2013-04-21

Prom-a Drama


My son, Tinny, is a senior in high school and it’s prom time so I asked him, same as last year and same as every year at homecoming time, “Are you going to the dance?” I did not say it sarcastically or even roll my eyes. 

I know, my first baby’s senior prom I am supposed to be all nostalgic and weepy or happy or whatever, probably at least excited and wanting to take a million effing pictures, but seriously? I just want to fulfill my parental obligations without guilt and wash my hands of it.

I’m not a prom fan, or a formal dance fan, or a Dance Mom or a fan of ANYTHING formal. I’m sure you’re shocked to hear that. I seriously hate going to, hearing about, knowing about, thinking about, looking at pictures of, or magazine articles about stupid shit like prom. I'm not saying I'm too cool (out loud) for it, or that's it's vapid or 1st World or whatever, it's just not my thing. So. NOT. My. Thing. 

Even when I was in high school. I was all 'Barf me out, gag me with a spoon, put a power tool up my asshole, turn it on and kill me.' I was a lovely teen.

As the mom, however it is my lovely job, want it or not, to make sure he gets the tickets in time, and has clothes that fit, etc., if he wants to go. If left to their own devices, guys, just like ME in high school, (and yeah ok, even me NOW,) forget everything and then shit doesn’t happen. 

Anyway, every time I ask him about a high school event he is always surprised by the question, like it never occurred to him. He is never sure when the thing even is, or if his friends are going, or any part of it. I know they make announcements in school of these types of things, and I’m sure when they do he’s either telling jokes or eating flamin’ hot cheese doodads from the vending machine and/or staring off into space thinking of something else, just like he does when I talk to him. 
from gurl.com
In the past, he has gone to homecoming in #groups, which is currently #trending (I know that’s annoying espesh not on Twitter, that’s why I DID IT.) I obviously prefer kids go to these things in groups, that way there is a greater chance they will all actually have FUN, even if one of their boyfriends/girlfriends/BFFs is a being an asshole that night. I mean, let’s face it it’s high school, someone is going to drop a Drama Bomb that night. Hopefully with a group there is less chance of hi jinx and well, coitus. 

I picture this as the group situation (yes, those are Bibles)
prayer group from ehow.com
And this as taking a date situation
from cafepress.com
Yeeeaah, my mental images really need a frickin’ UPGRADE to 2.0, from 8-bit Atari times. Retro-y.

Also the group is easy like Sunday morning as far as clothing, with Tinny I've been lucky. He and his friends agreed at past dances to wear jeans and hoodies. Literally. I thought this was weird, but it also made me positively giddy, because that meant I didn’t have to buy him dress clothes, that he would wear ONE TIME before outgrowing them.

Thankfully the ONE THING I don’t have to argue with him about is clothing, he will actually GO to a thrift shop/Goodwill and pick out stuff. Tons of stuff. At a family event at my sister’s resale shop, we got 50% off, of resale shop prices, and I still spent over $80. Used Nikes, yo, still cost some coin.

This time it’s his senior prom, so even my dumb ass would encourage him to dress nicer, and luckily his dad just had this thing with work, where the two of them flew to Detroit to watch the Blackhawks (NHL) game on Easter, and fly there WITH the actual Blackhawks team. Like on the same private plane. I know right? Anyway, for the second time in his life his father actually bought him dress clothes, good news for me. 

As usual, he is not sure if he’s going to prom. It is two weeks from today. I did ask him about it a few weeks ago, telling him if he wants to ask a girl he better hurry before he gets stuck with a dork, because I’m a GOOD MOM. He  knows I’m kidding. Kind of. He said the only girls he would “even ask” are dating someone else right now. Fair enough.

So I asked if he was going as a group, and he sounded just like me when he said, “Tickets are $145 EACH PERSON, that’s a lot for some dance with your friends. There’s some after party, we’ll just go to that.” I didn’t check that pricing, but his plan sounds like a solid plan, right?

Now I’m torn between encouraging him to go, and letting him go with his gut. He’s a guy, and not dating anyone, but then again I can’t help feel his ambivalence is partially my doing. I’m not a guy and I never gave a flying frick about dances and such, I HATE being forced to dress up and act fancy, but people always told me I needed to go to these damn things

Especially my senior year, people kept telling me if I didn’t go to senior homecoming and prom I would “regret it.” How true is this, do you think? Is it different for guys vs. girls? I mean STRAIGHT guys, obvy.

I do not have romantic, champagne and taffeta, or even fun and happy memories of my high school dances. Kind of the opposite. I think I skipped senior homecoming, I have no memory or pictures of it, and maybe even junior homecoming after the trauma of my sophomore stupid homecoming. I went with some creepy douche, and it was really awful. 
from treymorgan.net

In class, probably during class, he asked me if I was going and said we should go together. Somehow I agreed.

Turns out if you kind of get along with a guy because you’re both smartasses in class, that does NOT mean you’re going to have fun going out together. 

Even though I already had a dress and didn’t put out any great effort or money, I totally regretted going to that stupid dance. I missed my cousin’s wedding because of it, my family all said THAT was fun, and my night sucked. My “date” -- who again was not a guy I was dating let me just remind everyone -- picked me up super late with a giant HICKEY on his neck. Not from me. Class act.

Also that night he was kind of pedophile-looking and turned out to be a put-your-hands-up-and-point-your-fingers type dancer, and not ironically. 

cityofByroncity.com
The after “party” he took me to was so boring I had to teach/force his few lame friends to play drinking games. They had like a 12-pack of crappy canned beer, so you can guess how much fun that was. I think I was home before 11:00 trying to get a hold of anyone else, and I did not even have a curfew. We had too many kids at this point for my parents to try to keep track of any one of us.

My senior year, when people started telling me I would regret skipping senior prom I seriously doubted it, but junior year? Prom was a bust. I dated eleventy different guys that year, each guy painfully asking me to go, 
‘Should we go as friends?’ 
Yeah NO. 

You should NEVER go anywhere, espesh a formal dance, with your ex. I shouldn’t have to tell you that, AP-class-taking, college-bound guy.

The dude I wound up dating at prom time went to regionals or finals, or state, or whatever the frick you call it when you’re really good at track, what do I know? There wasn't a Sarcasm Team. 

Anyway, he wasn’t going to be back in time. I did go with my friend and her brother and we had a blast, but I wondered if Senior Prom might be more fun with a date. I also learned that the more I force myself to do normal/traditional things, the more I can communicate and relate to normal humans. I’m told this is a good thing. The jury is still out.

Anyhoo, I went to the stupid senior prom. Even though the guy I was dating had already graduated high school two years before. After pressure from my sisters and friends, I told him: “I guess I need to go to my prom. If you don’t want to go, I’ll ask someone else to go as a friend.” For whatever reason, he wanted to go with me. I'm sure it was not at all because I was super slutty. He even rented a tux, even though his mom laughed at him.

I didn’t have to do much, just get the tickets. I had a dress, he had his own car, I never gave a crap about limos, or make-up or nails or tanning or whatever other repairs and landscaping girls do. I don’t know if girls still do this, but seriously at my high school, a lot of the senior class took the WHOLE DAY OFF OF SCHOOL to “get ready” for their prom. 

PLEASE tell me they don’t do this anymore. Parents, PLEASE. TELL. ME. My girls will not do this for their prom. I can already tell you that much.

For my prom? Not only did I go to school that day with the band geeks, I literally had to write myself a note to remember to actually shower and wash my hair that morning so I didn’t forget. Most days I rolled out of bed, usually washed my face to minimize zittage, and brushed my teeth because rotted baby teeth gave me a tooth-brushing OCD thing, threw the hair in a ponytail, grabbed the cleanest looking/smelling clothes off the floor and went to school. Some people found this hilarious, others not so much.

There was one other awesome girl, we used to compare when the last time we washed our hair or shaved our legs was. We would literally walk past each other, point to our hair and she’d say “Wednesday” and I would say “MONDAY!” and she would high-five me. 

HIGHFIVEwrldwde
She always won the leg shaving b/c she was a blond, so she hardly ever shaved, but I usually won the hair washing, or NOT washing actually, competition because I dyed my hair some dark, gothy color, so you didn’t have to wash it very often. Plus my sister taught me to put powder at my scalp if it looked oily, so I only washed it maybe twice a week. Hey, I worked. And played hard. I was uh, busy. Freshman year I went to an all girls school where everyone did this, but this had been (still is,) my regimen for life and I wasn’t changing when I started going to school with dudes. 

Tangets, it's kind of what I do. 

Soooooo, the day of my senior prom, my BFF stopped over in the early evening to see how I was doing. She no doubt knew I would need HELP, bless her heart. She still went to the all-girl school, so her prom was a different night. She found me on the couch watching sitcoms and eating chips. True story. I will share this post with my BFF, Deb, because she always teases me about this. 

She said: “Aren’t you going to get ready? When are you getting picked up?” I probably had no idea, but I knew I should probably slap on some blue mascara, (didn’t have any) tease the shit out of my bands, and promptly hairspray my whole head to a huge helmet. Did I mention it was the 80’s?

I threw on the outfit from my oldest sister’s wedding, unlike most bridesmaids dresses it was actually pretty cool. I wore the crap out of that dress, and like a drunk idiot I left it in the hotel room. Of course they “never found it” which sucked ass, making me think maybe I should not have even bothered with stupid senior prom.

It was really pretty boring. We went, we danced, we got the obligatory pictures. Good thing too, we captured my timeless Mall Wall, and "fancy hair" which was the only hair trick I knew: Throw in a low ponytail and wrap a velvet ribbon around it. Pretty flippin sweet. Even better? My boyfriend at that time had a killer long blonde mullet. I should see if I can find that picture, it’s pretty radical. The mullet I mean, the prom felt fake and lame.

I didn’t know where my friends were, hold on to your SIM cards, kids, this was before cell phones you see. If you didn’t make a solid plan for something ahead of time, you were fucked and forced to entertain yourself. Not being a planner is probably how I learned to be so damn entertaining.

A lot of people had said they were going OUT to dinner instead of eating the dinner the ticket paid for. I was cheap back then, too, so if I paid for a dinner? I ate it. We sat a table with rando people from my classes, had a boring chicken ala blah-blah and we just kept asking each other “Why are we here again?” After pictures and dinner, we danced a few dances, made like a tree and got the fuck out of there. Ok, rope it back to the subject at hand, Tangelica.

Now maybe I would have regretted not going, or at least wondered what it was like, who knows, but I didn’t really give a crap about it. And I had a boyfriend. By my son’s logic, it’s a dance and dinner for couples, and there isn’t anyone he feels that way about, at least anyone that is single, so why should he go? That’s some solid logic. My gut says let HIM make the call. But that may very well be because I have to argue with him about e-HEV-erything, and I’m just so tired.

I am torn. Do you have any thoughts on this? Am I terrible mother if I just let him go the after party and be done?

I hope I have the energy to encourage my baby girls to go if they are on the fence about it. I already don’t want them to go and one is still potty training and the other is in diapers. And no, I don’t plan on NOT potty training the baby just so no one asks her out. I’m pretty sure her Bully-ass personality will take care of any potential suitors.

Lola, the 3 yr old Drama Queen on the other hand? Oy. That just might push me fully into Rehab.

I picture her prom to be something between this:
 
ibeatyou.com
And this:
from screenpicks.com
You guys will help me through it, right?

_____________________________________
*p.s. when I search for images to eye-punch my point home, I find the FUNNIEST shit on the internets. 

2013-04-19

I get it. I KNOW.


If you are a fan of comedy, and/or my usual reDICKulous sarcastic stylings, and not so much the serious side, let me save you 2 minutes: This post is not for you. I am not myself this week. That is to say, I am my SERIOUS self. Which is boring and reflective. Barf. 

This week has me troubled. Trouble in the news, beyond normal every day human trouble, senseless bombings in Atlanta, trouble in Texas, troubling Senate conclusions, troubling flooding in the Midwest, including one of the worst possible phrases I have ever heard: “sink hole.” *Shudder* 

I don’t need to bring up bad news again, I know. We get more than we need from the media, over and over and over and over. I know.

I had to avoid social media, and at some point ALL media this week, to save my sanity. I’m not sure why people need to broadcast the same stories over and over, and show pictures of the victims over and over. I know what happened. I saw those horrible images on the news, I will never forget them. 

I didn’t kill anyone, why do I need to see those images over and over. I know. 

I know it’s a tragedy, I know. 

I know that sweet little boy was amazing, he was EIGHT. I don’t need you to remind me. I know.
from reubenminer.blogspot.com

Why do the media, and every PERSON on social media feel the need to rehash horrible events and images, over and over and over. I KNOW DAMNIT. 

I have a television, and internet access, and radio. I know what happened. STOP posting horrible images over and over and over. I know. The good people KNOW.

Chances are you’re not reaching the bad people. And they don’t know these are bad images, because they are BROKEN, or they wouldn’t have done this in the first place. By reposting, rebroadcasting, you’re only feeding their need right now for the wrong kind of fame. You’re beating good people over the head with horrible images, and we already know. WE KNOW.

Stop telling me these people are cowards. I know.
Stop telling me to love my children. I do.
Stop telling me to hold them close because someone else can’t. I know.
I don’t need a reminder that this time goes by fast. I know.
I don’t need you to tell me that my life and their lives are precious. I know.

But those are just humans, having human responses to other human behavior. It’s easier for me to leave the party, than try to tell any other human beings how to behave. I know that too.

But LIFE on the other hand? I’d like to grab that bastard by the short and curlies and tell it:

Stop reminding me how short life is. I know.
STOP teaching me awful lessons about human behavior. I know.
Stop reminding me that everyone has their own struggle. I know.
Stop showing me every day how fast my babies grow up. I KNOW.
Stop giving me reasons to clutch them and never let them out of my sight.
Stop teaching me through HORRIBLE EXAMPLES of how wrong a human being can go. I KNOW!

Look at my past, don’t you think I KNOW THAT by now for fuck’s sake?

Do you think I try to overcome my horrible self and be kind to strangers and the homeless and bratty spoiled kids and typically annoying human beings who do the same shitty things over and over and emotionally unstable lunatics because I LIKE IT? No. I do it because I am also a human and I am also flawed and before I tried to be a better person, there were people that were kind to me.

I didn’t know why they were kind, I didn’t understand the circle, but I do now. I know.

I know that if I am kind to people, even when they annoy the shit out of me, hell especially when they annoy the shit out of me, they may eventually start to get it, and be kind to others, and it will grow from there. I know.

I get it, okay? So just STOP with the awful terribleness already. 
Lighten up a little and let us enjoy the day.

2013-04-14

Weather blah blah Spring blah blah Easter? So 2 Weeks Ago


It’s Spring. BFD. In the Midwest Spring sucks. Among other things, it means the melting of the snow and the revealing of all the fall leaves we didn't clean up. It also means finding toys we didn't clean up and this spring we found a sippy cup we didn't clean up. I thought we lost it, but it was just outside all winter. 

I took a picture to share with the Facebook world. It's so beautiful, and we don't have any flowers blooming yet in ComfyTown. 
Just leaves, and cups and toys.

There were snowflakes yesterday, today was 70 degrees, and I imagine we will have a windstorm or something equally crazy straight out of an action movie next week. Soon the weather will change from Bullshit Cold to Bullshit Rain, right before Just-Kill-Me-Now Humidity slash Hell-Hath-No-Fury Heat. 

I can hear you thinking “Day-um, is this bitch really talking about the fricking weather again?” I know. I used to think the same thing when I worked in an office: Shut to the UP about the damn weather, we’re not cave people, we can GO INSIDE. When you work in a cubicle it’s always a balmy “whatever temperature the Office Manager sets the thermostat to” and predictable fluorescent lighting skies overhead.

Now that I have kids, kids that NEED to get outside and run “it” off, I’ve become one of those annoying hags always bitching about rain, how our spring is just Second Winter and whatnot. If you’re wondering why anyone would live here, I’ve mentioned this in a bitchy “Mother Nature must have PMS again” weather post before.

In case you don’t live in a climate where the weather changes, when the weather “breaks” as we say, people FREAK the fuck OUT around here. The first 50+ degree day in the spring the outdoor world suddenly becomes crowded. You’ll see tons of motorcycles, convertibles, bike riders, baby strollers, and the less certifiable runners who aren’t crazy enough to run all winter through crunchy gray snirt. (snow/dirt.) Once the hot, lung-sucking summer weather kicks in, a lot of peeps go back indoors, but Spring and Fall? Are cuckoo pants.

I have lived here all my life, so I am always ready in spring with sunglasses for when my eyeballs are violently assaulted with pasty white winter legs. I recently had to try my unsteady hand at tanning lotion, and then spray tanner thanks to an April wedding and my loathing of pantyhose. 

I forgot to apply the lotion more than ONE TIME so nothing there. Then, the night before the wedding, I sprayed the cancer-smelling tanning polymer all over and when I woke up I was a streaky, freaky tiger. My husband suggested I apply another layer. That sounded like trying to cure cancer by chain smoking, but what did I have to lose? I couldn't show my bare skin as is, so with copious amounts of sugar scrub and re-spraying, it was workable without having to don any of the devil’s nylon garments. <<shudder>>

from sodahead.com
Even worse is the first sighting of dreaded winter toes. This is an epidemic of not yet manicured feet *gag* in open-toed whatever-the-fuck-you-call-those gross girl shoes, man-dals (man sandals) and flip flops.

After a seemingly unending Winterfell House of Stark winter, I love to CELEBRATE the coming of Spring in every way possible… except with open-toed shoes, because BARF. It's probably just me though. I hate feet. Any that aren't baby feet.

For Easter shit got real, my daughter turned 3 and is more aware of what up with the What Up, so we have to actually DO STUFF as parents now. Sucks, but if I’m to believe Adam Sandler movies, she will someday wipe her own ass, so it’s a pretty fair trade.

This Easter, we put out the baskets at night (I’m so not buying 3 new baskets every year) and we set out a carrot for the Easter bunny. In the morning, the carrot was magically turned into a stump, with suspiciously large and human-looking teeth marks.
In their baskets were small toys and snacks like raisins, prunes, dried cranberries, (Shutup, they’re baabies) and they each got a small toys. 

Count Comfula suggested we color eggs with the 3 year old this year. One part of me wanted to dramatically guffaw, and then seriously suggest he go fuc that we maybe just let her color on them with crayons before WE actually color them (or not.) He has been a natural with parenting and knowing what is best for Lola, so I let him run the show. My first instinct with these things? Is always to take the comfy (lazy) way out and avoid stress at all costs, but that is so lame.

One huge mess, two stained wooden chairs and a stained table later, we both decided yeah, it was WAY TOO SOON to have Lola color eggs. We also definitely got a shitty coloring set with dark, stainy colors and PAINT with a sponge for speckling. Yeah I dunno, must be an industry term. The Count chose to GIVE HER THE SPONGE and paint, instead of just throwing it out, and I guess that got by me somehow between running after my hyper baby and my blind trust. Hindsight can blow me.

During the baby's nap, I took markers to the eggs after "being inspired" (read: Straight up copying) Adventure Time eggs found online.
I only did these 3 because the markers were crappy, I needed paint or Sharpies and how much time can you spend decorating eggs when you have tiny kids? Notmuch. They still looked pretty math.

The rest of Easter was spent with family, and me trying to stay sober, which is a LOT easier when you’re super busy chasing after a baby you can’t take your eyes off of. She was literally climbing the furniture. Non. Stop. 

The kids had a quick egg hunt in their WINTER COATS, and there was one tender moment outside where the baby was licking rocks and I told her dad about it. He promptly went over and started filming it. If I had time and patience I would figure out how to edit video so I could upload it here, but it's a long video and it's not all that funny for all that work. It's not you, it's me. Look how damn long it took me to blog about Easter. 

Instead I can offer this, a picture of the ComfyTown grounds a week ago. The first green poking up of the hastas, aaaaand a cigarette butt. Ah, Springtime is the land awakening.


A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.
~Emily Dickinson

2013-04-09

Lola's Mood Swing: Guest Post with The Wild and Wonderful World of Gingersnaps

Hidey ho, ho's. I've been quiet lately (ON HERE I mean,) and you're welcome. Today I am guest hosting a beautiful blog written by a beautiful woman named GINGER. I know, right? I'm super jealous of that name. Link to her blog below.

I write about my middle child, Lola, and her Mood Swing. Find out what up with the what up, and what forced me to make THIS:



Click this link. Grab a tissue. I'm obvy kidding, it's not super emotional. I wrote it. 

http://wildwonderfulgingerssnaps.blogspot.com/2013/04/lolas-mood-swings.html

2013-04-01

Inspiring Blog Award!

To prove I am not the only person who updates their blog while stinking drunk, the lovely blog goddess at The Momisodes nominated Moi for an award. Hilarious right? I love a good laugh too, so I’m playing along. 
Plus, seriously I appreciate ANYONE clicking on this crazy blog for any reason, I don’t mind people laughing AT me. It’s still a service to the world in my book. The fact that someone would actually nominate me and my crazzy ass for an award? Makes me happy enough to keep me off medication. For now anyway.

As part of the award you are to list 7 facts about yourself. Here are some facts you undoubtedly don’t give a shit about:

I love food, to the point where I would rather shop at Plus Sized stores than diet, and especially sweets, but there are some things my broken, crazy taste buds just cannot tolerate. Like arugula. It tastes bitter and disgusting, and I feel like getting chemotherapy would be better than making it a part of my diet.

For some very weird reason I can’t even explain I HATE cinnamon and I HATE honey. I know these things are natural and actually have healing benefits, which is probably why I hate them so. The smell of honey when I'm putting it on my kids' oatmeal makes me gag.

I am seriously cheap. My husband teases me about it. I piss myself off about it sometimes, but if you have ever been a single mother, you know. Plus we have ONE real income right now, so it’s a good thing in the long run.

I hate almost everything currently on television. I'm not saying I could write a better show, I just can't do or watch things that don't make me happy. (Without a pay check I mean.We do watch things like The Walking Dead and Dexter years later on Netflix or from the $2 video store down the street.

I always feel out of the loop when people are talking about television, especially boring-ass reality shows. Barf. A few exceptions of course, I watch Project Runway, because Tim goddamned Gunn, and Heidi Klum is a SUPERMODEL who is also funny. Just kill me now.

I love to read but shockingly I am also years behind on books. I can’t afford to buy new books and even when they come to the library, they are always checked out by the time I get there with all my kids in tow.

I am also out of it when it comes to things like fashion. Fashion trends do not interest me in the slightest. I feel like it’s just a big trap to get Americans to buy DIFFERENT jeans and boots every year, just because some dickbag high up at a fashion company says THIN HEELS are in this year, and THICK HEELS will be in next, and HEELS with a weird curve or red bottoms will be all the rage after that. Lookit Dickbag, I buy what I like at Goodwill and I will wear THOSE particular MOM JEANS until they completely fall apart. Find another sucker to pay for your next summer home, I’m not playing ball.

I like big butts and I cannot lie. This sentence might be a lie. 
So it turns out I can lie.

Now is the good part, where I get to nominate people: