Things I Say to My Husband

I'm a little crazy. I know that might be hard to pick up on here on the interwebz, but it's a fact.

My husband married me knowing this. He knows that I do not possess a filter between my brain and mouth, and that I like to debate the uses of the word racket v racquet, and that I can't sleep at night knowing the toothpaste cap has not been screwed back onto the tube.

He also knows that I won't use towels that aren't white unless it's at the gym, and I can't function through life without Double Stuf Oreos.

Living with all that and then some? That is love, people.

Sometimes, I'm a little surprised he can put up with me, but then I remember all of the endearing things I say to him throughout our days together. Here are some gems:

Exhibit A (usually said while combing my hair):

"I think my hair has stopped growing. Where's a ruler?"

Exhibit B (daily question):

"Where did I put that thing I had in my purse yesterday that had the number to the place I need to go to next week about the whatever?"

Exhibit C (weekends for us):

"Let's go see a movie."

OK, what movie?

"I don't know. You pick."

But you suggested the movies.

"But I asked you first."

You didn't ask. You said let's go see a movie.

"No, I asked, let's go see a movieEEEeeE? Like as a question."

Captain America.

"Pick a different one."

Exhibit D (when he proposed):

"Remember that one time you asked me to marry you, and I said, "Are you serious?" ha ha."

Exhibit E (that time-of-the-month comment):

"Would you still find me attractive if I stopped shaving my legs? Because I'm considering this."

Exhibit F (since I started couponing):

"If I stopped working at the office, I would have all the time I need to coupon and save us more money."

But then we wouldn't have as much money in the first place.

"But I would coupon the shit out of those fruit snacks you like."

Exhibit G (...every 4 days):

"Should I take a shower? It's been 4 days."


Exhibit H (this is why we don't do chores together):

"Why didn't you put the towels away?"

I did. They're in the bathroom.

"They aren't folded though.

I did fold them!

"But they aren't folded like hotel towels."

We don't live in a hotel.

"...why not?"

These Are My Pet Cats

I can't believe that I have yet to mention my cats in any of my blogging endeavors. My husband and I spend many, many hours a week cleaning up after their incessant disasters, so they are a daily fixture in my life and inspire a lot of angst-like feelings that are best expressed in free-form prose.

Or in a lot of curse words.

I guess I'm subconsciously trying to forget about them whenever I can because they are thismuch closer to pushing me over the edge into the realm of Psycho Crazy Cat Lady (not to be confused with my Psycho Coupon Lady moniker), and I need the break from their feline festitivies.

Without further ado, these are my insanely stupid cute cats:

Luna Lovegood (She rarely sleeps, so this isn't the most accurate photograph of her daily behavior.)

Taken with my ghetto 3G iPhone.

Yes, I named her after a character in the Harry Potter series. No, I don't care what you think about that.

We knew she was the one for us because she took a big, stinky cat poop right there inside the adoption center in front of the whole world for anyone to see. She was all, "What now, bitch? You gon' scoop that shit or what?" and we still brought her home with us.

She doesn't like to be ignored, and when you get home, she will let you know just how much she missed you by jumping onto your lower leg with her claws in full force. Her tail is the most fascinating thing EVER, and she spends a lot of time chasing and grooming it...little weird. She is our "special" one.

Hermione Granger (This might have been before she jumped onto my face.)

She is pretty cute.

Yes, there is a Harry Potter theme going on here. No, I didn't consider Twilight character names at any point.

Originally, we just wanted the one kitten, but the horrors of single kitten syndrome (or whatever it's called) convinced us that bringing another one home would be a good idea for their health and happiness and for most of our furniture. (We were wrong about the furniture bit.)

Hermione is definitely the sweeter of the two. She rubs her head against your legs, and she meows ever so softly for food, like "Oh, hi, would you mind sparing me a few kibbles?" But she is the mastermind behind all of their death-defying antics.

In order to deter our cats from clawing their way up the curtains or from disassembling the couch with their expert digging abilities, we squirt them with water. If you think that is animal cruelty, you must have had a pet rock and know nothing about animals, especially cats. They are conniving and vindictive creatures. When they want revenge, they get it, so I don't think a squirt of water to the face is that bad.

When faced with the squirt bottle, Hermione will immediately stop what she is doing and scurry away when she sees you grab it. She knows you mean business, and while she likes water, she doesn't like her precious, kitten fur to get wet.

Luna, on the other hand, will try her best to swat the squirt bottle out of your hand, and when you do squeeze the trigger, GAME ON. You best be prepared for a fight to the death where you will end up in human flesh ribbons on the floor.

For the most part, they are cute and cuddly (from a distance). Whenever they fall asleep, I will lightly pet the tops of their sleepy heads so that it feels like I have sweet kittens and not furry monster felines. It's a coping mechanism.

They still haven't figured out how high they can jump exactly, so I will often see them jump onto the top of a chair or the countertop, lose their bearings, and slide off in a fury of claws. It's pretty hilarious...until I see that they also ripped off the top of the upholstery to our couch.

Sigh.

An Open Letter to My Dad

Dear Dad,

I was clipping coupons the other morning, and I came across a $1.00-off 5 boxes of Hamburger Helper. This is a really good deal because they've been marked down to just ninety cents a box, and there is also a store coupon that we can use to double stack on the deal. I'm pretty sure the store coupon is for a $1.50-off/5 boxes which would make it just forty cents a box, and if we don't get a leg up on this deal now, we'll be left with all the gross flavors at the store.

Like Beef Stoganoff.

But OK, let me be more specific, the Hamburger Helper coupon reminded me of all the nights you used to cook dinner for just me and you. Your son was already grown up and out of the house, and Mom didn't eat American food, so at least six nights out of the seven, it was just us at the dinner table.

Remember when we used to have to fend for ourselves like that back then? Or, rather, when you had to fend for the both of us because I wasn't tall enough to reach the microwave until I was 14. Those were the days. Now that I'm trying to do the whole dinner thing in my own kitchen (where I can reach all the appliances...) I keep thinking about the dinner culture at our house.

I always appreciated the fact that dinner wasn't at a set time. Like, ever. We ate when we were hungry, and if that was around dinner time, then so be it. I also liked the fact that dinner was up to us based on our mood. Spaghetti? No? OK, how about sandwiches? Cool.

(But damn, Dad, did you really need to add green peas to EVERYTHING? I haven't eaten those since I moved out. Seriously.)

When I would go over to one of my friend's houses, I would always be thrown off by their so-called "dinner times."

You mean, dinner is at a specified time every night?

Yeah. My mom never misses a meal.

And that is when you must eat dinner?

Yeah. It's dinner time.

But what if you're not hungry?

But it's time for dinner.

What if you don't want tuna casserole?

But that's what's for dinner.

Why don't I have a choice? What are you, the Crazy Dinner Gestapo?!

I don't think you can come over anymore.

Not only did it feel like I was intruding on some awkward scheduled family time, but these people never seemed to have cookies in the pantry. Freaks.

I know family magazines and child rearing books and parenty-type people go on and on about the benefits of family dinners made from wholesome, natural foods and using that time to bond and decompress and yadda yadda, but that's just not how we roll in our clan.

Word up to my sistahs and bruthas.

Except I only have one brother, and he is as white as a box of baking soda.

But anyway, I get it now. I don't know how you managed to come home after 12+ hours at work and cook us Hamburger Helper on the stove without burning it to pieces. How did you even remember to defrost the hamburger that morning? I always forget to do that shit, and I have to defrost it in the microwave like a rookie every time.

I also really appreciated the fact that you didn't care if I didn't eat dinner because I was a colicky kid, and sometimes, I didn't feel like eating dinner. Now, here I am, night after night, forcing myself to eat dinner at my own house when I'm not feeling it and wondering what is my problem? Why I can't I be chill like my dad and NOT force feed this meal into my stomach?

It's funny, you know, when I first got to college, I was so pumped to be out of the house. I was like "WOO! IMMA MAKE MAH OWN RULEZ!" but then that feeling disappeared when I went to the main campus cafeteria at 8:30pm to find out it was closed because I'm only allowed to eat dinner from 5 to 7pm here in this Dinner Gestapo from HELL.

Then I went back to my stupid little dorm and my drug-addicted roommate (Remember her? I lived with her for about 2 months. That was interesting.) would be making pot brownies in our microwave, and I was starving because my dad wasn't around to heat up some Hamburger Helper with me.

I never told you that I missed those days because I wanted to (and still want to) seem cool and independent, and while I am cool and independent, I still miss eating dinner with you whenever we felt like eating dinner.

Good times, homie.

Sincerely,
Your Daughter

Last Night, I had a Dream about Halle Berry

If you think this is about some kind of bizarre lesbian fantasy, how dare you! My blog has class, you fiend!

Maybe the sudden death of Amy Winehouse, the totally expected surprising engagement breakup between Kat Von D and Jesse James, the yawn-worthy wedding of Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo, and Lindsay Lohan’s renewed friendship with Paris Hilton has left my mind spinning into such a tornado of celebrity gossip that I can’t tell what’s real and what’s fake anymore.

Because obviously everything I read on Perez Hilton and X17Online is real.

I had a truly horrific dream though. Here's the summary: Halle Berry was driving in Los Angeles with her little daughter, Nahla, in the front passenger seat and she got T-boned by a semi-truck, and they died.

$#@*&%;!!!

What in the…? Who dreams that?

I feel like such a bad person for having this dream that I'm almost ashamed to write about it, but then I remember I don't have a Catholic shame complex, and I'm over it.

Even so, I was panic-stricken and completely distraught in my dream (evidence that I'm a good person). I was so upset that the photographers were taking detailed pictures of the accident that I was ready to bust all of their cameras with the dream sledge hammer in my dream backpack. There was a huge crowd, and we were all crying, and some people even bought flowers to display at the crash site in their memory.

It was horrible, and I woke up very startled and immediately ran an inventory in my head of all the over-the-counter medicine that I've taken in the last 24 hours to decide if this was a drug-induced dream. 

Negative.

I searched the headlines on my iPhone to make sure it really was a dream, and even now, I’m a little shaken up about it because I don't know what this means. Usually, I can figure out why I'm dreaming of particular things.

Flying dreams? I need to pee.

Dreams about food? I'm on a diet.

Crazy rapist dreams? I watched True Blood.

I’m not even that much of a Halle Berry fan, so I don't know where this is coming from at all. She would not have been my first pick for Storm in the X-Men trilogy, you know? But that doesn’t mean she deserves a dream death!

What is going on here? Is my mind that saturated with celebrity gossip that I'm starting make shit up in my sleep?


....


Perhaps I'm becoming a clairvoyant, and I need to warn Halle Berry about driving! Maybe suggest a driving accident prevention course or something. I need to research baby car seats and tell her what I think is best for baby Nahla, you know, depending on their type of vehicle. 

Obviously I have to get in touch with Halle Berry and save her from this perilous fate! God, why didn't I see this from the beginning? I have been wasting so much time! 

HALLE BERRY, LET ME HELP YOU!


(Is this how stalking begins?)

I Wrote a Paper About Twilight Once...

While most of my peers wrote about Harper Lee or Sylvia Plath and their various works, I decided to write about sparkly vampires. It was a legimiate college research paper with citations and shit for English 493: American Women Writers. Fifteen pages, people.

Yeah.

I bashed Stephenie Meyer for ruining the American vampire archetype that so many better writers worked hard to create before her. I don't even know what that means anymore, but it was a good paper that saved my grade from all the damage I did for skipping class every week. (Sorry, Dr. Roberts. It wasn't you - it was me my alarm clock.)

But I love the Twilight series. Like, no-joke-don't-hate-you-best-step-off-right-now variety of love.

I started reading Twilight in 2008 when my husband was just my new boyfriend. I'm not sure how or why I picked the book up, but I did not put it down until Edward and Bella went to the prom because, you know, that's the end of the first book.

It was like I got slapped in the face because there I was, an English literature major, having just read a glorified romance novel about virginal vampires complete with cheesy dialogue, and totally loving it. If my professors and peers could have seen me then, I'm pretty sure they would have disenrolled me from the English program right away.

Vampires? Werewolves? Long, drawn out descriptions about clothes and hair? I'm in!

As soon as I finished the first book, I actually insisted that my then-boyfriend-now-husband take me to the nearest Barnes & Noble (in Billings, Montana...let me tell you what, that was quite a scavenger hunt) so that I could buy New Moon and Eclipse because I needed to read them, like, yesterday.

I'm not sure what he was thinking, but I must have looked crazed and dangerous enough to convince him to take me to the bookstore right then and there. It's the same look I have when I am bringing Double Stuf Oreos home from the grocery store.

It means I'm fucking serious.

OK, yeah, the books are little on the fluffy side, and there are some smutty moments here and there, but what's the crime in that? I know that I hated on Stephenie Meyer for being the Worst Writer Ever in a 15-page-long research paper, but I'm really not one to judge considering how frequently I throw unnecessary adjectives and adverbs around this place.

I honestly wrote a paper about Twilight because it gave me an excuse to re-read the series, and I didn't read any of the books on the reading list for that course. Woops.

Team Jacob.