Love Hurts When You Wear a Watch

The movies and television portray lovemaking in a way that makes it look sexy and smooth. Everyone is made up nicely and no one's hair ever falls out of place and both people writhe and moan in a way that lets you know they are having the time of their lives. This is generally not the case in real life, and last night I had a crushing reminder that I do not live in a movie, at least not a serious one.

My editing department, aka Richy, and I decided to get romantic last night. Friday night has been our standing date-night and we had been looking forward to some alone time that evening. We had a fun night of delivery pizza and cheese sticks, Breaking Bad on Netflix, and a bottle of wine. We finished Breaking Bad, (How insane is that show?) and decided to call it a night. Then we made our way to the bedroom.

Being a healthy, committed couple in a relationship, we began to engage in romantic behavior. Richy gave me a backrub, then a leg massage. I sportingly let him. This kind of hanky- panky continued until we were in a state of undress and he gently began to kiss me. I continued to encourage this behavior. He kissed my shoulder, and my arm as I moved my leg (this is important, not just a play by play of my sex life), anyway, I moved my leg over his upturned arm.

Now, I have his wrist and hand basically sandwiched between my upper thighs, right in that super tender flesh just before you reach the holy land. Things were beginning to heat up as he nibbled at me and I moaned as he bit at my neck and HOLY SWEET JESUS, MOTHER OF GOD! In our heated state, he had suddenly jerked his hand out from between my legs, in a passionate move, but his watch clasp had caught a piece of my tender, oh so tender, inner thigh and ripped a four inch gash across my leg.

You know the pain that happens where you can't say anything or even make a noise because all of the air has left your body, and frankly, a piece of your soul has left too? You are just left open-mouthed, gasping for air like a goldfish out of water? Yes, that is the pain I felt go searing up my leg. God knows I tried to be sporting about it. At first, for maybe thirty seconds, I didn't say anything. I thought I could carry on like nothing happened. Then all those pain receptors in my brain finally caught up with my rationale. In a moment of panic, I pictured other tender parts getting caught in Time’s Clasp of Doom and being ripped off of my body. I immediately decided that the watch had to go.

In the squeaky voice I managed to eek out of my body, I asked Richy to please take his watch off. He said okay, but asked why. Well, now I had to tell him that it had scratched me. He asked if I was okay, and still, not having moved, I tried to lighten the mood by telling him I was fine, but just going to lie still and bleed to death. I could hear his eyes rolling from where I was laying because I do tend toward the dramatic. He stopped what he was doing and reached over and turned on the lamp to see the damage.

“Oh god, baby” was the first thing he said as his eyes saw the slash in my thigh. Richy felt just awful, and I tried to assure him I would be fine in the morning, but the mood was definitely off for me. Then, once I moved my leg, that scratch felt like it was on fire! Richy ran to the bathroom and came back with a cool washcloth and some Neosporin. That helped a little, but the scratch still stung so badly, he went back and got the burn cream that has lidocaine in it. He tenderly applied it to my leg and the pain got better after the instant searing pain of lidocaine in an open wound. He gave me a pair of his boxers to wear so it could get some air. He really did his best to get me comfortable again, which I appreciated so much.

After the laughter and streak of lava on my leg died down, Richy tried to get things started again. But at that point it really was over. Somehow the words “Do I need to get the gauze?” didn't rekindle the flames of passion.

And in This Corner....

Fighting as an adult is rarely a dignified affair. It's a bit ridiculous really and not very satisfying. By the time you reach adulthood, you have more than likely had at least one basic psychology class, so you know just enough about fighting to be obnoxious. Trying to remember to use phrases such as: “I need…, I want…, I feel…”, and “In the future…” is the psychologically responsible thing to do. However, my inner two-year old wants to have more of a conversation like “I need you to stop being a doo-doo head. I want to stick a dull pencil up your nose. I feel like running you over with my car. Twice. In the future, please remember that I know people who will help me dispose of your body.  The previous conversation is SO much more satisfying than having a responsible, adult conversation. However, as grown-ups, we aren't allowed to say these things, so we move on to Communicating Like Adults.

This is where it gets interesting. By the time we reach the age of maturity, which for me should happen any day now, we have been in enough arguments to draw on our experience. We know how other people can hurt us and therefore we have our fortified walls in place. We learn how we can best hurt other people and we become nasty and vindictive. We have traveled through this passive-aggressive world, have embraced the sarcasm and fine-tuned it to our particular brand of anger to be shot at one another like bullets from a gun. We use social media to post vague yet pointed insults at one another “without naming names”. Communicating Like Adults takes you out of amateur hour and flings you into the pros of arguing, so you better be ready.

I can say with confidence that I am no good in an argument. I dislike confrontation and try to avoid arguing by being pretty easy going in the first place. Sometimes I will get riled up over something and my partner and I will fight, but if I can see the argument is going nowhere, I generally just try to placate whoever I’m having the useless conversation with and move on. Here is where the mature part comes in. After I have placated them and moved on I will then think of all of the things that I should have said and still need to say, and I will send them a text. Yes, Text Message Arguments. God, that's a good idea! An ethereal novella sent through the coldness of cyberspace-a text with no way to determine tone of voice and every possibility of misinterpreting inflection and meaning. Absolutely brilliant!

My reasoning is that I am not able to gather my thoughts while someone is actively confronting me. But after I can cool down and think things through, I regroup and am able to write down a coherent argument and/or apology. I need time to clear my head, think over all of the points we both made and make a decision about my stance on the subject. This makes me sound mature and logical, so I roll with this. But I sometimes wonder if it's not just me having to have the last word.

Next issue, the launching of insults with your partner as an adult. Get ready for the burn unit. We will insult your mother, your dog, and your priest. We will let you know in no uncertain terms that if you grandmother actually KNEW how to cook, there wouldn't have BEEN any lumps in her mashed potatoes. (Oh, even Nana isn't safe). The insults get creative too. Because, you can't just come out and call someone names, can you? Just calling someone an “asshole” or a “bitch” is very pedestrian and not terribly imaginative. So, you have to make swiping passes at insulting your partner.

• “Aw, your mother would be so proud of you right now”
• “It must be time for your period”

What these actually mean is:

• “Asshole”
• “Bitch”

Adults seem to have the upper hand on this type of insult trebuchet. When you called your friend Poop-Face as a kid, you didn't mean it,I mean not really, because thirty minutes later, the two of you were making mud-pies again anyway.  Personally I would feel so much better if I could just be two years old once again. I’d drop my whole body on the floor, hold my breath and kick my feet. I’d call everyone within an earshot a Doody-Head and when I felt myself getting tired, I’d scream just to get myself worked up again.

Overall, I don't find myself in many arguments, but I think next time I do, I'm just going to have a full blown toddler-level melt-down. It may not stop anything, but I bet it will at least stave off the inevitable for a minute or two. Displays of insanity tends to put things on hold for a little bit!

Quote of the Day:

If you can't say something nice, say it in French.

• Anonymous

Go Wash Your Mouth Out

***TRIGGER WARNING: Naughty language***

So, I've had far too much to drink tonight, and by far too much, I mean three shots of rum mixed into diet Coke. I am a cheap drunk.I have decided to write tonight’s post because I am just curious what will come out of my head. I'd like to think that tomorrow I will read this tomorrow and be amused, but I'm pretty sure I'll just feel like “What the hell?” Nevertheless, in the interest of science, I am conducting this experiment. I will have my editor, more commonly known as my boyfriend, only edit my spelling for basic grammar and ease of reading. Everything else will be organically grown from rum and random neural firings.

The first thing that comes to mind is the conversation that my best friend and i had today about how we address each other. Most friends address each other in friendly terms such as sweetheart, honey, sister, beautiful lady, babe, darling, etc…

This is not the case with my best friend of 27 years. No, this is not the case at all. Here is a list of our most recent terms of endearment in no particular order. These words have been addressed to both of us by both of us:

• Free-base slut
• Hooker
• Lint licker
• Hoe
• Cuntsneeze
• Twat waffle
• Heifer
• My favorite moldy clit
• Trash
• Punk ass hoe
• Rotten crotch

These loving words are usually followed up by a sentence of love and encouragement, such as:

• I love you and your whore mouth.
• I like it when you call me daddy.
• I made it home, Trash.
• You are my favorite douche canoe.
• Happy new year, slut!
• I'll be your bubbly twat.
• Hey hooker, I love you more than cake!
• I will smack that ass if you open your slut mouth again. I’m warming up the pimp hand.

These sophisticated and adult conversations were taken directly from texts on my phone. I think these healthy expressions of admiration and love are what we should all strive for; goals we can all attain if we try hard enough. I’m hoping to encourage this kind of friendly banter in everyday life. For instance, your boss storms into your office demanding the WENIS (Friends reference for 10 bonus points) and you don't have it ready yet. You look your boss right in the eye and say “Listen here douche canoe, you'll have it when it smacks you in your sweet ass”. Your boss laughs. You laugh. Security laughs as they escort you out. It's a good time had by all involved. Or perhaps you are at a local trendy coffee shop and they get your 14 step coffee order wrong. You take the hipster barista by the hand and say “My pimp hand is all warmed up. Don't make me use it on your hooker face, Trash”. Barista giggles, you burst into laughter, everyone agrees you are their favorite customer.

I see this trend going places.

So, at this point, I’m more shots in, but I don't know how many, as I am not the one making my drinks, my editing department, more commonly known as Richy, is. I'd like to say I can still hold my drink like I could at twenty-something, but I don't think I can anymore. Still, I managed to write this blog post, so that's something and something is better than nothing.

Thank you for reading this trashy post and I hope you enjoyed it, you dirty pirate hooker!

Fun fact: Lady Ching Shih, once a prostitute became one of the most powerful pirates ever, commanding one of the most formidable pirate fleets in China with hundreds of ships under her command.

Awesome dirty pirate hooker!

Hell Hath No Fury

Having written about raising my son now has me thinking about raising my daughter. Now, while my son was into everything and saw child safety-locks as a fun but simple challenge, my daughter, on the other hand, never got into things like that. She never touched things she wasn't supposed to, even as a baby. Case in point, I had two porcelain dolls that were so big they stood on either side of our mantle. She would crawl up and look at them. Yep, she’d just sit and stare at them, but she never touched them-not once!

She never got into poisons or medicines. The closest approximation to nearing my son was once, she wanted to help me clean the bathroom. I gave her a spray bottle of diluted Mr. Clean and water and a clean rag and showed her how to squirt the bathtub and rub it with the cloth. She liked the idea and got to “work”. Meanwhile I was cleaning the sink and I looked up often to check on her. Alas, she was still a child. The next time I looked to check, she was gone. I turned, only to find her squirting her baby brother’s bald head with the Mr. Clean and wiping it off, just as I had shown her with the bathtub. She said she was cleaning bubba. My heart stopped! I had to call Poison Control naturally, only to be reassured it was probably okay and had me check his breath and eyes and he turned out just fine. She really thought she was doing something helpful, and at this point, Poison Control had become very familiar with my son.

No, my daughter never got into things she wasn’t supposed to. She didn’t rebel, she didn't smoke or slack off in school. She never made bad friends. Oh no, those things were not her downfall. The only thing I ever wanted to strangle my own darling offspring over was - her temper. Oh, that girl has a temper! Imbued in that tiny little body of hers is a fiery, spirited temperament that Satan himself wouldn't cross. And it's all the worse because she normally looks like a little person-sized kitten. She’s all of five and a half feet tall, and weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet. She has big, soft green eyes, pixie features, high cheekbones, a heart shaped face, perfect little ears and a delicate nose. It looks like the angels themselves built her. Until you Piss! Her! Off!  At that point you begin to remember that the Devil was said to have started off as an angel too.

There is this scene in The Avengers when Hulk yanks Loki up by the ankles and smashes him over and over into the floor before discarding Loki and walking away mumbling “Puny god”.  This is my daughter.  A god would need all of its deific powers to stand against the anger in this child. Us mere mortals who had to raise her and be within arms-reach of her as she grew up into the delightful person she is now, stood no chance against the fire that brewed within my precious baby girl.  Fortunately she was never  sulky, she’d get pissed off at times only to let you know in no uncertain terms how she felt about you and the horse you rode in on, then she’d cool off and apologize if she was in the wrong. Indeed, raising the Keeper of The Gates of Hell makes you find the silver lining where you can.

Now that the teenage hormones have worked their way out of her system and she has grown up some, she has calmed down quite a bit; otherwise I'm sure she she would have honed her powers by now and taken over the world in a fiery rage.

I have to say though that no one has ever gotten away with trying to push this child around. She will take a certain amount of nonsense and usually she will take more than I would deal with.  She isn't a very confrontational person, but once you push her past her tolerance point, watch out. One can see it in her face. The steely metamorphosis begins: A calm, serene look settles over her features. It truly is a piercing countenance that can be scarier than any angry, yelling, screaming psychopath you'd ever encounter. A stillness settles over her that is downright unnerving. My only advice to anyone at that point is summed up in one word: Run. If you have chocolate on you try throwing it in one direction while you run in the opposite direction, but no matter what - RUN!

In all truthfulness though, I am crazy proud of my kids. They are really great people. Raising them may have aged me prematurely, but it also gave me the best laugh lines, the happiest memories, grey hairs of worry and ultimate reassurance. I wouldn't trade one stretch mark, one ounce of fat, one wrinkle or sag for the joy I got from having and raising my guys. Whether they were being daredevils or just plain devils, they are my life and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Have a great day, hug your kid, and remember this fun fact: A three year old boy’s voice is louder than two hundred adults in a crowded restaurant. True story.

Riding in (Flaming Race Cars) With Boys

While on Facebook today, I was reminded what a joy it was to raise a teenage boy. By joy I mean absolute terror filled, unbuckled ride in a flaming race car ride through life. It was by far the scariest thing I've ever done.

A mom was sharing pictures of her 14 year old male offspring who had managed to burn himself rather severely by taking a pot of boiling water and flinging the contents into the air to see if it would freeze mid-air in the cold weather.  Conclusion, it did not freeze and still came back down at the same temperature as it was when it went up.  Genius 14 year old spawn ended up scalded.  

This poor mother was begging someone to tell her that her son would in fact grow some brain cells and make better decisions than this one day.  I couldn't give her the comfort she so desperately sought - for I have raised a small penis-bearer from birth to adulthood and there is little hope.  I tried to soften the blow by telling her that when they turn 18 they at least become their own problem, legally.  There will still be those “Hold my beer” moments.

All I could tell her in my answer to her “When will he grow up” question was this:

“He won't... Ever! The good news is, they eventually turn 18 and become their own problem. Things my son did.

1. Arrow roulette - group of boys stand in a circle and one idiot stands in the middle with a bow and arrow. Said idiot shoots arrow straight up into the air and the other members of the idiot group watch it go waaaaayy up and try not to get hit when it comes plummeting back to earth. Idiots. Yes, we stopped them once we realized what they were doing.
2. Skateboarded off a chicken coop roof and gashed his arm open to the muscle and tendon. Required stitches.

3. Fell skateboarding, lost consciousness and had a seizure. Came home and told me a day later when he and his friends were laughing about it.

4. Purposely put 1 inch holes in his ears in the form of "gauges".

5. Punched a wall and crushed three hand bones when he hit a stud. Idiot needed surgery and pins in his hand for 8 weeks.

6. Went skateboarding down a steeply inclined paved road. Picked up so much speed that the board fishtailed and got away from him. That landed us in the ER with road rash on one half of his body, scalp stitches and a broken wrist. I learned two things that day.

A. My son is really bad at skateboarding and risk assessment and;

B. Idiots heal.”

Bless her heart, I didn't have the heart to tell her that this was all in his last few years before he turned 18. I didn't mention having to call the Poison Control Center on him five times as a baby because he got into EVERYTHING. I didn't mention him falling off the bunk-bed. I certainly did not mention him taking a boat into the middle of a lake even though he couldn't swim; and yes, he TOOK - as in stole some person’s canoe - AND went into the middle of a lake where he could have easily drowned. I found out about that one a couple of weeks later when he told on himself. I didn't tell her about seeing him walk out of the woods at me with a head-wound pouring blood down his face. He looked like an extra from The Walking Dead. My heart stopped! That was the day I found out how profusely tiny head-wounds and scratches can bleed. He thought it was funny. I immediately became an advocate to legalize pot for mothers.

Some things are just better left unsaid.

So, I have spent the day reminiscing over raising my kids, and especially raising my son.  He has absolutely been the joy of my life and the terror of my soul.  Im sure any grey hairs or wrinkles I acquire in my life will be 90% due to raising my son.  Sure, my daughter gave me 5-10% of them, but my son made me earn my stripes.  While I can laugh over the chaos he put me through over the years, I have to smile at all the love he gave me too. I could be ready to strangle that little pain-in-the-ass and he’d hug me and say “Mom, I love you” and my heart would just melt. And the thing I’m most proud of is that he turned out to be a good person. He may still scare me to death, you know, getting in a car wreck, flipping his car, and not telling his mother until after I saw him because he said he knew I’d freak out. Yes, this happened around Thanksgiving. And while I may have unleashed another goofball, man-cave dwelling, testosterone-driven Dude on the world, I have also unleashed a good man, a kind person, a beautiful heart.  I’m pretty proud of that. So, hold my beer and watch this...