How bout them apples?

So it's 12:15 am and I am booiiiing! bbbboinnnng! Wide.frigging.awake. It's not fair. I turn 37 and magically develop insomnia? Next I'm going to be suffering from what my mother called 'Private Summers' and complaining about my gray pubic hairs. Wait, I already do that. Sheesh. So, here I am, having snuck out the bed and left a sleeping redheaded snorer to cuddle with the shithead dog who growls and snarls if you so much as roll over and grope for an extra fistful of covers, and I sit fixated zombically on the neon glow in the darkness. Hello, world.

Today Lily and I were walking out of my doctor's office, which is more of a free clinic type place, since my El Cheapo health insurance isn't accepted at many reputable places, and we passed a table of colorful, neatly arranged pamphlets. Lily stopped to check them out and I didn't realize until we were in the car and she was really quiet and I saw her lips moving in the rearview, that she was totally engrossed in a little piece of literature she'd picked up. This one featured poorly-drawn-yet-happy-go-lucky-looking cartoon images of latino gay couples, lounging on the couch, getting ready for bed, chilling at the park. The title of the pamphlet was "Living With HIV".

So this started a convo (me ever being the 'approachable, teacherly' type mom)about AIDS and what it is (the very, very diluted version) and how its important to take good care of yourself and be 'healthy', especially when you get 'older', and that I would explain more about that when she was older. She said, "Well, you must have a lot on your shoulders, then, because you're older."

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. And I don't need to, because it is my waking life. Speaking of being awake...

MMM HMM, THATS RIGHT!

This photo is not intended to titilate (though I know you're all a bunch of sex perverts, stop drooling, will you, and put your tongues back in yo moufs)...its intention instead is to illustrate, in one simple photo, all of the reasons why I generally tend not tot:

1. wear much liquid foundation makeup
2. buy new blue tee shirts (although they are my favorite)
3. wear padded bras

Because the minute I do all of these things, I spill the makeup on the new blue tee shirt because my boob is sticking out further than it should due to the wearing of the padded bra, thereby catching the makeup and becoming a permanent home for a smear of stain that will not come out, no matter how much I rub, rub, rub. Now I look like a lactating mother who didn't make it to the baby on time and is also secreting flesh-colored milk.

Happy weekend, you bastards.

To Die By Your Side...What a HEAVENLY Way to Die!!!

I can't sleep. I can't get that Smiths song out of my head, the one that, when I was 14 years old and sitting in my room on some Monday night, staring out the window, waiting for my real life to begin, would play continuously on my record player until it skip, skip, skipped and I had to explain to my friend Katie why I fucked up her cool older sister's record album, which we'd stolen anyway and I'd somehow snuck out of Katie's house without her even knowing.

Anyway. I spent a lot of time in my room then, with the blue plaid wallpaper that I'd chosen because it seemed so 'modern' at the time (think Ricky Stratton in Silver Spoons)...I, unlike my unfortunate little sister, had a lock on my door (it was there when we moved in, and my parents never thought to take it off, since I was such a good kid and never the type to lock myself in during a tantrum and threaten to jump out the window)...so it gave me lots of privacy to scribble angstily in my pile of notebooks or act out sex scenarios with my barbies waaaay past an age that was appropriate. Look, I went to an all-girls Catholic school. I didn't have a lot of opportunities for...release. If you get me.

The record player, though. Oh, I loved that record player. It was one of those suitcase-looking things that actually folded up and was portable and it looked like it was covered in a light denimn fabric. It was cool in a Holly Hobby sort of way. Katie and I listened to that record player the first time we got tipsy...it was on wine coolers that our bus driver had bought for us for some creepy reason that, at the time, didn't seem creepy at all...it just seemed cool. He offered to get us all some booze and drive us all out to a field to drink after the last day of school before our Christmas vacation. Yeeeech. Strangely enough, he didn't do anything weird, he just wanted to help some nerdy, sheltered teenage girls have a good time. I think. Or maybe he had a secret camera somewhere. Anyway. We listened to that Smiths album over and over and sighed heavily, thinking of the futureboys we would meet who would love us and declare their undying devotion by promising that if they had to die, well hell, let them be hit by a doubledecker bus while riding in the passenger seat next to us.

I'm about to turn 37 and I can still feel, think, even freaking TASTE 14...it tastes just like strawberry Bartles and Jaymes.