Back, Incognito!

Thanks to my girl On The Curb for this one!

It really seemed to fit today, as my friend Hube, Colosssus of Rhodey contributer, Iron Man enthusiast (and major comic-book geek afficionado in general) decided to start up a side-blog (because obviously he has nothing better to do...) and is now writing at Comics of Rhodey. Feel free to check him out. If you'd like to make your own hero, go here.

I think I may write about the Adventures of the Courageous Masked Jones in Montreal a little later this week. She was, of course, incognito.

Smatterings

Once again, I haven't enough brain to make a lovely full-length LP of a post, so you'll have to do with this selection of 45s until I can get my brain to work again. It's fallen into a lovely summer torpor from which it is loathe to rise.

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At dinner tonight, our server was wearing both a stud through his lower lip and a retainer. Dude. The two appliances counteract one another, leaving you with negative cool points. Kind of like an eyebrow ring with bifocals. Just. Not. Cool.

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Yesterday, I went and had my pedicure re-done, after a tragic accident which left the enamel on the tip of my right big toenail on the bottom of my brother-in-law's pool. I am a fiend for pedicure maintenance during sandal season. It's a holdover from the Days of Obesity when all I could really maintain with any success were my nails and hair.

Anyhoo, I had Tammy the Pedicure Dominatrix working on my tootsies. In reality, her name is probably something relatively unpronounceable in Vietnamese, but she chose Tammy as her nom de nailfile. Tammy was ruthless toward any idea of a hangnail, and a ragged cuticle stood no chance with her. She snipped, scraped, and nipped her way through the basic maintenance and then moved on to the razor and pumice stone portion of my punishment.

First, it should be noted that I am pretty ticklish in the center of my foot. My heel? Not so much. Tammy pretty much went for the ticklish spot with the razor, shaving off a quarter inch of my height, I'm sure. Then, out came the pumice stone. Oh. My. God. As an aside, my late Mother-in-Law was very fond of the saying "Just put a little Elbow Grease into it!" She'd have been very impressed with Tammy. So Tammy sanded my feet with the vigor of ten men. Ten big burly men. Who demolish things for a living. Well, at least it didn't tickle. That's all I can say about it.

My feet now look fabulous again, and are as soft as a baby's bottom. I think Tammy and I are going to have to start seeing other people, though.

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Miss Peanut has started going to Summer Day Camp. Having spent the last summer entertaining her, I kind of figured I didn't want to do it again, especially given the sheer amount of work I have to do in order to feel comfortable teaching the upper levels next year. So, I enrolled Peanut in camp.

I attended summer camp from the age of 7 until I was old enough to work there myself. I worked at two different summer camps. The first was a YWCA camp - the same one where I had been a camper. The second was a YMCA camp, which was more structured and better organized - and also paid minimum wage! It is that second camp where Miss Peanut is currently a camper. It's funny how life turns in circles sometimes, isn't it?

I last worked there 19 years ago - or half a lifetime ago, in my case. There have been some real positive changes, like the new pool equipment and new basketball courts. It's nice to see, though, that some things don't change - they're still singing the same camp songs that I sang as a girl, and Miss Peanut is bringing home the same goofy crafts. I can't wait for her first Ojo de Dios. I don't think a summer ever went by without making an Ojo de Dios. Yarn and popsicle sticks, man. Good times.

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Books are taking up a lot of my time these days. I've gone through piles of them, and still have a huge book basket to go. I've also bought a few books and jumped them to the top of the pile, too. These days, my tastes run to the paranormal romance, so here are a few recommendations:

Kim Harrison's new one, The Outlaw Demon Wails is completely worth paying the hardback price. This is the sixth book in the Rachel Morgan series, and it really delivers. It's full of adventure, vampire politics, and witchcraft, low on romance, but ends in a very satisfying twist.

Vicki Pettersson's The Touch of Twilight is a paperback, and the third installment in the Zodiac series. It was satisfying, but you definitely get the sense that it's an installment book, just kind of bridging the way to the next one. A good read, but you definitely get the same sensation as watching The Two Towers. Fun, but a tad unsatisfying. (Yes, I did just display my geekdom to you with the Tolkien reference)

For sheer unadulterated sensuality, Gena Showalter's Darkest Series (the Darkest Night, the Darkest Kiss, the Darkest Pleasure) is a must-read. An added bonus is the Greek mythology added into the plot. The sex is HOT. Just sayin'.

Also hot? Lara Adrian's Midnight Series. Whoo! Don't read this without a seriously bone-jumpable man around, 'cause jumpin' will occur shortly upon finishing each book, lemme tell ya! And the vampire angle is well done, too.

Um, bone-jumpable vampires abound in JR Ward's Lover series. Yikes. Take the same precautions as above and make sure you remove all flammable substances from your bedroom, because these books will send you up in flames.

Now, not all of the books I've read this summer are this great. I've plowed my way through a few that were a bit tedious. Some were just plain boring, others were really rife with inconsistencies, or what a friend of mine calls "WTF moments."

Then there are others I read out of duty, which include Laurell K. Hamilton's The Harlequin. I think it was Anne of Elastic Waist that said it best. I'll quote her here for you:

I tore through the series, and started to look for others. The concept hadn't quite caught on yet, so I kept buying the Anita Blake books, even as they started to go...horribly awry, is the only way really to put it. Suddenly, Anita Blake was not just a federal- marshal-slash-vampire-executioner. Suddenly she was a psycho hose-beast who was doing it in the butt with 83 werewolves and a goat and adding superpowers to her brand-new superpower arsenal at an alarming and improbable rate (...more improbable, I mean. You know what I mean!) and every single male in her books was madly in love with her even though she was really nothing more than a horrible, wretched, unpleasant, whining, shrieking harpy asshole. And I kept reading them because--I don't know why, exactly!

And that pretty much sums up my experience with Ms. Hamilton. On the upside, A Lick of Frost, the 6th of her Merry Gentry series wasn't horrible. And Anne and I have the same taste in reading material.

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I won second place in a bathing suit competition this summer. Of course, the contest was on a website for people who've had Weight Loss Surgery, but still. That's progress, I think. Also of note on the bathing suit front: I've spent enough time in bathing suits this summer, exposing my delicate white flesh to the sun, to actually have a suntan! Compared to some, I'm still ghoulishly white. However, if you are privileged enough to view my tan lines, you'll note a slender pink crescent on each buttock where virgin skin was gently spanked by Apollo. My back is currently rubicund, and my chest and shoulders are also attractively flushed. I'm tickled about it. Tickled pink, if you'll pardon the pun.

And that is all I have for you today. Upon reflection, it was quite a lot, wasn't it?

A taste of power

True story this time...

So I was at a “passion party” the other night. You know this kind of party – a bunch of women tittering with embarrassment whilst passing around forty different kinds of vibrating dildos. Although, with this particular crowd, there was far less embarrassed tittering and far more bawdy suggesting going on. Even with my aunt in attendance, my cousin (her daughter) and I had a grand old time comparing notes and swapping stories.

Lubes, creams, lingerie, and toys were passed around the circle – ask me some time about how we played a game involving an eighteen-inch double-headed dildo going back and forth between our thighs... but I digress. The various unguents, edible and not, were smoothed on our forearms and sampled. One, in particular, aroused the most palaver – a product designed to suppress the gag reflex, useful when giving blow jobs. The look of instant distaste that flashed on most of the faces and the way this product was quickly tossed from woman to woman would have given away their disgust immediately if anyone had been in doubt of it before. My cousin and I exchanged a look that promised confabulation later.

After her guests had gone, my cousin and I began chatting about that reaction. See, neither of us has a problem with blow jobs. It seems that we both enjoy giving them, for various reasons. I can’t speak for my cousin, but for me, there’s such power in fellatio. Most women see this power as balanced on the man’s side – they feel that since he’s the one receiving the orgasm, that he is the dominant partner in the situation; that the woman, on her knees, is submissive. Actually, that’s quite the opposite of what I feel, even when I’m on my knees.

You see, during that time, I am the one in control. I can draw out his pleasure or I can make him come quickly. His sensual torture can be intensified at my whim. When his cock is in my mouth, he is in my power: I have his most sensitive part next to my teeth – the part of me that can do maximum damage. He has to submit to my tender ministrations, lest I slip. More than that, though, is the power to bring my man to the edge of himself, then pull him over with my lips and tongue. Wringing out the anguished moans as he tries to hold back, hearing his breathy exhortations and eventual warnings, feeling his hands fist in my hair as he attempts to slow my progress – these are my finest moments, the moments when I claim dominion.

I may be on my knees looking up, but the eyes looking down into mine are adoring in their surrender.

Fluff

I've got random bits of fluff blowing about my brain box - kind of the cranial equivalent of belly button lint. I think I'll allow you to witness the expurgation.

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Do you know just how hard it is to find the right pair of shoes? I've been searching high and low for a pair of tan stilettos. Can't find 'em anywhere, and I'm greatly peevish over it. I've found a lovely pair of taupe and white round-toed pumps that will do as a substitute, but... it's not the same. I've also been looking for a pair of navy and white spectator pumps, but alas... unless I want to spend well over 300 samoleans, I'm screwed.

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#879 on the "Things I Hate List": Picking up after the WCM
See, the WCM has a lot of great points - he can do stuff. He can replace a bathroom sink. He can fix a toaster-oven. He can rewire an outlet and install a ceiling fan. He can patch up a wall with drywall, install countertops, and change my oil (not, unfortunately, a euphemism). However, the one thing he can't manage to do is clean up after himself. I am, oh, say, a wee tad bit passive-aggressive when it comes to cleaning up after a 43-year old grown-ass man him, so I don't. Tools litter my house. It's a mess. I hate it, but cleaning up after the WCM is a really bitter pill to me.

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Slightly irritated by: (*gasp!*) Nigella Lawson
Ok, so I love, Love, LOVE Nigella Lawson, to the point of having an absurd girl-crush on her. She's a great cook, very literate and articulate, and possesses a curvaceously fabulous figure. I was thrilled to the marrow when Food Network began carrying her newest series "Nigella Express," and I've DVRed the episodes. It would seem, though, that my Nigella of old has fled the scene and been replaced by a plasticized chirpy Nigella-esque substitute. It's as though they took all of the good stuff about her and played that up to the point of caricature. It's exaggerated and almost, well, affected. Yuck.

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#27,146 on the "Things I Can't Do Without" List: Kissing
So, this is on the TICDW list, but it should probably be on the Things I Really Miss list, since it appears that the WCM gave up kissing for Lent. In 2003. He's not big on the kissing, usually reserving it for either bribery or for when he has to (you know, during the Bi-Annual Shag). I'm rapidly realizing that I really, really miss kissing. Chewing gum to satisfy this oral fixation of mine just hasn't been cutting it of late. I think I'm going to have to tie the WCM down and not let him up until he kisses my lips numb.

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So, the scale says I've gained 3 pounds. This is the first time in almost 21 months that the scale has registered a gain that's not water. And I know when it's water. I can't see these three pounds, and believe me, I'd know where they were - I scrutinize my body quite closely these days. I know where every sag and stretch mark is, where each contour should be, and the what the circumference of by big toe is (don't ask). I don't see 'em. I'm not denying their existence, I'm just saying I don't see 'em. I'm feeling the impact of having the scale tell me about them, though, and I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. So, for the next couple of days, I'm going to have to give up cookies. And candy. And serious starches. I'm not, however, giving up my mochas - a girl's gotta draw the line somewhere.

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I think I've got most of that fluff by now. I would go knit a sweater with it. Except I can't knit.

Cacophony in Murky Deep Water

Most of the time, I tend to keep my musings in the shallower end of my thought pool. It’s not as murky and dangerous to my psyche if I paddle about in the part that’s clear and well defined; the part where I can still see my feet and admire my rockin’ pedicure, if you will.

Recently, though, I’ve had some reason to explore the deeper end of my pool. Occurrences like the fairly rapid loss of body weight and the accompanying ever-changing self-image are probably what propelled me there. You see, I feel small, and have confirmation of this fact by a pair of size 8 jeans from the Gap that are currently caressing my butt. A single digit size, my Holy Grail, has been achieved. Of course, this smallness was not confirmed by my old size 8 wardrobe, as my figure is slightly different now after the birth of one Miss Peanut and the gain and loss of 125 pounds. I mean, the old size 8 jeans buttoned (after much coaxing) and zipped, but the mushroom of deflated skin that rose, dough like, above the waistband was blousier than I’ve ever worn any top. But I digress. As soon as I acknowledged being small, it was as if a bell started ringing in my head. A really loud and obnoxious bell that wouldn’t give me any peace. This smallness, to me, is not merely disconcerting because I have never (ok, well, for a couple of months once) been “small,” but also because it throws a wrench in how I feel others perceive me. Why does this matter? Haven’t I always been taught that it’s what’s inside that counts? Isn’t that what I’ve always parroted when confronting bullies in my classes? Isn’t “appreciating the inner beauty” the overt message sent by the media? Yes, but you know...

That schpiel may be what I was taught, but it hasn’t been what I’ve observed or witnessed. I think part off the confusion I’ve been feeling stems from this contradiction and how I’m trying to overcome it. See, people do treat me better now. Perfect strangers flirt and chat, like I’ve suddenly become visible. Even as I say that, there’s discord in my mind, as I’ve always maintained that I never felt invisible as a fat woman, as so many other fat women have claimed. But now, suddenly, it is clear to me that I was always the one to open the conversations, to initiate the casual flirting. You know, it feels different to have people just talk to me out of the blue. To have others take this initiative shows me just how invisible (and oblivious) I really was. Dealing with others’ perceptions of me is baffling enough when I’m not yet sure of my own self. Add yet another bell, in a different key, to the growing cacophony in my head. I’m treading water here, working up the courage to move deeper, still holding on to the shallow end of the pool.

The shallow end tends to get me in trouble. I know I dwell there too long, and it gives people an incomplete picture of who I am. Dangerous waters, when even I am not sure of this. A couple of months ago, chatting to a dear friend, I moaned about my blistering Mommy schedule of swimming lessons, homework, and being the Troop Leader for my daughter’s Daisy Girl Scout troop. I was quite taken aback – but I probably didn’t let on how much – when my friend raised an eyebrow and said (jokingly? I’m not sure.) “I don’t know if I’d want you to be my kid’s Girl Scout leader.” Well, not like it’s ever going to be an issue, as she lives four states away and her son’s not likely to join the girl scouts... She joked (once again, not sure?) about my troop being like Shelley Long’s troop in the 1980s comedy romp “Troop Beverly Hills.” I laughed it off and said, “Jeez, I’m not that shallow!” Inside, though, I was still smarting from that comment. How would she know, though, that I really wasn’t so shallow? Had I ever shown her different? In the 12 years of our friendship, had I always invited her to play in the safe section of my pool? How had I influenced her perception of me as a shallow ditzy bimbo? My fault, I guess for not showing my depth. This tiny experience added another – still discordant – bell to the growing racket in my head.

I wrote a while ago about losing my self, though not so explicitly. It struck a chord in me that has remained, its echo vibrating in my head for months now. When I wrote about buying pajamas for “who I want to be,” I sensed, but didn’t readily acknowledge a growing abnegation of self, as I’ve been having a devil of a time seeing myself. I mean, my reflection is there, but I still see a rounded woman, chubby around the edges, posing in an impostor's wardrobe. The urge to compare myself to others in order to define that picture is overwhelming at times. I want to rush up to other women and ask – Hey! What size are those jeans, and would they fit me? Do I look as small as you? The need for an ideal is still with me: I need a figure to compare myself to, and I really haven’t found one. Of course, intellectually, I find this whole “ideal” thing repugnant. I can spout the whole feminist body-acceptance mantra with the best of ‘em, but I am having real trouble living it. One of the scholarly articles I read recently (i.e., not found in Cosmo) says that the “ideal” simply doesn’t exist, and that those whom we’ve idealized are little more than we – fallible imperfect humans – but who have yet to be caught being human. This idea is closest to my secret guilty truth – that there is no ideal, never will be, never should be. Wasn’t Martha Stewart proof of that? Still, this contradiction has another bell ringing.

My head is ringing with assonant jangling now, to the point that it’s hard to think. Swimming back to the shallow end seems so tempting – it’s clear and easy, there are no hidden surprises, and I can move merrily along, denying any problems that might come along. I have the sneaking suspicion that if I go there, though, the jangling might lessen, but I’ll never completely go away. I’m still not sure, but it will probably take diving into the deepest part of the pool and struggling to reach the bottom to rid myself of this internal concerto.

So, I’m going to stay here for a while, in the deep end, and sift through the bits of detritus that I find. I need to figure myself out. I knew that being smaller would change others’ perceptions of me. I never realized it would so dramatically alter my own self-image. I hadn’t realized that I was projecting such a shallow image either, or that I was actively searching for a role mode, an ideal. I’m taking a page out of Aussie history and going walkabout. I hope I meet me.

Missing - one sense of cultural identity

Did you know that every time I see or read The Joy Luck Club, I have the overwhelming desire to be Chinese? Or when watching Under the Tuscan Sun, I want to travel to Italy to reclaim my roots? Or possibly, did you know that when I read The Chosen, a novel by Chaim Potok, I became fascinated by Judaism?

Well, you probably didn't. That's ok, too. Who would?

What with all the death looming over my family, the WCM and I have dug a bit into our respective families' histories. I knew already that my maternal grandmother's parents were straight off the boat from Italy. I didn't, and still don't, know exactly when the Grahams came over - my maternal grandfather's family. Never having known the old bastard, I couldn't say I want to know out of any personal attachment to him. He sounds like a complete waste of skin - oh the stories I've heard! It would be nice, though, to know how closely related to Saint Andrew I am. On that side of the family, we've all considered ourselves to be "Eye-talians," or Italian-Americans. The whole Scottish link has sort of been erased from our family. During my Uncle Armand's funeral a few years ago, my brother turned and whispered to me "why is there a bagpiper playing Amazing Grace at an Italian funeral?" I whispered back "'Graham,' dummy!" but inside, I was kind of wondering the same thing.

My paternal grandfather was born here, but his father was born in South Wales. We don't know where his mother's family was from yet. I haven't started looking for my paternal grandmother's family yet, although I know they're pretty much English & Welsh - Hills & Abernathys. That part of the family has always considered themselves to be Welsh Americans - pretty easy when you're living in areas of Pennsylvania named Bala Cynwyd, St. Davydd, and Bryn Mawr.

The WCM has managed to find a Civil War veteran in his lineage - I was impressed. Then he told me that the man joined up, then promptly deserted four months later. Hee hee! We can even find this guy's parents. The internet is a wonderful thing.

It still doesn't help me, though, with my missing cultural identity. The thing about all those movies and books that I listed is that they all have one unifying culture. I have a mish-mash of cultures to choose from. There is no shared past or language that unites us. "American" has so little meaning to me - not because of some liberal shame or denial, but because America is so culturally diverse to begin with, you can't identify any shared past or language among its citizens, even English! Not all Americans have to speak English any more. Do I think this is a good thing? No. The WCMs ancestors and mine don't have any shared past, except the ones that were born here. My grandfather and the WCMs father both fought in World War II, but in different theaters. But I digress. The Americans you'll see in Louisiana aren't the same as the ones you'll find in Maine, or Wisconsin, or Arizona. Can I identify with these people? Well, maybe some of them - I know a few Maine-iacs. I like 'em. But hell, if I identify with the Mainers on a national level, why not the Canadians? They're pretty similar. And if I identify with the Arizonans, why not the Mexicans? Similarities again.

I'm always kind of lost on the Fourth of July, where I fly my flag without truly understanding what it stands for. Our current administration isn't helping my dilemma either, since they're making the American flag a symbol of imperialistic interference the world over. But, once again, I digress. What's it mean to be an American these days? I just don't know.

I know that this is just pointless rambling, where I gather all my navel lint and contemplate the meaning of life. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far, and may I offer you a mint? It's wafer thin!