Just A Normal Story

“Ooh Look guys! There’s an enormous alien squid that must’ve dove head first into the ground, died upon impact and has been rotting there for days, leaving his many legs, sticking out of the ground, all dried up and shriveled.”

“Mom. That’s just a big tree with no leaves on it.”

Poor kids. Their dreams of having a normal soccer mom have long been squelched and replaced with visions of alien squids invading the yard and frequent pleas to “here, take a bite of the dog cookie and tell me what it tastes like.”

Normal moms pack their little kids lunch bags with Kraft Lunchables, a Diet Coke, and a comic book. Not with organic rice krispie treats made from dehydrated carrots, a Do-It-Yourself home condensation kit for water, and the Time Magazine issue titled: The Dangers of PVC’s in Bottled Water; The New Way Kids Are Dying. 

I think it’d be an eye-opening experience to be normal. To look at a tree, and see, just a tree. To Tivo Glee and watch it later as you eat your microwaved Ramen noodles. Invigorating. But for some reason, I wasn’t granted this opportunity. I often wonder if it’s because when my mom fell down the stairs when she was pregnant with me, she ruptured my Normality Sac. But whatever the reason, I missed that elevator, and got the next one.

When you’re normal, you think normal thoughts, do normal things. Enjoy a hot dog, go skiing, you trust doctors, eat Goldfish crackers, one day buy a Black Lab, and have 2.4 kids. I'm clearly abnormal because I just had 2 kids. Couldn't deal with the heartache of raising a forth of a child. 

When you're normal, you get a normal job, file your taxes before the 15th, you cut your grass on the weekends, and you don’t obsess over looking for bugs in your brocolli. You sip egg nog during Christmas,and you never, EVER, get out of your car to yell at police officer because they gave you a ticket. Though I do admit, that was necessary and cathartic.

When normal people, say, want a waffle, they just make a waffle, and eat it. Normal people aren’t thinking of how if they quadrupled the batter recipe, they could make one giant waffle, that E’ggo could use as an employee shoe cubby down at the waffle factory. That would be probably be considered the precursor for psychiatric evaluation or the result of a staph infection that rooted in the brain somewhere behind your eye socket. But I still think the waffle shoe cubby could make millions. And lighten up corporate America.

Normal people love to fly in airplanes, the whole time thinking of arriving at their destination refreshed and already decompressed. They laugh, and sleep, and eat bags of peanuts while casually planning their business lunches. I fly planes eating bags of Xanax while manically planning my funeral as I'm mopping up my armpit sweat. I also generally demand the window seat so I can stare at the engine looking for sparks. Excuse me, but there’s zero reason to feel normal that you’re in the air unless you’re either a canary or a virus.

On a normal weeknight, normal people watch American Idol, Lost, and laugh and share stories and opinions about the characters and plots. While I’d rather sit on my couch and write a poem about how my dad never showed me he loved me, and hid the Twinkies on me when I was 7. And for the record, if friends are what you’re looking for, discussing your emotionally damaging childhood is bad bar conversation. Usually noting that my immediate people periphery ends up 9 feet away from me, appearing that I confessed to them I was diagnosed with Small Pox. The poem however, is actually coming out good. It’s called 

“My Stinky Dad and His Stinky Fucking Twinkies.” No anger there of course, but I've digressed.

I am however, very happy to discover that there are a few miscellaneous entries to my daily life that haven’t yet deviated from the completely normal zone.

Clipping my toenails, for example, has fortunately still remained a rather normal experience. I set out to clip 10 toenails, and when I’m done, miraculously what I have is, 10 gross, clipped toenails. I’d be lying if I said at times I wasn’t tempted to make something out of them, like maybe something reminiscent of a popsicle stick house, and then give it to my dad for Fathers Day. But I usually shake it off and opt for a more straight forward thought…like the thought of accidentally clipping and severing a main artery from a hangnail, and uncontrollably bleeding out in the shower without ever having the opportunity to custom design and order my headstone in the shape of a large cement toe. But for the most part, the act of clipping toenails, pretty much mentally stays on point.

No easy task though. Instead of letting my mind run free like a death row inmate that spotted an open door, I just intently focus on my toenails, say the words “ clip toenails” over and over again, and try and think normal thoughts. But often what comes out are all the different words you can make with the letters:

 “n-o-r-m-a-l t-h-o-u-g-h-t-s.”

“Hormonal thugs”, being one of my favorites.

I’m not sure this is too normal either; Sometimes I attempt to swallow a few vitamins at the same time, and somewhere between the vitamins reaching the back of my throat, and the glass of water meeting my lips, my throat snaps closed like a submerging whales blow hole. It immediately goes into a frozen state of instant paralysis thinking of  the irony of choking to death while doing something healthy. So shut, it remains. I’ll stand there for what seems like days stranded on a desert island, with a mouth full of water and vitamins that are slowly disintegrating in the back of my throat, until I mentally trick myself into believing it’s something I'd have no problem swallowing. Like a wedge of strawberry shortcake the size of my foot. And then finally, the spastic vitamin ordeal is over and I swallow them. And miraculously survive. Normal people swallow their vitamins in one gulp and march off to work without already going through a dry run of the steps necessary to successfully employ The Heimlich Maneuver. 

Thinking normal thoughts. Gee, life would certainly be much easier. Words would remain the words they were intended to be. A donut would simply remain “a delicious donut”, and not some government funded, masterminded plan to get me fat and permanently reliant on diabetes pharmaceuticals. Don't argue with me on that one.

A kiss would remain just a kiss, instead of some twisted subplot to steal my uvula and sell it on the black market.

The funny thing is, although I rarely feel like I’m the quintessential, normal, female, I know somewhere deep inside of me, I’m as normal as it gets. Really deep inside though. Like get on your head lamp. We’re going coal mining.

So how do I really know then? Well because I love way too many normal things. Like long walks, being with meaningful people, eating fresh strawberries, a great meal, the smell of clean sheets and freshly cut grass, a warm shower, a long kiss, hearing “I missed you”. But then again, I also love the smell of fresh horse crap. And Bam, there it is. Bye-bye normal, out the window you go. Nice to have briefly met. Now go play outside with the dried out alien squids on my lawn.

;)~

Shoveling Out My Inner Snow Angel

6", 9", 12", 14", 27". 
No, this is not a story about awesome penises. 

It's about snow. 
Lots of it.
All month. 
All week. 
All night long. 
Inches and feet and yards of it.
This has been the Northeast. 
More frigid than your ex, feeding a snowcone to a polar bear.

In one week alone, we've all seen the hundreds of pictures of buried walkways, snow entombed barbecue grills, frozen faces, and mammoth white humps enveloping everything from pets to what was once your only means of transportation.

I don't know about you, but I'm happy when there's just enough snow to make a cute little snowball to stuff down someone's pants. Perfectly content. I don't really need to be able to recreate the entire city of Moscow with just the snow surrounding my mailbox, to be happy with winter's offerings. 


But then of course, we have 'those other people'. 
You know, the one's who just can't seem to get enough of it.

We all know at least a few of them. Ever notice when there's a major Nor'easter looming, ready to dump 3 feet plus of paralyzing snow, close schools and bring businesses to a standstill, there's always those giddy-ass snow people who change their Facebook statuses to :

" Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!!!!" ?

Fair to say the 'psyched it's snowing' faction of people, aren't single moms with high Italian emotions, 200 foot long driveways and a bulging set of spine discs. Nor are they in any capacity, the actual people doing the shoveling of said snow. That's pretty obvious because singing any type of happy song doesn't go together with rearing up, and tossing 46 pound loads of frozen ice over your broken back in 12º weather, 4 hours straight, 5 weeks in a row while snot is secretly running down your socks. 
Hating, and wishing the Northeast dead, to the violent sounds of death metal, is probably more accurate. 

But the reality is, the jolly, chorusing snow people have taught me something very, very valuable; 

'Learn to see the positives'.

That's a great idea.

Hundreds of cars stuck in icy sink holes, fun plans cancelled, backs severed, ankles snapped, cars sliding off the highways and careening into telephone poles, sinking into ditches, on the surface just seem so burdensome. But what they really are are simply unconventional opportunities for joyful expansion. 

Snow storm, after snow storm, after snow storm, are really just enchanting winter experiences. 
It's just a matter of shifting your perspective.
So from here on, I'd like to stay positive and share my focus on the more uplifting particulars of being inconvenienced by snowstorms, and try and bring my complaining about it to a complete halt.

Positive, okay. I know I can do this. 

Well first off, on a superficial note, compared to the snow, I now look much tanner than I had before. So that's a positive. Someone actually asked me today if I was half black. 
But now compared to the snow, my teeth that I used to think were pretty white, look like I spent the week sucking on charcoal briquettes. 
But since I'm on a quest to stay positive, I'll still celebrate the fact that I'm seemingly bronzy, when in reality, in department store lighting in early February, I'm more like the color of jarred mayonnaise.

I've also been blessed with the opportunity to manually dig 6 foot deep, 200 foot long, war trenches and erect snow forts without the threat of an actual war or having to see my friends get blown to pieces. So this is a really positive experience! The only minor inconvenience is just a few useless discs being thrown into permanent misalignment. Nothing that being hunched over for a week without a paycheck or two won't resolve. 

And considering I live in an antisocial town where shooting people and hiding has become rather high on my bucket list, I know this trench building skill will one day become an exceptionally useful skill.

Also, as a result of trying to claw my way out of the house from restlessness, I've stumbled upon a new beautiful shade of crimson. It's called dried blood. Quite lovely, and very much the same color as a ripe pomegranate, so I might end up doing the whole living room in it.

Oh and did I neglect to mention that I feel sexy and alive now that my body is permanently suited up in clothes that look like I'm going on a whale harpooning expedition? 
Well, I do.

And in spite of the fact that I've been suffering from dreaded Cabin Fever, or House Hepatitis (I don't own a cabin), and have periodic bouts of Cardiac Shovelitis, I still always make sure I have time for romance. Being incapacitated by all this snow is no excuse for not seeking out, positive, romantic experiences. Sure, no one can drive here to come see me. But you just need to be willing to make a couple of concessions. Mine have been to date fat, round, white men that have carrots for noses and random decomposing fruit for eyes. Not much better than my usual dates, fyi on that one. So I've even made room in my upright freezer for us to cuddle. 

Further proof that snow immobility and isolation has catapulted my social life in an ascending direction. 

And who would be so foolish as to not appreciate and see the positives of owning a multitude of domesticated, 'grass only', fragile dogs during an Ice Age revisit. 

Currently sequestered to living on a terrain where nothing shy of a herd of Musk Ox could survive, I now see this as a wonderful, serendipitous opportunity for my 3 dogs and I, to truly bond and get to know each other. Maybe curl up on my cozy, wool rugs, that for the past four weeks of this beautiful, magical snowfall, they've consistently relieved themselves on.

See if it weren't for the picturesque, 3 acre wonderland of white snow, caked up to my door handles, I'd never really have the opportunity to know my dogs on the clinical level that I do now, watching them pee on my slipcovers. Or know how much actual shit, a cup and a half of Chicken and Rice kibble actually yields. 
In good weather, I have no way of knowing this. Because normally, those answers are sadly lost outside in the green, sweet smelling grass. But thanks to the giddy snow Gods, I thankfully now do. Once more, the angelic heaping piles of snow have provided me this wonderful rare opportunity to seek out the positives and see nature up close and personal. 

So as well as my cleaning and screaming skills graduating to the next level, I'm also blessed to get a low cost education in Veterinary Gastroenterology. To elaborate on the aforementioned example, I now know that before you pick up dog poop from the rugs, it needs to sit, and air dry say, for approximately 4-6 hours, so that picking it up off the rugs, doesn't mean, smearing it up, off the rugs. Just passing along the many positive data of my Snowed-In-For-A-Month research, people. Wouldn't want to be the only one hoarding all the happiness. 

Meanwhile, back at the carpet lab, after the 4-6 hours, miraculously, the dog poop has aggressively evaporated to nearly half its size, and is now happily bone dry and much akin to a Pompeiinian artifact. And voila. Smear free removal at your disposal. See, unlike Bill Nye The Science Guy, who threw away all his precious years in prestigious colleges around the world, in merely 4-6 hours in my living room, I was able to garner information regarding the oxidation and natural dehydration process of fecal matter, and in succession, simultaneously discovered the fine art of subduing the gag reflex. Thank you oh glorious, low pressure front, winter wonderland, arctic tundra of a fucking backyard. 

Looking forward to 6" more of positivity tomorrow.

So, "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow".

;)

~dawn