NaBloPoMo #26: Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

There. Writing that took most of the energy I had left. I'm grateful for the day though. It was an unusual Thanksgiving here, partly because I didn't invite a houseful of people. In fact, for the first time in so many years I can't count, we only needed my dining room table, because it was just the kids and me. Six people. We had a wonderful dinner with lots of laughter, and the only spill was a glass of water and the blood from the 2 fingers I tried to chop off.

In fact, at one point Coraline led the entire table in a rousing rendition of "Rolling Down to Old Maui" (listen below), and I started to say to Montana that I wished I had a video of that to post in opposition to all the memes on Facebook about how awful Thanksgiving and families are ...  but then Elvira knocked over a glass of water and blamed it on Coraline, and I didn't get to even finish saying that until much later when it was no longer relevant.

We also ate several hours later than usual, because Montana and Drake had a wedding to go to. On Thanksgiving Day. The best holiday of the year. What? Who does that? But it was fine. We roll with shit like that here. For the first time ever I didn't have to clean my house or get up at the asscrack of dawn to put the turkey in the roaster and start the rolls. I cooked a lot of food, but I had all day .... OK, all week really. Because T-day dinner takes at least 4 days to prepare and about an hour to eat.

Monday was shopping day. I caught myself looking at the 22-pound turkeys and realized I didn't need to cook a bird the size of a 3-year-old this year. So I found one that was 13 pounds. Who knew they even grew turkeys that small? Practically an egg.

The grocery store was kind of a zoo, but I just kept smiling and eating free samples and reminding myself that the privilege of having access to all that food far outweighs the asshole who parks his cart sideways and then walks halfway down the aisle to look for Jello, or presses up against me from behind trying to get to the free samples, or says "excuse me" and tries to push my cart out of the way with his cart when I obviously can't go anywhere .... Oh, wait. That was only that one guy. Asshole.

Filling my tank for $135/gallon made it all worthwhile.

Tuesday I prepared the pumpkin. It took both the oven and my biggest pot to cook the whole thing, and it made close to 3 gallons of pumpkin puree. I could have made at least a dozen pies with all that, but it will freeze, and we'll have pumpkin pie in the summer too. And next Thanksgiving. And maybe the one after that. It might actually last that long .... and did I mention I have a few other pumpkins too. OK, I might have over-invested in pumpkins this year. I get excited about pie.

Oh, and I put the frozen solid rock of turkey ball in a salt brine in my roaster. I've never done that before, but I'm sold now. The turkey thawed in the brine on my counter, and it was the best turkey I've made .... maybe ever. Even the year I killed my own.

Wednesday and Thursday .... well, you know how it goes. Peeling, chopping, rinsing, mixing, sauteing, baking, roasting, making a dozen trips to the compost, and running and unloading the dishwasher over and over. This is the 5th Thanksgiving I've written about here. I don't know how much more I can say about the food. It's delicious. I ate way too much, and I have leftovers. The idea of them makes me sick, but I know that won't last. I'll be eating hearty again tomorrow.

How was your Thanksgiving? Any good stories come out of the day?

NaBloPoMo #25: Wordless-ish Wednesday: Turkey farts are coming

NaBloPoMo #24: Distractions

"Tomorrow's full moon is a special one, called a Mourning Moon, fyi.
'According to Pagan traditions, the Mourning Moon is meant to signify a time of evolution. As this moon rises in the sky, it is recommended that we let go of the baggage we’ve been holding on to. We must cleanse ourselves as we reflect on this year’s happenings. Specifically, we must let go of anything that’s weighing us down before the new year begins.'"  ~~ Facebook post

Dog shaming

All writers complain about how hard it is to put their butts in the chair and write. Many writers complain about all the things they do to avoid putting their butts in the chair and writing. I suspect I may be the queen of procrastination though, and my muse Dolores will testify. She's about ready to fire my ass. So this is my post of shame. It's the reticulated version of dog shaming, only I'm not going to put a sign in front of a photo of myself, because last time I looked I am not a fucking dog, although for some reason I bought a dog a year ago tomorrow, and he's just one more distraction from writing.

Here, in no particular order, are the things I do when I should be writing.

1. Watch Netflix. Currently mainlining The Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce. Because I didn't get enough of that particular brand of hell the first time around. It's a lot more interesting for women who are rich, gorgeous, thin and sophisticated than it is for real people like me. So far the only parallel is that the sex is disappointing, even if the characters don't know it. PiV only, which we all know isn't going to get the job done.
2. Read other people's books. And articles. And other people's blogs. I read a lot.
3. Yoga.
4. Drink wine and gobble self-hatred any food I've sworn not to eat: chocolate, potato chips, peanuts, chocolate, bread. 
5. Scroll through Facesuck, rarely stopping to read anything. No offense. How much shit about Donald Trump can one person read, anyway? Shut the fuck up about him already.
6. Message with friends ... on fucking Facesuck.
7. Write clever status updates on Facebook, and then check every 30 seconds for comments. If you only knew me by my Facebook, you'd think my life was perfect. It's not. Today I opened my recycle dumpster and saw smelled that someone had not only dumped a bunch of beer cans and trash, he'd also thrown up in there. Thanks a lot, asshole.
8. Sex. Think about sex.
9. Take Crow Cocker to the dog park. In my defense, I do get some exercise there too. And exercise is supposed to stimulate creativity. I'm not sure if picking up 3 dog shits with a little plastic bag over my hand every time we go helps though.
10. Clean the kitchen.
11. Play my guitar.
12. Play my piano. I should be a concert pianist by now.
13. Play with my purple microphone.
14. Karaoke.
15. Go to open mics. Just to listen and drink pear sangria. Not to play. And not to pick up married men, although if I were so inclined, that too could be a distraction.
16. Dote on my granddaughter. She's with me a lot, and honestly, it's hard to switch gears to writing about vaginas after I get her to bed at 10 or 10:30.
17. Cook.
18. Travel.
19. Nap. I dearly love a power nap in the afternoon. I rarely get 8 hours of sleep, so I can justify naps on those days when I can catch one. Hell, I can justify a nap if I slept 9 hours. I'm a fucking adult. I do what I want.
20. Parties, at my house or at other people's houses. I can't say no to a party.
21. Cruise Amazon and put things on my wish list. Sometimes I even buy some shit, and then I'm excited when I get a package in the mail, because I've usually forgotten what I ordered. Like that zucchini spiralizer I so desperately wanted. Still haven't used that.
22. Sit on the porch and rock and think about what I should be writing.
23. Go out with friends and make notes on cocktail napkins about shit I could write about. I've got a stack big enough to be a fire hazard.

I could probably make this list longer, but I've made my point. Stephen King claims he writes 8 hours a day, 7 days a week. Obviously he under-reports his hours. The man must have made a deal at the crossroads he's so prolific. I, on the other hand ..... I am not Stephen King. And so far, the devil is just as disinterested in me as I am in him.

I really love writing, so this list makes me kind of sad, because I really love doing most of the things I listed here too. What are your distractions? Do they prevent you from going after a big dream? Can I borrow a couple? I can always use one or two more.

NaBloPoMo #23: How do you draw a tube anyway? (NSFW)

I was digging through my possibilities file looking for something to write about tonight, and I ran across these videos of women drawing their perfect penises and men drawing vaginas. The first one is women drawing penises.

(Note: My kids should stop reading here. It's your own fault if you don't listen to your mother.)

Assuming you've watched the video, let me tell you a story that may or may not have happened. One night after Wednesday karaoke a friend an acquaintance walked out to the parking lot behind a sex shop with me. We noticed a neon sign that read "Peep show 25 cents," and we talked about it for a while. He wondered what went on during a peep show. I imparted what I knew of such things, which was not first-hand knowledge, and certainly could have been a lie told to me. As we walked up to my van, I jokingly said, "I'll give you a quarter for a peep show."

And just as if he were pulling a rabbit out of a hat, he did. He gave me a peep. Of course, there is, or there isn't, more to the story. And if there were, the story might or might not include a police car cruising by, which I found amusing, and then ..... well, none of that is really important to what I want to say about the video.

Later, I told the story to a couple of a few women friends (before you accuse me of kissing and telling, I must say that we did not kiss. Also, I'm single. I do what I want. But back to the penis ....), and every one of them said, "Was it a good one?" Meaning, of course, his penis. And I replied, "Yes, it was a pretty penis." The parking lot behind the sex shop is well lit, so I can say that with some authority. Then again, as my maternal grandmother used to say, "They all look alike." And before you go slut-shaming my grandma, you should know that she was a nurse, and that's why she saw a lot of penises and could make the judgement that they all looked alike.

Anyway, I've never had sex, or not had sex, based on what a guy's penis looked like. But that's not the first thing the women are asked for in the video. They are asked to draw the perfect size penis. They even have rulers so they can measure.

Compare that to the video of the men drawing vaginas (using the word "vagina" to mean all the lady bits).

Awww. Aren't those guys cute? I'm just going to note that it was OK to briefly show an older, and obviously experienced, woman about to draw a penis, but nobody wants to see an older guy drawing a vagina. Make of that what you will. It's not the topic.

The second video, the one of the guys drawing, made me think about my own view of my lady bits, and I have to say I never really wondered how they compared to any other woman's lady bits. It's the one part of my body I never worried about. I never once considered whether my vagina was pretty. Partly, I suppose, because it takes some effort to even look there so I don't very often, and also because women don't stand around in the bathroom sneaking glances to see if we live up to some standard. We are blessed by this one part of our anatomy that is hidden enough that we don't have to feel inferior. I have many body issues, but this was the one area I didn't have to worry about. I never once considered that a guy wouldn't want to have sex with me because of the appearance of my labia, my vulva, or my vagina. (Hair not withstanding.)

At least I didn't worry about it until the voices of the internet started telling me I really was worried about what my vagina looked like. I started seeing lots of articles about how women feel insecure about the size of their labia or the size of their vaginas (something about a hot dog and a hallway?), whether it's an innie or an outie. No, I thought, I really don't care what it looks like down there. It looks like what vaginas look like. And yet, Yes, the voices insisted. You do care. A man even made a big wall of plaster vaginas  so women everywhere would feel OK about their weird, but normal, vaginas. In other words, I didn't know my vagina might not be pretty until somebody else told me I thought it might not be pretty, and then I had to think about that shit.

And I guess a lot of women took that shit seriously, because they're letting plastic surgeons amputate parts of their lady bits (shudder). If you look at any contemporary nude photography or porn, you can see the evidence: all hair shaved, labia cut off. No wonder these poor guys didn't know what to draw.

Anyway, the drawings of the penises all look pretty much the same. Or maybe I should say the differences are not enough to make a difference. Just as my grandma said. You probably won't see anybody making a wall of plaster penises to reassure men that their penises are all unusual, yet perfectly special, snowflakes.

Which is why asking a woman to draw her perfect penis is pretty easy. And asking a man to describe his ideal vagina is ludicrous. In my experience, availability and humidity seem to be the criteria for an ideal vagina, not what it looks like.

In the end, the perfect penis looks like every other penis, and the perfect vagina can't be drawn because what it looks like doesn't really matter. Which makes the penis and the vagina pretty much the same. In other words, nobody cares what your penis looks like and nobody cares what your vagina looks like. It doesn't fucking matter, because it's the fucking that matters.

Isn't that a relief?

Found on the internet and
stolen with little effort

I was going to draw my perfect  penis and vagina, and then challenge you to do the same and send me your drawings, but let's be honest. You'd think it might be fun, but you're busy, and Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away, and anyway ..... what the hell would you draw? Would it look that different from the ones in the video? Or mine? Probably not. Not that I wouldn't be entertained if you did .... draw something and send it to me (no photos please), but I'm not going to beg.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I never did pay my quarter for the peep show in the parking lot behind the sex shop. Ooops! My bad! Better luck next time.

NaBloPoMo #22: Sunday meditation

Tis Sunday, faithful readers, and this writer is tired. I just need some oooommmm time. Don't you? A relaxing, centering meditation. A relevant meditation. A meditation for the day you're having.

Knowing most of you will see this Monday morning, I highly suggest that you place your feet flat on the floor, curl your index fingers and thumbs into the position, take a deep, cleansing breath and listen. You need this.

You may think I'm joking when I say this is my favorite medication meditation video, but I'm not. Some of us just om to a different hummer. Join me now .....




There now. Don't we all feel better. You're welcome. Namaste.