Here the Sidewalk Ends

I’m confused about what makes me so attractive to truckers. I do a lot of travelling for work and I often share interstates and highways with 18-wheelers, often pass them or they pass me. I’d say about 25% of the time, I get honked at while beside the cab of one of these trucks. Am I, without realizing it, giving the universal signal for trucker horns that kids sometimes give while on long boring road trips with their parents? I am pretty sure I’m just minding my own business when I get these driving “propositions.” I try to ignore it, keep my eyes on the road and either slow down so they can pass me or speed up so I can pass them faster. On one particular occasion, I passed a trucker who had honked at me and surreptitiously glanced into my rear view mirror to find him waving at me with a big psycho grin on his face. Needless to say, my speedometer clocked in around 97 mph. (Mom, don’t panic. Pretend that I’m exaggerating.)

Anyway, this sort of thing happens to me regularly and has since I’ve been driving, really. I’ve become a more “robust” woman over the years, and yet the honking continues. I hesitate to complain about this since it’s always nice to be found attractive, but it also makes me just a tiny bit uncomfortable. I’m not sure what it is about me that’s appealing, but either way, it takes a certain sort of person to honk at a woman while driving. And it’s a little intimidating to be honked at while driving along in an itty bitty car and they’re right next to me in their big ol’ honkin’ (ha… honkin’) mac truck and could easily run me off the road if they feel the urge… scary!

And so, if you happen to be a trucker, I humbly submit to you that honking at women is not the best tactic for attracting a mate. Please note that I have never been honked at by anyone driving a regular vehicle (except when I do something wrong, which only happens very rarely), so the majority of drivers don’t use this method. Try speed dating. I also hear that e-dating services work well too.

Let’s make a new start, you and I, when I travel again tomorrow. Drive in the right lane. Don’t cut me off. And please, don’t honk at me unless I do that “HONK HONK” thing with my arm.

I posted this elsewhere a long while ago, but it still very much applies, so I’m recycling it here.

So, seeing as how we are in a recession, I’m trying to shove cornstalks into my gas tank, it would be cheaper to buy a herd of cattle than a carton of milk, and I haven’t made bonus in two weeks, I decided yesterday would be a good day to go shopping. It’s my civic duty to stimulate the economy, after all. Anyhow, I was on my usual journey to the Junior’s department, when I was led astray into the mysterious land of “Misses.” First, I would like to address the category of “Misses.” What in the hell does that mean? “Sportswear” I get—grandmother gear, if you will. “Petite’s” had a friendly sign letting me know that I was ineligible after nursery school. “Misses,” though, is something I’ve never quite understood. It sounds like something you would wear with flats to a funeral, but is actually classy clothes for real adults. Who knew! I had a moment of rapture and realization in the sundress racks and decided to enter the dressing room to reflect. This is where I began to get disoriented. I tried on approximately 20 dresses in “my size” and almost paged someone to make sure I had not entered Narnia or a fun-house mirror. As it turns out, since Junior’s is made for 12 year olds, having absolutely no feminine parts to speak of is an asset. No boobs, no butt, no problem. Real lady clothes just leave gaping holes and a complex. I tell all of this just to let you know if you see me in the Wal-Mart twenty years from now wearing pink Unionbay shorts and a Dawson’s Creek tank top, it’s not by choice.

I’ve never been ashamed of the random gray hairs I’ve found on my head, only tried to pluck out the first few before giving it up as a lost cause. Now there are too many gray hairs to count and anybody who looks at me can see them. I haven’t hit that point in my life where I feel too insecure about it and hope I never get there.

What disturbed me today though (as I sat down to work but got distracted by examining my fingernails and hair for half an hour), is that I found a hair that is gray at the END, but brown at the ROOT. Have I gotten younger in the past six months? What prompted this hair, once turned gray, to return to a lovely shade of chestnut?

I was going to say, maybe it’s because my life has finally become a peaceful haven of stress-less milk and honey perfection. And my hair was miraculously rejuvenated into its original perfect brownness.

Yep, I was gonna say that, but  then I woke up. My life is far from perfect (not that I’m complaining, just stating the facts), so I don’t think this has anything to do with a dramatic change in lifestyle. If I were a more intellectual person and less exhausted and stressed, I would do some research on why my hair is aging backwards. But I’m not, so I’m just going to take it as a sign that I’m developing super powers.

Please excuse me while I go clean my house with my thoughts while simultaneously burning 4000 calories by eating chocolate ice cream. Maybe this is utopia after all.

That is the question;
Whether ’tis healthier in the end to suffer
The icks and ewwwws of disgusting aspartame,
Or to drink happily that sugary soda,
And by drinking, get fatter. To drink, to gain;
No more; and by a gain to say we bloat
On bubbles and the thousand delicious calories
That Coke is filled with — ’tis a consumption
Always to be preferr’d. To diet, to lose;
To lose, perchance to gloat. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that loss of pounds what gloating may come,
When we have reached that perfect weight,
Must give us pause. There’s the drawback
That makes the lazy feel justified,
For who would bear the walks and aching muscles,
Th’ trainer’s goals, the skinny girl’s judgement,
The pangs of unfulfilled hunger, the scale’s mockery,
The hours on the treadmill, and the commercials
That advertise th’ cheesy goodness of pizza,
When she herself might become the enemy –
A skinny critic? Who would willingly diet,
Grunt and sweat under a torturous regimen,
But that we all desire that advanced adoration
That comes with malnutrition and muscled abs?
And is someone, once fat, not more free,
Now thin, to say as they please about others
Than those skinny chicks who didn’t work to get there?
Thus justification does make couch potatoes of us all,
And thus the need to be thin
Is bowled o’er by the nicest part of me,
And allows me to drink the “real thing”
Without regret or secret guilt;
I remain pudgy, friendly and self-loathing,
so as not to be tempted into judging 
Those more lazy than myself.

Let’s hear it for Shakespeare, bloating, and lack of sleep, the interesting combination of which produced a lovely (if slightly confusing) soliloquy on dieting.

Cheers!

:::::::::Liz takes big gulp of her Diet Coke, then cringes::::::::::

I have many wonderful memories involving snow. I can’t really remember ever having to drive in the snow, however. Tomorrow, I think I may get my first real snow drive. I’m in North Carolina on sales calls and it’s snowing (if that weren’t already abundantly clear from the three other times I’ve mentioned snow in as many sentences…), which is lovely, if also very very cold. Still, I’m wearing flip flops in my hotel room.

Anyway, if I were the poetic type, I’d post a poem about driving in the Smokey Mountains in January while a light snow dusts my windshield and accumulates on the shoulder. But I’m not, so I’ll just let you picture it and be jealous.  I’ll let you know if I make it through without totalling my car. Fingers crossed.

It has come to my attention that I was not a very cool kid. I really have no one to blame for this but myself, and perhaps my Mom for making matching hairbows for every outfit in my wardrobe. But to be honest, I loved the bows. How can a 10 year old go wrong with a handmade patterned-ribbon bow half the size of her skull clipped to the side of her perfectly turned under kid-bob hair?

My favorite bow that I can still picture with perfect clarity was orange and yellow. I think it was my favorite because it was actually two bows in one. The big part of the bow was like an orange and white polka dotted flower and the smaller bow was its yellow and white striped pollen center. It rocked. I looked forward to wearing it twice a month at least.

Then came middle school. I’ve never been one to catch onto fashion trends quickly (obviously), nor am I one to abandon a rock solid signaturelook when it’s workin’ for me. So 6th grade was sort of a nightmare. I don’t think I realized it at the time, but the bows weren’t really cutting it anymore. Looking back at photos, I realize the perfectly turned under kid-bob wasn’t really working for me either, nor were the bangs. But that’s another story. Anyway, I stopped rockin’ the bows after a few months, but by that time, my image was already tarnished. I was not a cool kid.

Haven’t really been that cool ever since, but just as I was oblivious then, I’m still pretty firmly based in la-la land. I still wear four different shades of red in one outfit. I still can’t figure out if velvet pants are cool or not (and honestly, it doesn’t matter, because I’ll wear them either way). I still happily let my mother-in-law do all of my clothes shopping for me. Heck, if my mother gave me one for Christmas, I’d most likely clip a big, fat, colorful bow on the side of my head and wear it proudly wherever I go. As long as it matches my outfit, of course.

The husband and I just finished watching the movie “Wanted,” and I have made a new life decision to be Angelina Jolie. It will begin tomorrow. Tonight I shall cut all of my shirts into cleavage heaving tank tops, do 9,087 crunches, relieve Walgreen’s of their entire supply of black eyeliner, and practice my smolder. Tomorrow it’s on.

Here’s how I suspect my first day will go…I awake to the sound of a bullet whizzing past my left earlobe and yawn. I cartwheel into the kitchen, do a shot of Jack Daniels to start the day, and burn toast to a crisp with its very proximity to my hotness. I will be late for work again because my black leather pants are in the dryer. This provides an excuse to saunter about the house naked and give myself a homemade tattoo with a Bic pen and a butter knife.

My morning routine complete, I back handspring to the Honda Civic and attempt a window entry. I should have done 9,088 crunches, so the window entry is a no go and I opt to unlock the door with my super suave assassin (Honda mass manufactured) key fob. A single raindrop falls on the interstate and I zero in on the 12 spontaneous wrecks on I-65 South between Finley Boulevard and the junction. I curse, use the Prius stalled in front of me as a ramp, and grind down the guard rail for 25 miles, skidding into the Blue Cross parking lot at 8:29 AM.

I sprint with the speed of a Cheetah across the 2.7 mile stretch from my parking space to the west entrance of the building, only to realize that I left my security badge in the last warehouse I was hanging from the rafters in. The security guard must be bypassed, so I rip open my tank top to reveal the VerySexy leopard print bra that I purchased at the Victoria’s Secret semi-annual sale, melt his defenses with my withering gaze, and puff out my ridiculously sensual pout.

This accomplished, I’ll probably be pretty worn out (it being my first day and all) and will more than likely go home sick around 9:20. I’m thinking Chef Boyardee and Sam’s Choice cola for lunch. We’ll see how it goes.

I love television. I am hopelessly addicted and feel that I need some sort of support group. Here is my short list:

House, Bones, Fringe, 24, 30 Rock, The Office, Heroes, Smallville, America’s Next Top Model, Privileged, Ugly Betty, Lost, The Bold and the Beautiful, Doctor Who, Hannah Montana, and occasional reality programs that strike my fancy.

I think I have a problem.

The only redeeming thing I can say for myself is that my husband and I just recently canceled our television service, having recently discovered the joys of internet television viewing. But really, what’s the difference? Sure, we save a ridiculous amount of money every month, but I’m still wasting tons of time with this pointless obsession.

But is it really such a waste? At one time, I might have had an argument to, though somewhat lamely, support my obsession. When I worked in an office, I had something to discuss enthusiastically with my coworkers, a shared experience that helped me forge relationships. It gave me something to talk about when my unfortunate shyness got a little overwhelming.

What’s my excuse now? I don’t really have one, as I’m finding that most of the people I work with now are above watching TV. They don’t have the time. They find it inane. They think television as a genre is dead. They prefer to read. They are just too good darn for that.

Right. They secretly crush on Ryan Seacrest. I just know it.

I’ve long suspected that our next door neighbors deal drugs. It should be more than a suspicion at this point, as said neighbors have offered to supply my husband with weed on multiple occasions.

What I want to know is, what else is going on over there?

Their house is small. From the outside, it looks as though it would fit my kitchen, and that’s about it. I am certain that the real reason behind their congregating for hours with various suspicious folks on their front lawn has something to do with their lack of indoor living space. They have what I would ordinarily consider a very hip outdoor fireplace, around which are situated plastic chairs of various design, and in any imaginable state of disrepair. This is where they hold their shindigs. And no matter what sketchy invitees are present at these parties, there is one invariable element that stands out as a common theme.

This element happens to be a heart stopping explosion. The first time this happened, I ran outside to make sure everything was alright. When I heard their riotous laughing, I assumed all was well. I’m not a particularly chatty person, so there was no way I was going to walk any closer than my driveway. The next time, my husband intervened, and he is chatty, so he went over to see what the problem was. This was also the second time they offered a drag, at the least, to my slightly wide-eyed husband, from the joint they were passing around the fire.

It turns out this explosion had something to do with compressed gasses in a bottle of beer that had been lovingly placed inside their outdoor fireplace. Yes, in fact, they did do it on purpose.

In any case, these explosions tend to occur with the most frequency on the weekends, but weeknights are not out of consideration. I get the impression that the explosion is a sign of how early in the day they started drinking, or how much alcohol and/or drugs are involved in the get together. Because after about fifty of these explosions, how could anyone still find them amusing?

No, I’m fairly convinced this has nothing to do with humor, despite the raucous laughter following each explosion.

My theory? Meth Lab.

Babies, babies everywhere and not an egg to spare… This has become my mid-twenties mantra. Sometime in the past two years there was apparently a massive snow storm, everyone’s power went out, and the entire Southeast woke up pregnant.  Who knew what a firestorm of fertility those high school friends were? Remember that wild woman from college who drank her breakfast and consumed Mentos for lunch? She’s popped one out and cooking another.  Don’t drink the water and watch where you land. It’s a jungle out there and George has lost his loin cloth.

If I sound irreverent, it’s the insane jealousy speaking. While listening to Pandora Radio at work yesterday, the song, “With Arms Wide Open” by Creed came on. I shed a physical tear. I cried to Creed. Yes, Creed…Scott Stapp…the worst thing to come out of an otherwise delightful decade. The only thing that would have induced more self-loathing would have been for me to have warbled along to a Nickelback ditty.  Other things that have sparked the water works in the past week include a two year-old’s birthday party, tiny socks, and a touching father/son moment on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” I have lost my mind.

Something else has occurred which pains me greatly. I now have to mentally steel myself upon logging into Facebook. It goes something like this: “Well, today’s a Tuesday, and it’s 11:03 in the morning, so someone is sure to be pregnant. That’s ok, though. That is their prerogative, and does not reflect on me or my failure as a woman. I am awesome and could most definitely be pregnant if that was my intention. That is not my intention, though, because I’m only a quarter of a century old, and there’s plenty of time as long as I live to be 100 and never go through menopause. I’m totally ok with waiting another 12 years while we save more money, pay off the car, plant bushes and learn to play the bagpipes. I’m sure that my eggs are not committing mass suicide every additional day that I’m not pregnant because that would be a scientifically sound assumption, and what has science ever gotten right?!” Once I have gone through this pep talk with myself I usually summon the courage to type in my password and hit enter, to which I’m greeted with the ominous, “Susan has updated her About Me!” Yay, Susan.

The question that we (my husband and I) keep coming back to is “when will we be ready?” I think that the only plausible answer is “never.” There will never be enough money. We will never be free of all bad habits. The back room will always be full of crap, and no one’s ever going to learn to play the bagpipes. As Death Cab for Cutie so eloquently states, “Plans are just tiny prayers.” So where does that leave us? “Where the sidewalk ends and before the street begins?” Yep, I think so.