Suzanna Danna

I have been out of town for the last two weeks. The first week I was in… wait, let me get my head straight. The first week I was in Galveston for a conference and last week I was in San Antonio for another. I am a little bit worn out and my twittering is sorely out of date. I haven’t updated my FaceBook status in ages and I haven’t sent you lovely people a love letter in the form of a journal entry in a bajillion years.

My apologies, please forgive me.

But I come bearing gifts. I come bearing good news. I come bearing interesting stories. Oh, come back here. It’s all good, baby.

For those of you who care. I have on the cutest pair of strappy brown high heeled sandals. For those of you who don’t… See the next paragraph. While in San Antonio I was with my prior boss, oh he of the voice*, the shopping and the turning purple and running away screaming when I speak of anything… inappropriate in nature. He is the best shopper for me. So is Mister and my mother of course. If it weren’t for the three of them, I would be lucky to have on pants. So of course, in San Antonio we were basically sleeping in a mall (well, okay, next to a mall… on top of?) and so prior boss was dragging me around and throwing stuff at me to try on. Found THE cutest top(s) and some fabulous earrings, but the shoes… Lo’ they are strappy, a few inches high, brown leather and incredibly comfortable. Love.

*Third dude from the left. He would kill me dead if he knew I posted this. Please don’t tell. Go to 2 minutes 59 seconds in to hear him SANG. I love this song. It makes me cry. Shut up, I am Southern. And this poor man has to work with me. He is a saint.

So while I was kinda butt clench about this time of year (see last year’s post of suck … Click here for suckage) I am happy to announce that at the conference in Galveston nobody died, or had any kind of seizures or anything. Score. The meeting in San Antonio was good, as good as being out of town for two weeks can be.

But here’s some fabulous news. Things are SO looking up for Mister and me. I am happy, relieved and also a little bit smooshy. Like if you say something nice, I may hug you. And/Or cry… with happiness. Just letting you know. It was nice to miss him and to be missed. Kinda gets you right here (pointing somewhere in the vague vicinity of my sternum).

One large detail of HULK SMASHiness is that we had to give up Zeke. That is it. No more dogs. Max is fine, but Zeke went on (more than once) a one (90+ pound) dog rampage through the house during a thunderstorm. Yes, the storms were bad last month, and yes, we lost (a portion of) our fence due to a storm… but the poor thing, the older he got (was OLD) the more frightened he became. One day we were both working and a big storm blew through… here’s the rub, yeah, he tore the blinds off the back door and tore up the ones in the dining room, who cares. Yeah, he tore off the dryer hose looking for somewhere to hide. You have a dog, you expect expenses. But, the thing was he also chewed through the dryer electric cord to where both wires were exposed. He could have killed himself. And he doesn’t do well with small confined spaces for any longer than a minute or two, so crate training was out. Do not cross me on this people. I am fragile and may stalk you and come sit in your lap and bawl for about an hour, completely interrupting your work flow. So the good news is that the same place we got him placed him (same day, we were told) with a woman who just lost her elderly GSD and is a stay at home person. So, win, win. Except the part where I cry when I find a Zeke hair. And where I miss him terribly and (excuse me, I need to go… um, blow my nose… there may be pollen in here or something).

Um…
This has been in my head for two days.
WARNING: Language/Lyrics not safe for work. Please use your earphones. And then, please rock out. Thank you. Also, please note… that this is not the actual video from the song. It is a limp cartoon from The Lion King, but it is the only unedited version of the song that gave me the option to embed the video. Please to enjoy.

Yes, I am aware of the irony of the two videos I have chosen for this particular entry. Your point?

This post has taken me two days to write and I haven’t even given you guys the goods.

One little note. I think I may have a problem and an intervention should be staged. At my house. Bring your own axe. I stayed up last night past midnight playing RockBand2. I was connected online and got to play some of the strangest stuff I have ever heard. I failed out for the first time and I truly have renewed respect for musicians. Pushing 4-5 little colored buttons on a guitar/bass shaped controller while using the “strum button” is totally not the same thing. But I love it so. Apparently I am a 13 year old boy, cleverly disguised as a 37 year old woman. No one tell. Or wait, do TOTALLY DO. I will register at rockband.com and then we can all be 13 year old boys together. Leave comments with your band name and stats, ect… or email me.

This is gonna be fabulous.

Mister got me the cutest little HP Mini because I rule a few weeks ago and I am trying to work up the nerve to actually write something to get published. Wish me luck!

Dirt later, I promise. We (and by we, I mean me and the other party involved) have not even come up with a good pseudonym for them to use in the story we are going to tell. It is going to be AWE(wait for it)SOME.

PS.. If I don’t talk to y’all before the weekend. Happy Fourth of July!

I have so much to tell you guys and the most incredible wall of writer’s block that my brain feels constipated.

I think the last thing I wrote was about all of the stuff we had planned for the week of my birthday and that I had to put on pants. (Woe.) So I am going to start there with a quote from that week from my darling cousin, Andrew. And No, he does not know about this site and I will personally skin you alive and wear your flesh if you show this page (or anything from my site to him). So, Andrew came into town and my sister and I (please, for the love of God, do not tell the authorities or my mother.) played a wonderful game called “Getting Andrew Served”. It was a lot of fun and, to be honest with you, she and I (and my father) are much better at the game than my brother in law and Mister.

The trick is (and yes, I know I haven’t even said the quote from Andrew, but I will come back to that in due time) to just order, “I’ll have a Belvedere Citrus and Seven,” then point to him and say, “Want the same?” he nods, the waitress or waiter brings two… easy peasy. Do NOT do like Mister did. “I will have a Blue Moon, what do you want Andrew?” My father also seems very competent at getting booze for minors. “I’ll have two glasses of red wine.” Delivered, he hands one to Andrew under the nose of the wait staff.

The quote…

When Andrew got to the house I showed him around, “Here is the kitchen, this is the living room, most of the technology works from this remote…. Follow me…. This is your bedroom, here are your towels, your washcloths… there are extras in this closet here… and this is your bathroom. THIS… (handing him a container) is your Oust. You are a boy, this is YOUR Oust.” After he relaxed enough to have a few drinks with us, at a bar one night he said, “I am so glad you gave me that Oust. I AM a guy and one time I didn’t close the door to my bathroom and consequently my room and one of my roommates asked me if I had shit in the hallway.”

Heh.

When he left, we packed it in his luggage to take home.

I thought about that on Friday and sent him a text telling him I had just thought about what he said and that it made me laugh. I got this text back, “I’m sorry, I just got a new phone and don’t recognize the number, who is this?” I was like, “Dude, it is your cousin, SUSAN. How many people in the DFW Metroplex do you know who would actually say that to you?”

So, suffice it to say, we had a good time. My favorite was the last night he was here. It was Wednesday the 13th. I got home around 6ish and we had a bite to eat and then went to a local hangout… the NORM! bar… if you remember. They served us. (woo!) And we started chatting. He would say more to me in private than when the rest of the family was around because I had already opened that “no judgment here” door a few weeks earlier on a Monday at like 2:30 am on FaceBook… don’t ask.

We were chatting, my sister called and said that we were losers because we wouldn’t go over to her house, and she couldn’t come to where we were, having children and all. And we looked at our full beers, our smokes and were like, “Dude, you’re calling US losers!?!” Then another call came in. From Dre’, “Sue, man… I’m here with Doug at (random bar in Irving) y’all come out here.” I replied, “Nope, we’re getting served at the NORM! bar and we aren’t leaving.” His old college roommate (whom I graduated high school with) grabbed the phone, “Susan! You Whore! I have an expense account and I am not afraid to use it! Bring your fucking cousin and meet us in Addison!” “Wow, Doug. Even if that were an even remotely attractive offer, all bets were off as soon as you called me a whore. So, um, no…. fuck you, put Dre’ back on the phone.” Dre got back on the phone. “Dude, what the hell is up with Doug? He’s already trashed isn’t he?” “Yeah, sorry about the whole whore thing. You can call him names all night to his face, meet us at… I dunno…” I hopped in, “We’ll meet you at Cape…” “Dude, that is MORE than half way!” “Dude. I didn’t call YOU.” “Okay, fine.” “And he’s buying right!?” I looked to Andrew who was nodding with a big grin on his face. “Yes, Doug is buying,” Dre confirmed. I conceded… “Fine, but our goal is to put Andrew on the plane completely hung over in the morning.” “Deal.”

Andrew and I paid our wee tab and went out to the car.

We drove, and it is pretty close and Dre and Doug were more than 15 miles away, we were like seven, and they called us in five minutes. “We’re out on the patio!!!” “How fast were y’all going to get there in five minutes from Irving?” “Over a hundred on the tollway.”

You see… these boys (men, they are totally men now, and it freaks me the fuck out.) went to college at OU and used to come to Dallas for weekend trips, racing each other the whole way. So there is history there.

A few weeks ago I went from not seeing Dre in twenty one years to seeing him like every other day/week/whatever and definitely BlackBerry messaging almost every day. Now me, Dre’, Mister and Dre’s bride MKP hang out a bunch. We did this past weekend and the one before. It is so great to have another couple to do stuff with, that (this sounds awful, but whatever) don’t have kids and can just go do stuff at the drop of a hat. I love it.

Andrew and I got to the bar and went right through the DO NOT ENTER gate to bypass the ID checker girl and found Doug and Dre holding a table. Doug, dude, he is a total man now. I need to bust out the yearbook to even remember what he looked like as a kid. And of course, Dre was as handsome and gentlemanly as ever. I hugged Doug and called him a whore and then introduced both of them to Andrew. We all said our hellos and then out of the bar walked the waitress from the BIG BAR tab. The night of “Oh SHIT I am in SO much trouble!” Falling off my shoes night.

“Jenny!” “YAY!” “I have been under strict orders from home to never start a bar tab on the credit card again.” “Yes ma’am. So, what are y’all drinkin?” “Citrus Vodka and Seven, double tall, bourbon and coke, double tall as well for Andrew and boys (I gesture to Dre and Doug), will you be drinking Scotch?” “Separate or one tab?” We all looked at Doug, “I’m buyin.” Heh.

We started telling stories and I had already told Andrew on the way over, “Whatever they say about me isn’t true.” “::Snort:: Sure, Sue, whatever you say.” “What!?... Gah!” I was like, “Okay, look… fine… maybe some of the stuff is true.”

Doug and Dre started talking about old times, interjecting new stuff, “Guess what someone has a picture of your cousin doing to our waitress?” “Shut up Dre’.” “….So while Doug was in his room with some girl we threw in a whole box of geese…” “No shit, we were sleeping and, “HONK!”… What the fuck? Baby, what was that? “HONK!” (click <- a light) “Holy shit GEESE!... What the fuck are geese doing in here?” “They shit everywhere. We finally rounded them up, put them in the elevator, hit LOBBY and then ran back to our rooms.”*

Andrew, being in college, asked me, “Why didn’t you tell me this shit when I was fifteen?” “Oh HELL no.” You could see him taking metal notes for pranks with his frat brothers when he got back to school. Dre and Doug gave him some pretty good material.

We closed the place down, drove home and on the way Andrew was asking me about the X, how I met Mister… he asked me about a lot of things, and we promised not to lose touch. He said he wanted to come back next summer when he was a viable 21 year old and I promised to fly him back out if he could get to Atlanta-West (Birmingham). We promised to not turn into our cousins in North Carolina who are closer in proximity but don’t really take or have the time to spend with family. We promised to keep tabs on one another and when we got home, we went out on the back porch and had a smoke.

He asked me about my ex-step daughter (they were both in my first wedding (to X)) and as we talked about her and I told him about her parents and the things she learned at an early age and etcetera he took this huge deep breath in and then blew it out saying, “Oh man, I SO love my parents right now.” I told him, “They are the best Andrew, and just wait… in a few years, when you guys cross that parent/child boundary and you can truly become friends with your parents it is the most amazing gift ever.”

I gave him a bottle of water and three Advil and we went to bed around 2:30 or three am and his flight was at seven. We had planned on leaving at 5:30 am from the house, but I woke up at 5:30, looked at the clock and bolted out of bed, “Shit Andrew, wake up, wake up!” We threw all of his stuff in his suitcase and flew out the door. We laughed, bleary eyed and tired (still reeking of cigar and cigarette smoke) all the way to the airport.

I dropped him off and I can’t wait until he comes back next summer!

*Clarification from Dre’ on the geese… from BB messenger like 5 minutes ago. And I quote, “Geese was indeed Doug. In his room while he was in bed with a chick naked with the lights out. We tossed the ducks, slammed the door and listened quietly through the door… “Did you hear something?... I think someone or something is in the room with us… WTF was that?!?... (We see the lights flick on from under the closed door and ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.) Quacking, feathers flying, lotsa yelling and screaming, shit everywhere! Afterward we set the ducks on the dorm elevator, pressed L for Lobby and sent them down. A minute later… faint screams from below. Heh heh!”

Yesterday I got so freaking worked up and pissed about something that I opened up a Word document to start typing and (immediately got interrupted by a bajillion things and ) completely forgot what I was going to type. I was SO mad… I was mad that I was mad about not remembering what I was mad about.

Then I got in my car to go home… and of course I remembered. [eyeroll]

My right boob totally broke another bra. This is the third one. She broke the underwire again. I leaned over to get a binder for a conference and “SNAP”… Oh, fucking hell.

For those of you new to playing the home game this isn’t the first time my boob has decided to conspire against me. Nay. She is wrathful and gleefully destructive. DAMN YOU RIGHT BOOB!

In other news, this past weekend was packed full tilt with things to do and places to go and people to see. We started off with Friday… okay, wait, skip Friday. Let’s pick this shit up from Saturday. Saturday we mixed my birthday, my sister’s birthday (we normally do pedicures and dinner for each other) and mother’s day all in one shot and took the Moms to a spa for a mini massage, a foot wrap and lunch. My cousin came in from Georgia. We had my nephew’s 8th birthday party then headed downtown to Club Dada for the Ultra Violet Rock for CF show. It was quite a busy day but it was awesome.

The mini-spa was a huge hit with Momma and we all had a great time and getting to see my cousin has also been extremely awesome. My nephew’s party was fun and the number of bands that showed up for the Ultra Violet Show downtown was insane. Artists donated everything from photographs to oil paintings to cakes and jewelry. We came home with the most beautiful picture from Ange Fitzgerald (called SmokeBreak) that I am so completely and madly in love with. It is framed beautifully and the concrete has this metallic patina to it. It’s so beautiful. (ps.. if you know me on FB, there is a picture of me with the (FABULOUS) artist on my page.)

Sunday we all went to P.F. Chang’s and sat at the chef’s table in the kitchen as a family for my birthday dinner. Lovely food, lovely company and the most thoughtful gifts from my family. My niece and nephew gave me a gift card to a book store and a new book and my mother busted out this familiar looking (old school style) Neiman Marcus jewelry box. It was a necklace that was previously my grandmother’s and it is gorgeous. My mother (I don’t believe) has ever worn it and I have rifled through her jewelry drawer enough times, I should have seen this particular piece years ago, but to be honest, if my mother had searched for a more perfect necklace, it wouldn’t have matched up. My grandmother’s style was impeccable and I absolutely love this piece.

Consequently, I wore it yesterday to the office, trying to send a picture to my dear friend Miss Meg and I only got a few blurry cleavage shots, so I gave up. Will get a picture soon and post it.

Monday was my birthday and I had to put on pants.

I worked from home and had to leave for an appointment* pretty early but my cousin and Mister (he took off Mon-Wed of work to hang with my cousin) slept late and then we all just kind of hung out. We watched movies, we rocked the Rock Band 2 and we drank. It was a perfect birthday if ever I had one. Mister left for a little bit in the afternoon and came back with his hair cut all handsome-like and he handed me a card and a gift certificate to my favorite spa place.

ROCK.

He also told me that I could get some piercings that I have been wanting. To be honest, I have wanted to get my nose pierced for quite a while, but my mother flipped her shit when I mentioned it in passing. “That is DISGUSTING! Oh SUSAN! How COULD YOU!?” Like I had just kicked a puppy, flashed a nursing home, ran with scissors, sat thisclose to the TV and then set fire to a needlepoint pillow that my great aunt had made. So I pierced the tragus on both ears last night. Heh.

Little does she know that if I had my way I would have full sleeves and some multicolored hair, No, no… NOT like the strawberry blonde debacle of aught two. Also, shut up.

I am on trays 8 of 9 for the bottom and 11 for the top. Invisalign… DING!

*Alright. Time for full disclosure here. Monday marked my one month and a week anniversary of going to therapy. Mister and I have been going through a rocky patch for a little over a year and a half and we needed help. Fuck, I needed help. I didn’t know if I was/am going through a midlife crisis or I was/am just a big bucket of especially spicy crazy but this has been extremely rough going. Before my life with Mister I was aware that reality was not all glitter and rainbow humping unicorns, but damn if it didn’t feel like perfection when we were dating, courting and then throughout the first few years of our marriage.

So, there’s that then.

I feel like last Monday we turned a corner in our relationship, in a good way, and God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we’ll be back to our rainbow humping unicorns soon.

Also… I am just about to embark on my crazy travel schedule and I will post when I can. But please, leave comments if you feel compelled to do so, or send emails. I cherish each one like it is my own little pearl.

On my way to San Antonio I met Kinky Freidman at the Chili’s inside Love Field in Dallas. He was extremely polite and very gentlemanly. I took a covert picture. Check it.

I am not a huge political animal, so his politics are really of no consequence to me, but his writing style is genius in my opinion and so I told him so. He stood and tipped his hat when I introduced myself and was very nice and extremely kind when I gushed all over myself about his turn of a phrase. I went all fangirl on him but he was so kind. And when I left, I slid my card on the table, told him, “It was very nice to meet you Mr. Friedman.” And he replied, “Thank you Susan, very nice to meet you too.” And he put my card in his wallet. (!)

If you are reading this Mr. Friedman… I love you, call me. Also, thank you for remembering my name.

A few weeks ago someone sent an email (seriously, love the comments and emails) telling me that I was a massive cock tease leaving things like I did…

“I have this list of shit to discuss with y’all… but I think I will cover one more thing and then wrap it up, because… I want to continue the whole Shelby and Tom series without turning into one of THOSE journals, but I kind of want to go there once, you know? I also want to talk to y’all about this weird deal that happens in my office when I wear anything slightly different than my normal black pants, black shoes, top (adult geranimals) bullshit. ….
So I want to talk to you guys about that. I also have been reflecting and want to reword some of the things I said about one person in particular. Oh hell, I just want to apologize. I was wrong. We’ll talk about it later.”

So to give some closure…

#1) I will “go there” with the whole Shelby and Tom thing. Once. And I need some guidance. A little help with my soft core porn here?

#2) I had on a nice cranberry swing jacket and matching shell the other day with my illegal black britches (they do wonders for the shelf butt) and heels… anytime I stray from loafers, knit pants from Land’s End and a twinset I get asked multiple times by this woman, “Why are you all dressed up? Where are you goin? What’s the special occasion?” Look lady, just because I refuse to wear a sweater with a picture of fucking Pooh-Bear on it, does not mean the world is coming to an end. I normally end up answering, “Your mamma.” Which makes no sense, but it shuts her up. What the hell is up with that? One day I wore a fabulous black wrap dress from Igigi and I thought her head was going to explode.

Guess who was the first to notice my piercings this morning? Yes. HER. “What did you go and do THAT for?!” And then I punched her in the vagina**.

**not really.

#3) Okay. This one is a little tougher. I shouldn’t have opened my gaping maw in the first damn place. But here goes. The reflecting and rewording part… I have, in these many, many, many pages talked about a gentleman named Kim, my old lover from Omaha. (Yes, I do see the recognition light bulb going off over some of your heads… and the others of you, yes, I see you heading towards the search bar. Go ahead, I’ll wait.)

Anyway, I really don’t want to reword so much as sort of explain. I have been all over the place concerning Kim. I just want to tell you guys some truthful shit here. We had an on again off again on again love affair for a pretty long stretch of time. He was kind to me and there is no getting around that. I have been less than kind with my words about him and even if he never reads this I want to be straight with you, dear readers.

We were lovers and friends and when it looked as if things may go further than I was comfortable with at the time, I pushed and forced and was mean and shooed him back to Omaha to be with his exwife and his sons. We haven’t talked in over six years and when we reconnected on FB, he was so kind and gentle I couldn’t keep up the whole charade of “his education wasn’t high enough”, “he worked at XYZ” or any of that because when it came down to it. It really didn’t matter. I was scared. And I have been less than forgiving in my descriptions of him, which really, is not cool. It was/is my problem, not his.

He’s still kind, he is still generous and he is still a very good friend even after all of these years and all of the mean words that passed between us. Even if we don’t talk (another one of my issues) then I wanted to clear the air, here, in my virtual head space to let you know that he was a gentleman, he was very loving, he was gentle and sweet and he never did anything to deserve the kind of treatment I gave him. Yes, it ended up nicely with him back with his exwife and raising his sons. But that is beside the point. He was never unkind or stooped to my level, and for that, I applaud him and utterly apologize for my behavior and words.

There***.

***Shut up… it wasn’t vague. Look, the next time we meet up for beers, you and I? I’ll tell you the whole story.

Alright babies, I have completely been neglecting you like some gorgeous oil painting hanging in the bowels of the Louvre. You ARE gorgeous and I DO indeed love you, but I have been a little preoccupied. No excuses. Okay, a few excuses. My previous years have had a slight pattern that I could sort of count on. This year, that pattern went out the freaking window and I thought that I would have ALL of April to be all lovey dovey with you, but no (NO! I SAY!) it has not worked out that way.

Well, that and I have been avoiding you so I won’t get all talky speaky with you and give away all of my secrets (psssst, I know where Atlantis is).

So, there’s that then.

Let’s talk about how insanely addictive crack … er, I mean FaceBook is. Shall we? Holy shit y’all. Let me give you a for instance. A few weeks ago I was merrily working away (at work… redundant much?) and I got this email from FaceBook that said Dre’ would like to add you as a friend. To be honest, it actually said Andre, but I call him Dre’ because we are like this*, yo. (*finger gesture) (No, perv, not THAT finger gesture.)

I got all hyper and shit because I have been Google stalking him for eons and there he was… and the real kick in the ass was that we live not three miles from one another and have for years. So I accepted the proffered friend request and BAM! It was like it hadn’t been twenty-one years since we had spoken, but more like twenty-one minutes. Which is just about the time now between our texts, emails and phone calls. We started chatting and adding one another to our BlackBerry messengers and damn, it was like I found a missing piece.

Now we are all finishing one another sentences and comparing notes on life, work, love and happiness. It is amazing that one little program can give back so much.

A few weeks ago we all met up on a Saturday for a “cheer up Joey**” Happy Hour. And yet, it was a Saturday and not even after work and WAY more than an hour. But fuck it, that’s how we roll.

**More on you later Joey.

So Stacey puts this whole thing together, kind of last minute and we were all up for an excuse to get out anyway… so she says to meet at the bar at 7 o’clock. She had been tailgating at the Jimmy Buffet concert all day so I get a message around sixish that she is muddy and on her way, will be a few minutes late. Another message from Dre’ he is out with his wife doing the mani/pedi thing and they are taking forever… so HE’s gonna be a few minutes late. No clue what time Joey and K are supposed to get there but I figure, what the hell. And I head over to the club around 7:30.

7:45 and no one has shown up. My waitress is precious and because they don’t allow smoking indoors at ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE ANYMORE! I was “holding a table” on the patio. That shit was empty. So there I was, lookin cute as shit with a little black twinset (surprise!), dark wash jeans and my Jones of NY snakeskin, berry colored, strappy, 3-inch-high cork wedged sandals. Yes, ass, this part IS important. I was looking forward to seeing Dre’ for the first time in over twenty-one years, Stacey and I were gonna get to chat, and Joey and K were coming. This was going to be awesome! I even brought a bag of four photo albums because I am a complete dork. (But you all love me anyway.)

My waitress sits down and looks at a picture of Dre’ in his awesome glam rock acid wash outfit from the last day of eighth grade. She and I strike up a conversation and we start drinking together. Shut up. She totally loved me. So around 8:30 when Dre’ and his buddy “I only date strippers” Brad show up I am one (or two doubles) and a shot in.

When Dre' hugged me it was like we had just seen each other yesterday. So awesome.

8:45 message from Stacey: “Hold me a chair!”

9:00 message from me to Stacey: “If you passed out and left me for dead I will keel you.”

9:20 Stacey shows up and then Joey and K follow shortly after… and after that “I only date strippers” Brad’s friend the “professional trainer” Charlotte shows up. She was totally a stripper… and a complete doll. She talked a million miles a minute and was a low talker.

me : [notice Charlotte’s mouth is moving rapidly, we all lean forward to hear what she is saying… look at Stacey and Dre’ for confirmation that she is speaking, they nod… strain to hear]
Charlotte : [sounds only dogs can hear with extremely animated hand gestures]
me : Honey, speak LOUDER, we are OLD and cannot hear you.
Charlotte : [sounds only dogs can hear with extremely animated hand gestures]
me : LOUDER!
Charlotte : [sounds only dogs can hear with extremely animated hand gestures]
me : I give up. [lots of nods, smiles and “uh huh!”s ]

Joey starts buying shots. I start buying shots. Somehow a picture is taken of me doing lewd things to the waitress… for every shot we get, she gets one too. I went straight past the beer when I got there and was drinking vodka and whatever else was put in front of me. We are telling stories and it is so great to have all these old and new friends together it was a bit heady.

Dre’ and I are laughing over old things that I should totally remember and stories are being doled out by the bushel. (PS… am such a whore.) Stacey is laughing so hard she is crying. It was wonderful.

And yes, we were all supplementing our alcohol intake with water.

K and I decided to go to the ladies’ room. We finish washing our hands and stand over by the Vortex hand dryers and are speaking low and pretty intensely about some private business when … (TA DA!) In walks Tami. And NO, we did not know her from Adam. She walks directly over to us and says, “How do you get an asshole out of a bar!?... Leave your husband at home!” and she laughs uproariously. She is the funniest shit she has ever heard. K and I do the polite giggle with a head nod and she grabs us and says, “Gotta lighten the mood ladies!” She physically pulls us over to the mirror, puts some lip liner one K and I, then lipstick (WAS SILVER… God.) and then puts lotion on our hands and tells us to rub it into our necks. We were so stunned (and polite… and kind of afraid of her) that we did exactly as she said. The lotion smelled like porn and… vanilla… and a stripper’s dressing room. Or something. We disentangle ourselves from Tami and walk/laugh/stumble back to the table on the patio. On the way out to the table I tell K, “We smell like sex.” We both have our hands shoved into our own faces (with matching silver lipstick, that Tami swears, “Oh GIRLS, MEN love that shit!”) laughing at our sex hands***.

***Completely different than jazz hands, I assure you.

Back at the table we are shoving our hands into peoples’ faces, “What does that smell like!?” Mixed bag on the answers… we were yelling, “SEX! Our hands smell like sex!... And strippers!” Brad looked a bit interested… Charlotte mumbled something that sounded like, “Let me smell.” We thrust our hands under her nose.

I squatted beside Dre’ to reach under the table for something. Number one. What have I told you about squatting? Not attractive. And Number two. With my ass I should have known what was coming. One second I was squatting, the next, on my ass looking up at the couple behind me laughing hysterically, “Oh honey, let us help you up!” Hi. Embarrassed much?

I finally got up, put my shoes back on. I freaking fell off my shoes. (See? I told you that the details of what I was wearing was important.) So I got my shoes back on and my ass in the chair and the silver lipstick off of K and I and then Tami showed up at the table, dragging her mortified brother behind her. The lights came on, last call was yelled and our precious waitress showed up with our tabs.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

Hi, two hundred and thirty-nine dollar tab, how YOU doin?

Joey and K threw money at me Stacey threw money at me, I had to have help with the bill because Math is my Waterloo, I wanted to make sure that the waitress was properly (overly) tipped and the whole time the only thing running through my head was, “I am in SO much Trouble!”

Indeed, I was in trouble.

But, to sum up, you will be hearing a lot more about Dre’, Joey and K in more posts to come.

Thank you for giving me my friend back FaceBook. For this one, I owe you.

Good Tax Day to you! Unless you have already filed for an extension, then I say… Way to work that procrastination! Kudos!

I have a bunch of stuff to go over with you guys. I know that I promised more content this month, but apparently I was lying. Well, not really. This is the second post and it is only the 15th of the month! Woot! I could post another one in a week or so and completely blow the previous eleventy months out of the water, no? What do you mean… No…? Fine, yes, baby, I still love you. It is just that, well… your ass. It’s gotten really… HOT! And I just can’t keep my mind off if it! Rawr!

You all know of my preoccupation with my teeth right? And yes, it is a complete diversionary topic to keep me from getting all bajiggety about my multiple chins and how my skin has decided to send me a big ol FUCK YOU in the form of massive oil production. Which, I have to say, is mighty sexy… in a bottom of the chicken bucket greasy kind of way. If you know what I mean… and I apologize for the mental image if you do. More on the skin later.

The teeth. Alright. I have wanted bright, white, shiny, straight freaking Super Hero teeth that make an audible “DING!” when a starburst of sun glints off of my right canine when I smile winningly at you, and I have wanted them forever. Well, forever is kind of misleading, as I basically had a gorgeous smile until about 10 years ago and THEN about six years ago this freaking space began to spread my two front teeth apart. I grind (mrawww!) my teeth together at night and the result was my lower jaw was crowding up under and behind my upper jaw and the upper jaw was all, “fine, let me just get out of your way here…” and the result is a less than attractive smile. I feel like if I left the shit alone, then in about another 3 to 4 years I would have been able to bite a pumpkin through a chain link fence. Hot, right?

So after begging like a turn coat double agent found rifling through the director’s wife’s underwear drawer, I got set up to have Invisalign braces. Here… look. CLICK FOR LINK And as of yesterday I am on tray six. They did a series of trays, for me… they designed 11 trays for my upper teeth and 9 trays for my lower teeth. I wear each tray for two weeks and I have these little button-like things attached to four up my upper teeth and two of my lower teeth.

Before I started the Invisilign thingies, I could fit a coffee stir in between the two front teeth with room left over for a small Barcalounger. Now? Nary a space baby. And I am only like half way through. They are throwing in the ZOOM whitening at the end and I am going to be all pageant-y smiling at everyone and waving like the motherfucking queen. I will, OH YES, I will wear mulberry wine lipstick again!

My skin. I don’t know if any of you have ferreted me out on FaceBook* or not or if you have seen pictures on Flickr or stalked me as I walked into my office building, but I am sure if you have seen me lately you have noticed/and or said to yourself… (or like my father said to me… on Friday) “Are you hot baby?” “No sir, I am fine.” “Well, you have this… sheen.” “Sweat?” “No, a sheen.” Which apparently is nice daddy verbiage for, “Damn, girl… you sure is oily.”

*Oh holy shit. FaceBook… gah. More on this later.

I have over 200 of those little blotter papers in my make up bag that I carry daily. I have pressed powder, I have loose powder (you slutty powder, you), I have mattifying gel, I have oil control moisturizer, I have used everything that I can, and yet, every two hours, you could ring out my face to lubricate Jeff Gordon’s chassis. (PS, Shut up… I am not a NASCAR fan, I just know who the man is because I live in Texas for the Love of God.)

So as Hotty McG, my dermatologist has been working on slowly but surely carving enough pieces and parts out of my poor translucent skin to leave me a pitiful little walking scar**, he has also diagnosed me with acne. Yeah, I know. I am so excited to have acne, braces and glasses ALL IN MY MID THIRTIES! Suck that puberty!

**Compared to my previous dermatologist this guy is not only hot, but brilliant with a knife. Where once I was all Frankenstein-y with my scars he has made the last … (geeze) seven procedures (after the biopsies come back dysplastic) look like wee little lines. LOVE HIM. Love. If you need a good dermatologist, message me. We’ll hook you up.

The only bonus that I can see out of the whole acne diagnosis is that he suggested a series of five microderm abrasions. Let me finish that sentence with a caps locky TO BE COVERED BY MY INSURANCE. Fuckin A, right!? So I had my first microderm abrasion on Monday.

Hi. Ow.

This shit is medical grade, not spa grade. Holy crap.

Whatever, I am going to have porcelain goddess skin on my face some day and my insurance is going to take care of everything but my co-pay. BONUS. They suggested the series of five (one ever two weeks and a day) then after the series of five, maybe one a month.

All dudes who have gotten this far in this entry, email me. I owe you a bawdy limerick or something. Seriously. A cookie? Whatever… you are a trooper. Congrats.

I have this list of shit to discuss with y’all… but I think I will cover one more thing and then wrap it up, because… I want to continue the whole Shelby and Tom series without turning into one of THOSE journals, but I kind of want to go there once, you know? I also want to talk to y’all about this weird deal that happens in my office when I wear anything slightly different than my normal black pants, black shoes, top (adult geranimals) bullshit. I also want to talk to you guys about counseling (we are really growing apart y’all, and I miss you) and…. Some other stuff.

One last thing.

My girl Fredlet*** and I were twittering back and forth about old lovers coming out of the woodwork in mass quantities and how FaceBook is enabling the whole thing. My favorite text from her (in reply to one of my wailings) was “Venus Retrograde is over by April 15th, but I tend to call it Penis Retrograde because that’s when all the old lovahs show up. ;)”

***Fredlet is smarter than all of us combined. Don’t fuck with her. She will ruin your credit and have you declared legally dead in six countries in about twenty minutes.

So I want to talk to you guys about that. I also have been reflecting and want to reword some of the things I said about one person in particular. Oh hell, I just want to apologize. I was wrong. We’ll talk about it later.