Little Blue Pills

Despite the elusiveness of an equivalent female wonder drug, my sleep walking self is bound and determined to get herself some Viagra.  Apparently she’s not getting any, and side effects be damned, she’s going to get some satisfaction even if it results in stubby beard growth.  Day after day, she nudges me by e-mail, sending urgent messages from my very own account. She has an inside track, someone at Pfizer, at the Official Viagra Site.  It seems like she’s got something on someone, because the deal just gets better and better. Five percent savings not enticing enough?  How about 9?  Still not sure – 34%.  Oh, all right 99% off.   For just 1% of the actual retail price my alter ego can have a four hour non-stop pass on the roller coaster of love.  It must be very frustrating for her.  Every day a new offer is discarded like yesterday’s coffee. Every night she awakes, hoping this is the night she hold hands in his and hers bathtubs, only to be quashed once again. If she’d spend more time cleaning, and less time perusing the Internets, she’d realize the whole exercise is pointless.  We don’t own any bathtubs.  My advice to her? Grab yourself some Sominex, sister, and sleep, sleep, sleep.  

Stella's Mom Has Got it Going On

If Pluto were human, he would be the most popular kid in school.  Blonde.  Charming, Slightly goofy with an easy smile.  BFFs with everyone he meets.  He would have the student body, most of the teachers, the lunch ladies, and the attendance recording secretary all wrapped around his paw, charmed into overlooking his many transgressions. Whether it’s a pool party, the homecoming parade, or trip to the mall, you’re going to have a good time if Pluto’s there.  He’s a veritable Ferris Bueller.  “The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, deweebies, dickheads – they all adore him.  They think he’s a righteous dude.”

But here’s the thing.  While you’re in the backyard doing cannonballs or feeling someone up in the pool house, Pluto’s inside, eating warm chocolate chip cookies with your mom.  She baked them especially for him.  He appreciates your mom’s cooking, unlike you and your ungrateful siblings. But that’s not all he appreciates, Pluto wants to get with your mom.

Pluto has been dubbed mayor of the fire road.  He greets and lavishes with kisses every dog he meets. Bull mastiff or Chihuahua, they’re all good.  But while he’s busy politicking and sniffing butts, he always has an eye out for ladies – the human ladies.  I can only blame myself.  As an adorable puppy with over sized ears and a seemingly too long cat-like tail, every woman we encountered wanted to pet him.  He was more than happy to oblige them. That was his first taste.  I should have nipped it in the bud.  Now he’s like a junky, addicted to the petting, always keeping his eye out for his next fix.  His puppy encounters had him convinced every blond woman would like nothing better than to lavish him with affection.  Time has proven this untrue, and he’s become more discriminating.  He has widened his parameters to include brunettes, but tightened them to a specific personality type.  The uptight and stuck up need not apply. Pluto’s type; healthy and active, she’s warm, nurturing, and free with her affection.  She is not afraid to praise him, or gently admonish him when he’s gone too far.  She’s the mom we all convinced ourselves we were born to, though through no fault of our own were tragically separated from at birth.

I don’t take it personally.  He is compelled to charm, and being that there are only so many hours a day I can devote to petting and stroking, I have enabled him.  I don’t feel it’s time to call in Dr. Drew.  Not yet, anyway.  Through bribery and judicious leash work I hope to avoid all that, though it takes only a couple episodes of Sober House to realize this may be a pipe dream. I will allow him a single indulgence – the woman who shrieks “Pluto!” every time we see her, no matter the location, whether she’s with or without her dog, Stella.  They love each other up, and then go on their respective ways.  Sorry, Stella.  Your mom’s got it going on.  

The Wind Beneath Her Wings

There is a jaunty fellow who could often be spotted riding his bike around town in a tight t-shirt and a flouncey black lycra skirt.   He is tan and taut, delicate of frame but sinewy of muscle.  If the wind and his bearings coalesced just so, the skirt would bob and weave, briefly revealing his dangly bits and remarkably tanned bum.  This, it seemed, pleased him very much.  Not so much the public exposure, as I’m not sure he realized how exposed he was, but the rush of the wind upon his privates.

For whatever reason, our paths stopped crossing, and I forgot about him.   And then I saw him.  Taut and firm, in his bike riding skirt, tossing his hair back, waiting for the light.  Tight white t-shirt emphasizing the rich tanned skin tones – and breasts!  Honest to goodness, possibly C cup breasts.  She looked so poised and confident.  Still, I couldn’t help but wonder, is the thrill now gone?  Once it’s turned inside out, do you lose that particular Mother Nature sponsored  titillation?   At a dead stop on a hot day there was no telling what was, or wasn’t, beneath that skirt.   But that smile and glow seem to mean one thing:  she has the wind beneath her wings.

Four Eyes

At dinner last week, seated in the farthest recesses of Avatar, I could no longer disregard the obvious fact:  I have the vision of a young Morocco Mole.  In the first of many humiliations no doubt to come, my sidekick, Secret, read me the menu out loud so I didn’t blindly order curried goat testicles. It was very sweet, but I was quite aware there’s a fine line between being treated like a princess and being treated like a toddler.  It was unclear on which side of the rope I was teetering, so off to the optometrist I went. 

The doctor was very kind.  He offered me the opportunity to steal the Sunset magazine I was perusing in the lobby.  Free gift with purchase, just like at the makeup counter.  And it was only four months old.  Score! The appointment was uneventful. My eyes are clearly failing.  He handed me a prescription and nonchalantly sent me down to the eyewear department, failing to prepare me for the horrors that awaited.

Innocently I meandered down, excited to select my new glasses.  I’ve been to the eyewear department with Secret to select his frames. On those forays, I could have spent all afternoon there.  It was all fun and games, like a goddamn carnival.  Try on ridiculous frames and laugh and laugh and laugh. Hours of fun for the whole family. Carnivals are not so enticing when you’re alone and start noticing the seedy underbelly.  Turns out one of those hideous frames will soon be my identity. It was like I took a wrong turn at the House of Mirrors and became a sideshow freak. I tried frame after frame after mother cussing frame.  Turns out I’m much uglier than I imagined.  Huge nose.  Red skin.  And angry.  Oh, so angry.

Like with eyewear, they say the eyebrows are the frame to the face.  For practical purposes I’ve been living without them all my life.  My eyebrows maintain the downy golden hue of my infant self, rendering them essentially invisible.  My one foray into dying left me looking eerily like Seinfeld’s Uncle Leo. That should have been my first clue as to what my future held. As the tech got increasingly impatient, I painfully resigned to the fact that any eyeglass I wear will present the picture of a drunken angry Scotswoman and there’s no getting around that. So I altered my expectations – the best look I could hope for was still crimson, but only slightly peeved and maybe just a wee bit tipsy.  After extracting one pair from dozens of frames, the “one” was declared inadequate by the technician.  Due to complications of my prescription, the lenses were too narrow.   My second choice –too wide for my face.  And so there I was, left with my second safety frame.  It’s like I hoped to attend Brown, but ended up at Cal State Stanislaus.

I get them in a week.  If you would care to mock me, I’ll be the angry woman at the end of the bar downing vodka gimlets to maintain my rosy glow.

All That Glitters

Walking the dogs this morning, I saw a prime example of what not to wear. The trail we walk meanders back and forth, left turn, right turn, and so on and so forth, flanked on either side with steep embankments (one up, one down) jam packed with redwoods and other plant material. As we were rounding a bend, a flash of fluorescent highlighter yellow moved behind the trees. My mind raced. What an excellent color to wear if you think there's a chance of getting caught in an avalanche or lost in the woods. But can bears see colors? If yes, would you then be putting yourself in more danger wearing this? Which would happen first -- spotted by an aircraft, or spotted and eaten by a bear? Could they track your remains through the bright yellow bits in the bear poop? As I debated these issues, we inevitably caught up with the blur. That Boom Chicka Boom cheer lodged itself in my head. It was mesmerizing. Mesmerizing like a fiery accident on the side of the road. Behold! A woman with a huge fat ass wearing skin tight hot pink sweat pants with rhinestones emblazoned across the rear. The butt moves like it's doing the wave, back and forth, back and forth, quivering and shaking. Not only is the movement transfixing, but the words, they demand to be read, what with the rhinestones and all. But the movement makes this impossible. And so I spent several minutes staring at this rolling, jiggling ass. GUESS it says. Ah, yes. Guess, indeed. Yellow shirt. Tight pink pants. Rhinestones. If I were to guess, I would say yes, definitely if she was eaten by a bear (or coyote) they could track her remains via the glittery, hot pink, florescent yellow poop littering the forest floor, just like on an episode of CSI.