The blog post is coming from inside the bathtub.

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Belle of the Library

So, Gail finally came back from North Carolina. We hadn’t hung out in a week, exactly, and I was getting the shakes. She quickly pointed out, however, that that might have been for another reason entirely.

Me: “I found the best blog while you were gone. You should have read this at your dead grandma’s funeral. It would have been a lot better.”
Gail: “Wow. I can tell you haven’t really been sleeping lately.”
Me: “Whatwhy?”
Gail: “Because the less you sleep, the faster you talk.”
Me: “Huh. Iguess I hadn’t reallythought aboutit. I didgoto bed ataround 3:00, 2:30 lastnight?”
Gail: “And got up at, what, 7:00?”
Me: “Um. Yeahactually.”

I’ve since realized that I must just be really stressed over the whole graduate portfolio thing… so much so that I needed Gail to tell me so. That might also be why I haven’t been eating. Is that not the coolest fucking stress reaction ever? I get a Masters degree ~~or my life is over~~ and I get skinnier?!?!? So it begins… my stress-induced insanity. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the summer of 2011 required I be medicated from a concussion to get any sleep during finals. The spring semester of 2012 ended with me propped up on a bunch of pillows, trying to drown out all distractions as I worked on my final project… from behind the closed shower curtain in my empty bathtub… sucking my thumb and crying. Seriously. If you’re thinking about getting a master’s degree: stop it. The thing is… that was in May. It’s fucking February, y’all. I deliver my portfolio in mid-April and I have already taken up my post in the empty bathtub, where my blog can apparently still distract me. Psh. Whatev. I only care about the ends. Fuck the means. Apparently, Gail and I have funnier conversations when I’m high on exhaustion and we haven’t hung out for a week. We had a late lunch (a side salad for me) and visited the art supply store today.

Gail: referring to demands on her time “They all get a piece of Gail.”
Me: “We’ve known that for years now.”

Me: “I’ll give you $5 to bark mid-orgasm the next time you have sex with Terry.”
Gail: laughing “It’s not like I can control whether or not I bark mid-orgasm…”
Me: laughing hysterically “Can I quote you on that?!?! ‘It’s not like I can control whether or not I bark mid-orgasm.’ Abigail Frederickson.”
Gail: “That’s not what I meant!”
Me: “It’s not like I can control whether or not I bark mid-orgasm. Really, though, Gail… can any of us?!? That’s going on your dad’s quote of the day calendar.”
I’ve been threatening to make this calendar for ages.

Me: “Why would you want this one? Is it for when you get really fat and tall?”
Gail: “I like the really sizable ones. Okay, get ready to say ‘We’ve known that for years now.’ I like them sizable.”

Gail: “Why would you hang a picture in your bathroom of a prettier bathroom?”
Me: “Maybe you could get a couple of the mega mirrors and make it look like you are in that bathroom.”

Me: “Oh, my gosh, these look like they should be plush and I just felt a moment of complete rage when I realized they weren’t.”
Gail: “You’re insa… oh, my gosh, they do look plush.”

Me: “Ohmygosh. I have the strongest urge to just go all out and decorate for Easter in glitter testicles.”

Me: “That beef jerky had better be made out of fucking unicorn meat for $10. I doubt you could eat unicorn meat, though. It seems like it would be like polar bear meat and just be toxic to your system, because it’s mythical and you’d die.”
Gail: “Wait. What? You can’t eat polar bear meat? Says who?”
Me: “Everyone. That’s like a thing everyone just knows.”
Gail: “No it isn’t.”
Me: “Yes it is. Just because you don’t know it, doesn’t mean everyone else doesn’t know it.”
I google it, because smartphones are bomb.
Me: making a placating guesture with my hand “Polar bear liver. I’m sorry.”
Gail: incorrectly imitates hand motion “What, is that some kind of ‘nuh-huh!’ gesture?”
Me: “No. That’s ‘calm yourself’. But see. I was right and you’re just stupid. You die if you eat polar bear…” :drop voice to a whisper: “livers.”
.
still scrolling through phone
.
“Polar bears aren’t able to force geese into extinction and science is really upset about it! Or they’re taking note of it. I guess it doesn’t elaborate on their feelings. They should be upset about it. Wait. If polar bears are some kind of natural predators to geese, we need to get us some fucking polar bears up in here!”
Gail: “Oh, my God. Are you listening to yourself? You are insane when you haven’t been sleeping. ‘We need to get some fucking polar bears up in here!'”

I have an intense Once-Cried-at-the-Zoo-at-Age-23 fear of birds, particularly geese. We have too many fucking geese here.

Fuck. I am being super unproductive. Even in the bathtub.

Where might one come by some cocaine?

Sarcastic Robot Friend

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Belle of the Library

Grieving.

It makes me terribly uncomfortable. Actually, no. Let me revise.

Emotions.

They make me terribly uncomfortable.

Today, Gail got on a plane to head to North Carolina and see her dying great grandmother one last time. This evening I got the following text:

“She died before I got there.”

I immediately called Gail and asked the obvious question “Are you okay?” You see, Gail and I… we really don’t do emotion. I mean, I miscarried, her baby died, we both divorced, then there was the whole rape thing and there were only two or three good crying jags in there. Max. I grew up with mommy dearest, who used emotion as manipulation and my dad and grandmother who are both still incredibly uncomfortable showing any emotion. Gail grew up with passive agressive parents who put on their Beige Faces every time people were around and went on silent treatment bouts when they weren’t. Then from age 15 on, we raised each other. The result is two people who agree that greeting cards are a scam and that when life really sucks, you should just make wildly inappropriate jokes. Seriously. Just send me the money you spent on the card, because I really don’t care what Hallmark has to say about the birthday of potentially thousands of people.

The Sweetest Thing I Said During My Best Friend’s Grieving:

“This sucks for you, not her. She was surrounded by people who loved her and thought it was so sweet that you were on your way. I don’t know if that makes you feel better or not, but I figure you’re not too worried about how heartbroken you are and you’re just thinking about how much everyone else hurts and how you need to be able to fix it.”

The Other Things I Said:

“Don’t deal with the emotions, Gail. She lives in North Carolina. You hardly ever see her anyway. Just pretend she’s still alive and everything’s cool.”

Gail: “The bright side is that I’ll be there for the funeral.”
Me: “That’s a really shitty bright side.”

Gail: “Then my dad told me about how everyone prayed for her and the room was packed full and just minutes later, she died and they all prayed again and you could tell that everyone just felt so relieved, because she was in a better place.”
Me: “Wow. Aren’t you glad you missed that? That sounds awful and incredibly depressing.”
Gail: “What’s depressing is hearing that story and crying in an airport.”
Me: “Yeah, but it would’ve been so much worse if you’d been there. You would’ve been surrounded by people who were closer to her than you were and you would’ve wanted to cry, but you would’ve felt like crap if you did and they didn’t, because who are you to cry?”
Gail: “Ugh. You’re right! But I’m still crying in the airport and it’s embarrassing.”
Me: “Okay. Here’s what you do. Just start screaming irrationally at me about something completely insane” high-pitched hysterical voice “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU ATE ALL OF THE FISHSTICKS! THOSE WERE MY FISHSTICKS AND YOU ATE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!!!!’ Just make sure no one can even understand you toward the end.”
Gail: “I said I wanted eggs!”

Gail: “At least I’ll be there to see my grandpa, because now that she’s gone, he won’t be around much longer.
Me: “Ugh. That sucks. That won’t even be sad. That’ll be like a mercy kill, like when you shoot a deer. That’s the wrong thing to say, huh?”

Me: “They don’t have my seasonal coffee creamer any…”
Gail: “Hold on.” begins checking out at the airport store
Me: faux hysterics “Hey! Don’t tell me to hold on. I listened to you cry about your dead grandma and you tell me to hold on during my time of need!”

Luckily, Gail not only expects this from me, but she usually wants it and is upfront about it when she doesn’t. Mostly, she says it gets her mind off of how much things suck.

Me: “I’d make an awesome grief counselor.” choking sob “‘And they raped my five-year-old daughter over and over again and I just keep thinking that it might have been better if she’d just died!'”
Gail: “And then you’d be like ‘Yeah. That’s probably true.”

We talked for a while and Gail told me about the couple in the airport who met on Craigslist with one of those “I’m just looking for a nice young lady to go on trips with me” ads. I recommended she join them to get more about this story and we joked about how this woman was so going to end up dead. As Gail was about to hang up, I encouraged her to explain to the person seated next to her on the plane that there’s a 1/10 chance they’d be on a plane with either a real or a fake bomb, but not to worry, she’s brought along a fake bomb to sway the odds in their favor. She agreed to, but I’m pretty confident that was an outright lie.

With Gail, I can pretty much express my condolences “I’m sorry. That sucks.” and she responds with “Thank you.” Then we dive right into tasteless jokes about rape and dead babies. With everyone else on the planet, I’m only capable of stating the obvious. When my coworker’s husband died, I mulled over what I should say to her for several days, eventually wondering if I should say anything at all because it had been so long. Then I finally blurted out “I’m sorry you’re sad” which was immediately followed by an internal cringe and a what the fuck?!?!

A few weeks ago, Jay texted me about his father, whom he and Chad both despise.

Jay: My dad has cancer.
Me: Oh, wow. I’m so sorry. What kind?
Jay: Carcanoid syndrome:
Me: Is it serious?
Jay: Had emergency surgery Thursday at midnight
Me: Is he okay? Is he going to be?
Jay: I think so
Me: I’m sorry Jay
I was doing really well until:
Me: My mom once told me she was having heart surgery and I felt horrible because I didn’t like her and she was sick.
Me: Maybe that was the wrong thing to say. I didn’t mean it badly. I know y’all don’t get along, but he’s your dad and you love him and want him to be okay. I’ll pray for y’all.
Jay: I didn’t take it in a bad way. No worries and thanks.

My friends just expect me to say something awful, apparently… and to be fair, my mother made up her heart surgery for attention.

It’s not just grief-based either. I have no idea how to receive affection unless it’s from the cuddly wuddliest wittle beagle ever. Most people who hug me leave me counting the seconds because I don’t want to pull away too quickly and offend, but I also don’t want to veer into weird territory and have them thinking I’m about to smell their hair and lick their earlobe. I just never learned this stuff. When I tell my grandma I love her more than anything, you can see how much she doesn’t know what to say. It actually makes her uncomfortable, because I’ve seen the lady cry four times ever. The best way to get something from my dad is with tears (though, we have an unspoken agreement that I will not abuse this), because handing me some cash is so preferable to handing me some Kleenex. I’m just the most awkward with grief. I can’t say the right thing under normal circumstances, let alone when someone sads all over me. I hope I meet a compassionate man who says the right things and can mend a five-year-old’s broken heart, because I’ve got dibs on Sarcastic Robot Parent.

Available Settings: Sarcastic, Bitchy, and Quiet*.

*Quiet setting is time sensitive. Robot will eventually default to Sarcastic.

Not so sure these thoughts are worth your penny…

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Belle of the Library

Scene: a dressing room. Insert intermittent laughter.
Me: “What size are these bras?”
Gail: “36 D’s and DD’s.”
Me: “You have enormous areolas.”
Gail: “That might make me self-conscious if I hadn’t had hundreds of men compliment them.”
Me: “Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.”
Gail: “‘Ooooh, look. It’s a full moon.'”
Me: “Did any of them actually say that?”
Gail: “No. But who do you think would?”
Me: “Cam. Definitely Cam.”
Gail: uncontrollable agreeing laughter
Me: “Do you ever lick your own nipples during sex?”
Gail: “No. I can’t reach them.”
Me: “Seriously? How?”

Only now do I realize that there were probably other people in the dressing room to hear that exchange. We tend to overshare.

I once sat quietly at the vet with tears endlessly rolling down my face. I lost three pets in a day years ago and blame myself (though the ex-husband with the matches might be a better target) and that day my Judybug was hurting and I couldn’t fix it. Gail rubbed her hand over my back as I tearfully joked about how we definitely looked like lovers. We decided we could pull off sisters, both being white and brunette, so we said it like 11 times when no one had asked. It was super convincing. We should be spies. Codenames: Flamingo and Whore.

When I was 5 years old, my grandpa died of lung cancer. I thought it would be a nice idea if we just propped his body up and pretended he was still alive. I think I suggested it, because someone told me it was illegal. I decided I’d hide him in the hamper, because that’s where I hid during hide-and-go-seek. Gail hears super-human skills for denial at a young age in this story. I hear the tale of a selfless child who would break the law and give up her favorite hiding place to keep her grandpa near.

I have three different customers who look astoundingly like Levar Burton, Vincent Van Gogh, and a chihuahua. I want to tell them so, terribly. I don’t. None of those are compliments. I kind of want to hum the Reading Rainbow theme song just to see if he joins in enthusiastically. I get told I look like Velma from Scooby Doo all the time. I’d be thrilled to hear someone randomly exclaim “JINKIES!”

A coworker once yanked my Kindle from in front of me (THE HORROR!!!!!) to look at the print, exclaiming “Wow, I wish I could read print that small!” I don’t. I had an explicit sex scene on the screen at that very moment. We’re talking key terms like “errection” and “tight sheath.” I once tried to show the same coworker a picture on my phone, only to have forgotten about the picture of Black lesbian sex I’d sent one of the guys as a joke. Let’s hope she couldn’t see a thumbnail picture that small either.

A woman recently declared that her son did not have a library card, though it was in her name and had the correct birthdate. I tried to suggest a situation in which someone may have used her name.

Me: “I really don’t know. It may have been an aunt or maybe dad’s girlfriend or something.”
Customer: defensively “Okay. I am dad’s girlfriend.”

She was clarifying that she was indeed with the father of her children. I understand that I work in a lower income, highly diverse area, but this was not a sterotype. I suggested two random situations we’ve had repeatedly. I did not say “I don’t know. Why don’t you axe yo’ baby daddy?”, though the look on her face said differently. I can try with all my might to be P.C., but people have really got to try and meet in the middle by not taking everything so damned personally.

When I was married, I would ask my ex-husband to clean, since he wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t do it no matter the methods I used (leaving him alone, nagging him, screaming at him, encouraging him) so I’d do it myself. Then, he’d grab the trashbags from my hands yelling that I never gave him the chance and was just manipulating him. I just wanted a clean fucking house. For the longest time, after the divorce, my house was spotless. Today it’s clean enough, but clothes are scattered everywhere. I think it’s a sign that I’m healing. Then again, I went to sleep cradling my gun in its sock like a stuffed animal a week ago. Maybe not. LOL my pain!

Coworker C was trying to be friendly last night as I read a paranormal romance book. I’ve shared this interest with a couple of the female employees, but that’s all. I’d just finished another and he asked:

Cowork C: “What’s the name of that one?”
Me: “I don’t even know.” I did fucking, too. It was Pleasures of a Dark Prince and I was not saying that.
Coworker C: gestures for me to turn it over. I do and there’s a receipt taped to the front so no one can see the cover art.
Me: “I just… uh… it’s part of of… um… it’s just some series… the uh… dark immortals… or immortals dark… or uh something… um Immortals After Dark. Yeah that’s it. It’s paranormal romance. Not something you’d be interested in.”

It was the verbal equivalent of tripping over a chair and I rocked it.

How a conversation turns to senseless babble…

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Belle of the Library

On Fifty Shades of Grey:

Me: “I really don’t understand how people like erotica. There’s just not enough plot for me. ‘I loved the plot! I loved the thick and deep plot.'”
Gail: “Yeah. Pretty much.”
Me: “What plot? Tell that story without abusive sex.”
Gail: “Okay, okay. So there’s this girl and she’s like 22 and has a porn star name…”
Me: “Huh. You’re right.”
Gail: “…and she doesn’t know what a computer is and she doesn’t know what a mechanic is. She’s really plain and she meets this guy who’s really hot…”
Me: “She wasn’t really plain. She was hot and just really insecure.”
Gail: “… and she also hates herself. So one day, he says he… wants to hit her and then play Yahtzee and she’s like ‘Oh my gosh! He said he wants to play Yhatzee with me! So they play Yhatzee… a lot of Yhatzee. Then one day he doesn’t want to play Yhatzee anymore and he just wants to hit her and she cries, because she really misses playing Yhatzee.”
Me: “That was… surprisingly dead-on.”
Gail: “OH! And his mom was sexually active.”
Me: “I said without sex. She played Yhatzee for money.”
Gail: “Or it sounded like she was playing Yhatzee for money. All he knows is that his mom would go into another room with a man and then she died.”
Me: “And there was a Yahtzee board in the living room.”
Gail: “And there was blood all over it… I don’t think Yahtzee’s a board game.”
Me: “We’re clearly quite inexperienced at Yahtzee.”
Gail: “Yeah, I haven’t played Yahtzee in a really long time.”
Me: suggestively “I know. I really need to play some Yahtzee.”

What the hell are we even talking about anymore?

If Rapunzel had a Suzuki…

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Belle of the Library

When I was little, I used to get so frustrated putting on socks, that I’d end up in tears. If anyone tried to help me, I’d throw a tantrum. That hasn’t changed much. Sunday, on the way home from Mass, my power steering went… then my a/c went… and my battery light came on. I called Chad, because he’s a dear and changes my oil.

Me: “Hey, um… my power steering just went and I was wondering if you could look at my car.”
Chad: sounds like he was asleep “Uh… yeah. I guess.”
Me: “Like… now? I’m sorry. I’m just right by your house and I don’t know what’s wrong.”
Chad: “Yeah, sure. That’s fine.”

So, I promptly got lost in his neighborhood, which is pathetic, because he lives in my hometown, like a half a mile away from me. The power steering wasn’t working and it wasn’t any easier to manage while on the phone getting directions. It was at this point that I started to feel far to Damsely for my taste. Finally, I pull into the drive I’ve pulled into a hundred times, expecting grief for getting lost. Instead, I got:

Chad: “Holy shit, did you not see your car was smoking?!?”
Me: “Uh… no.”
Chad: “Do you not see all that smoke?”
Me: “Um… I do now?”

What? I never wash my car, because I don’t care what it looks like. The windows are always that unclear… and I wasn’t looking for smoke. I don’t know shit about cars. As far as I’m concerned they run on equal parts pixie dust and prayer.

So, we popped the hood and smoke poured out. The anti-freeze was boiling. Literally. We could hear it. I’m in church clothes and Chad’s wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt, clearly expecting this to be a quick fix. After poking around for a little bit, with stern orders for me to stand in the yard in case things explode – Like I want him hurt if things explode? Who would fix my car!?!?! Kidding. I’d feel horrible – Chad pulls out a strip of shredded rubber and tosses it aside, announcing that the serpentine belt was out. I knew that term. I knew the dealership had quoted over $80 to replace it, with labor, on my foreign car. Chad tells me to put the car in neutral and pushes it into the street, grabs his keys and tells me to come on, we’re going to AutoZone to get a new belt. AutoZone tells me the nearest one is a twenty-minute drive and I ask Chad to drop me off at my Gramma’s so I can borrow her car.

Chad: “We can just run up there real quick, if you want.”

So, after a trip two towns over to pick up the belt and some anti-freeze, I bought Chad a pop without asking, because I knew he’d refuse the thank you.

Chad: suspiciously “You’re getting two drinks?”
Me: “Yup.”

I just handed it to him without a word. Then I secretly stashed $7 in gas money in his truck (a page from Gail’s book), when we got back.

Two hours later, I was still sitting in the yard, on a purple Indian blanket from the hatchback, to keep from getting my church pants dirty. Jay, who was supposed to be at work, was threading the serpentine belt through the top of the engine, while Chad was under the car, covered in grease.

It was the prettiest day of the year so far and I had my wonderful boys spending their daylight hours screwing with my “jap trap” car, as Chad calls it. I was intensely happy that I’d bought each of them Christmas presents. They never get me anything and they never have to, because I know they’ll pay me back eventually. They didn’t even act annoyed with me, just made jokes about my fear of birds when I’d duck at the sound of wings. They laughed and teased like normal while I sat useless on their lawn.

It’s not that I’m not grateful. I totally am. I’m grateful I didn’t have to work yesterday or today and that Chad wasn’t busy. I’m mostly grateful to be surrounded by Knights in Shining Armor who, literally, want nothing in return. If I could find a boy like that who wasn’t one of my boys, I’d drop to my knees and blow him in public. Then I’d have his babies. Not because of the public oral.. cuz, you know… that’s not how procreation works. Anyway, they’re wonderful. I just hate being any kind of helpless. I’m cherishing the time I’m spending single, because I love knowing that I can do it on my own. But yesterday, I couldn’t. It’s not like I can ever truly return the favor, either. What am I going to do for them? Help them find a book? Hem their jeans? It’s sure as hell not going to be car related.

After the grueling changing of the belt, my car was making a fun new clanging noise. I took it to the mechanic on prayer yesterday morning and realized I had no way to leave the auto shop. I texted Jay, but he said he was working for Chad (who’d succumbed to a stomach virus) and had only had 3 hours of sleep. Awesome. After Chad spent his day off playing mechanic, he got sick. Gail texted, asking about the car. I told her I was stranded and she said she’d come get me since we had plans later anyway. It felt less Damsely for some reason, likely because she’s just family, like my Gramma. I had her take me by McDonald’s so I could take Jay breakfast as a thank you, since he was having a sucky morning. His face lit up.

Rapunzel spent her whole life in that tower, growing out her hair, waiting to be saved, but why? If her hair was that long, she could’ve just used it to climb down. It probably wouldn’t have hurt as much either.

When I met my boys, I was going through a divorce and was utterly shattered as a person. One night, Jay and Chad went to Buffalo Wild Wings with me, even though Ken and Ward wouldn’t go. Then Jay drove around aimlessly for an hour, just because he knew I didn’t want to go home. Another night Chad stayed out until 2:30 in the morning, talking in his truck with me, because he knew I couldn’t go home to my ex-husband. And in return, they got $7 cash and a pop and some breakfast burritos. Somehow, the scales seem uneven.

Ultimately, the car ended up needing a new pulley of some sort and only cost $165 and was ready today. This meant I didn’t have to ask anyone for money or a ride, which would have been the pink and purple icing on the helpless little lady cake: another reason to be thankful. I suppose it’s just part of the human condition to have to need people sometimes, but I still want to throw my socks across the room and scream about how I can do it myself… even if I can’t. I hate that I can’t. But I absolutely love my boys and I absolutely love Gail for being there with a smile and a “no problem” when I do need it. Hopefully I get the chance to be a good friend in the future and return the favor.

Rapunzel was so fucking lazy.

Two Broken Girls

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Belle of the Library

Humor: the most entertaining of defense mechanisms.

Oh, for the ability to process emotions like adults.

Frankly, it’s pretty awesome to have a best friend as fucked up as I. They don’t make that Hallmark card.

That’s probably a good call.

“Marry me, eh?”: Post-Christmas Empowerment

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Belle of the Library

How long until the Christmas tree can just be considered to be up really early? I mean, it’s a new year. Christmas 2013 may be a long way away, but Christmas 2012 was last year. I’ve just got a jump start.

I have this really loud laugh. Gail calls it a cackle. My guys compare it to the sound of a dolphin. It’s my dad’s laugh. Fucking bastard. I say that in jest. I love my daddy.

Guy in bar: “I love your laugh.”
Me: drunk and aware that this is a line “Really? Because no one else does.”

Twice this week, I’ve laughed loudly and uncontrollably in restaurants. Both times have been with Gail and about things that we shouldn’t discuss in public.

discussing anal sex, which I’ve told Gail she only likes because it “makes her grandma cry”/is tabboo
Gail: “You know… the thing that makes my granny sob.”
Me: “You call it your granny?”

This lead to maniacal giggling and disgusting jokes about how you could create euphamisms for not having sex, such as “My grandma has a nose bleed.”

The second time was at McDonald’s. Both of us are nervous about this country’s future and I was looking up the requirements to move to Canada the other day. Gail talked about it as well, because we’re oddly attached to one another.

Me: “I highly doubt I’ll ever move that far from Gail and if she moves away, I imagine I’ll follow and I don’t care if everyone in the family thinks I’m a lesbian because of it.”
Dad: “Hey, I don’t care either way.”

My redneck daddy told me he doesn’t care if I’m a lesbian. Awwww. I mean, I’m not, but still…

So, I told Gail that Americans always say “I’m moving to Canada” as a threat (not so much me, as I’m actually intersted in Canada), because we’re stupid. It’s apparently really difficult to move to Canada.

Me: “I imagine if I wanted to, I might be able to get a visa based on my education, which is apparently a thing. Otherwise, I’d have to find a job where they want me badly enough to go through the trouble to help me get a work visa.”
Gail: “Which means it would be really difficult for me to work for their postal service.”

(I’d like to interrupt to clarify that we’re not packing our bags for Canada. We come up with these schemes all the time. We’ve already moved to North Carolina, Colorado, Oregon, and New Zealand in our heads.)

Me: “Not necessarily. You see, I was thinking, gay marriage might be legal in Canada. They’ll allow you to move there with a spouse. So… I move to Canada and then…”
Gail: “I think I would rather stay here under The Regime than be your wife.”
Me: “Come on. It’s not like we have to be practicing lesbians. We’d just be lesbians on paper. Marry me, eh.”

Then Gail tore the corner off some trash and gave it to me like a ring, as she once had a dream where her ex-boyfriend proposed to her that way and I make fun of her for it all the time. She then told me that she thinks that vaccinations are possibly just the United States government running experiments on us and she’s aware that she’s completely paranoid, but still. I interrupted her for my faux crying panic impersonation of her.

Me: mock hyperventilating “Oh, my gosh! We didn’t land on the moon! We didn’t land on the moon and now I’m going to have to move to Canada and be your lesbian wife because of it! Do we have to consumate this marriage? Is that even possible with lesbians? Does that even count? How do lesbians even consumate anything?!?!?!”

When we joke around, there’s always this point where we’re giggling like crazy over something that’s not even funny, because we’ve both gone off the deep end. We call this a Rice Cubes moment, not because we’ve ever giggled like maniacs over the phrase, but because we would. Once, when I was heartbroken over some mommy issues, she tried to cheer me up by mentioning this.

text message
Gail: Rice cakes!
Me: Um… I think it was rice cubes.
Gail: Oh. You’re right. I was trying to cheer you up, but I guess that was just a snack.

Surprisingly, that worked.

I’ve been writing this blog on and off through the day while taking breaks from taking down my Christmas tree. At the moment, I’m lying in my living room floor, surrounded by Christmas lights and storage boxes, struggling to type with a Band-Aid on my finger so I don’t get blood on the keyboard. This shit is hard, y’all.

When I put up the Christmas tree, there was a point where it was on the floor in pieces, along with a lot of broken glass. I ended up crying on the couch texting Chad to come help me put it up, because I’d accidentally broken the stand and couldn’t get the new one on. I was pretty pissed that I couldn’t get the tree up on my own. I also knew I’d pay for that glass. But you know what? I got my tree down all by myself. You wouldn’t think that would be empowering, particularly since I injured myself multiple times doing it, (and at one point dropped it on the dog) but I’m still getting the hang of this Solo Woman single girl thing, so I’m pretty fucking proud. One day, I’ll surely find a nice boy to help with my Christmas tree, but on that day, I won’t doubt that I could’ve handled it alone. Go me.

He did not even care.

So I pushed the tree aside and decorated him.

Formerly Fat

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Belle of the Library

In August of 2010, I weighed 260 pounds. I had miscarried and Gail’s little girl had died in the last year. I was starting graduate school and working two jobs even then. I had a husband who wouldn’t get a job and constantly stole from me, refusing to get the hell out of my house even though I’d asked him to leave a hundred times. I couldn’t afford to buy healthy food, when I could afford to buy food at all, I didn’t have time to work out, and it wasn’t really a huge concern of mine considering the debilitating depression I experienced as my life crumbled around me and I kept it from everyone. While I’d been overweight most of my life, I was officially morbidly obese.

Today, I weigh 172 pounds, up from 160, the lowest I got before I wrecked my back in February. I’d like to get down to 150, but I’m still pretty danged content. I don’t know if I mean for this to be motivating for people trying to lose weight this New Year (my weight loss was not a New Year’s resolution) or if this is just me being grateful that my whole world is different, but here are my favorite things about being “average”.

The Clothes
I own fucking jeggings. I’m wearing them right now. They’re a size medium, but when I wear my normal jeans, they’re an 8. At 160, I comfortably wore a 6. A 6! That’s fat Anne Hathaway according to The Devil Wears Prada! You know what looks good on me now? An electric blue zebra print tankini. I own that! I also own several adorable sundresses and sweater dresses and I wear them all the time. Dresses rock! They’re like nightgowns, but sexy.

I should probably take down the Christmas tree, though.

The Cheap Clothes
These jeggings cost me $20. Lane Bryant jeans cost $60. My size 6 skirt from Goodwill cost $3 and looks brand new. The last plus-sized skirt I had was $50. It’s impossibly easy to find super cheap clothes that look adorable on me, because I’m tiny by comparison to my 260 pounds self. I can even find cute Wal-Mart outfits. When I was bigger, Wal-Mart clothes looked terrible on me. They aren’t shaped, they’re just large. Now I can buy $9 jean shorts and they look great. Since my thighs don’t rub together like those of a cricket in spring, they last forever, too. Since my boobs aren’t enormous, I can wear $20 36C bras. My 40DD bra cost me $40. It was on sale.

The Food and Drinks
Thanksgiving Day of 2010, I tearfully told Gail how bad things had gotten in my marriage and that he was finally leaving the next day. Then I drank 8 Long Island Ice Teas, her drink, and our friend’s drink and ate a full meal. The bar tab was $75. Today, after 3 Long Island Ice Teas, I’m too drunk to want another, even if I’m crying. I can’t even imagine racking up a $75 bar tab at my current size. Meals that would have once been satisfying are now to-go box material. I spend $50 a week on my groceries and it’s plenty. In fact, I’m quite the food hoarder, because I once couldn’t afford it, and have about 6 pounds of meat in my freezer right now.

The Way I Move
Alright. No one who hasn’t been overweight is going to get this one at all. When you’re big, you can’t do that thing where you pull your legs up into the chair and put your chin on them. It’s not an option, because your belly gets in the way. You can’t cross your legs, because you have too much thigh. Running up the stairs or bolting to the mailbox because it’s cold and you were too lazy to put on shoes, causes dry heaving because you can’t breathe. It is physically uncomfortable to be heavy. One of the best parts of being smaller is that I can actually curl up. I bought a papasan chair for myself for my birthday and I spend most hours at home curled up in that chair like a fucking embryo. It. Is. Awesome. They should put that in the Jenny Craig commercial.

My skinny nest.

I Can Look At Myself Naked
I used to stand in front of the mirror and think the most degrading things. They were usually funny, but still incredibly negative.

“I look like a shaved gorilla.”

Sometimes, they were just depressing.

“I don’t even feel like a woman anymore. If I leave him, no one will want me again.”

I’ve taken 3 baths this week. If you’ve ever been unhappy with your body, you know that taking a bath isn’t relaxing at all. It’s staring at your wet body, thinking “ew” and calculating how much weight you have to lose to no longer be obese. It’s picturing what you look like sitting in said bathtub and analyzing the water level compared to your weight. I actually do things naked now. I mean, I’m not joining a nudist colony, but it’s not humiliating to be alone in a room without clothes on any longer. If I want to do the dishes naked, so I don’t get water on my clothes, I’m okay with doing that. I don’t remember why but I once vacuumed my whole apartment naked. Seriously, not a nudist.

The Self-Confidence
Guess what. I am almost never the fattest person in the room anymore. It’s so rare that I am, that I don’t even check now. It used to be automatic. The hits to my self-esteem still occur, of course. Did he not call me because I’m fat? But now I actually question that. It’s not just a given. When I substitute, the students call me Velma, because I have short hair and sometimes wear my black-rimmed glasses. Occasionally, it’s meant as an insult. You know what, though? They never call me the fat sub. Ever. And that’s terrific.

The Sleep Shirts
At 260, I wore a size 2xl t-shirt. So, working at the movie theater, I had to take the adult large Ice Age promotional shirt and stretch it out and wear an undershirt beneath it. It was humiliating. Today, that is my favorite sleep shirt and one of many.

I Know Who Loves Me
When you’re fat, you think people treat you differently because of it. You’re in line at the grocery store, they open a new register, and there’s a choice between you and a thinner person. They motion for the thinner person. People who’ve never been there would say you’re being paranoid. You’re not. They did subconsciously choose the more attractive person. People are friendlier to me than they ever were when I was 90 pounds larger. That sucks, but that’s the way it is. That’s why the people who loved me at 260 get so much credit for it.

When I met my guys, I was married, miserable, 250 or so pounds, had hair halfway down my back I only wore in a ponytail or pigtails, never wore makeup, and didn’t own anything that wasn’t a t-shirt and jeans. It was at this weight that I became “not a girl, Belle”, invited out to dinner and New Year’s Eve with “just the guys.” They never cared that I was bigger and didn’t dress like a girl. They liked my sense of humor and loyalty. At 160 pounds, they didn’t treat me any different. I got the same jokes and inclusion. Additionally, Gail’s seen me fluctuate from my high school 190 to my college 260 to my lowest 160 and my present 172 and has never treated me any different in ten years. When someone checks me out, I know they wouldn’t have been interested 2 years ago and that’s okay. But it’s always comforting to know that there are people who feel the same no matter your appearance.

So… maybe I was just broken and damaged and never ate or slept when I lost that first 30 pounds and insanely determined when I lost the next 60, but it’s been so awesome to be normal sized for the first time in my life. Just thinking about it encourages me to stay this way, because even in hindsight, being overweight sucked. Happy Resolutioning!

Crap I’d Like to Share: An Almost Post

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Belle of the Library

Ward: “What’s a blog?”
Me: “Well, you just write… about anything you want. People write about traveling, cooking, dating…”
Ward: “So, it’s writing essays for fun?”

Gramma: “In all my life, I have never seen so many fat young people.”

The day I taught her to text, I left her house and got the following a few hours later:

The time I tried to sell a friend on 50 Shades of Grey:

Summer of ’11, Gail and I took the worst vacation of all time. The air conditioner in the car broke as we rolled into New Mexico days before the 4th of July, Gail got strep throat, and my mother was… well, my mother. However, we did leave a basket for the aliens (translate: littered in the desert).

Holy shit, we’re grown-ups.

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Belle of the Library

This New Year’s Eve, Gail and I rented a motel room in a town about an hour away, took a cab to one of the many popular casinos in the state, gambled the penny slots all night, lost more money than we made, ate quesadillas as the clock struck midnight, drank too much, and took a cab back to the motel.

Me: “‘Motel 6: We’ll leave the light on for you… but that’s about it.'”
Gail: looking around at the sketchy parking lot “‘Motel 6: It’s well lit… thankfully.’ We probably shouldn’t keep insulting it once they can hear us.”

Me: “Ew. Someone’s been raped in this room.”

Pre-drinking Smirnoff Apple and orange soda.

“Gail, the phrase is ‘apples and oranges’, because they don’t go together. This tastes like acid and urine.”

Throughout the night, as we gambled and drank, I recorded the quotes that made us giggle like maniacs in my phone.

My drunken lamenting over not understanding the appeal of gambling:
Me: “Gambling is gay.”
Gail: “You probably shouldn’t use that as an insult in public.”
Me: “It’s not my fault they’re gambling.”
Gail: “That’s not…”

Gail drunkenly complaining that we had to wait for the cab instead of being able to take the shuttle:
Gail: “We should’ve stayed at the Holiday Inn. They have a… a… thing.”
Me: “That’s great. You should be their spokesperson.”

I have no idea.
Me: “He could’ve gone home, looked in the mirror, and preened like a peacock.”

In the night, we slept on the Flinstone beds (slabs of rock) with our own personal blankets, because motel blankets are covered in semen and tears. I woke several times to down water and ibuprofen and call the desk to ask what time we had to be out, not that there was a credit card on file, because we paid in cash… like hookers.

Gail: “You know what’s awesome? We used our own money, rented a motel room out of town, took a cab to the casino, and gambled all night.”

I was more blunt with the same sentiment as I did my makeup.

Me: “Holy shit, we’re grown-ups.”

When Gail and I became friends, we were 15-year-old virgins, who couldn’t drive, or hold jobs, had never had a date or a first kiss. She used to make fun of me for loving the show Lizzie Maguire while we played old school Super Nintendo in her little sister’s bedroom floor. Growing up, everyone acts like you’ll just become an adult at a specific age or a particular milestone. So Gail and I each turned 18, moved out of our parents’ houses, got married, got pregnant… and it still never happened. Maybe that’s because we sucked at all of those things, constantly struggling. Three years ago, I was living in a motel, imagining the death of my ex-husband, through no intervention of my own, because that would allow me to be free of him. Gail was pretty much doing the same thing, only the sweeter version where he just leaves. Being an adult, or at least our version of it, sucked and we just felt like abandoned children, both having had no choice but to strike out on our own the second we graduated high school.

Then, we sold our wedding rings together, started dating, rented our first places of our very own with no one else’s name on the lease, put the bills in our own names, started our careers at entry level positions and…

holy shit, we’re grown-ups.

Being an adult is awesome now. My childhood wasn’t all that glamorous before my sucky early twenties. But now, no one hits me or manipulates me or steals from me. I don’t have to lie to my family to defend anyone and when I come home and the place is a mess, it’s my mess. I only have to feed me and if that means cereal, sweet potato fries, and orange juice for dinner, that’s my right.

I don’t always feel like an adult, however, even now. When I call my Gramma crying, because my mother’s acting like a lunatic again, I feel like the 14-year-old kid I once was. When I open a DVD and see the case is charred from a house fire he started, I’m 19 and my pets are dead on the lawn. When I call the credit agency to ask what this charge is for and they tell me it’s from the phone company when I was married at 21, I feel like the scared 23-year-old in the judge’s office, praying he’ll sign the papers. We were mislead as children. You don’t just suddenly feel like an adult. It comes in phases, like when I take a trip with my best friend. I don’t have to answer to anyone. I pay with my own money. I wake up and go shopping all day with my own money. I don’t wonder where that missing hundred is. I go home and have soup and pears for dinner and…

holy shit, I’m a grown-up.

Belle of the Library

… the musings of an overly organized thirty-something, married, southern librarian turned stay-at-home-mom with too many opinions, too much ambition, just enough kids, and a stubborn, mouthy, redheaded country boy to accompany her through life.

Category Archives: Friendship

The blog post is coming from inside the bathtub.

Not so sure these thoughts are worth your penny…

How a conversation turns to senseless babble…

If Rapunzel had a Suzuki…

“Marry me, eh?”: Post-Christmas Empowerment

Formerly Fat

Crap I’d Like to Share: An Almost Post

Holy shit, we’re grown-ups.

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