And the beat goes on

Well. The party went remarkably well. And if I could type anymore than that, my head wouldn't still be spinning.

Wait. I guess I couldda just updated all that on Twitter, instead of using up a crap blog post to state some meaningless drivel that'll just clutter it all up.

sigh. Oh well. Will enjoy day off by watching lotsa reruns.

How're YOU spending your day off?

Partying like it's 1999 (same body and all)

Because of the holiday weekend, the local radio station is playing old-school 90's party songs. I've only been mildly interested in this event (READ: I'M DANCING AROUND LIKE A FOOL IN MY PAJAMAS. RIGHT NOW.), and in between making favors and wrapping flatware for the party tomorrow, I scoop Bernie up and boogie down around the living room with him. And he just loves it so much, he gives me a look every time I go after him like, Seriously. You can't even dance. Make me dance again and I may just go back to eating my own feces again. YOU DON'T WANT THAT AGAIN, DO YOU?

Geesh. Some people just aren't Slim Shady or Mariah Carey fans, are they?

Why my mother cried at our wedding

Darling and I were out with a friend of ours the other day, doing what silly 20-somethings do: make fun of other people, intermittently dispersed with serious topics like marriage, children, and the price of postage stamps. (Egads! 42 cents? Are they joking?!)

It was during one of these okay-let's-be-serious respites that we get on the subject of relationships and how to resolve arguments, when Darling pipes up and declares that we have a pretty good handle on our marriage because the only times we have ever fought wasn't because of problems with each other, it was external issues affecting our stress level that generally cause the arguments in our marriage.

The conversation quickly moved forward after he made that statement, and meanwhile, I'm sitting there, all, Um, hi. Where have you BEEN the last two and a half years? In a rabbit hole? I just couldn't believe that his take on the totality of all the arguments we've ever had in our marriage were because of some EXTERNAL problem affecting us. And not because you were an ass, and I was mad at you for being an ass. HEL-lo. I mean, thanks for the vote of confidence in the solidity of our marriage, honey, but SERIOUSLY?

I suppose it just makes a good point in showing the differences between men and women and how they view everything. I could come home from a particularly dreary day at work, not feel like cooking at all, and when he offers to get something together for dinner, he can't understand why I don't jump up and make-out with him over his ingenious selection of PIZZA. WITH PEPPERONI. LIKE WHAT WE HAD LAST WEEK. External issues, my foot. Here's the REAL issue - he's being a douche and not realizing that I have asked him a zillion times to support me in my quest to eat healthier, to consume more fruits and veggies and less mono saturated fat, and that preparing something that has more calories in it than my thigh & stomach fat combined is not showing that he's really, truly listening to me.

Or, perhaps some external pressure was to blame for me being mad at you because, even though I have told you more times than I can count to put your dirty dishes in the dishwasher, there your breakfast bowl from two days ago still sits, in the sink? Yes, the bowl is EXTERNALLY outside the dishwasher, so in that definition of external, you are completely on the mark, but really, this is ME having a problem with YOU, and my inability to communicate to you that no matter how long that stupid bowl sits in that stupid sink, it will not move until you I finally place it in the dishwasher!

I was thinking over these types of things in my mind the rest of the afternoon, and how, as much as we love each other, and as much as we are committed to the whole ideal of forever with each other, just how DIFFERENTLY he and I think, act and speak. How, when I am in full-blown Witchy PMS Mode, he, though trying desperately hard to please me, cannot possibly do anything right and just better stay out of my way. Or how I just don't get how such a freakishly OCD man who meticulously plucks his eyebrows can at the same moment throw his used shirt and shorts over the computer chair and consecutively stack each day's shirt / short combo until I finally get hysterical and PUT IT IN THE DIRTY LAUNDRY.

I love Darling, I really do. And I know that come what may, he would give his life for me should I ever need it. We give for each other, in more smallish ways than in big ones, and I know that he is my best friend that I can go to for anything, and vice versa.

But, no, my dear. Outside pressures are NOT the most common reasons we have spiffs here and there. It's because, at that very moment, with mascara streaming down my face and you looking as confused as a deer caught in the headlights, I don't GET you, and you definitely aren't getting ME.

So that got me thinking - how do we even FUNCTION, this whole male and female thing? How do we even get through a single day without maiming, emotionally scarring or completely confusing each other to the point that we can't even step foot outside our own door?

It's a miracle, really. But also very, very sweet and wonderful all at the same time.

Especially when he rolls over like he does from time to time and starts rubbing my head and telling me how much he loves me.

Or, when he brings home mint chocolate chip ice cream. Yeah. That helps too.

If you don't hear from me in a week, send in the hounds. They'll find me buried under my own aspirations.

I may have mentioned before that I was insane. Maybe. But surely the most solid evidence of that fact as of late is that I agreed to PLAN A TEENAGER'S GRADUATION PARTY. OH. MY. GAWD.

You have to love my teenage friend, T. She is smart, witty, and can throw into her resume, 'Oh yeah, by the way, I graduated at 16 years old. My left pinky is probably smarter than your kid.' Or, at least, she could probably ride around with a bumper sticker slapped on her car stating something to that effect, and no one could rightfully refute that argument. You haven't seen her left pinky.

But, like I said, OH MY GAWD. Planning a party, any party, is hard friggin work, and when you're talking over 100 people in a huge clubhouse with a theme, balloons, decorations, cake, and a small dose of self-esteem, you are really talking one haggard me. And we're not! serving! drinks! there, for, well, obvious reasons (yeah, the 'only 16 years old' thing is a real bummer).

So, like, WOW. When my BF, whom I always rely on for every party I coordinate to do, like, EVERYTHING, called this past weekend to say that um, there's a teensy weensy smidgen of a chance that she wouldn't be there to help, I promptly sat in a corner and ate my fingernails till my hands were stubs. Then, once I regained consciousness and realized, Oh no, my hands are stubs, typing on my blog is going to pose quite a problem now, I went into high kick-butt mode and started making a checklist of everything I have left to do before this weekend.

Guys, it ain't looking good. Requesting lots of tequila and a good dose of Valium is at the bottom of my checklist, but I have the feeling that come Friday, I will be moving those items up to #'s 1 & 2. NOT SAYING WHICH ORDER.

X-Treme finger painting

I am risking getting obnoxiously beautiful blue (or, green in the shadow, gray in direct light) paint all over my keyboard, but I've officially reached that point after 3 hard hours of I DON'T CARE GET ME A MARGARITA.

But, I must say, dear living room, you are looking quite beautiful these days. I may just have to sit in you all day long and stare at your gorgeous textured walls. Just because of how simply beautiful you are. Or, because my OCD is coming out in the form of trying to spot every. single. mistake. I made. Because if I see the old brown color through the new paint, I WILL DIE.

My foreclosure statement will read: TO THE MOST GENTEEL LADY ON EARTH

I don't know what it is, but lately my digestive system has been doing the back-flip. And the pretzel. ALL AT ONCE. Now that takes a one talented colon, if you ask me.

However, if you had gone to ask me yesterday, you would've had to come to my bathroom to make your inquiry. Toilet-side view. Upside down. Like I said, talent. I. have. it.

Hubby was most obligingly wonderful and cleaned up the ceiling dust that he threw around my house playing tag escaped despite the carefully-laid, protective layer of plastic sheeting during renovation this past week. Now, I can say most proudly that I have only three layers of drywall dust left to wade through. Instead of a bajillion layers. Yes, A BAJILLION.

[Want to ask me if that's a real word? Refer to the 'straddling toilet stance' explanation above.]

All in all, I have to laugh at all the hard work he's doing around the place, because though our mortgage is due tomorrow, we still don't have enough to make the payment. So I'm all, Hey, dear. You still at it? Prepping the house for someone else? Like the bank?

Not like it's THAT BAD. Yet. (Have I ever mentioned my Donate button on the sidebar?) We've still got our rebate from the government due to come in any day now. (I haven't?) Which, thankfully, should cover us and then some. (Well, let me indicate it to you now. OVER THERE --->) So, we're not desperate. (Lie. It's all a LIE, I tell you! DONATE! To me! Because you love me!) (Or, not. Whatever. No pressure.)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must return to my celestial throne (aka "the crapper") and leave another present. For the bank people. Because if they do decide to take the house, at least I can feel satisfied in knowing I did a real number on the plumbing for them.

**And then, you hear crickets eerily chirping. What? No one wants to comment about my bowel movements? What a shock.**

Winning first place in a math competition makes you COOL

When I was a kid, in a galaxy far, far away (or so it seems), I was the stereotypical fat nerdy kid at school. I was smart, got straight A's, wore glasses, was editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, and realized early on just what Neanderthals middle school boys were. What can I say? I was ahead of my time.

(I mean, seriously, it's amazing I still got married so young, because I would always be like, If you have to run around the basketball court clutching your crotch so your size Too Big-ers aren't pooling around your ankles, GET SMALLER PANTS. GAWD.)

But, most of all, in all of my fat, nerdy geekiness, the one thing I despised more than all else was gym class. I. couldn't. TAKE. it. Seriously, thinking about having to dress in one of those awful gym shorts and trying to eek out five sit-ups in front of 30 giggling 12-year-olds is enough to give me hives. I just couldn't stand it, and many a-day I would go home, crying to my mother, about how grotesque and unimaginably painful it was to run around a track. TWICE. IN 10 MINUTES. Clearly, my mother just couldn't understand, my life was OVER.

Well, now I'm an adult and more sensible about these sorta things, and now when I voluntarily go to the gym, I'm all, Nana-nana-boo-boo. Lizards stink and so do you! Because you're sweating! Okay, so maybe not really, but I like to envision it in my mind while working the elliptical.

However, this past weekend, we went to go play cards at a friend's house, and well, I felt like I was back in 6th grade, gawky, pimply and glasses sliding down my nose all over again. Our friend is, well, the quintessential equivalent of one of those jocks who could run circles around you, laugh at your 'retarded-ness' and then make you eat dirt. I love my friend, I do, but sitting down to cards that night with him made me feel like I stepped into that stupid ring during dodgeball. And all of a sudden I saw that rubbery red Blur of Death whizzing straight toward my head and knocking me out cold.

By the 4th straight round of wins for him, I was starting to get annoyed. By round number 9, the nerd in me was crying into her corduroy's. It was a slaughter.

Then he looked up at me and asked me how many points 219 plus 24 was, and, without blinking, I said blankly, "231." And, dumb jock that he was, he immediately wrote down his smaller score, and continued on with the game. Suddenly, I felt so empowered, like HA! You may be able to beat me at cards, but I GOT YOUR 12 POINTS, YOU BEEF-HEAD.

And somewhere, deep inside me, the nerd gave the jock a good, delicious wedgie.