sometimes...

• I like to turn the air vents in my minivan on high, pop a little Ru'Paul's 'Supermodel' or Pat Benatar's 'Sex As A Weapon' up even higher, and pretend I'm a model while my hair whips wildly around me. That means the man stopped next to me at a red light this morning got an early look at the spring 2011 line from the Fashion House of Me. Look for kicky v-neck T-shirts in bold colors and black pants to be all the rage next year!

• Speaking of Pat Benatar, sometimes I like to read books so you don't have to. You can thank me now and scratch Pat's memoir off your 'to read' list. Here's something you might not know since you're not going to read this book now. Pat long ago nicknamed her husband 'Spyder,' and still lovingly refers to him as such. You'll know this by the way she refers to him as such 24,359,987 times.

• I wish I could stop reading a book if I can tell immediately that I'll hate it. See above. Pat, I love you, but that book was a battlefield.

• I wish I knew someone reading the same book I'm currently reading so we could discuss and guffaw.
  

• I could use a good guffawing from time to time.

• When I talk to myself, I do so as though I'm auditioning for a television show or part in a movie. I turned yesterday's lapse into a bad attitude into a scene from a romantic comedy. Were there tears? Yes, but if you thought those were silly, happy tears, then I'd like to thank my lord and savior (big ups, G!) and the Academy!

• I wonder why I'm still watching '90201.' No, not the old one in repeats, but the new one. The NEW ONE!! Some of those actors are as old as me, but I still feel I could be their grandparent. Also? Totally sucks. In addition to my award, I'd like to also thank God for giving me the power and the wisdom to delete all episodes of 'Hellcats' from my DVR without watching any of them, and await his divine and glorious guidance regarding the new season of 'Desperate Housewives.'

• I wonder if I may be using my time in my church's 24/7 prayer room incorrectly. See above.

• When I cook, I pretend I'm the host of a cooking show. Almost every time, including when I'm doing something as simple as pouring a bowl of cereal (uh, yeah, that's cooking around here some days, pals). Tonight's episode is called "The choice is yours - Domino's or Reheated Pork Chops!" (pssst - it's a rerun).

• I think I'm developing a crush on Pauly D from 'The Jersey Shore.' Listen, I know. I KNOW! He annoyed me, too, until a couple weeks ago when, after an episode spent scamming on girls who were apparently DTF (you can figure that one out), he returned from the commercial break having met a girl he respected and wanted to treat nice, so he planned a date, got his hair did and his flowers bought, and proceeded to treat this dream girl "like a man treats a wifey." Consider me sold right then and there! Consider me also playing that segment of the show on a semi-constant loop on the occasions when my husband is home.

• I write posts like this when I don't know what else to write or really don't want to scare you with the other stuff filling my head, the stuff I talk to myself about after successfully auditioning for a co-starring role in a Lifetime Movie Network presentation staring Meredith Baxter or Melissa Gilbert.

• I wonder what's going on with you.
  

$#*! that dude buys

I stopped at the grocery store yesterday afternoon, capping off a morning spent running various errands by picking up ingredients for a couple different dinner options. When I was done aimlessly wandering the aisles and resisting the siren call of the ice cream freezers, I made my way to a cashier to complete my purchase.

As I was making pleasant small talk about the day, the weather, and my items with her, I felt the presence of another person behind me. Not unusual, of course, in such a setting, but this particular presence felt uncomfortably close.

"Someone's in a real toot," I thought, sliding my debit card through the machine.

A toot, indeed! Before I could step forward to grab my handy recyclable bag filled with goods, I felt the other shopper's cart nipping at my heels, so I turned to face this most anxious foe. Before my eyes even hit upon the person behind the cart, they landed upon the items in his cart.

Fifteen cans of peanuts and 12 bottles of prune juice.

Let me just repeat that, OK?

Fifteen cans of peanuts and 12 bottles of prune juice! Seriously. I counted.

I mean, really?!

From there, my eyes flew upward to see a smiling, greasy-haired, jovial man clearly eager to make his purchases and go.

Perhaps literally.

I was honesty frozen in my spot, fighting the urge to ask the man what sort of terrifying cocktail hour he was setting himself up for. I can't imagine anyone's gastrointestinal system could be strong enough to withstand the powerful force a combination of peanuts and prune juice could have on the body. I'd think your colon would have to be made of industrial grade metals or Terminator parts. I thought my mind might actually explode coming up with all the different ways this combination couldn't be good for one's body, but then I feared any explosion that resulted from the moment this shopper and I we were unwittingly sharing, and so I grabbed my bag and made to leave.

What was in MY bag, you ask? Why, just everything I needed to make a massive pot of chili! Chili so good it's been known to cause one's insides to start singing like angels on high mere moments after consumption!

(Except for mine, of course, for while the title of this blog may include the word 'girl,' I am nothing if not a lady)

I guess the moral of this story, if there is one, is that it doesn't really matter what any of us have in our shopping carts, at the end of the day (or perhaps first thing in the morning) we're all the same in the end.

(Here's where I might be inclined to say something like 'Rim shot!' and end things, but that would be wrong. Because I am a lady...I just felt like I should maybe remind you of that...)

i didn't get a lot in class

From time to time, you very kind people tell me how awesome I am. It makes me blush and say things like "Thank you, but I think you have me confused with someone actually awesome," and "Gee, shucks!" It also sometimes makes me wonder why no one living outside my laptop seems to see this same level of awesomeness I must have, but that's a story for another day.

I appreciate your kind words. I really do. However, lest you start a campaign to crown me Queen of All That Is Awesome (potential campaign slogan - Awesome! Just like 'Awful,' But With A Little Something Extra!), I feel now is a good time to burst your bubbles. Ready?

I left work this afternoon with a giant smile on my face. It had been a productive day. I'd killed customers with kindness. Hell, I'd even gotten a 25 cent an hour raise! It was the kind of day you'd all probably be jealous of, and I'd say who could blame you, really. You can't buy a day better than the one I had, not even with an extra $1.25 a shift before taxes!

I left work with a spring in my step, got in my mini, and proceeded to drive home. Smiling. Singing. The usual (which is different from the bad day usual which involves driving, scowling, and singing). My good mood rendered me somewhat oblivious to my surroundings, so when I approached a busy intersection as the light was changing from red to green, I was startled by a loud squealing of car tires nearby. The sound was so pronounced, I thought someone in the lane next to me was stupidly showing off or there had been a collision next to me, and so I slammed on my brakes, coming to one of those stops where, had my Mom been driving, she'd have reached her arm across the seat to brace me from impact.

I sat there for several seconds while cars kept whizzing past me and finally the person behind me honked their horn and then changed lanes to race by. It was only then that I realized where the screeching tires had come from.

My iPod.

Remember the one with the awesome songs on it? That one.

Want to know what was playing when I thought the world was crashing around me?

Yep. 'My Prerogative' by Bobby Brown. The four-second (four!) sound effect of squealing tires at the start of the song caused me to think the world around me was ending and nearly caused me to cause an actual accident. I don't need permission. Make my own decisions. That's my stupidity.

Still think I'm awesome? I think the person who zoomed by me flashing her finger was telling me I am, indeed, awesome. In fact, according to her, I'm apparently the number one most awesome person on the planet!

For what it's worth, I place the blame for this mind blip on an injury I incurred over the weekend, one that, oddly enough, also involved driving and my iPod. I was on the way to my church small group gathering last night, appropriately enough singing along to Madonna's absolutely impossible NOT to sing along with (don't click on the link unless you're prepared to belt it out no matter where you are) 'Like A Prayer' (here's where you could say something like "Ha ha ha! Isn't it ironic?" and I'd say, "Don'tcha think?" and also "Don't worry. I've got that one on my iPod, too!"). Like today, all was well, and when 'Like A Prayer' ended, the next song kicked in.

Haddaway's 'What Is Love'.

Oh, yes. You read that right.

(sidebar - Are you like me and gone your entire life without ever seeing the official video for that song? Change that now.)

Do you know what you are obligated to do when you hear that song? If you answered "Fast forward immediately past it and/or throw it on the floor and smash it up into a million tiny pieces and/or steal your iPod and put better music on it when you're not looking," your answer is wrong and you have no soul. Heathens.

The correct answer is you're obligated to bob your head side to side to the beat with a level of enthusiasm that borders on illegal. Or just embarrassing when you're still doing it at the stoplight and you glance over on the downbeat and notice the motorist stopped next to you is watching, which totally happened to me. Of course. But you know what? OH WELL! Because I was feeling it, friends!

And then I was feeling my head slam against the driver's side window after I bobbed a little too voraciously to the left and made the kind of violent impact that would have resulted in tiny bluebirds and stars circling my head if I was in a cartoon world. Talk about your baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more! It appears my head didn't get the request even though I'd asked it t0 more than 10 of the nearly 20 times the song makes you sing it. Thankfully, no other motorists saw me take that punch.

As a result of this event last night, I have a large, tender spot on the side of my head and a pronounced lack of wisdom. Long story short, I probably should start listening to books on tape when I drive. I should also think about tossing that extra $1.25 a shift before taxes into the Queen of All That Is Awesome campaign fund, too.

i say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. because i don't have much else to say right now.

So I just ate some peanut butter toast for the first time since January and if that wasn’t enough excitement for the day, I colored my hair while dancing around in my bathroom to Dino’s ‘I Like It.’

Just now. That JUST happened.

What? You thought this red was all natural? Aren’t you precious! A lot of things come nice and easy in my life, but this hair isn’t one of them, pals.

Huh? That’s not what you were thinking? You were wondering what I was thinking with the song? Um, listen, I don’t know what YOUR iPod is made of, but mine is made up of awesome. Plus a lot of Hanson and some might say a freakishly excessive amount of ABBA.

(like yours isn’t…)

As I was saying, I just colored my hair while dancing around my bathroom to Dino’s ‘I Like It,’ to which I’m linking again because yes, Dino and I want you to get up on it, because you know you want to, and if you did (strike that and insert DO), you’d find the dance moves for this tune are really pretty easy, and during the chorus, I’d lean over and I’d tell you there was a time in the late 80s/early 90s when my hair looked suspiciously like said Dino.

(like yours didn’t…)

But now my hair is even shorter than it was when I told you I cut more than 10 inches off, and it’s red again! Huzzah! Of course, my bathroom walls are also now red, which is something I often forget about when I color my hair and then bust into impromptu dance parties and the music calls for excessive pelvic thrusting. In fact, the walls are so red it looks like Jason Stackhouse just shot that wacky vampire Franklin with a wooden bullet and turned him into a hemoglobin geyser. Seriously, True Blood! Between the boobs and the blood this season, my face was in a perpetual “I just smelled something nasty” mode. Buffy the Vampire Slayer clearly ruined me by making me think whole idea that staking a vamp simply turned them into evaporating dust.

(that suspicious looking pool of red on the floor near the shower door may actually be blood, so don’t slip while doing that lawn sprinkler move while we’re dancing to what song again? Oh, yes, Dino’s ‘I Like It.’)

Anyway, the point of this post is to tell you I don’t have one. That’s just what I’ve been doing lately. So, what’s up with you?

You know what, screw it! I’m just going to embed the damn video! That’s the way it has to be, people. The bad part is it isn’t the same high quality video that I linked to above because I couldn’t take that one, so now you’re forced to scream “Get UP ON IT!” in the opening yourself. That’s the way it has to be again. You’d do it anyway, so no big whoop.

oh, i, i just died in your arms tonight. or maybe you died in mine thanks to the potential for smothering. hugs?

"Your arm is as flat as a pancake!" I declared as the nurse gently peeled away layers of cotton and bandages from my son's left arm earlier today. "It looks like you got steam rolled in some kind of crazy cartoon world!"

My son broke both bones in his forearm two weeks ago, the result of an unfortunate and quite volatile mating dance between his scooter and an in-ground sprinkler head. He's not entirely clear how it happened. The events leading to the attack have been slowly trickling back into his memory like post-battle field flashbacks. What is his major malfunction? Coordination, apparently.

As you can imagine, we've spent a tremendous amount of time these past 14 days talking about his arm and arms in general, and as we waited for the nurse to see if they had glow in the dark casting material (thank goodness, no) we marveled at how compressed his arm had become after this initial healing time in the splint.

Once he was casted - all the way to his armpit in bright blue battle armor - we waited in the exam room for the doctor to let us know the results of the day's second round of x-rays. To bide the time, my son decided to play junior orthopedic specialist and began examining my arm. After a few moments of careful inspection that involved putting me through a variety of range of motion exercises, he began poking my upper arm, then started singing my diagnoses.

In all honesty, it's not a good one.

"Oh, gigolo, hello! Hello, hello gigolo! Hello, gigolo, hello!" he loudly crooned as his fingers sunk deeper into what delicate ladies might refer to as the mud flaps on my apparently doughy upper arms.

"Hello, gigolo, hello! Gigolo, hello!"

When they're not busy caring for my family and doing what they're designed to do, which is to hoist delicious fistfuls of microwave popcorn (and ice cream and macaroni and cheese and oh, look! Snickers!) to my mouth while lifting nothing heavier than the television remote, they're providing paid companionship to lonely ladies. Considering the amount of money I need to come up with to cover the medical expenses we're incurring thanks to my son's broken arm, it's probably a good thing my appendages have taken on a side gig. I just hope they're clear they need to charge more for SOME of those jobs. And, hey arms, no kinky stuff!

I probably should have been (wait for it...) up in arms (totally hilarious, right?) over his diagnosis, but I was afraid waving these flappers of mine around haphazardly could have knocked the kid off the exam table, and I didn't want to take the risk of having him break his other arm.

"I think you mean 'Hello, jiggly!'" I corrected him. "I also think I'd like to know how you know the word 'gigolo.'"

But before I find that out, I'm wondering if I should sue him for malpractice.

Oh, but the cuteness! Could you just die?! And could you die from flabby arms?