to you.

like a massive white wall that has years of grim and scuff-marks.
i stare at you in complete overwhelm thinking "this job is too great for me"
...someone of my stature.

i can't stand tall enough to paint your very tiptop.
to cover your scratches.

and you aren't my wall to fix anyway.
though offer suggestiong i might. if no one has the energy or the desire to make you shiney and new...it may never happen.

so we all stand here - my crew of critics and i - with furrowed brows, hands to our chin, tapping our feet.
knowing what needs to be done.
each of us wanting to fix this wall our certain way.
each of us knowing our way is the best.

but no one is as frustrated as i am that the wall just doesn't seem to paint itself.

i love what the wall was when it was first built.
i love what the wall - in my mind - is going to be when someone finally touches it up.

magic doesn't happen overnight, i guess. so i sit. wanting. aching. needing you to make yourself something i want to look at.

right now, i don't want to look at you.

it's biblical.

i vaguely remember my mom taking me to one of those free clinics when i was younger. my memory is pretty fuzzy about the whole thing, because i tend to black-out bad memories (like 7th grade) so i can't really recall WHY we were at the clinic. maybe we were going because i was sick? she was sick? um...maybe it wasn't even a free clinic really...it may have just been in a bad part of town and LOOKED free what with all the crickets on the floor and the lack of english used in the lobbies....but whatever. i am trying to paint a picture here. just go with it.

in fact, let me embellish:

when i was little, i was dying of some rare disease so my mom took me to Juarez, Mexico to a free clinic...and the entire experience has scarred me for life. the rare disease, however...i can't recall...but the clinic. man...i won't forget that...

and that is pretty much how Duncan is probably feeling about me today. to save a few bucks, i decided to take him to the free clinic to get fixed. the local SPCA is literally 2 miles from my house, and i live in a really nice area...so...i don't know what i was thinking...that this place would be a palace? They charge pennies to snip his marbles off and i thought we would be greeted with champagne and those fancy dog biscuits from those silly dog stores that are in Snider Plaza? sometimes i wonder why i don't think things through properly.

have you ever been to the spca? it's....dirty. and smells of cat urine and pain. you can hear 75 little dogs screaming from the back rooms and the cats. my god...so many cats....

Duncan knew something was up because he started getting sick in the car on the way to the SPCA. i fully believe that little goblin can read my mind, and he knew i was about to deceive him royally. And when we walked into the dog/torture chamber, i could feel him begin to hate me...much like i fictionally hated my mother for taking me to that fictional free clinic in mexico.

i have become increasingly overdramatic in the recent years. i don't know if it is for shock-value or entertainment sake so much, but i get so squeamish these days and also i have such VIVID dreams...so i realize what i say here is as 100% ridiculous as it sounds, but i am worried. like...motherly worried. i dreamt last night that christopher made me electrocute Duncan and so today when i handed him over to the SPCA, i began to worry about all sorts of things:

1. what if they accidentally put him up for adoption?
2. what if he becomes crippled?
3. what if he is sick tonight and i have to stay home and not go to that party i was so looking forward to going to?
4. what if the teeth bleaching stuff i use makes my teeth permanently sensitive?

But mostly, like my lack of memory of my fictional rare fatal disorder, i wonder if Duncan is going to miss his boy bits when he chases his tail from now on.....

when i was 22, i dated an older guy. i am giong to be 100% honest here...he was 13 years older than me. i was 22, he was 35. i was still in college, and young, and carefree, and my chest was pert, and i could live on 3 hours of sleep. he was...old. and liked 80's music. and drove an old car that smelled funny. and wore tapered leg jeans (when i first met him).

i always used to tease him about being old. jokes about alzheimers and hip-fractures, and osteoarthritis, and the like were in my daily repetoire. he was good about it. mostly because i am so delicious...and it never really seemed to hurt his feelings but moreso just made him laugh. it was fun.

we went to six flags together once. we took his then-13 year old neice and one of her buddies with us. that was interesting. because i was somewhere in between the two. in fact, i was closer to their age bracket. and he was out of the loop...or so i thought.
at one point, when we were arguiing about music or somesuch, the friend of the neice said to me and the boyfriend "whatever....that's because ya'll are OLD NEWS" because we didn't like the same kind of music that they like.

i didn't take the old man joke as well as he did. mostly because this was the first time in my entire life that i was the butt of the old-person joke, and it didn't feel good. it made me feel....wrinkly. besides, HE was old news! not me! i was merely 22! he was old enough to be my father, too (which would be really really sad....but whatever...you CAN procreate at 13, i think.) why were these girls teaming up on me? why was i not the uncle's cool girlfriend? why was i just the fuddy duddy? this is an OUTRAGE!!!!!!!

and from that day forward, i have had a complex about being "old news". it's an idea that creeps up on me almost daily when i am in my car. because i still don't like the music that some of the 13 year olds are listening to.
my favorite station used to be the edge. it was alternative rock. it was the radio station people were allowed to cuss on.....but one day somewhere in between 22 and 26 that changed, i started tuning into mix. the music of the 80s 90s and today...

and most recently, i have found myself really depreciating agewise when i listen to the likes of the Lite rock station and the ::gasp:: oldies. (in my defense, i do NOT call music from my childhood oldies, thank you very much)

but when i would rather listen to the fuddy duddy stations instead of the cool pop stations like all the hipsters, it gets me thinking...have i become the old fart that doesn't evolve with the styles and the tastes of today but instead stays stuck forever in my favorite time-period?

have i become the older boyfriend?!

but then something lovely happened. The alternative rock station started magically playing good music again. and even though it is the exact same tune that i can hear on the oldies station or the lite rock station....the station that is broadcasting my favorite music is the edgy young station.

and all of a sudden, i am back in the loop.

i am missing something.

when i get to heaven, i will need to have a few words with God. i imagine most people have a laundry list of things they want to go over with the big boss, so this isn't so much a new concept, but...i feel like voicing my opinions loudly on a grand scale about one certain topic that has been weighing on my mind:

wisdom teeth.

why?
WHAT FOR?
is there some greater purpose in God's will for wisdom teeth other than what we know about them?
is there something that we humans are missing?

a few months ago, some nicely dressed cute guy waltzed into my office and caught me on a good day. he was selling teeth whitening packages. after flirting for a few minutes, he convinced me and mom to buy them. it was a good deal, so why not. the kicker was i had to go to a certain dentist to get the whitening. so what?

my appt with this new dentist was on monday. everything was normal. the office smelled of fluoride and fear...i took xrays, had my teeth cleaned, checked for cavities and was told that it was high time that i get my wisdom teeth removed.

which, i knew. i mean....it's obvious that something has gone terribly awry when your gorgeous teeth have erupted little teethlings in the back of your mouth that are black. BLACK. i know. gross.

as i was checking out and making an appt to pick up the teeth whitening trays for next week, i was asked if i wanted to have my wisdom teeth extracted that afternoon. wow. so fast. and we just met....of course i wanted it done. better now that never...or worse, better now than to wait until my teeth COMPLETELY rot.

when given a quote for the cost of extraction from the receptionist of $863.00 i started laughing. i have insurance that is supposed to cover this sort of thing and my cost would STILL be more than a new sofa? um....i'll take the new sofa.

i strictly remember chickening out about 4 years ago from getting my teeth removed when i didn't have insurance and my cost was going to be 700 dollars. so how...in four years....did the cost quadruplify? it was time for research, ya'll. and those of you who know me well know how much i loooooove to research nonsensical things.

i called a previous dentist, gave them my insurance info and asked for a quote. 500 bucks. which was a heck of a deal compared to the other, so i took it. made the appt for tuesday.

i actually did really well on the day of "surgery" i had the dentist hook me up to the elephant nose thing, and i giggled away hugging my knees as they did the surgery. it was all pretty scientific, too. (especially when i got home and started drilling on my old teeth to see what a cavity smells like when you cut a tooth in half...)

the fun part? the cost ended up only being $180 dollars. apparantly, the OTHER dentist decided to tell my insurance that my two bottom teeth would have to be carved out even though they were fully "erupted" (that's dentist-speak) because their extraction was coded as a more invasive procedure, my insurance would only cover 50%. At the GOOD dentist, they coded my procedure correctly and the insurance covered 80%. PLUS they are about 50% cheaper in the first place. PLUS PLUS this dentist has a contract with my insurance agency which gave me an even BETTER dicsount. weeeeeeeee.

i saved almost 700 bucks by driving to mesquite instead of using a fancy pants plano DDS. Smart move on me!

So...i went out and bought a new sofa. :)

17 days

I am having surgery in 17 days. I'm pretty excited about it all. And most people don't know about it yet. Which is OK. it's no one's business but mine, my husband's, my doctor's, and....my bank's. :)

It will be exciting to post about it once it happens and I start getting better.

healthy sounds good. it's a concept i have never really known anything about. so i am interested in what it will be like. :)

totally

i just got off of the phone with Reservation Rewards. for those of you that don't know, Res. Rew. is that lovely company linked to many many online shopping sites (Fandango.com Chadwick's, lillian vernon, um....red envelope, etc) that SUCK.

they are con-artists like woah.
in fact, about 4 years ago, i bought something for someone off of some website and got a little option at the bottom of the webcart thing that asked if i wanted coupons for later purchases. and who WOULDN'T want a short email with coupons for online shopping? I;ll tell you who: AMERICA.

They get you good, guys. and if you are like a lot of people, you don't pay particular attention to most of your statements in the mail and you MISS out on the 10$ that is automatically being deducted each month in order for you to receive an email about coupons.

Fancy.

So 4 years ago, i caught this after 1 deduction and i immediately called and was refunded my money.
Fastforward to today. i am checking out my dad's bank account for several reasons:

1. i am nosy.
2. this is essentially MY MONEY, too, because when i kill off my dad, it will be split between me and sean.
3. i am on his account still from when i was in high school 100 years ago, and i have access, so...why not?

and i noticed that he and mom (and...for all intents and purposes, me and sean) are being charged 10 bucks a month for coupons that go to the spam folder of someone's email account.

so...because this is MY money we are talking about, i pretended to be mom and i called the company up and said things like "UNCONSITUTIONAL" and "BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU" and "LAWYER!" and "BULLSHIT!!!!"

but mostly...i got to use the word unconstitutional, which was altogether awesome and worth every penny of the 10 bucks a month that has been coming out for God knows how long. And you know..that IS a really really strong word. it's amazing what someone will do for you if you say "unconsititional". i bet i could go to the moon if i complained to someone with enough power about the idea of only astronauts getting to space travel being unconstitutional.

i dare you to try it sometime today. or in the future. if you are pissed at someone. or you are calling customer service somewhere. or you are trying to get someone that was at a stopsign before you to freakin GO, already....shout to them about your feelings of the constitution and i totally bet you will get your way.

cause i got a full refund and i didn't even really have to work hard for it.
which is good.

although working hard for full refunds makes for better stories usually.
dammit. that is unconstitutional!!!!!

my husband, the biggest loser, cereal, and this weekend.

i love morning-time. i am home alone...the sound of 6 alarms going off...and a HUGE no...

GARGANTUAN!!!!!!!!

bowl of cereal while i play on the internet freely. it's veddy nice.
this morning, however, my cereal-internet-alone-alarmclock-time was interrupted by c who calls to say "have you ever seen the show 'the biggest loser'?"

now. let's preface this...c HATES, LOATHES, SHAKES WITH FURY at tv, let alone realty tv shows...and i of course know exactly what he is talking about when he asks if i know the show...but i was so interested in what he was getting at (and entertained) that i felt compelled to lie.

"no. what is that?"
"its a reality tv show where people get together and try to lose weight and diet and excersize and who ever loses the most, wins! it's a really cool show"
".....how did you hear about this?"
"so and so from work! he says his wife loves it, and that he has watched it a few times and it is really down to earth and a good show..."
"...ok"
"...so, they are having auditions in dallas..."
"you want me to go on tv and tell the whole world that i am fat?! i wanted to keep that a secret"
"nooooo. i want you to go on tv so america can fall in love with you!"
"honey, america wouldn't fall in love...they would realize what an evil bitch i am"
"that's the other option.."

i explained to c how difficult it would be for me to spend 6 weeks or whatever length of time being fake and pretending to be lovely, and how that would take a toll on who i am as a person, and would really go agaist everything that i hold dear:

cussing
eating big bowls of cereal
walking around naked
picking my nose
yelling at people
being lazy
and, of course, vindication.

and so...he is going to find out more about auditions.

........