The Cupcake Lessons

Hi.  I'm Your Bangs and this is my To-Do list:

1. Wake up and be unruly; make sure everyone is facing in different directions
2. Prepare for group imitation of water buffalo (***Morning rehearsal starts at 6 AM sharp, prior to owner's first mirror viewing)
3. Carve out some quiet time; finish reading novel Wispy Like Me
4. Outside the Forehead Think Tank!---brainstorm ideas for leading a happy life despite a really bad cowlick
5. Vaguely loiter in owner's eyes; listen for new curse words

Monday Judgements and Warnings

God---grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can
and wisdom to know, as long as I stay vigilant, that the strawberry blonde wolverine living on top of Donald Trump's head won't get loose and come kill me.

Yours In Wide Eyed Wonder,
Prince of Poof

Things I Don't Understand, Items 318 thru 320

318. Abstract art
319. What, exactly, makes the Winkelvoss twins tick
320. How much Mary Kay you have to sell to win one of those pink Cadillacs

Cooper Being Katherine Ross in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

"That movie rendered Robert, Paul and me almost paralyzed from the amount of beans we ate," he says, explaining how severe their gas was.  "In some scenes we didn't even have to use explosives."

Monday Judgements and Warnings

Not that I'm Albert Schweitzer or anything but let me give you a little hinty-poo and tell you that if you arise in the morning all wide-eyed and hopeful about your decision that you will start this week off with the intention of strengthening your Compassion Muscle you should FOR SURE avoid the return line at Bed Bath and Beyond.

Best Wishes For Your Continued Success,
Rita with the Wrist Straining Cart

Sunday Prayer

My mother wasn't someone who raised and protected me so much as someone I had to overcome, survive and endure.  She was someone who, if I had to describe her and I knew no one was listening, I would describe as awful and dangerous.

I know I will be nicer to everyone, forever, every chance I get, I told myself over and over again when I was growing up.

I know I will do my best to not be like her and I will do my best to forgive myself for not belonging---for being afraid of so many different things.

So on Mother's Day I say a prayer and a wish for myself and for my mother for falling so short of The Goal: The Love Between Mother and Child.  I say a prayer and a wish that, in the big scheme of things, that our unhealing will be absorbed into all the rest of the walking wounded, the confused and hurting others who are trying, valiantly, to make their way even though they feel incomplete and oh-so tender.

Even though the rest of the world writes poems and songs and stories about how purely mothers love their children.  I am talking about those people who have a hard time understanding those poems and songs and stories.

I say a wish and a prayer for the moving forward and the knowing that I and We and She and They will continue to pry our damaged hearts open and reach our arms toward the trees and the sky and we will forage our way toward endless knowledge and this will start us on our journey of discovery and longing and it will be because of the trauma that we will be driven forward and we will have the deepest knowing that we will all be okay.

Yours In Terminal Uniqueness,
Thelma Thinks-a-Lot

Things I Don't Understand, Items 315 thru 317

315. How, in Before & After Makeover photos, sometimes the Before looks a hundred times better than the After
316. Why bananas have such a hard time getting along with other fruit
317. Personal checks with kitties wearing bows on them

Cooper Being John Belushi in Animal House

In this photo, he is seen fleeing a campus Sizzler, where he took a big stinky poop in the salad bar.

"RRRRRRRAAAAAARGJJJGHHHHHHHHHHRAGGGHAHHHHHHHHHHHHGHHGGGGPPFFFFFFFFFFFTTTT," he says, before passing out, pantless, in the sink.

Tuesday Expert Advice

Dear Cupcake,

I'm 49 and, lately, I've noticed that my mouth seems to be disappearing.  It's the oddest thing.  For example, in the morning, when I am reading the paper in bed or if I am engrossed in a book that has me rapt, if I happen to glance up and look at myself in the mirror it is as if I have no lips and in place of my lips and mouth there is just a kind of strange line.  "Have you seen my lips?" I inquire to no one in particular.  Or if I am concentrating and my head is down and my husband makes the VERY UNWISE decision to take a picture of me in my Head Down Concentrating Moment and I look at myself in this photo I find myself asking "Where did my mouth go?"  Now, I am not writing you to ask you if you know what has actually happened to the lower half of my face---no---I am writing to ask you if you think I should wear a Bazooka Joe handkerchief to assist me as I ease into Cronehood or if I should embrace my No Mouthness and start using lipstick on my upper lip and chin the way elderly ladies do or if I should just hope they remake the Anthony Hopkins movie Magic and then audition to be the puppet.
---Permanently Puckered In Podunk

Dear Puckered,
No.
Good luck,
Cupcake

Monday Judgements and Warnings

This is what will happen to you if you are unfortunate enough to see a picture of Mariah Carey, naked and pregnant with twins, on the cover of an entertainment magazine.

Her dreamy expression alone is enough to blow your ears off and the way her arm is placed across her gigantic bazooms is almost certain to give the most stalwart individual a heart attack so do yourself a favor and skedaddle out of  town for a while until we receive the A-OK that it's safe to come back out into the open.

Step Away From the Periodical,
Captain Frozen Face