All the Pretty Things

 4 Responses »
May 112012
 

So I’m standing in the grocery store check out lane with Buttercup, patiently waiting our turn to pay when I made the mistake of actually skimming the headlines and blurbs about various celebrities relating to their weight, how they either lost it or keep it off, and why this should matter to me. And you. Because emulating Angelina Jolie did wonders for Octamom.

About that…

My eyes dart from one blurb to another and as each one gets seared into my brain and the only cohesive thought I have is that Buttercup will never be allowed to set foot in a grocery store again for fear of psychologically damaging her in an effort to pick up a gallon of milk.

BEYONCE SHOWS OFF HER NEW MOM BODY

 

Beyonce shows off her New Mom Body right next to a blurb parading empty promises.  CGI, airbrushing, crash diets, and really creative camera angles will work for us Regular People, too, it seems. I’m assuming that means I should clear our the guest room for the personal macrobiotic chef and his entourage, right? Oh, but where will the nanny take care of my child while I workout with my personal trainer in my home gym for six hours a day so I can get to headline-ready shape before  filming starts on my next blockbuster?

Wait…you mean that isn’t how this is supposed to work?

 

 

 

LOSE 13 POUNDS IN SEVEN DAYS EATING CAKE!

There’s only one way I can think of this actually happening…and that’s how I ended up in therapy the first time.

Next?

 

 

GET A BETTER BODY! CELEBRITIES SHARE THEIR CONFIDENCE BOOSTERS!

Because focusing on inner beauty and feeling good about the reflection in the mirror no matter what the scale says is exactly how y’all got onto the big screen to begin with, right?

 

 

 

DROP 47 POUNDS BY MEMORIAL DAY AND WALK OFF JELLY BELLY!

 

Hold the fucking train, people. They mean by Memorial Day of 2013, RIGHT?

 

 

 

THE BRIDESMAID STAR ON LOVING WHO YOU ARE!

FINALLY! A moment of clarity! A publication willing to buck societal expectations and instead celebrate who and what we are now instead of promoting the bullshit promising us that We Too Can Lose Six Pounds in Four Days and Feel Great!

Maybe other publications will start to do the same! Maybe a new generation of young and impressionable girls won’t be subjected to the planetary version of high school hell and come out on the other side the better for it.

Maybe…Look!

Ladies Home Journal is jumping in with more insight on the subject…

 

WHY CAN'T WE SEE OUR REAL SELVES IN THE MIRROR?

Seriously?

I dunno…I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that could possibly have something to do with the contradictory messages about self-worth and body image and their direct correlation with the engrained importance of Other People’s Opinions in our psyche regarding how society perceives us to look? Maybe it’s the fact that our value as women is measured by today’s media using our measurements and not our achievements? No, wait! I’ve got it….

It’s because we were so busy eating cake for breakfast and losing 47 pounds by this Thursday that we totally forgot to clean the mirror, isn’t it? Silly us…

Oh that isn’t it?

 

 

WHO WANTS TO PLAY "FIND THE FAT CHICK?"

 

I’m being facetious, obviously. I think Melissa McCarthy is a talented actress with an adorable voice and I love her confidence. She also, in my humble opinion, happens to be gorgeous. That being said, I’m thinking product placement and the fact that the only reason I noticed the bottom rack (on multiple magazine racks, I’d like to point out)  is because I was on my knees taking photos of random magazine covers for a blog post about how those mean old magazine covers called me Fat and Unhappy. And that’s when the cashier gives me my total and tells Buttercup how beautiful she is.

“I know,” she responds with the confidence she inherited from The Husband. Then she catches herself and notices that I seem to be waiting for something. She clears her throat. “Thank you.”

And we head for home, my four-year-old already learning that society appreciates the pretty things.

 

The Me That I Am

 10 Responses »
Apr 182012
 

I’m having a pretty shitty Writerly Ego day. Actually, it’s kind of been a shitty Writerly Ego month, to be perfectly honest. And when I’ve shared this little emotional nugget with the BFF and The Husband, I’ve received a raised eyebrow and a “YOU HAVE A FUCKING AGENT” in response to my pity party. I get where it’s coming from. I am in a position a lot of writers would kill for. I have a wonderful agent who thinks me and my writing are worth something and deserve a place on the shelves at Barnes & Noble next to writers I admire like Jenny Lawson ,  Jill Smokler,  Robin O’Bryant,  Anna Lefler and Heather Armstrong.

It seems, however, that the platform I am currently standing on may not big enough to get there. Or maybe it just feels like that because I’m a writer and us artistic types are moody and overly emotional and maybe I just need a vodka-flavored cookie. Because really? I’m pretty proud of my little platform. I bust my ass for free because writing is who I am and what I do and the writing part is actually more important than getting paid part…for my sanity, at least. The bills sitting on my desk waiting to be paid, however, would rather I stop trying to stay Not Crazy and just get a fucking job that probably wouldn’t leave me the time to write for the awesome sites I contribute to.

I love sharing the funny on An Army of Ermas and Funny Not Slutty. Getting a spot on best-selling author Lissa Rankin’s Owning Pink site is something I will forever be proud of. I’ve been published on Hippocampus Magazine and almost fell over when StoryBleed accepted the same piece for publication on their site. And then what I’ve got going on over here on this little ol’ blog o’ mine. I’m working on getting my name out there and my writing on more outlets, but these things take time. And Platforms don’t build themselves overnight.

I’m by no means in the same stratosphere as the likes of Dooce or The Bloggess or Scary Mommy and that’s okay with me. I’m not trying to be them. Just me. And hopefully the Me that I Am will one day be enough.

Maybe this sounds like a Poor Me post, but I don’t mean it to. Instead, I wanted to let other aspiring writers out there know that the days of doubting yourself don’t end the moment you sign that contract with your dream agent. And, I’m sure my published writer friends will tell me that they sure as hell don’t end when a book deal is offered or the day their books were released or even the day they got their first glowing review. Because once someone Other Than You believes in your work, it’s not just your ego riding on how many readers connect with that essay you got placed in that literary magazine that you love or how many hits per month your blog is getting or how much better you feel just for having taken the jumbled words out of your head and making some sense of them in a new piece you just started.

Every level of success reached is both a validation of our talents and a new reason to Freak the Fuck out, but it’s a lesson in the writing life that I seem to keep having to be reminded of. Three months ago I was still waiting for the Moment All of My Dreams Would Come True and then the world turned upside down when they did because I signed with my agent. That singular moment took two years to make a reality. And you would be right of you guessed that the Freaking Out commenced after the shiny newness of my situation sunk in. It’s not just me and my ego on the table anymore. It’s me and my ego and my agent’s time and effort and enthusiasm and Belief in What I Am and Have Yet to Become.

But if I think back, I probably went through the same little Self-Doubt Fest when I was accepted onto my college newspaper’s staff and when I saw my first byline and when I was assigned to cover my first murder case at the city newspaper that hired me right out of college. And then again when I left the newspapers to freelance and when I started this blog and when I woke up this morning and my little girl told me that I’m the best mother in the world.

So maybe shitty Writerly Ego days are just part of the process and part of what makes us who — and what — we are. It’s our literary equivalent of the trap women set for men when we ask if This Dress Makes Us Look Fat because we really only need to be reminded that in their eyes we are beautiful no matter what how that dress fits us. My platform is what it is. My ass? Probably looks horrible in that dress. But it’s okay.

Because tomorrow I’m still going to write something. And someone is going to read it.

Auto-Sucking: A Life Skill

 7 Responses »
Mar 262012
 

I’m sitting here in my stretchy Walmart-worthy yoga pants and reveling in the Alone-ness. Buttercup is asleep, The Husband isn’t home from work yet, and the dogs aren’t very reliable witnesses. So I take a deep breath, and as I exhale, I smile as I mentally turn off the auto-suck.

You know what I’m talking about, ladies. Unless you’re Kate Moss, there’s a high probability you’ve got a belly pooch even if no one else thinks you’ve got a belly pooch and gets all pissed off and offended when you insist that you do because my left thigh is bigger than all of you so you turn off the auto-suck and at the same moment I do, too, and then we both marvel at the fact that we might not be able to rock a bikini but damn we have strong abdominal muscles if we can hold that in all day.

Spanx are not involved. Auto-suck is simply the ability to train yourself to breathe in such a way that your diaphragm moves up and down instead of in and out while performing what has to be the single longest standing crunch in the history of mankind. The upside is that when you pee you don’t have to worry about painting yourself back into the sausage casing that is a pair of Spanx because that convenient crotch hole they designed is not convenient at all. The downside is that Spanx aren’t affected by too much wine, resulting in a You’ve Had Too Much to Drink Obviously Because You’re Pooching Out So Give Me the Keys rule initiated by The Husband, who happens to be a fucking genius. I never told him about the auto-suck. He just figured it out all by himself. And he still asked me to marry him.

Pretty snazzy.

So was the expression on one of the maternity ward nurses as I was waiting to be emergency induced almost five years ago when The Husband, who was bored, asked me to show her my mad abdominal skills to pass the time. I prepared much like a weightlifter getting ready to dead-lift something ridiculously heavy by closing my eyes, taking a deep breath, and focusing on my goal. Then I simply auto-sucked my 36-week pregnant belly into myself before gently letting my bump take up the three feet in front of me it had been before my little trick.

“Did you see this?” the nurse asked a co-worker who came in to join to prep for my delivery. “Do it again.”

So I did. And The Husband and I laughed as both nurses stared in amazement and gushed about how I’d probably push the baby out on the first try with abs like these. And yes, they were wrong, which totally sucked.

My recovery time involved peeing out about 15 pounds of water retention and then getting pissed off when I realized I was going to have to work to lose the rest while consoling myself with something dipped in chocolate. Not once did I consider lacing up my running shoes and winning a marathon six-weeks postpartum like this mom did. Yay for her and her obvious lack of need for the auto-suck. I’m cheering for her, really I am. I’m also thinking it’s over-achievers like her that make the rest of us look bad and calling her names which I know is evil and spiteful so I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and free the belly I subconsciously sucked in while reading the article about Marathon Mom.

Good for her. Now where’s the chocolate?

The Vicinity of Wonderful

 2 Responses »
Dec 302011
 

This is it. My last post before 2011 fades away and 2012 becomes the year that we all joke about the end of the world. I had planned for something Deep and Meaningful. But that was before I remembered that the in-laws were going to be here from Michigan and that would mean day-long outings and running out of room in the refrigerator for yet another set of restaurant leftovers and a frantic search through my non-existent draft folder in the hopes of finding something Wonderful that I might have been saving.

I looked. I found plenty of Somethings. But none of them were anywhere near the vicinity of Wonderful. Some were kind of Meh and a few gems were complete Disasters. More like an exercise in free-writing while high on expired Nyquil than something I’d like to share with the world.

So that leaves me to come up with Something New. And I’m hoping it’s Deep and Meaningful.

I’m supposed to talk about those as-of-yet unbroken promises I haven’t quite narrowed down to committing to for the immediate future. And buy some new running shoes so I can get to that new gym with the brand new membership I’m supposed to rush out to buy so I can fight for an elliptical machine until most have decided to wait until next January to try again, right? Or am I supposed to look back on 2011 and the stories shared, memories made, and goals achieved?

I could do that, except maybe I won’t. Not because I’d rather avoid the imminent panic attack next December when I finally fall asleep wondering if the world will still be there for me to wake up to or if social media will be alive and well and pointing fingers at the Mayans for being total drama queens. And that’s because this (read: the me having a Conspiracy Theory-worthy panic attack) will probably happen. I’m just wired that way.

I won’t wax poetic about the end of the old and the start of the new simply because, for me, I feel caught in limbo. Between what and what, I have no idea. I just know that this feels like my last post of 2011 no more than the first one did and that this was the first year that my birthday was really just another day and maybe 34 is the year that the passing of time becomes nothing more than a measure of how fast my child is growing and not a direct reflection of myself or that last grey hair I pulled out.

If I didn’t have a checkbook with what will probably be a month’s worth of ruined checks during the 2012 honeymoon period while I retrain my brain to write the new year, I’d probably forget that anything has changed.

Buttercup and I were out shopping the other day when a store employee asked Buttercup how her Christmas had been. After the expected excitement and squeals and Santa Brought Me’s, the employee smiled and asked Buttercup what she was doing to bring in the new year. Buttercup wrinkled her nose and blinked.

New Year? The look on her face told us both that she had no concept of what was being asked of her. She simple stood there for a moment while she tried to figure out for herself what this New Year was and how exactly one was supposed to Bring It In.

Finally, she smiled and her eyes brightened.

“But it’s not June yet,” she said, “and that’s when my new year starts. I’ll be five then. I’ll probably have a birthday party with my friends. Right, Mama?” And  I told her that yes, she very probably would.

Consider This the Stunt Double for a Clever Title

 9 Responses »
Nov 212011
 

*The Husband had a jacket that he loved.

*It’s mine now.

*His pillow? Also mine…until mine no longer smells like him and I steal back the pillow he is currently using.

*Seriously, it’s like a never-ending game of keep -away.

*His robe? Mine.

*His old T-shirts as my new(ish) nightshirts? Done.

*His toothbrush? Hold up. I have standards, people…

*And sometimes? All that’s left clean out of the three reusable water bottle pack we bought is the pink one (which he HATES taking to work) because I have lost and or/used both of the “manly” bottles I promised him he could have because the pink one was all mine.

*And I still have the nerve to look all What The Hell is Your Problem when he gets pissy because I have a habit of going all Winona Ryder with almost all of his belongings because it’s how the game is played, okay?

*For reals and true. It says so right there in little fine imaginary print.

*I’m writing this post in list form because my brain is only capable of remembering how to properly format one sentence at a time.

*Shut up. It’s been a long day, which I started by kicking my own ass on the elliptical before I ate breakfast.

*Again.

*Not kidding. I’ve been instagramming and tweeting my new addiction progress with shots of my total time and calories burned like it’s going out of style.

*No, I’m not showing off.

*What I’m actually doing is building a case for myself to prove to the rest of the world that it is entirely possible to work out every fucking day because it makes you feel good and then have to get back on the elliptical to work out again (to feel good) after you forgot the scale likes to make you feel bad that you are working out every day and not losing a fucking pound.

*No, of course I’m not bitter.

*I’m actually typing this as I elliptical again (is that a verb?) so I feel just great!

*Funny thing….

*The Husband had announced a week before our ninth wedding anniversary at the end of September that he wanted to buy an elliptical because with his crazy work schedule he doesn’t have time to join a gym.

*He hasn’t been on the damned thing once yet and I’ve been on it almost every day since.

*Which brings me to the actual point of this blog post.

*The Bastard played me.

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