Still not writing much, but my brain is chewing on a new FAYSHUN post. I’m going to buy a strapless bra at Target tomorrow, and then I’ll be ready to be there for sex. Not at Target. Just wherever I end up going in that outfit.
Also, I’ve got a good story about teaching that I’m itching to write, but that one will have to be password-protected.
*****
Three years ago, I didn’t write anything worth reading. :(
But some people say this post from two years ago is the funniest thing I’ve ever written, so.
A year ago, I was explaining myself. I’m kinda tired of doing that. Maybe I’ll stop and just let people think what they’re going to think. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.
Happy Retrobruxist Friday, y’all.
(How are YOU? I feel like this relationship is one-sided.)
Every time I spend more than a couple hours with my dad, he gets his ramble on, and I’m reminded that he’s one of the funniest people I know. He came for an overnight visit on Friday, just for the hell of it. In 24 hours, this all happened:
“I should’ve had this winter coat cleaned. It’s all rumpled and looks like hell. Of course, I’m all rumpled and look like hell, so it’s really me.”
*****
[when I showed him a picture I took of him and my dogs] “Yes, I like that picture very much. My arms are bigger than Bruce Willis’s. And my face is obscured which is probably a good thing.”
*****
“A lot of violence. A lot of violence.” [recapping a 90s Dolph Lundgren vehicle he recently found in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart (“$5 for 8 movies on one DVD!”)]
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“You’re talking to a man who knows. I mean, he’s talking to you. You’re brushing your teeth.”
*****
I often overhear from another room Dad having conversations with my dogs. A few months back, I caught him explaining the family tree to Violet:
Previously… (The Foster Chronicles: ‘Nita, Week 6)
Day 1
I tumble out of bed, stumble to the kitchen, but before I pour myself a cup of ambition, I must feed the dogs. One, two, three bowls. Sit, wait, two bowls down. “OK.” They eat. Head to the spare room with the third, put it down in front of ‘Nita. She waits! Good girl. “OK.” She’s halfway through it when I remember it’s spay day, and she’s not supposed to eat anything—SHIT. I pluck the bowl off the floor. She wags, whatever.
I worry though. Shit. Will they not spay her? I tell the sweet teenager who has volunteered to drop her at her appointment (I have to be at work before they open) to tell the vet techs about the food. Shit.
At 8:54am, I get a message from her: Omg they need your # ASAP
SHIT. Heart attack.
I freak out for an hour, only to find that they wanted to tell me ‘Nita would be ready earlier than they thought. THAT’S NOT OMG-WORTHY, YOUNG’N.
She’s so sweeeeet and dopeeeey when I pick her up.
The food seems to be causing no problems—whew.
At ten past ten, she yorks on the floor.
Day 2
‘Nita barfs again at 3:20am. I clean it up, then I’m awake for hours.
In the evening, we go to our first class together. As soon as we hit the parking lot and she sees other dogs, she just can’t deal.
Day 3
My sister texts me to see if I want to walk with her and the kids after school. ‘Nita does relatively well, considering all the stimuli of a new place, but she gets really agitated and nips at the tires of the stroller carrying my littlest niece. I tug on her leash every time she lunges, and after a while she seems to get the hang of it. However, whenever we drop behind and then catch up, we have to repeat the learning process because she doesn’t remember from four minutes ago that strollers are not for herding.
“curse you, red baron!”
Day 4
On our neighborhood walk, a little black and white dog in a vest is loose. He comes to say hello. Ninety-four percent of the time, I can handle my three dogs just fine. The six percent of times, when there is a loose dog, all bets are off. Redford and Violet get away from me. A neighbor driving by stops, helps me corral my dogs, and shoos the little guy away until I can put some distance between us. Thank you, neighbor.
My friend Sam lives along our route, so she comes out to walk part of it with us. The only problem is she’s pushing her son in a stroller. And all the progress from yesterday is null.
I’m tired of shuffling dogs around the rooms of my house, so I tether ‘Nita to my belt, and we all hang out together. She humps Redford’s butt; he humps her face; it’s all good.
Day 5
My dad comes to visit and snuggles his granddogs. He comments every time ‘Nita humps Redford:
“You shameless hussy!”
“You’ve got your roles reversed!”
“That’s obscene.”
Lainey is supposed to have her home visit today. Fingers crossed.
Day 6
I find out the home visit was cancelled. I don’t know why.
So we walk.
Then I clean like blazes because I have some folks coming over in the evening.
When I bring her out to meet my guests, she promptly climbs in the first lap she finds and kisses the accompanying face. Then she makes her way around the circle offering good will toward men.
Day 7
On our walk, a guy hollers, “Can I have the black and white one?” I tell him she’s adoptable, and he comes over to meet her. As soon as I say she’s spayed, he says, “Oh,” with obvious disappointment. Goddammit, why can’t people just love dogs without wanting something out of the deal? In other words, goddammit, why can’t humans be more like dogs?
I’m a bloggy failure mess. I am not the boss of this blog. I can’t seem to write shit, and blah blah this has happened before, but never for this long.
It’s scary, to be honest.
I’m in a not-so-great place, to be honest.
Even things that had been going well are not going well. Wednesday, at the gym, my buddy Chad came by to give me a fist bump after the workout. “You crushed that WOD, Amy Scott,” he said.
I responded that I less “crushed it”, and more just “laid a hand on it and half-heartedly pushed down”… And actually, now that I thought about it, I less “pressed on it”, and more just “gave it the finger from a distance”. And it was true. I did pretty much two reps at a time of everything. I was tired and grumpy, and my plantar fasciitis was raging. My right heel felt like somebody’s heavy came after it with a baseball bat and my calf like it was one pace away from charley horsing.
When I said I was grumpy, Chad said, “Well, it was a grumpy WOD.” It was. It was a grumpy fucking WOD (20-minute AMRAP—what the shit?), but sometimes those are the best because you come off them feeling like you’re the boss of it. This one… It was the boss of me.
Also, yesterday as I was walking the dogs, I was reminded of that scene in the movie Parenthood when Steve Martin’s character wonders whether they should have the kid Mary Steenburgen’s character is pregnant with, and she says something like, “I’m not even sure we should keep the two we’ve got.” ‘Nita‘s adorable and I love her, but she’s a psycho around things with wheels, which makes our walks a teensy bit stressful. So what does my brain do? My brain tells me I shouldn’t even have dogs. My brain is the boss of me. The terrible, terrible boss of me.
Then my brain thinks this—no kidding, no edits—it thinks:
Everything’s overwhelming, and nothing’s good.
How’s that for some hyperbole? But, seriously, in that moment, it felt true. For all the above reasons.
Plus, and I’ve mentioned this before, I’m seriously considering single motherhood. To the point that I’ve done some legitimate research on the topic.
And it’s cool and exciting and scary and all that, but mostly it highlights the fact that all this would be physically, emotionally, financially, and in all other ways easier with a mate, and I cannot fucking find a mate to save my fucking life.
And now it feels like I’m throwing myself a pity party, and I hate that.
I’m not being the boss of me. And I hate that.
There. I wrote something. It was terrible. I hate that.
