I’m rull tired. I’m just starting to get almost enough sleep after seven weeks of being a petulant child about bedtime.
And I hosted the MontiStorySLAM again on Tuesday. By all accounts, it went well. I feel like it went well. I think it went well. I was less nervous this time than for the last couple. (And it’s always such a rush that I think I’ll never sleep again, until exactly 45 minutes after, when my brain ceases to function entirely and I PTFO.) But it takes a lot of work and preparation and practice.
Anyway, that’s why I haven’t posted this week. But you can read the stories I told that night here on the blog, if you’re interested:
I celebrated my first CrossFit-iversary one year ago today! (Shit, I should do a post about how totally beast—ha ha—I’ve gotten in the last year. Maybe tomorrow. Retrobruxist Friday is a lazy day.)
Bit o’ the ol’ 3/8-life crisis over at Avid Bruxist headquarters, folks. So far, I’ve bought a new car, dyed my hair dark, and made inappropriate advances at a friend.
So! Guns!
Right?
I don’t know, I’d always wanted to shoot a gun, and my buddy Kyle, you know, has several, so in my I’ll-be-37-next-month/dead-soon-enough/might-as-well-do-shit mode, I requested a tutorial from him. We got our schedules aligned and headed to the shooting range Monday night.
I read the whole rules and rights and responsibilities document and signed away my right to sue the place if I shot myself dead.
Kyle rounded up our eye and ear protection and bought some ammo. The dude behind the counter, who had a holstered sidearm, handed me a target sheet. “Skeletor,” remarked Kyle (about the target, not the dude). We were assigned lane—lane?—6, but we had the whole place to ourselves. I thought that was probably a good thing—I wasn’t sure how floppy my aim would be, and accidentally shooting somebody would probably harsh my (whatever the opposite of) mellow (is).
The range was different from what I expected. First, it was about 100 degrees in there, and second, well, the place was shot all to shit. Seems like exactly what one would expect; don’t know why I pictured more white walls and glass? That doesn’t even make any sense! Did I see that in a movie?
Anyway, walls were black/ceiling was black. Or at least everything had once been particle board painted black and was now pock-marked and pulpy-looking.
Kyle clipped Skeletor up to the hanging thing, scooted him away a few yards, and loaded one of his weapons. “What am I shooting here?” I asked him.
“A .40—it’s what the cops carry,” he told me and placed it in my hand.
He told me how to grip the gun (during the session, he had to say, “Finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot,” aboooouuut 9 times… maybe 11… baker’s dozen). He asked which was my dominant eye. I told him right. He told me to close my left eye. Knees bent, he said. Lean forward. Aim. Don’t pull the trigger; mash the trigger.
The noise-canceling headphones left only a dull roar from the exhaust fan and Kyle’s voice prompting me from behind.
I gripped the gun. My hands felt greasy. I closed my left eye and aimed at Skeletor. I bent my knees and leaned forward and mashed the trigger. Blam! The gun jerked in my hands, and I screamed a ridiculous, high-pitched, girly scream. Kyle was laughing behind me. We both looked at the target sheet.
“Nice, Amy Scott. Center mass,” Kyle said. I had hit Skeletor pretty much in his evil goddamn heart. Whoa.
The gun held 12 bullets. I shot all twelve. All twelve hit in the box in the middle chest. Skeletor’s vital organs would’ve been porous.
The first knuckle of my thumb was red and stinging, but I was ready to shoot again. Kyle loaded the gun and moved the target a little farther away. I still hit mostly center, but with each shot, my thumb smarted more, and I was pulling left. On about the ninth round, the flesh on the back of my thumb in between the knuckles split open.
“Jesus,” Kyle said, looking at the blood. “Show me your grip.” I showed him. Oh. Oh. I had been holding the gun totally wrong, and it had been biting me on the kickback.
For the last few shots and then a whole clip from another piece (9 rounds), I held the guns properly and, guess what, no more bleeding.
Kyle offered to keep going, but I was sweaty and shaky and tired. Plus, I liked the way Skeletor looked, and I didn’t want to mess it up.
33 shots. Even those ones outside the box, I feel like probably would’ve slowed him down.
I got home from work today to find two bullet holes in my living room window. (My neighborhood is so fancy!) The cops came out and said, since the bullets hadn’t pierced both panes of glass and there were four dents in my siding as well, it was most likely a kid with a BB gun. My sister suggested I laminate Skeletor and hang him outside. Yeah, I could put a sign next to him that says “You aim your goddamn BB gun at my living room window again, I’ll aim my .40 at your center mass”.
It totally zoomed past without my even noticing, but August 2 was my three-year blogiversary*! That is crazy-pants!
Anyway, I thought I’d start a feature that some other bloggers have, that is, on Fridays, offer a weekly look back at a post from the same week in previous years. In other words, be able to publish without doing any work. Whee!
This entry from three years ago is not the very first Avid Bruxist post, but it’s the piece of writing—a Facebook note, actually—that made me start the blog.
Two years ago, this week, my grandma passed away. Hell of a woman.
I once read an article that said that 86% of females feel bad about themselves within the first five minutes of picking up a “women’s magazine” like Cosmo. (There’s a standard deviation of {+/-infinity} on that statistic because I can’t actually remember what the article said. But I recall that it was a big percentage/short time.)
I identified as one of those statistical females. So I stopped reading those magazines. This was about 8 years ago, and I still don’t look at them. It has helped.
But you know, you don’t have to be flipping through Vogue to find unreasonable body standards in the world. They’re around us all the time. Movies, TV, the music industry. Shit, there are toys on the market that’ll mess with a little girl’s mind and make her not love herself because her stomach’s not concave like the doll’s or her hair is not flaxen like the doll’s or her cooter doesn’t smell like strawberry bubble gum like the doll’s.
Our stupid culture has told me for a long time my body’s wrong, and despite being educated and of fair-to-middling intelligence, I’ve believed it every single step of the way. My ass is too big; my thighs are too dimply; my arms are squishy; my belly pooches out; I have cankles; my stretch marks look like the Rand-McNally of the Washington, D.C. environs; my boobs don’t defy gravity; my chin has a chin.
Cut to the end of last week when this photo started popping up in my Facebook feed:
You seen it?
Look how thin and taut and angular and boob-y and shiny the women in the Victoria’s Secret ad are. Silky tresses for daaaayyyys. Exact same height. Skin colors like on the townhouse exteriors in The Promenades at Spryngdale neighborhood, or whatever homogeneous enclave is two miles from your house.
And, to a woman, they are identical from the neck down.
I don’t know a goddamn soul who looks like that in real life. All the women I know look like the ones in the Dove ad (WHO I THINK ARE GORGEOUS): tall ones, short ones, busty ones, flat ones, curvy ones, straight ones, ones shaped like blueberries, ones shaped like pencils, and ones shaped like Coke bottles. Some carry their weight between shoulders and waist, and others from the hips down [raises hand]. Long hair, short hair. Skin of every color on the palette.
And this ad, or maybe this juxtaposition of ads (because I never would’ve noticed the total freaky-deakiness of the VS ad without the other), made me feel so much better about myself. I mean, I know Dove is a business, and businesses are in the business of making money, and this whole Social Mission blah-di-blah is probably just a really slick marketing ploy. I hope not. But even if it is, I don’t care because I feel so much better about myself after seeing this ad.
I. Look. Like. Them.
In fact—am I really going to do this?
…
Yes, yes I am. Fuck it. Hey, look at me, mostly naked on the internet (that’s a bathing suit… I just couldn’t do undies):
I look at these photos, and while none of the Dove models is quite the chubster I am, my shape would totally fit in their ad. Because they’re all different shapes. And heights. And hair colors. And skin colors.
I’m sick of hating my body. I’m going to be 37 next month; this needs to end. The fact of the matter is, that roll of back fat you see up there and those stacked marshmallows I’ve got for arms and that hip-to-knee cellulite (which you can’t really see well in the photos but it’s totally there—high-five, iPhone camera!… Note to self: Buy Apple stock)? That fat and those marshmallows and that cellulite are my body, and that body carts this gal around and provides a venue for this blog to germinate and gives me orgasms and lifts heavy things. I am that body. That body is me.
Here are the parts I need to remember:
(1) There is no “normal woman”; we’re all different;
(2) yelling at myself about my body has never succeeded in effecting change;
(3) there will be people who look at me in these photos and go, Ew; I don’t have to be one of them; and
(4) somebody out there is going to like this body exactly the way it is.
But only when I do it first.
So this is my Love My Body/Real Beauty campaign. This is me. I am this. STFU, Amy, and stop being mean to yourself.
If you’re new, here‘s the beginning of the Tulip chronicles.
Day 1
Tulip is back on her food. I consider canceling tomorrow’s vet appointment, but I know the moment I do, she’ll vomit in my shoes so I keep it.
A professional photographer who volunteers with the organization comes and does a shoot with Tulip for an hour.
Tulip and I go to my sister’s house for a cookout. She really is a perfect family dog. Or a perfect single-dog family dog. She loves chasing the ball. She’s gentle with the children. She’s interested in your supper but backs off when you tell her no. And she hoovers up all the chips and corn and whatnot that three kids drop on the kitchen floor. Like a Roomba that loves you.
I break my one-day-old promise to walk every day, but Tulip got the romp at my sister’s, and Redford, Violet, and I go to Auntie Erika’s house for a run-around-the-yard playdate for the doggies/So You Think You Can Dance-on-the-DVR playdate for the hoomins, so everybody’s happy.
Day 2
Tulip and I go to the vet. They determine her to be normal in every way, but I couldn’t get a stool sample beforehand and they can’t get one either so they send me home with a cup with a spork attached to its lid.
I intend to go to the gym. Instead I settle on the couch for the World’s Least Satisfactory Nap. When I arise, I feed the dogs and then follow Tulip around the yard, cup in hand. She delivers, and I get to collect the sample, which I must store in my fridge overnight. Gross.
Violet and Redford have a fast and furious playdate with Buffy(!!) and her sister-dog Stella. It’s wonderful. I walk Tulip five blocks to and from my neighbor’s house—I’m feeding her kittehs while she’s away. We have to stop and walk in circles eight or nine times because she’s fired up about some other dogs being out there. I do not introduce Tulip to the kittehs. I don’t know what would happen, and I’m not interested in telling my neighbor that my foster dog hoovered up her cats. “Like a Roomba? That loves you?” No.
Day 3
Tulip won’t eat her breakfast. Wah!
She has a super-runny poop in the afternoon, so I collect that one too and take both over to the vet. She finally eats her breakfast at 4:15pm.
The pics from Monday’s shoot get posted on Facebook!
Chewing on a hoof/being cute.Looking in the mirror/being cute.
Tulip and I walk to feed the kittehs in the nighttime. Poor Redford and Violet. No walk. I’m a bad parent.
Day 4
The vet calls to tell me Tulip has hookworm and whipworm. He recommends two deworming treatments two weeks apart. CCB says they have tons of dewormer and will put some in the mail tomorrow.
I finally make good on my promise to walk Redford and Violet. Tulip got a big visit at Auntie Wa’s house, so she stays home.
Day 5
The house smells funky when I get home from work. I go to the spare bedroom to find that Tulip has escaped her crate and pooped a tiny, bloody poop on the floor. Really? Those three tablespoons stank up the whole joint? I gather lysol wipes and paper towels, clean it up, and turn around to find a giant cowpie of a mess tucked between the sofa and the closet door. Oh. Thur’s yer trouble.
Later, I come home from my date to find it has happened again. I can’t blame her for escaping. If I were about to crap my pants, I wouldn’t want to sit around in it either. And this way, I only have to clean up the floor, not the floor, the crate, and the dog. But I vow to buy a new crate in the morning.
I hereby kindly request that the universe give Tulip a fucking break. She’s had her share of hardship, and probably some other dog’s too. Leave her be.
Please let the deworming medication show up tomorrow.
Day 6
I volunteer at the Walk for the Animals at the ass-crack of dawn. When I return, Tulip has freed herself from her prison once again and left three piles of scarlet gelatin in the bedroom.
The dewormer arrives. Whew.
Day 7
Tulip has a spring in her step that I haven’t seen in a long time. Knock wood.
Feisty Fido class is good but hard. My Fido is so feisty. At one point, the trainer says, “Honey, you’re gonna be walkin’ in circles for months.”
Sigh.
I go tickle, tickle, tickle, and my foster dog go hahahahahaha.
A week ago, my buddy Kathleen called and asked if I wanted to be in a video she was thinking of making. She gave me the run-down, and I said yes, absolutely.
After reading the script, I thought through my costume options and decided on jean shorts and white tank top. Also, as luck would have it, I had just done my once-every-three-years bra shopping at Target and replaced the blue one (that Redford had chewed on in 2010 but I continued to wear) with a leopard-print number. (Hahahahaha. Leopard-print.) Perfect for under the white tank top.
I picked up a soda from Burger King, piled my hair on top of my head, and met Kathleen on the “set” Monday afternoon.
I had someplace to be 45 minutes later (a date!), so we needed to get it done, but the other actor, who was going to film my part and vice-versa was late. Kathleen, who is not at all scared of strangers which I don’t understand because I’m scared of all strangers and also most of the people I know, saw a guy coming out of a house a few doors down and said, “Would you mind filming this for us?”
And, naturally, the guy was like, “Sure! I’d love to.”
He was cute. His name was Alejandro. Kathleen asked him later and he said he was straight and single.
I digress! Anyway, here’s Kathleen’s Sal Roker’s breaking report that homosexuals might actually be human beings:
4. Neti pot. (I know I’m going to die from brain amoebae, but in the meantime, it’s really satisfying to go from not breathing to breathing with just a little bit of salt water.)
5. Pictures of dogs.
6. Roomba.
Magic cleaning robot.
7. When I drop by my sister’s house and one of the kids goes, “Nunu, could you stay for supper? Pleeeeeeaase?” like I’d be doing them a big favor.
8. Pictures of puppies.
9. iPhone.
Magic communication robot.
10. Hoodie-and-flip-flop weather.
11. A well-executed ally-oop.
12. A perfectly sharp #2 Ticonderoga.
Best writing implement ever.
13. The fact that my brother married the woman I chose for him.
14. My deck.
15. The picnic table my brother built me for my birthday a couple years ago. On my deck.
Two weeks ago, I started a project: get a new car.
The Outback, as I’ve mentioned, was never my favorite, plus it needed a new catalytic converter. I did not want to put a thousand dollars into a car I didn’t like. I’d already dumped so much cash into that beast, goddammit.
And when I say a new car, I mean a new car. My very first new car. Yes. Nobody else’s miles. No major repairs for a few years. Low financing. (I’ve been paying 5.75% to my bank on the Outback for three years, and boy, has that chapped my ass.) So I read through the Consumer Reports magazine my dad bought me and test-drove a whole mess o’ cars:
Mazda3 (My mom had driven a Mazda2 recently and said it didn’t accelerate.)
Toyota Yaris
Toyota Matrix
Scion xD
Honda Fit
Honda Accord (I wasn’t planning on buying an Accord—too big—but the guy had a 5-speed on the lot that he was trying to get rid of, so I took it out for a spin.)
I had planned to drive a couple Kias and Hyundais too, but CR gave them an open black circle for reliability, and after all the intimacy with my mechanic lately, it was an orange circle or nothing for me.
Mazda3 was my fave out of all of them. Good gas mileage, SIX (6!) speeds, and cute as the dickens. I might’ve dug the Honda Fit too if they’d had a manual transmission, but apparently those are pretty hard to snag. Folks in Japan have been replacing a lot of the vehicles swept away in the tsunami with 5-speed Fits, so I couldn’t get too mad at being put on a waitlist.
But I couldn’t really wait. My inspection was coming due, and I needed to get ‘er done before spring break was over. I went back to a couple of dealerships and got some numbers. And of course they wanted to give me chump change for the trade—Mazda twice as much as Honda, but as my boss in New York used to say, double bupkis is still bupkis.
So I put up a warts-and-all ad for the Outback on Craig’s List. I noted that I had dogs with whom I had traveled in the vehicle, that one of them had chewed the inside of the hatch door, that the catalytic converter needed replacing. I priced it accordingly, listing the Kelley Blue Book value and subtracting for cosmetic damage and projected repairs. I got five or six bites, one lowball offer, and one solid, but when I took it to the solid offer’s mechanic, his machine spat out “all kinds of electrical codes” in addition to the cat con one, and the guy rescinded. Another dude lived two hours away and wanted me to meet him halfway so he could look at the car. No thanks. I decided to trade it.
Meanwhile, I talked to my friend, Z—actually, you know him already. Remember the ridiculous specimen of male beauty?; yeah, he’s my buddy now. He had recently traded his car. When I asked if they gave him a good deal, Z said, “I made them give me a good deal.” As I’ve stated, he cuts kind of an imposing figure, what with the tattoos and the muscles. I wondered aloud if he might go with me to a dealership or two. He consented gladly.
Just knowing that gave me a boost of confidence. I wasn’t going to take any bullshit. I went back to the Durham Mazda dealer by myself, and the guy upped his offer by 25%. Now we were getting somewhere, but I wasn’t sure about the color. He had only silver on the lot, and meh. I looked online and thought I liked a hue they called dolphin gray. Durham Guy said he had one coming in “any day”.
I scoped out other Mazda dealers in the area and saw that the place in Cary had a six-speed manual transmission 3 in dolphin gray, so I set up an appointment to go check it out and hauled Z along with me.
Upon in-person observation, the dolphin gray lay well on the School Marm end of the spectrum, but the graphite gray which they also had, well, that shore was purdy. The salesman was an odd combination of pushy and pansy. He tried to offer me 800 less than what Durham Guy was willing to pay, and that was after I told him what the number was! I said, “Uh, no.” Z mostly sat in silence with just one hazy emasculation of the salesman when he intimated that the guy drove a girl-colored car. Perfect.
When Pushy-Pansy scurried back to his manager, Z straightened me out on a couple things: (1) it’s worth something to have your dealer near your house, so unless Pushy-Pansy could beat, not just match, Durham Guy in the price department, you shouldn’t do it, and (2) if you’re financing at 0.9%, it doesn’t make sense to put any money down. Oh, yeah. (“Math is hard,” Barbie said.)
Pushy-Pansy was gone for a long time. I told Z my theory: they make you sit there forever, so when they finally come back, you go, “Well, I’ve already invested so much time, I might as well buy it.” I was thinking of walking out, and Z said good plan. Meanwhile, Durham Guy called to let me know he’d gotten a black one delivered, and I set the scene for him: I was at the Cary dealership, and I was really liking the graphite—ooooh.
Pushy-Pansy came back and gave the final verdict: 300 more than Durham Guy. I told him I’d think about it, and we left. Z instructed me to call Durham Guy and gave me some pointers on what to say.
So I did. I called and said, “Look, I like the graphite best, which Pushy-Pansy has, but it’s also worth something to me to have my dealership close to my house, so if you come up with another 300 bucks on the trade, I’ll come take one off your hands today.” (I actually used those words: I’ll come take one off your hands today. Ha!)
He replied without hesitation, “I can do that.”
I pulled into the lot a half-hour later, compared the silver and the black, filled out a bunch of paperwork, and voilà!
(I've never been one of those girls who named her car, but my friend suggested Bellatrix, and I don't know, it just seems right.)
So my car payment is more than my mortgage payment. Which is not that much. (When the finance officer asked what my mortgage was and I told him, he looked startled, and then when he saw I was serious, he laughed. He laughed out loud.)
But still, it’s a lot of money for me.
And I’m totally paranoid that something’s going to happen to WHAT IS THAT LEAF DOING ON MY CAR? WHY IS EVERYBODY DRIVING LIKE A FUCKING MANIAC?
But it’s new. And I love it. And it’s mine mine mine.
