Category Archives: This Book Will Change Your Life

Today’s challenge was to barter for something.  I had prepared another response to this barter challenge, but was negligent in getting it written up…  and then yesterday something happened that was really quite possibly the biggest offer of a barter to the Universe I may have ever offered.

So here goes….

Dear Universe,

Today I offer you one used IUD.  In addition to my used IUD I will provide daily temp readings and diligently record my fertile periods in the hopes of carefully tracking my luteal phase.  In return I ask one very small thing.  Please do not let me get pregnant any time in the next 8 months.  May 1, 2011 sounds good to me.  A perfect day to get knocked up.  I haven’t really asked a lot of you, Universe.  For the most part I try to take responsibility for myself.  But for this one small thing…. I know I need you behind me, if you’re out there.   Please, forgive me, Uterus, whom I have scraped with creepy copper arms for the last four and a half years.  I am giving you almost eight months to get back in fighting shape.  I promise I will feed you good food, and probiotics and folic acid and everything you could possibly ask for … if you’ll give me just one more chance.  To grow just one more…. but not yet.  Please.. ..

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Benjamin: Yes, sir.

Mr. McGuire : Are you listening?

Benjamin : Yes, I am.

Mr. McGuire : Plastics.

Benjamin : Just how do you mean that, sir?

Good question.  Today’s challenge was to make a no-obligation appointment with a plastic surgeon and find out what they think you could stand to improve.  This is a recipe for disaster even for a person with HUGE self-esteem to spare.  For me?  I might as well go lay down in traffic.

I could write for ages about how my pregnancy and Em’s birth changed how I felt about my body.  But so many women already have…. If you’ve never read The Shape of  a Mother, I think it should be required reading.  A peace can be found in discovering that you’re not the only one. And after that peace, if you’re lucky, comes a sense of pride.

Sometimes I think about the difference between plastic surgery and tattoos…  I am content to adorn my body with images, an artist’s work… and I guess those women and their plumped up lips might think they are sporting another’s artistry.  But I can’t wrap my mind around it.  It’s not for me.   So for now… I’ll not be taking Mr Mcguire’s advice.  Check back with me in a decade.

Today’s challenge was to exhibit a sense of patriotism.  While I am “Proud to Be an American” I must admit I didn’t realize I was born south of the Mason-Dixon line until I was almost twelve year’s old.  Growing up in Northern Virginia renders you somewhat cut off from the rest of the United States, oddly.  So close to our nation’s capital I was raised on national politics and the “big picture” and somehow missed the boat altogether on small town americana, apple pie and lemonade stands.

Whenever I think of “Patriotism” I am reminded of elementary school and how disturbing I found the Pledge of Allegiance to be.  The inclusion of the phrase “under God” in the definition of being an American has bothered me since I was old enough to know what it meant.  If I am not “under” any “God” am I still American?  Too big a question for me to contemplate in this time where Americans are being disallowed their religious freedoms left and right…

So, I’ll leave you with this… long before 9/11 I knew I was an American.  A little girl sang “This is My Country” on television  on January 28, 1986.  It made me cry.  We were watching the news in school.  I was ten years old.  Something about that simple little song and the way that little girl sang it as though it was the only thing in the world she knew to be true… it really moved me.  So when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded a couple of minutes later… I was already crying.

Meh.  This is another page in the book with the goal of driving traffic to the website, i am afraid.  And yet, it is an amusing challenge.

It kind of reminds me of  a significantly less awesome version of Shelley Jackson’s Ineradicable Stain.  Shelley Jackson, a Brooklyn based writer, wrote a short story, “Skin.”  It is 2095 words long and then she placed an open call for applicants.  One word at a time her story will be tattooed on 2095 people in her chosen font.  And only the 2095 partcipants will ever get to read her full short story.  Very clever.

This, the longest iambic pentameter poem ever.  Eh.

“Mercy, cried the popinjay to the pope”

Your clatter’s near as false as mine, you see.

To everyone he meets he stays a stranger….

Today’s challenge was to release your inner secret agent.  I was not terribly successful releasing my inner secret agent.  In large part because I work in the boondocks.  I went outside a few times today, triggering a longing for a time when I smoked at work and I could go sit outside on my ass a few times a day, but the only people I saw the great majority of the day were my neighbor’s kids.  I waved and tried to appear secretive… but it seemed to garner very little attention.

Later when the kids were riding their bikes I turned my blind’s up and back a few times.  Just to see if  they’d ride over and see what I was up to.  Nothing.

This left my last option at secret agent activity.  There’s a weird dude that is walking up and down on the street where I work nearly every day.  I see him either on my way to or from work five days a week.  I didn’t see him in the morning of this challenge so I was willing to bank on seeing him in the evening.  Sure enough as I turned left away from work I spotted him. Always in a white tshirt, crisp blue jeans and a white do-rag.  And face covered in sweat.  He’s one of those guys that seems to just sweat all over his face and it doesn’t seem to pour down his neck, it just hangs on his face, as if his sweat os more gelatinous than most sweat.  I hope he keeps walking in to the fall so I can see what he looks like sans sweat.  I can’t really imagine it as of yet.

So today, as I drove by him, instead of my half hearted wave I pointed at him and then made the international sign language symbol for “telephone” with my hands and nodded my head knowingly.  We’ll see if he can figure out just how to “call me.”  And if he ever does… you can be sure I’ll tell him that the “eagle flies at midnight.”

This wasn’t a challenge I was particularly jazzed about.  I’m not big on killing things and today’s goal of killing something left me a little disinterested.   SO much so that I considered using today as an excuse to write about my kefir slugging habits and the resulting death of the funk that grows in my intestines.  But ultimately I decided that didn’t even interest ME enough to write about it.   SO I decided against it.

And they really do drive me beyond nuts.  I don’t know what it is about them… their sense of entitlement?  The buzzing noise… I dunno.  But they make me nuts.  We get awful flies in our house when we leave the back door open for a moment.  I am guilty of this on occasion and the shortest member of our household does it on the  regular so I thought I’d get the chance to kill a fly today.  And then regale you with the tale of my Fly Homicide.  No luck.  And not because I didn’t end up with a few of those bastards in my house.  I just couldn’t catch them.

My luck turned around Sunday afternoon when Emily was catching bugs in her bug catcher.  She had what I believe was an aphid in her bug catcher when I smooshed it down to put it back in it’s carrying case.   I thought the bug catcher was empty at the time.  Much to my secret delight she cried “Moooom, you killed it!”  I unzipped her bug catcher and removed an itty bitty little aphid.  Unmoving.  I apologized both to the bug and to Emily.  And considered this challenge completed.

About twenty minutes later the aphid I believed to be deceased righted itself and stroller across the table.   SO… I failed.  I failed at killing bugs.  But I succeeded in managing my intestinal flora, killing the bad oook and replenishing it with a perfect balance of bacteria.  And I’m more than unhappy to chat you up on this subject.  All you gotta do is ask….

Eat nothing but asparagus all day to ascertain just how noxious your pee can get.

I don’t need a lot of encouragement to perform this challenge.  I love asparagus, and I always pay an undue amount of attention to my bodies output.  Must be something about motherhood, but shortly after Emily’s birth I became unnecessarily interested in my own output.  Maybe I was just spending so much time charting/counting/examining her wet and dirty diapers that I finally figured what the hell?  Why should she have all the fun? Sadly, I have not had a lot of success cleansing my colon but it hasn’t discouraged me from trying through the years.  I’ve yet to bite the bullet and sign up for a series of colonics, all in due time, I suppose, baby steps towards a clean and happy intestinal system.  Ahh, I’ve distracted myself from my point… todays’ challenge.

I love asparagus.  And I smell my pee every day!  So today was win-win.  Before I can accurately report today’s findings I must first establish my control pee.  (Not to be confused with getting control of my pee. )  I like to use my pee’s smell and color as an indication of my vitamin, coffee and water intake daily.  So many varieties the morning pee can have.  The heavily concentrated, post workout, bright yellow, dehydrated pee, the “I took all my vitamins and here is my toilet full of “very expensive pee” pee” ( a term courtesy of my friend Jenny who thinks that my vitamin obsession is absurd.)  And of course, my very favorite, the pee that makes the bathroom smell like a Starbucks.  When you know it’s time to switch to water, because your pee smells like freshly brewed coffee.

So… this morning’s pee.  A pale, vitamin laden pee.  Bright yellow, but plenty of water.  Pretty average.  So, I’m thinking my results will be apparent.  I’m laying off excessive coffee or water, today, so as to not dilute the effects of my asparagus experiment.

On the menu?  Last night I stopped at the grocery store to plan today’s menu.  Grabbed two bundles of asparagus and two cans of asparagus tips. I was feeling pretty clever when it dawned on me to make an asparagus SMOOTHIE!  On the phone with Em’s dad I was telling him my plans to make a smoothie out of asparagus tips and kefir (another hobby of mine that is aimed primarily at creating optimal intestinal output.)  When I described my plan of blending up asparagus and kefir and maybe something for flavor he started to laugh… “Yeah, Kel, we call that soup.”  YES!  Soup!!  How had that idea escaped me?  I wasn’t really stoked about eating boatloads of roasted asparagus all day, but Asparagus Soup?

About an hour later I had this on the stove…

Pretty easy, and I will definitely do it again.  Threw two cans of asparagus tips in the blender with the juice from the can.  Added a chicken bouillon cube and a spoonful of sour cream, some Parmesan cheese – Voila!  While the soup was on I got to chopping and threw a bundle of asparagus in under the broiler with some olive oil and garlic.

All set!

10:15 am

As of this writing I have eaten an entire bundle of roasted asparagus.  In the spirit of keeping things honest I do plan to have a 1/2 portion of kefir smoothie this afternoon, as well.  It’s a necessity and another blog post entirely.  So far, first pee after the initial pound of asparagus… mild.  Smelling more like a rain after the grass was cut than asparagus…  but I’m hopeful.

12:30 pm

Working on the soup.  Mid morning pee does not smell at all of coffee, and definitely emitting an asparagus odor.  Success!  Soup is tasty, tasty.  I think I’ll make it next time with pureed cottage cheese instead of sour cream to amp up the protein.

12:52 pm

All in all, I am calling today a WIN! Pee is RANCID.  Belly is full.

Interesting factoid, just in case you are disappointed in your own lack of smelly urine after a day long asparagus eating extravaganza.  Evidently everyone can not SMELL asparagus pee.  But everyone’s pee SMELLS.  So, if you can’t smell asparagus and you feel like you’ve given it your all.. it might just be your sniffer.  For further details on this bit of fascinating scientific trivia, it was  summed up in this study.

Discreetly give people the finger all day today. Fabulous.  Who needs an excuse to do this?  Not me.

I’d every intention to take this challenge by the balls.  But this morning took an odd turn.  MQD and I had an exchange last night that could best be defined by the words “adult communication.”   I was pretty proud of the way we’d interacted so this morning when he snapped at me somewhat thoughtlessly I refrained from snapping back.  And missed a golden opportunity to flip him the bird from the other side of the wall.  Moments later I caught myself reacting to something he’d just said in much the same way he’d reacted earlier and I heard myself.  So, instead of giving myself the bird I marched right ion to the bedroom and apologized.  And asked him to examine the way he’d just spoken to me and make an effort not to repeat it.  What the fuck is going on? ANOTHER “adult communication.”  I don’t know what this is a sign of?  The Apocalypse?   Growing Up?  Damn, I am hoping it is a sign that there is much good horizontal mambo to come.  That’s all I am really prepared for. I don’t have enough food stocked up to survive the End of Days and I have no idea what it would mean to grow up, but I have the snacks and the flexibility to “listen” to the Best of Marvin Gaye two times.  In a row.

So… the finger.  Everyone at work got the bird.  The aforementioned nameless fellow at the Stop N Go.  Em’s preschool teacher.  A whole host of walkers, joggers and bike-riders. But all in all I found this challenge somewhat unsatisfying.  While it was amusing to me, I think that I might have had more fun with it if I’d thought the “joke” would be shared with someone.  If MQD and I had hit the town it would’ve been funny to do it all over the place (heh) and share a laugh.  But I don’t feel like I got the bang for my buck I was looking for out of this challenge.

Now about that other bang?  Fingers crossed.

Gay for the Day!

I failed.  And I really tried.  I didn’t see a single woman all day besides my daughter.  And I’m not even going there.  I did have a brief chat with one of my daughter’s teachers, but she doesn’t ring my bell, not that one anyway.  Heh.

So, off to the gym.  I was hopeful that I might get to have an entertaining encounter.  I even went in to the locker room, thinking that I could guarantee that I’d not be distracted by anyone of the male persuasion in there.   I hung around in there for a few minutes, just long enough to  start feeling like a creep and moved on, hopeful that my yoga class would have some enticing young ladies.

My trip to the gym actually was a double mission.  Last week I managed to surreptitiously snap a pic of  a bearded cute young man who looked an awful like the third Avett Brother.  I’d recently had a conversation with someone about how camera phones could easily be used to snap pictures of people with out them even realizing it, so I quickly took a picture of this cutie as an example.  While my efforts were appreciated I was told that the picture I got was altogether too blurry for her to confirm that he did really resemble an Avett Brother so I was on a mission to secure a less blurry photo.

Waiting in front of the room for the yoga class to begin I felt like a cast member of the Jersey Shore… I was CREEPIN’ for sure!  As a not-single gal this alone had me a little giggly.  Moments after spotting the Avett look-alike he got on his phone and I was able to snap a quick pic of him talking on the phone and incidentally looking right at me.  It was perfect.  I win!  Mission One accomplished.  Now, to set my sights on a lady.

There were a handful of cute-ish girls, but all of them  younger than the last.  And while I think a 17-year-old boy is about as cute as they come, pardon the expression, the teen gals do nothing for me.  I’m sure there is something to be uncovered by a therapy session in that,  but moving on… Well, not just yet, speaking of uncovered in a therapy session, I did notice that while actually scoping out chicks at the gym I found myself just as critical of other women as I am of myself.   I often wonder if my body image issues are motivated internally or externally, primarily.  In really looking at other women I realized a few things… I think my “ideal” is totally fucked by societal standards.  And even in a gym full of college aged women I couldn’t find a “perfect 10.”  What does this mean? I should chill the fuck out and relax a little and not be so hard on myself.  And if I was a lesbian I think I might be a real pain in the ass.

So…. in to yoga class I go.  Still failing miserably at today’s challenge.  I did try and spend less time grabbing at and eyeing MQD’s ass than I typically do in a day.  And this is saying a lot.  But still not enough to make me feel Ive succeeded.  Throw down my mat and see that Yoga Boy/Avett Bro is right next to me.  He has a placed another mat next to him, presumably for the recipient of his phone call.

And she enters the room.  Cute little blond, crosses in front of me to Yoga Boy/Avett’s Brother’s spare mat.  Awww.  His girl.  Of course.

I spent the next hour attempting to make eyes at this young lady, but it was a huge fail.  She made really screwed up yoga faces, for one, and for two…  the fact that the only time I even kinda thought there was a glimmer of somethin’ somethin’ in my innards was when I could check out her butt from a most interesting point of view (looking through her boyfriend’s legs…)

Moral of the story… I failed.  I love boys.  Boys, men and everything in between.  Today wasn’t much of an epiphany.