Islay Girl

Thank you everyone!

I was just obsessively monitoring glancing at my stats and i am FOUR comments away from 500. I can't believe that. Shocking, shocking, i tell you. This has been a really rough past 12 months, there's been a lot of bad, and even more good, and I still find it amazing that people I have never met in real life have reached out to offer so much kindness. So thanks.

So, in honor of the event (non-event. whatevs.), i am going to mention some of my favorite visitors. And I'd like to thank my lurkers, too. I know you're out there (see: obsessive monitoring).

Belgian waffle. Who else but an Irishwoman in Belgium can make domestic bliss and a high-powered job sound so good?

Tiger Lamb Girl. Not stinting with the shoulder to cry on, and such an interesting life, and hey, an Aga!

Blackbird. She always, always, sounds calm and centered, even when i know she can't possibly be.

Pioneer Woman. Ree takes close-ups. And has four punks. And has a killer sticky bun recipe.

Simply Not Simple. Jenn has so much going on, I can't keep up. And I completely admire how she puts herself out there.

There's someone else, formerly known as Suburban Mum, but she's a little camera-shy, so i'm not going to link to her. But I didn't want her to think I had forgotten her.

And while this is completely unrelated to mommyblogs and their ilk, I love Hello Kitty Hell. Just because.

Modern Transportation.

I've written about the car before. But it's not worth linking to. I drive a mom-mobile, a sin wagon (not really), a Subaru Outback. Prior to the Outback I had driven VWs. I came from a VW family, married a VW driver, bought and leased VWs myself.

Then, in a fit of Divorce Insanity, i decided that the Subaru Outback was going to be my marriage getaway car. It holds everything, including 4 (at the time) dogs, a baby and whatever else comes along with those items.

So, I trade in my pretty, pretty Passat and go into debt to buy a nicely equipped (as they say) Subaru wagon. I don't like the shape of it from the outside, but whatever, it's very nice on the inside, it does everything i need it to do, and it is imminently reliable, bless its little steel and oil heart.

My only real complaint is that it's not as peppy as my VW. Yes, if it's in 'sport' mode i get a little better acceleration, but still, it feels like i'm a cruise ship.

But the other day I discovered why I have felt this way. The accelerator in the Subaru? Much different than in the Passat. Now, any normal person would have discovered, or assumed this, but me, no. They all look alike to me. In the Passat, i only had to put my foot on the very lower edge of the accelerator to leap forward with the strength of a team of extremely angry German shot putters. That is how i had been treating the Subaru. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The other day, my foot slipped a little, and I hit the accelerator in the middle of the pedal, where I suppose any right-thinking person would put their foot. And whadaya know, suddenly my car could play merge with the best of them.

Did I mention I wanted to get an engineering degree? Yeah, it's probably best I stuck to English.

Technicolor.

A little over a year ago, i was in the midst of the divorce, still living in the same house as my estranged spouse, and not a little bit terrified.

This is how i felt.

The oddest thing about all this is that the last paragraph of that post? That's exactly what happened. in De-Lux, Technicolor, Lucasfilm SurroundSound. Amazing.

God, this town is small, part III

I went to an luncheon-work-thing today (got to hear Dave Barry speak. HYSTERICAL).

So, one of the major sponsors of the event was the law firm that The Pompous works at. (At which The Pompous works. Whatever.)

Of the fifty lawyers at the firm, there's no way he would be one of the 10 at their table, would he?

You know the answer.

It's not even that we ended badly or even had anything to end, it's just that feeling that this is a very, very shallow pond.

We're all about education.

The Wee One started pre-k today. She was not displeased.

She refused to take her uniform off after she came home. I don't expect that to last.

Here we go again.

Well. The Marine is being doggedly persistant.

I'm sure I'm making this more difficult than i need to.

The Marine and I get along fine. We e-mail all day, we text all night. We rarely see eachother. The more we chat, the more I like him, and the more I feel like he ~gets~ me, and that I should just see what happens.

And I know, too, that I'm very skittish right now, and that my heart isn't quite ready to jump in to anything, and that it really might be a case of 'It's not you, it's me.'

But. He was over last night and we just sat on the sofa and I was anxious and thinking don'tkissmedon'tkissmedon'tkissme. Yeah, i'm a bundle of laughs.

I finally kicked him out around midnight and he gave me a kiss goodnight that escalated, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid. It didn't escalate ~that~ much, but enough that it would have been easy to go further.

But honestly, my heart just isn't in it. With the LL, I just went with the pheremones and, in a telling moment, I told him once that I liked sleeping with him because when we were having sex i didn't have to think. Total escapism.

But the Marine is too nice for that. At least, that's what I'm thinking is going on in my murky subconscious.

Another thing is that with the LL, i also abdicated all responsibility. I just did what he wanted me to do (well for the most part) and took a vacation from real life. And had lots and lots of sex. (Sorry, gentle reader. Don't mean to be overly blunt.) A lot of that was possible because he's such an Alpha Male type, and while I usually don't put up with that for more than 3 seconds, i had just spent two years being the one who had to have all the answers, so it was a relief to have someone else decide where we had lunch. (And you'll note that as soon as I started having an opinion, trouble started.)

With the Marine, I think I'd like him a lot more if he would DO something. You'll remember we e-mailed for months before he even asked me out. But I don't think it's a lack of interest on his part, I think he just doesn't want to push it because I'm so (obviously) skittish.

Let's face it, i'm just not ready for anything serious. Or even ongoing.

BTDT

I've been edging toward this for awhile, but I'm done actively seeking dating. Or whatever. You know, that whole thing where you won't find what you're looking for, it has to find you, etc. etc. I knew i would ~get~ to this point, of being fed up with looking, of knowing that i just need to live my life and focus on the blessings i already have instead of whinging on about what i don't.

Ay! Mami!

The sisters and i have been obsessed, individually, with our bikini lines lately. During the affair with the LL, I went bare There, just for novelty. And then after the LL? The novelty wore off and there was Lots of Itching.

So I let Telly Savalas go back from whence he came and returned to my natural state, which would have me looking something like an Earth Mother circa 1963.

My youngest sister (who needs a handle. what shall we call her?). Ah, Cher. Cher, my youngest sister, and i have a running (feeble) joke about Billy Bush and his need for a trim. She doesn't go in for the whole waxing thing, but instead prefers an occasional touch-up. (I think. And Cher, feel free to correct me here.)

SuperSpecialK, on the other hand, has travelled these roads of hair removal with me, and we have each suffered through our own periods of Neglect, Mistakes, Stubble, Bumps and the dreaded Ingrown Forest.

Last week she called me, still breathless (possibly from the pain?), and announced that she had gotten a Brazilian. "Islaygirl," she said, "I was sitting Indian style with my LEGS OVER MY HEAD." Sigh. The indignity. I believe, however, that she (and her boyfriend) approved of the results.

Because I am not, as we euphemistically say, in a relationship, it seems like a perfect time for me to deal with this issue. I debated waxing again. I debated the need for daily shaving (I highly recommend the Seiko Cleancut personal shaver. Amazing). And then i said: IT IS TIME.

I live in an arid climate, where 9 months out of the year you can be in a bathing suit. I would bet that our fair city tops any other in the U.S. for ownership of camisoles. Basically, it's reasonable to be half-naked. You can wear strappy sandals to work with a tank top and a gauzy skirt and still be taken seriously. Short shorts don't seem indecent because you're just trying to stay cool, for goodness' sake. Every Sunday i'm amazed at how willing people are to appear in the pews in pretty darn close to what God gave them. It's just that hot here.

So what i'm getting at is that there's a lot of skin on display. And that requires a lot of maintenance. I had my underarms lasered a while ago, and i was so pleased with the results that i decided to brave the bikini.

Which leads me to today, where at 11.30 this morning you could have found me naked from the waist down with my legs spread while a very nice woman aimed a laser light at my bits.

You can't make this stuff up.

Oh, and when you're finished laughing at me, go laugh even harder at this.

Give 'em all a little pat o' butter.

Dooce posted a link to this today, and it's perfect timing.

I'll give you a moment to go and look at it.

***

Back? OK. (And as an aside, how much do we still love McSweeney's?)

The timing is perfect because i had a dream last night that i refilled the butter dish. Yes. This is how I spend my evenings.

i should be working right now.

I have a million things to do for work. I've been taking too much time for meetings and appointments and my actual job has been getting less attention than it deserves. Especially since we just fired one of my two writers. Pardon me while I go rewrite four stories and write three from scratch.