Lameness on the Holiday Decor Front

snow one
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry.

Look! It is snowing in Asheville! Yay! Or, well, boo. I was supposed to go out tonight, to test my new tobacco free self against the strength of a work related holiday party AND a big DL anniversary bash, but the snow and the traffic (if rain brings out the weirdos, snow brings out the psychotics and the serial killers) and the 19 degree cold scared me so I chickened out and stayed home where I lay around and did nothing. Doing nothing is a common theme lately, I notice, and I am ashamed that the first snow of the season caught me with my lights not up. For the first time ever, I am like the last person on the block to get their lights up. This sucks. I need to get with it. I need to brave the scary shed and put up tons and tons of tacky lights!

Meanwhile, young M turns 15 tomorrow which has brought on a spate of self examination, as it always does. 15 years - wow, dude, like, 15 years and can you believe it and I wonder what we'll all be doing in another 15 years? It's kind of hopeful, really - you never do have the faintest clue what's coming next. Which is why people go on having babies: they have no idea whatsoever that 15 years will go by so fast and those cute adorable babies will be large unruly things hovering behind their chairs going "Get UP Mom I want to use the computer!" And that's not even all they want - because of this 15 year old, I will be buying breakfast for the family at (gag, blek, wince) Denny's tomorrow. Yes. Denny's. Because that is the dearest wish of said 15 year old's heart: the grand slam breakfast. We may not make it another 15 years.

Conan Movies Are Way Underappreciated

Here at Hangover Headquarters, we have special ways to recover from post Thanksgiving stress disorder. It's a multi part process that involves first laying around in bed most of the day, reading magazines. By the way, Bark magazine? Really strange. Who knew there were so many expensive dog thingies out there? Or so many dog obsessed yuppies to buy them? My brother brought it over as part of his latest quixotic campaign, which is to turn my daughter into a dog whisperer and I read it cover to cover yesterday. Sorry, Bark people - I really hate to break this to you - but dogs aren't kids. They're dogs. I have two dogs and I love them dearly, but they're dogs. They're fine with plain dog food and a backyard and sleeping on cheap dog beds on the floor. They don't need clothes, designer bowls, handmade treats and special environmentally conscious toys that have been hand made by disadvantaged handicapped blind children in Nepal. They like empty water bottles to chew on and tennis balls. Their collars came from K-mart. Their rabies tags came from the clinic. And their ID tags came out of a machine at the Petsmart.

But wait. Back to Thanksgiving recovery. After you're done marveling at the weird world revealed by niche magazines and napping (many naps. Naps are mandatory.) you must eat Thanksgiving dinner all over again and then settle in for an evening watching both Conan movies, back to back! Yes! Conan movies are AWESOME! Conan movies RULE! Conan movies require NO HIGHER THOUGHT PROCESSES! Although you can mentally note that the director was smart in keeping Arnold's lines to a minimum - mostly he just says "CROM!" with a look of surprise. He's very good at saying "CROM!" Then his muscles ripple or something else amazing happens or they have a big old clanking sword fight and it's all good. You can relax into a leftover turkey haze and just lay back and enjoy. Seriously, though, they're not bad movies at all. Trust me on this - I watch bad movies for fun, and neither of the Conan movies qualifies - although the second one comes perilously close in parts, particularly the parts where Olivia D'Abo is required to do something besides look cute. They're well paced; they're nicely shot; the dialogue is mercifully minimal and the actors don't go insanely overboard.

Besides, my favorite movie line of all time is in Conan the Barbarian: "A couple years ago it was just another snake cult. Now, they're everywhere!" Truer words were never spoken - a subtle political observation that's more valid today than it was even then and makes the recent elections even more heartwarming, since we got to crush our enemies, see them driven before us and hear the lamentations of their women.

Utterly Pathetic

Okay, I've spent waaaaaaaaaay too much time today doing my part for the internet: clicking away brainlessly, voting on the funniest picture, the cutest picture and on the prettiest picture. Somebody, after all, has to make the tough choices and it might as well be me. The prettiest is the hardest one: both choices are usually pretty goddamn horrific - having looked at the actual top winners, I'm just clicking on anything that a) doesn't have a waterfall and b) was not created by an AdobeTM product. The cutest picture contest currently only seems to have about six images to choose from, approximately three of which are actually cute, so it's fairly simple. And the funniest? Well, that's your source for seriously dumb shit; it's entertaining. If you like dumb shit, that is, and hell, who doesn't?

I have done absolutely nothing today; it's just wrong and evil but somehow I feel so relaxed. Some days you just have to surf the web, halfheartedly rake a few leaves, go back to the web, eat too much and stare into space and today I have done all those things superlatively well. It's good to be good at something and I am really good at doing nothing. Yay me.

Wigging Out

On Wednesday night, I wigged out. I was sick and running a fever and generally orbiting the third ring of Saturn and thus: wigout. I started getting sick on Tuesday - actually, at 2:00 on Tuesday, when I went from feeling fine to feeling like death on a popsicle stick with the suddenness of a snapped finger. Tuesday night, feeling bizarre, I went to the Drinking Liberally election night party and knocked back a bunch of beers which affected me not at all: I felt gruesome and peculiar, like my head was the size of a particularly tacky mylar helium birthday balloon that was 4 feet above my body, and the beer was utterly nonconsequential. So I went to work on Wednesday, still with my head floating horribly above me, and people started saying, "You look awful. You should go home, and please don't breathe near us."

I went home. I went home at 3:00 and planned to sleep a bit, get up at 6:30 and make dinner. When I woke up at 8:30 to find the house empty, dark and messy, and my daughter calling on the phone to tell me she had fed my son fast food and cautiously enquiring if she could have the car for the rest of the evening, I lost it. I started screaming at both my children. I mean I hollered. I mean I yelled like there was no tomorrow and I said all kind of things, including that I was taking the car and leaving them both forever and they should consider themselves divorced: this was it, Mom was gone.

After they had hung up a bit startled, I started weeping, which I never do, and suddenly I realized that noone loved me and the smartest thing I could do was to take my pillow and blanket and go sleep on the floor of my office. This is the flu: when you think that if you just take your pillow and blanket to work everything will be fine. This is not coherent thought. My children came carefully home when I was in the throes of this and my son walked gently into my room.

"Mom?" he said, "Are you okay?"
"No!" I sobbed, "No, I'm not okay! I'm sick and alone and hungry and noone loves me! Noone will ever love me! I am alone!"
"Shut UP YOU EMO FREAK!" said my son (the joy of my life, this kid) and damned if it didn't work like a charm.
"Don't you DARE call me EMO!" I shrieked. "I was EMO before there was a NAME for EMO!" Which comment woke even me up into laughter.
"You," said my son, "Are acting like a total emo freak."
"Shut UP." I said, but happily now, "I can't help being emo if noone loves me and I'm sick and alone."
"Oh Mom," he said, "Cut that shit OUT."
And I felt better, got up and had some soup, and I've been getting better, bit by bit, ever since.