I'm likely to die of something someday
It was one of those delicious mornings - you know, I was laying in bed basking in the drowsy-still-hazy-from-the- booze-and-lot's-o-lovin' feeling. Fatso was telling me how great my everything was, specifically the way my back felt. He seemed to have trouble coming up with the exact word to express this particular attribute, so after listening to the definition, I decided to help him out.
"You mean I'm sturdy?" I asked.
"Well, yes," he said.
I stabbed myself in the heart 16-18 times.
None of the wounds turned out to be fatal, however, in fact, after my botched attempt to off myself I did some research and surprisingly I could not find documented proof of even one successful suicide carried out with an imaginary knife. So, since I didn't manage to end it all afterall, here I am, sturdily recounting this story to you.
If I had been successful at putting an end to it all you would have had to read about it on Fatso's blog and I'm sure his memory of the fateful events leading up to the tragedy would be similar yet greatly different than mine. I imagine he'd pull the old "This was a terrible misunderstanding! In my country Angelina Jolie is often referred to as sturdy" routine. He'd probably look shocked as he wrote about it, but you wouldn't know - you know, because all our photos are minus our heads and stuff.
You know I have more than once been referred to as "strong." You're a strong woman. You show great strength. Whoo that's a tad bit strong - when's the last time you bathed? It's all been said to me at least once, if not daily. And it's never really bothered me. In fact, these comments are generally meant as compliments, except perhaps the last example.
But sturdy? NEVER sturdy. Sturdy woman wear sensible shoes. (Pumps would make them wobbly and I do believe that wobbly qualifies as an antonym for sturdy, therefore I'm thinking that people in Fatso's country have no business called Angelina Jolie sturdy. That chick lives in 6" heels.) Sturdy women own ski jackets and hiking boots. At least a pair of Nikes. They hoist all 10 bags of groceries from the car to the house in one trip. They don't own a Wonder Wheeler. Sturdy women do not get pedicures - they use the heels of their feet to sharpen their carving knives and their hatchets - the ones they use to chop wood for the winter. They wear flannel. Drink beer. Drive a pick-up truck. Assembly things
I am so not sturdy.
I do however have wrist cancer. I noticed the tumor this morning after Fatso pointed it out. He had just completed his complete body scan/cavity search and was just about to hand me a clean bill of health when I heard him say..."hmmmm."
"What is it doc?" I asked.
"You have something here. Something on your wrist."
I suggested that it might be a pimple or maybe some food that got stuck to my hand last night at dinner. But to both suggestions he shook his head solemnly. That's when I began my own intensive probing and squeezing and after a very long two minutes broke the news to him as gently as I could.
"It's wrist cancer,"I said. I nodded and made direct eye contact just like the guys on ER do.
But I do suspect that wrist cancer is one of those slow moving cancers. It could be years before it actually kills me. If it ever does. It looks pretty contained so if I get it whacked off pretty darn soon it may not have had time to spread to my brain yet. So really, this doesn't necessarily mean the end of my blog. If it is, then feel free to comment about the irony of my blog title and speculate that on some level I must have known my days were numbered.
If I don't write as regularly as usual though - don't worry - it's not that I'm feeling ill but more the location of the tumor itself. It's on the left side of my wrist (palm up) right at the spot where my wrist hits my laptop as I type and so it makes it very diffic - oh.
Yeah.
never mind.
-LM
I begged my sister to grab her fifteen minutes of fame on decorating television. I wanted to write to the producers of "Clean Sweep" and enclose pictures of Disorderly's disorder. Her junk. Her stuff. They'd never pass up a unique chance to challenge their "organization experts" like this.
Then came kids and a mortgage. A starter home with too many plastic things in primary colors. For years I decided to let the house dictate my style and my style could be summed up with the word "distressed." The distressed style happens when wood is made to or left looking in need. You convince yourself that you love the worn look of many years of neglect. Your furniture screams of your silent acceptance of fate.
Continuing a long tradition of putting extraordinary expectations on inanimate objects, we now have another soul-less accessory to hang our hopes on. The Complaint Free Bracelet.
You have succeeded (and are no longer capable of shitting without permission) after you wear the bracelet on the same wrist for 21 days, after which you realize you cannot remove it as it has burned into your skin like an Auschwitz tattoo, your eyes will now be spirals and you'll smile and nod at nothing in particular at all.
You see? A dumb person would have paid 15.50 for a bagel toasted with cream cheese on the side and a small regular coffee. Say this or something similar happens once a week - and this person will stand to lose approximately $800 a year due to stupidity. And that's if it only happens once a week and if the loss is minimal. I mean, imagine.
I asked a guy at work how his weekend was.
The co-worker continued to talk about aquariums and rocks and coral and all things oceanic and I have always enjoyed a good aquarium as long as it was in someone else's house and as long as I was not expected to have anything whatsoever to do with the well-being of it's inhabitants, so I listened politely, moderately interested in sea life suddenly. He talked about buying special fish whose whole purpose in life is to eat these worms who are killing his coral, but instead he found the fish hanging out with the worms, staying up late at night, playing poker and smoking seaweed.
You know when you've had a friend for a while all the things you once found extremely unique, - like double-jointedness or a knowledge of all things perverted or the ability to pick things up with body parts other than his/her hands - you hardly even notice anymore? Well, the psychic part of our friendship is no different. It's just kind of a matter of fact thing. I no longer bring all my other friends in to peek around the curtain at the side show freak. 
When I got home that night I realized - when I actually started listening to the conversation thread in my head - that I was bothered more by the fact that Bunny could be wrong than the fact I had just lost my perfect $300.00 eyeglasses. So I did what everyone tells you to do when you lose something. I retraced my steps. I remembered that I had the glasses when I left work. So let's start there. (check denotes places I already looked for or called inquiring about lost glasses.) 
So I bought it (and then pulled every muscle in my body hauling it) and all went well and then all went wrong and to make a long story short - it's assembled but don't breathe on it. Basically I'm putting heavy stuff on the shelves to make it more sturdy. It's reminiscent of those makeshift shelves with the concrete blocks and planks of wood - yeah, steady like that as long as you don't ever ever ever take any of the books out. Or stare at it too much.
Every once in a while I get bored. Actually it's more than once in a while. I'm bored alot. There’s a very real possibility that I’m an excitement junkie. That I just can't "be." That I find myself feeling very low when I'm not very high. Yeah, it's possible Dr. Phil. Why don't you go put a spit shine on that head of yours, ok?
He was too quiet - even our fights were non-fights. They involved the silent treatment which for me is the Silent Killer. Right up there with grudge holding. Besides, I always felt like I was annoying him by continuing to occupy space in the universe. There was a lot of sighing going on. A lot of way too quiet dinners. I remember looking over at other tables in the restaurant, seeing a couple that were leaning towards each other, holding hands, talking in whispers. I remember thinking how bad I wanted to know their secrets, what they were saying - the words to the spell they were under. (I found out, by the way, and it's remarkably easy - a candle, some funny powder and a cast iron pot filled with smelly things. Simmer for one hour while visualizing nice long conversations with a guy you once knew.)
why it's not easy being a woman of a certain age. Like me. Well, it's not easy being a woman like me at any age, but certainly getting older adds another level of challenge. And horror. For one thing, crying is harder as you age. When I was a child - an Irish redheaded terror, I would drop to the floor and perform a display of tantrum throwing the likes of which never before seen on earth. I had two shows daily and a Saturday matinee. And after each show I'd wipe my eyes, grab myself a box of Junior Mints, down a cold Moxie and happily return my attention to Barbie and Midge who were getting ready for the prom, but let's face it there was only one Ken doll and Midge didn't have a chance. Still, I dressed her up all pretty like so that she wouldn't give up on life before she at least attempted to hide the freckles with make up and add some highlighting to her natural shade of rodent brown.
was I ---oh yeah. Sense of humor. I spare my sense of humor's life repeatedly because it's the equivalent of those little arm floatee things I used to put on my kids before they went "swimming." Or went in the wading pool, the tub, or drank a large glass of water. These floaties aren't (and the warnings repeatedly remind you of this fact) approved floatation devices - you can't rely on them to save your life you if you
My “grown” kids never stop trying to put me back together with their father. No, no, they don't want us together, but they do want us both in the same place on holidays and such. And it's got nothing to do with me, nothing to do with my ex. It is, as usual, completely and utterly about the kids. They are "sick of having to visit both parents on the holidays so that no one is alone." My oldest daughter, Salmoncrier, delivered this complaint via phone one night ( and the resulting suggestion that even though we are divorced we get together for dinner on major holidays.) Now I realize the idea didn't necessarily originate in her brain. Her sister, Gadget Goes Hawaiian, is known to plant seeds in the ever fertile field of family gossip and then Salmoncrier picks the lovely ripe complete thought fruit and presents it proudly to me, and is consequently the only one subject to the resulting shit. 
Maybe it’s just a simple misunderstanding. Maybe my kids don’t really understand what the word DIVORCE means. So, just for fun, let's look at some other ways to say the D word, shall we?