guy stood in the road, daring me to drive forward. The third guy walked up the curb and approached my car window.

Yes. They were drunk.

And fucking adorable.

The skateboarder guy had his hand outstretched toward my window. He smiled at me. Big ol' breaking grin. The guy lying in the street stood up and stood in front of my car, also smiling.

Skateboard guy kept on a-grinnin'. My windows were rolled down, it was frickin' hot, so I could hear everything they said.

Skateboard guy: You need to go down our water slide!
Mona: I can't, man, not today.
Skateboard guy: It's really hot out here! Go down the water slide and we'll get you a beer!
Mona: Uh....

At this point the 'Younger Mona' contemplated parking her car around the corner, stripping down to her undies, climbing up the water slide with her ass swaying like a juicy peach, sliding down head-first so her breasteses got wet and her nipples hard, walking over to Skateboard Guy, pushing her moist body against his, and whispering in his ear, "Now, where's that beer?"

Yeah, baby.

But that's not me anymore. I am faithful to my beloved Sergei. I am also old enough to be these guys...uh...er...older sister. And I'm a mom, and my kid is just 2 doors down, and I had to go to a Parents Meeting, and the girl-child still needed to be fed.

'Older Mona' smiled sweetly at Skateboard Guy.

Mona: No thanks, dude.
Skateboard Guy: I don't think I can let you pass, then!
Third guy at my open window: Hey! I think you have a gas leak! 'Cause I can smell fumes!
Mona: I think that's YOUR fumes, pal!
Skateboard Guy: Maybe another time?
Mona: We'll see, man. Thanks for the offer, though.
Skateboard Guy: I'll see ya!
Mona: (waves, smiles, turns the corner into preschool parking lot, and where did that big shit-eating grin come from?)

Now it may be these guys were stopping everyone who passed. Or just females. Or they may have recognized my car from all those times they hit the curb to let me pass.

I don't really care.

The point is, it made me feel really good. Really young. I wasn't even sportin' any cleavage they could see, and I was probably looking pretty cashed-out. But I enjoyed the attention, the chatting-up, the inventiveness. I felt damn sexy.

Now the question is this: when I pick up girl-child tonight, should I take the same street? Do I dare risk another hardbody, beer-fueled, wet-and-wild encounter? Ooh, 'Younger Mona' and 'Older Mona' are gonna duel with light-sabers today on that one!

Boy-Child Fell Asleep on My Shoulder on the Bus Ride Back

I just got back from boy-child's last field trip of the school year, to a historical village set in the late 1800s. The place was nicely run by grandma-type women, who were now, in the early season, full of patience. We got the tour of the old-fashioned school, a farm house, a toll house with authentic plank road out front. And, of course, the gift shop.

Gift shop?

Hmmm...didn't know that had THESE in the pioneer days.

This was a class of second-graders. They had from $1 to $5 each, depending on the generosity and ability of their parents. Once everyone got through the store and bought their rock candy and American flags and homemade purses and bags of marbles and wooden flutes, they congregated outside for an impromptu parade. It was quite charming. My boy-child declared himself 'Flag Boy' and led the line.

On the bus ride back, I watched the kids interact. It's funny when you're not a kid how you can look at kids and see the type of grown-up they'll become. These kids are 8 years old, tops, and the other moms and I could point out the scholars, the jocks, the thugs, and the invisible ones. One little boy kept sticking his hand in my bag of wooden toys I'd bought, and I had to literally pull his hand out and say, "No Way, Man! That's mine!" He also later tried to steal someone's flag. I told him to cut it the fuck out (not really, I left out the 'f' word, but he could tell I meant business...I heard him USE the 'f' word several times on the field trip...hmmm...wonder how HE'LL turn out??).

I'm just glad my boy-child is who he is. Bright, funny, shy, outgoing with his friends, honest, creative. And loving. I guess this is my ode to the boy-child today. Lovelovelove that kid.

R-U-N-N O-F-T

Last Friday was the last day of work for the guy in the cube just south of me. He was a redneck transplant from Mississippi, Republican, loud, cocky, made too much money and bragged too hard about the stocks he and his wife (a muckitimuck at Local University) were able to buy.

Mostly he's been pretty helpful in the month since he placed his notice. But round about Tuesday last week, he checked out mentally. Whenever anyone wanted information, he would either stare at them blankly or mumble something about getting with them "later", and never doing that. He put in a lot of half-days, or mostly empty days where he just wandered.

We got a 'good-bye' card as a department and gave it to him Friday morning. Some time after receiving the card, he got an email from the boss asking just for a rundown of the projects he had, the status they were in, so they could be reassigned appropriately. He replied via email to boss, "You can't bust my balls anymore, man. I'm outta here."

Then he picked up his car keys and slammed the door on his way out.

Oh yeah, he left the goodbye card on his desk. Unopened.

I cleaned out his cube Friday afternoon. I threw away everything he touched short of the computer, keyboard, and desk. I threw away the card too.

Good fucking riddance, you ungrateful bastard.

Today, another co-worker, "Suicidal-Guy-In-Loveless-Marriage" will be moving in to that space. And I get to talk him down from his mental ledges of jumping death every fucking day.

Can I be any luckier a gal?

The Penis Flap

Some time between 2nd and 4th grades, my mother decided I needed domesticating. She began teaching me the fine art of being a clever, helpful housewoman. Which of course included learning how to wash dishes, dust, bake cookies, sew (by hand and machine), carve cunning little animals out of bars of Ivory soap (4-H, y'all, and don't laugh...I won a ribbon at the county fair with that thing! The height of pathetic crafts!).

And laundry. My most favoritest thing. It didn't require muscle, I loved the smell of the detergent and fabric softener, the machines were warm and soothing, and I liked to do a 'laying of hands' on them to get a vibraty feeling all through my gutiwuts. (I still like doing that, albeit with Sergei riding me like a two-fer at the pony ranch.) I liked folding laundry, the methodical, careful way of sorting and folding and stacking and putting away that probably fed my nasty anal laundry habits to this day.

So it shocked my Hushpuppies off when, at age 16, I made a huge discovery at the laundry basket.

Folding up a pair of my brother's "tidy whities", I accidentally looped one finger in the penis flap. I thought at first I tore a hole in it, but upon closer examination, I realized the manufacturers put a flap there. What? Was this right? No, it had to be just my brother's underwear. Cause MY underwear didn't have a flap of any kind, either fore or aft.

My mom was close by, and without thinking, I blurted out, "Hey mom, what's with this flap in Junior's underwear?"

It's an understatement to say my mom was surprised. She looked at me like I had a naked, dancing leprechaun on my head. "Uh, all men's underwear have them. Boys and men. Makes it easier to pee. They...uh...you know...just stick it out there and through the zipper in their pants, and...uh...pee."

What? The? Bloody? Fuck? Why hadn't I noticed this before? Why, after the hundreds of pairs of underwear I'd folded in my years did I never see that? (And why do they call it a 'pair' when it's just one thing...is it because a 'pair' of ballsl fit in there?)

From thence on, I have marveled at the mechanics and construction of men's underwear.

In college I, of course, did the quasi-rebellious girl/boy bending and wore men's boxers as shorts. VERY comfortable, I must say, especially if you can get away with not wearing underwear underneath. (DON'T cross your legs if you do this, and I mean it, young lady, 'cause even if you have a well-hidden furry cootchie, or even a totally shaved one, men will see your *sideways taco*. They will. Don't say I didn't warn ya.)

Men I dated (read "fucked") in college exposed me to various specimens of boxers, speedos, and interesting garments with animal faces (okay, so it was an elephant, and you put your penis in the 'trunk', and when you prance around in front of the guy, the elephant lifts his nose up and you can hear vague "Wild Kingdom' pachyderm sound effects....PPPPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFAAAAAAAAAAHHH.) Briefs were mostly seen, they're 3 for $5 in any grocery store, c'mon.

I liked boxers a lot, they allow for greater angle in the dangle, more peek-age. Plus...ooh!...pretty colors and patterns! Cartoon characters and glow-in-the-dark sexual innuendo!

Goin' commando is it's own reward, really, sorta anti-climactic once you drop trou.

After a while, though, seeing the various conditions and types of underwear, I grew innured to its charm. I was more concerned about what was underneath. It's sort of like woman's lingerie. I can put on something lacy and sexy, but if Sergei's around, it doesn't stay on long. So what's the point? Except the teasing factor if you're at a fancy dinner party or serious adult function like law school graduation. Sommit like that.

I do, however, have an appreciation for a type of men's underwear that's a bit late to the party. Boxer briefs. Ooh, wait, I'm having a little orgasm just thinking about them. Hold on.
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Okay, I'm back. Boxer briefs hug the male form, waist to upper thigh. Stretchy sexy stuff there. And if the guy has one of those butts, those muscular butts with the little dents in the side, firm and...hold on.
*
*
Yeah. Whew. That's hot. Hotter than being nekked. Cause I like the flirty-teasing aspect of skin-tight lycra/cotton blends. Ooh yeah!

I'm interested to see what you women like in a man's underwear. Wait! That didn't come out right! 'Cause we'd all answer, "Dammit Mona! It's the cock-and-balls, where have you been?!" I should say, I'd like to know which type of men's underwear holds a particular affinity for you, if any.

Men, same thing. Are boxer briefs comfortable? Do ya tend to stick out the bottom of regular boxers (cause you're just so huge, face it, now)? Are briefs really that constraining, does your johnson ever peek out the flap accidentally, or through the bottom of a box of popcorn, ala "Diner"?

C'mon, spill it!

I Slapped Her Face, Hard...And Later There was Fruit

I woke up with a crazy dream in my head.

Unlike Sergei, who can write about his dreams in great detail, it's rare that I remember the specifics about my dreams. Usually it's just a fleeting moment of one aspect of the dream...money! underpants! wet dripping sex! hummus!

But last night I had a dream so vivid I just had to relate it today.

Because I punched out Katie Holmes.

Sweet little 5'9" Katie Holmes. Tom Cruise's latest little Scientology-approved sex toy.

I have nothing against her, really, other than she's too cute to be MY friend. There's something wrong with that girl, but I can't quite...think...what...OH! She's dating Tom Cruise! And her teeth are too big! I want to crack that smile of hers.

Which leads me to the dream.

I was in a factory that was open air, in the mud. We were doing a play. My daughter was...gasp, shock, horror...Katie Holmes, about age 16. She and I were having a typical mother-teen daughter spat, she refusing to comply with the simplest of demands, acting snotty, talking rubbish. She was dating an older guy who was just a shadow in the corner, but I knew he was bad news. Katie/daughter plopped herself down in front of me and proceeded to tell me everything she hated about me, in a whiny bitch of a voice, her chin all stuck out tauntingly. I listened for half a minute, then I wound up my right arm and hit that bitch across the face...HARD. Her head hit the wall she was sitting beside, and I heard a satisfying *thunk*, and gave myself a 'good job' for a) not hearing bones actually breaking, and 2) for hitting her hard enough to shake her brain stem.

My right ring finger had a huge snail ring, about the size of a golf ball. I briefly thought how much better the slap would have been if the snail had made contact with her cheek, a scar reminder of when she finally pissed off her mother.

Katie/daughter recoiled from the slap and sat dazed for a while. Then she got teary and shouting (what else?) "I HATE you!", ran off. I felt like a dowager queen. Bitch deserved it! I walked away over rows of freshly plowed earth, and over to a craft services table, where I felt just the tiniest bit guilty. I didn't have to hit her, did I?

Well, yes, I did.

Wicked buckets of mom-guilt later, I sought her out to apologize. I found her standing at an old tractor with a paper plate loaded down with fruit...melons, strawberries, pineapple, totally full. She had no mark on her face, and looked placid and relaxed. I approached her and she stiffened only a little (out of fear I'd hit her again? or fear I'd take her fruit?). I looked her in the eyes and rubbed her arms and said in my best sorry-mom voice, "I shouldn't have hit you. I'm sorry."

"That's okay!" she said cheerfully. "Want some fruit?"

And we ate. And walked. And talked. About nothing. And it was all fine.

But nevertheless, I woke up feeling a mixing bowl of emotions: rage, embarrassment, supreme power, guilt, love, extreme love.

I think I'm having issues with Tom Cruise.

Anybody want to join me?

Briefs, No Boxers

Today's post will be short and sweet.

(I know, you're all aghast, aren't ya? Usually I yammer on and on and on until sticking a pencil in yer eyes seems like a good idea.)

I volunteered in the boy-child's school this morning, and in about an hour, have to have lunch with a potential new co-worker. Coupla the guys and I will be grilling him happily over lunch at national chain restaurant, then squealing on his responses to the boss when we get back. Then it's a short afternoon of projects, then kid-stuff, dinner, bedtime, then Mona-Momma collapsing. And after last night's marathon of hot steamy love with Sergei, I have a wee bit (okay, a hellova big) crick in my neck. Not that I'm complaining in the least! And, once again, tantric sex? Oh yes. Try it.

One thing I want to give you today to play with, you may have seen it before but it's a fun way to whittle down your day. This is WordCount. Apparently some really bored folks gathered together samples of articles and such and recorded the frequency that words appeared (from something called the British National Corpus, which sounds like a fancy-schmancy funeral home to me). Most popular word? "the". Least popular word? "conquistador". It also has sex words and swear words and is just about as fun as learning how to say 'fuck' in sign language. Get past the first screen, do Launch WordCount, and key in the word you want to see. It'll show you the ranking in the list of 86,800 words. (One word of warning, though...once you get to the search screen for words, it won't let you use the Browser Back button to get to my blog, it's stays stuck there. Sucks. Somebody should kick their collective ass for being such a killjoy.)

Let me know if you find anything interesting, or two words together that make a surprising band name or something.

Enjoy your day!