Things of Which I Am 100% Certain

1. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west
2. Art Garfunkel has wispy hair
3. There is never a moment of the day or night when there are not several confusing sentences shooting out of Michele Bachmann's ass

Monday Judgements and Warnings

Do you think the person who decided on the amount of things that make up an actual serving size was a small muscular loin cloth wearing tribesman who lives in the Amazon forest and who is the type of eater/grazer who has little snacks throughout the day and who lives on branches and leaves and the occasional Tsetse fly dropping and who takes three Total-Evacuation bowel movements before noon JUST BECAUSE HE CAN without needing to drink that scary tea that blasts out your insides like so much unkind dynamite?

And if you do indeed know that this is the person/culprit who made decisions like five teeny pita chips with sea salt make up a serving would you be so kind as to provide me with his email address so that I might write to him and ask him what kind of jackass research methods he used?

Much obliged,
Henrietta Hungry

Sunday Prayer

More and more I am convinced that the absolute only thing that matters are our stories.

Who we are.  What we've endured.  Where we've been.  How we've been able to still stay standing in the face of all those otherthings that tried to tip us over.

I cannot remember one day when I did not wonder about another person's story and I cannot remember one hour when I did not long to tell mine.

There are so many things about my story that I love would tell you.  If I had the nerve and strength and oooomph to tell you---like all those other storytellers---who speak of their awful upbringings and their incomprehensible stutters and their other worldly abuse and their overwhelming isolation and their lingering, deep doubt and their astounding triumph and their feeling that they just can't do it---I would love to share my story with you.

I have felt, on several occasions, that I just can't do it.  And on each and every one of those occasions, I have been led to or found or discovered or been shown SOMEONE ELSE'S WORDS and those words were the thing that buoyed me and made me feel like I was going to make it.  Like I was going to be okay. 

And each and every time it was the words that made the story and the story was the thing that saved me. 

I have so many stories I want to tell.

I want to tell these stories because they comprise the journey that shaped me and in telling these stories I know they will save someone else.  I just know it.

How many stories do you have that you KNOW, if you told them, someone else's load would be lightened because someone else, upon hearing your story, would not feel alone. There are so many tales we could tell to each other and if we told these tales to each other we could give each other hope.

It might be about the path you chose to take even though someone told you not to take it.

It might be about the argument you allowed while still keeping your dignity intact and your heart open.

It might be about how you decided to go away for an hour and write about your rage instead of expressing it, in real time to real people.

It might be about how, instead of listening to all the awful voices, this one shiny afternoon, you listened to the voice that told you you were perfect.

It might be about how you blossomed into a beautiful person regardless of all the uncaring you suffered.

It might be about how you made it to here and every moment you feel like you deserve a medal.

It might be about that you feel paralyzed when you think of all the stories you have to tell.

It might be about how you feel that no one will relate to your story because you are the only person who has lived it.

It might be about how you feel that you do not even have a story.

What I'm saying is---so many people are LONGING to hear your exact version of your exact story and so many people are waiting to recognize themselves in the story that may be worse than theirs or better than theirs or exactly the same---and so my prayer for this Sunday would be that all of us would reveal our stories in whatever way felt most comfortable for us and in that way the blanket that covers us would, of course, keep us warm forever.

Yours In Big Stupid Blubber Brain,
Stacy of the Sincere

Saturday SlobberLove

Sometimes on Saturday, when there is an Unexpected Organization Outburst happening that detracts from any and all Sharky hurling or Fake-Out-Run-Around-the-Couch game playing, we surrender to the chaos and we listen to the quiet unselfish place inside of us and we sense where we are needed most and we bring our calming energy to the lunatics we live with who are preoccupied with shoe storage and we simply give our all to The Team and wait for the hullabaloo to be over.

Things I Don't Understand, Items 330 thru 331

330. Marzipan
331. How sporty postal workers make their uniforms look as if they'd chosen to pair those shorts, that shirt and that hat of their own volition
332. Books that have titles like "The Friday Night Sassafras Cantaloupe Purple Honker Club"

Cooper Being Eva Longoria in Desperate Housewives

"I may not be the smartest negligee on the rack but my hiney is worth 98 billion," he says, referring to the amount his rump is insured for.

Monday Judgements and Warnings

WARNING:  THIS POST IS AN INTERACTIVE, FOLLOW DIRECTIONS POST.  IF YOU DO NOT DO WHAT THE POST TELLS YOU TO DO YOU WILL GO STRAIGHT TO HELL. THIS IS NOT SOME LAME CHAIN EMAIL THAT MAKES THREATS IT DOESN'T KEEP.  YOU SHOULD ONLY READ ON IF YOU ARE PREPARED TO INTERACT.

OKAY...as you read what I've written here, you have to do that thing people do when they're making the beat box rapper sound with their hand over their mouth and it kind of sounds like a motorboat but with a slobbery bass rhythm.

So make that sound with your hand over your mouth and get a good beat going as if you're a bad ass Ice-T or Vanilla Ice (prior to his decent into horror) and do not concern yourself if this happens to upset your dogs.  They may look at you like you's a mad woman.  Pay them no never mind. Get your attitude on!  You're a rapper!  SCREW THEM!

Then, as you read on further in this yarn I am weaving, get up out of your chair.  YOU HEARD ME: GET UP OUTCHER CHAIR and stomp your feet as you honk out your faux rapster beat and then picture ME with my Bob Greene's The Best Life Diet book as I strut on into my kitchen and whip up one of his recipes.

ARE YOU RAPPING?!  ARE YOU STOMPING?  Because I'm about tuh cook up a BEST LIFE meal sistuhs.

Okay so then, start to do that thing where you kind of jut your chest out while at the same time you kick one of your legs back behind you like Janet Jackson in the Rhythm Nation video and then (this is very important) bend your knees REALLY DEEP and circle your head in an almost violent way (again: do not give credence to any pets that may be near you; they just do not understand the energy you are harnessing and how important it is) and so you're bending, you're bending and you're whipping your head, you're whipping your head and jutting your chest and kicking your foot then the other foot and just as you start to pump your fist picture me opening my kitchen cupboard (as I do a little Rita Moreno jiggle jiggle sweatpants jiggle as if I am Michael Jackson when he did that magical Grammy performance except I do not have glittery socks on as a matter of fact I am 100% drab in my attire but this does not matter---I am living my best life) and then as all of this is happening I grab a Bob Greene Live Your Best Life ingredient and I sashay into the middle of my dining room with my head thrown back ala Juliet Prowse (YOU, at this point, have started kicking and thrusting and doing the bump in a kind of magnificent crescendo) and I sashay, sashay, sashay and I STOP and jiggle my torso in an Earth, Wind and Fire way and I pronounce:

GIT GIT GIT GIT ON OUT DA WAY
WHEN I'M PROCESSIN' MY WASSA CRACKERS
 IN MY FOOD PROCESSOR HEY
CUZ WHEN I'M PROCESSIN' MY WASSA
IN MY FOOD PROCESSOR HEY
YOU KNOW IT'S GONNA BE A MUTHUH FUCKER OF A DAY
YEAH YOU KNOW IT'S GONNA BE A MUTHUH FUCKER OF A DAY

Thanks for participating,
Thelma "Thirty Two Grams of Fat" Thorazine

Sunday Prayer

I live on a lovely little one way ramp/autobahney/street near the ocean that people drive up not so much like cars but rockets.  BLAST OFF!!!! HERE I GO UP THIS ONE WAY STREET ON MY WAY TO THE OTHER STREET!!!!!! people shriek as they catapult toward the seashore.  YIPPEEE!!!!!!  I'M ALMOST THERE!!! I HOPE I DON'T KILL SOMEONE BUT ON SECOND THOUGHT WHO CARES I'M ALMOST AT THE BEACH!!!!!!!!! they holler with their towels and blankets in tow.

Occasionally, there is a wayward driver who makes the wrong turn and charges back, the other way: THE WRONG WAY without knowing.  This happened yesterday afternoon as I was standing on my porch wondering about gluten.  Suddenly I glanced to my left and I saw a very happy couple driving FULL THROTTLE AND WITH GLEE toward their certain death. 

"WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!! WE'RE ALMOST AT THE BEACH WHICH WAY'S THE BEACH???!!," I imagined them shrieking.

And just as I imagined that and was about to turn away and hope for the best something took me over and I started waving my hands in a fairly (but not panicky) urgent way to let this Happy Clueless Couple know that they were, perhaps, driving headlong into the bowels of death.  And just as I did this I saw another person, a pedestrian at the bottom of the ramp, THROW HIMSELF into the middle of the street as if to say to the Happy Clueless Couple STOP YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY! and if that was not enough there was also another person walking her dog way way way across the street who started to wave her hands in a WATCH OUT HAPPY CLUELESS COUPLE AND EVERYONE WHO IS TRYING TO WARN THEM! way and if she could I know she would have laid herself down like a barricade to protect everyone from harm.

And then, after I'd run down the street to ensure the well being of the Happy Clueless Couple in order to make sure that everyone within miles and miles was safe, I saw them make the U-turn of a lifetime and scurry on their giddy way toward the sand COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS TO ALL OF OUR HARD EARNED HONOR and as Cooper and I made our way back to our perch on our ramp where occasionally wayward people drive the wrong way I thought I hope I can see more moments like this when odd and colorful strangers band together in order to protect each other from harm so we might all be that much safer.

I Beg Your Pardon I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,
Captain Cornball

Things I Don't Understand, Items 327 thru 329

327. The loud bird shriek sound Maria Sharapova makes every single time she hits the fucking ball
328. When people describe wine as mousy, horsey or brawny while keeping a straight face
329. Ladies who wear visors the size of conference hall awnings

Cooper Being Drew Barrymore in Firestarter

"Believe me when I tell you that I was beyond surprised when the Director said 'Ok, that was great.  Now I want you to do the same scene again except this time I want you to shoot flames out of your nostrils,'" he says, before applying another layer of lip gloss.