Dboy and I are in Charleston on a playdate.  We have never really had many playdates–with me being a horrendous working mom and all. Today, however, we are having a playdate with Nicole and her four year old daughter.  Vacation has been wonderful and all, but it has been difficult keeping dboy and dgirl both entertained and preventing them from killing one another.  Giving them some room was a great idea, and seeing him run around happy and entertained is really nice.  Nicole and I have some girl time planned, and then — my first ever trip to Costco.  I am inordinately excited about this trip.  I am not sure that Nicole has figured out yet that she has to pay for my purchases.  I mean, I’ll pay her back and all… you know… eventually.

Today is June 30 and the end of the Cellunot challenge.  It was interesting to hear everyone’s experiences along the way and get some inspirational emails.  All participants should email me the story of how you have changed your life in the past thirty days.  I will have my judges help me select a winner.

In March, Mr. D and I were scouting out things to do at Edisto Beach.  One option we discussed was renting bikes and riding them to the local stop and shop to pick up a paper and riding home to read the paper on the porch.  We then clocked the ride at 9 miles and laughed at our foolishness.  “Ha!  9 miles!  As if!!”

Yesterday I biked to the stop and shop and picked up a paper and brought it back to read on the porch.  As I road down the winding dirt road to the house all I could think was “Hell YES!”  I am sure any passers by looked at the fool on a bike with the big grin and wondered what drug I was on.

That ride means more to me than the weight that I have lost or the weight that I have yet to lose.  I accomplished something I really didn’t think possible.  I hope everyone that enters did as well.

(Email to debunot AT debunot DOT com)

From reality to fantasy:

Holy Hell I am tired from a wretched week of shitfulness.  I can’t say that I truly had a bad week, just one of those weeks where everything I touched turned to pure-T shit.

My new refridgerator?  Is fucking broken.  BROKEN.  Bastard.

I am behind on everything at home, at work, in life.

I have not had time to call friends, see my grandmother, breathe.

I am going on vacation for nine days tomorrow, which is fabulous but I am not ready.

Someone busted my car taillight, so I had it replaced Monday.  Mr. D called me out tonight to look at my car.  “DBN, did you notice anything amiss?”  YOU MEAN THAT THEY REPLACED MY WHITE CAR TAILLIGHT WITH A SILVER CAR TAILLIGHT? NO I DID NOT NOTICE UNTIL NOW.”

When we got home tonight there were ants everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.  We got the situation under control (ants were harmed in the process) and I decided they were coming in the window.  To vent my frusturations of the week, I took a whole tube of caulk and caulked every bit of that fucking window, from the storm window all the way to where the wood meets the wall.

I win, ants are gone.  Booya!

I have a week from hell this week.  Every day is tightly scheduled, and the hours that I am not in a meeting I have 17 million things to do.  Of course, you should not cry a river for me, as this is all in anticipation of VACATION that I leave for on Friday.

Realizing that I had to leave Friday, I knew that i had to find time to buy a bathing suit. I started with Lands End online.  Sigh.  They have tops and no bottoms, bottoms with no tops.  They had a one piece I ordered that flattens my boobs into…flat boobcakes.  I then tried Macy’s online.  I found one that I liked but shippng was 12.00.  Macy’s lost my whole sale based on that ridiculousness.  You can ship a freaking bathing suit for like 2.63.

So, today when my meeting got out early I dashed to the mall.  Belk always has everything I need, right?  I only have three ground rules:
1)  I want it to be a tankini.

2)  I don’t want the top to be flowly, but I don’t want it to be too short and reveal my belly button either.

3) I want a plain old bikini bottom– no skirt, no thong.

oh, there is one more:  REGULAR STRAPS.  I don’t want anything that ties behind my neck.  For one thing it is uncomfortable and for another it lets my boobs flap in the wind.

With these parameters in mind I began my search.  There were tops with no bottoms, bottoms with no tops, skirted bottoms with flowy tops.  One cute suit had a hygenic liner stuck on the outside, so I wouldn’t even touch it.

I did finally find a bathing suit.  I think that it is cute, and who is going to know the top and bottom are two different brands?

voices always give me an instant perception of a person. That is probably not fair of me, as many people may actually be better (or worse) than the perception I have upon hearing their voice. Today I happened upon three of note. The first is a female that I have spoken to. She sounds as if she is always in a hurry, is abrupt, and comes off rude. I envision her as being tall and haughty, with smooth skin pulled back so tight you could bounce a quarter off her cheeks. I imagine that no movement is wasted, that she moves quickly through the world. Even if she agrees with me, it seems as if she is telling me that I am wrong, but she will step off her lofty pedestal and throw me a bread crumb. I find myself shooting the bird at the telephone when I speak to her.
I then met a man from a small country on another continent. Every time he answered a question I found myself entranced by his voice. I had to force myself to pay attention to the content of what he was saying. I immediately decided that he was kind and grandfatherly. He portrayed as an intellectual, an aficionado of the fine arts. I was tempted to give him some children’s books and ask that he read them and tape himself so my children could listen at night.
The third person is someone who talks in a monotone. I feel as if he must be the most drab and dull person on planet earth because of how tiring the voice is. His mouth opens and I fall asleep instantly, like a narcoleptic who hasn’t been allowed to sleep all week. I imagine his family wants to gauge their eyes out at dinner time when he begins talking.
I can not stand to hear my own voice– on tape, voicemail, answering machine, camcorder, anything. I don’t ever like the way I sound. I hate to think the impression others get of me from my voice. Perhaps I should just stick to writing things down.

Earlier I decided I was in the mood for Chinese take out for dinner.  My usual place is closed on Sunday, so I had to go to another that is slightly less nice.  They also speak SLIGHTLY less English.  As I was standing in line, I noted they seemed to be distressed with a caller.  The phone kept ringing, the woman kept picking it up and saying in broken English:  “You call back!  Call back 1 minute!”

The phone rings back and she is gesturing wildly.  All of a sudden she is aiming at me with the phone.  “Address!  Address!  Take phone.”  I’m a little, “huh?  what?” at this point, but I gamely take the phone.

“Hello?”  I say.  There is an irate young man on the other end.  “Finally, damn!  You speak English?”

Me:  Uhhh… yeah.

Him:  “Where the hell is my food?  Its been an hour!”

Me:  “I have no idea, but I think they need your address.”

Him: “THEY DONT HAVE MY ADDRESS?  ITS BEEN AN HOUR!  I WANT MY FOOD!”

Me:  “Sir, look I have no idea.  Give me your address and some directions and I will try to help.  Also your phone number so they can call you back.”

Him:  Sputter, sputter, gasp, indignation.

I get the information from him, try to calm him down.  He then says “So look, you gonna give me like 2 dollars off or what?” (Also, why the hell 2.00?  I’d want free food by that point.)

I was so tempted to say yes, but couldn’t bring myself to make this situation worse.  Instead I told him that “No I am a customer, I don’t work here.”

“A CUSTOMER!?  YOU DONT EVEN WORK THERE!?”

Finally I get off the phone and the lady drags me into the kitchen and points at a map that is 14 million years old.  The dude’s address isn’t on the map, he lives in a new place.  I try my best to circle the then empty piece of land for her.  She seems concerned there are no roads, and I am looking for a way to get the hell out of dodge.

All I want to know is why didn’t *I* ask for 2.00 off?

(I’m so sure that dude NEVER got his food.)

My dear, sweet, loving, precious 4 year old boy was sent to the “Principals” office yesterday. Apparently he was very rude to his teacher and then got into a screaming match with his buddy at nap time. The screaming match woke up two classes of napping children. Don’t you know those ladies wanted to shoot them?
He was put on the “No sprinkler day” list. We didn’t learn of this until this morning when we took him to school in a bathing suit (With clean clothes in his bag). He did tell me this morning that he was not having sprinkler day, but I thought he just didn’t want to get out of bed and get dressed.
Apparently he may be allowed to have sprinkler day since he apologized. If I had been the one that dropped him off, I would have told them not to allow him and to sit his butt in the baby room.

I know one little boy that is losing all his toys tonight.

(Just as an aside, do you remember what book talked about spelling principal with “pal” not “ple” because the principal is your PAL? Was it a Judy Blume book?)

Skinny. Awkward. My mother still did my hair in pigtails.

A girl named Barbie sat next to me in the mobile unit that was my sixth grade classroom. Her boobs were at least a B cup and she bypassed the training bra altogether. She kissed boys that were getting boners and my mother would not let me shave my legs yet.

I realized quickly that I “needed” a boyfriend to fit in with my sixth grade peers, so I chose one at random. I strategized that I didn’t want to french kiss anyone, much less any boy that got a boner (mainly because I did not know what the heck that meant), so I picked the quiet, hapless kid two rows up. He wrote me love notes and held my hand, but our lips never met. (I saved that for seventh grade.)

One afternoon my mom took me to my dad’s office and dropped me off to spend time with him. We rode in her minivan with the fake wood stickers on the side. The doors weighed a hundred pounds and squeaked when they opened. “Is something wrong?” I asked. “No. Your dad just wants to talk to you.”

Until that moment, I had been enduring the normal life of a WASP-y child in small town America. I went in to his office quickly. I was lamely behind when it came to puberty, but I was content with my life. I went in the office and sat on the scratchy wool sofa. I could feel it scratching my legs. The sign on the wall said “Old Bankers Never Die, They just lose their interest.” My dad sat down with me on the sofa and told me some story about love ending and beginning. I didn’t understand what he was talking about, and then I did. Ten minutes later I became something totally unexpected- a divorced kid. My dad drove me to a new house that had been completely furnished with furniture from my old house. I wandered through this new house of my fathers, touching mementos and knick-knacks that had been surreptitiously moved under the cover of night. How could I be so stupid? Stupid with hairy legs and no bra or boobs to put in a bra.

My brother came over later and told me the new house was cool because it had bunk beds. He chattered and jumped while I hated everyone. “I hate this.” I said to my dad as he sat on the sofa in his new den. I did not understand that he was happier, I did not care. He told me not to tell anyone about the divorce. “It is unpleasant.” he said. I kept it a secret until the middle of seventh grade.

We went back to our house and I swore I wouldn’t go back to his new house. “I have to share a room with a five year old” I cried to my mother. I didn’t know she was sad, I didn’t care. Nothing was going quite right for me. She said nothing, but sighed in a resigned fashion. I took advantage of the moment. “May I start shaving my legs?” I asked. She handed me a razor and some shaving cream. “If you start now, you can never stop. It is really not as exciting as you think.”

Our neighbor brought my mom a book, “Coping with Divorce” and tried not to let me see it. I found it later in the trash can.

Later in the year it was time to visit our new middle school. Everyone lined up to go on the field trip. I stood in line, ready to go. “Oh, DBN!” my teacher clucked at me. “You are not going on the field trip! You are going to a different school. You can go to your mothers classroom instead.” The other kids clambered onto the bus, laughing and happy. I waited in the first grade class, and then went back when they returned. I could feel the change in the air, could feel that they had bonded over their field trip.

I cheated on a science test. It was the new teacher, the young teacher that everyone loved. I felt so guilty I cried and turned myself in. She smiled and let me take the test over that afternoon. When I see her to this day, my mood lightens. A small gesture in the life of a sad sixth grader went a long way.

I am sure the year was happy at times and that I had fun. I am sure that there are good memories to be found in photographs. However, when I start posting chronologically from the year I was first self aware, this is the year that I remember. I remember awkwardness and angst. I remember remaining in my own head almost all of the time. I remember that my parents divorced. I remember learning that sometimes once something starts, it can not stop.

I used to love blogging, having a blog. I don’t know if I just have nothing to say lately or if I just… have nothing to say. My brain is fried lately and I just stare into space.

Perhaps it is time for a vacation? Thank Gahd, I have one coming up. Edisto Beach in two weeks, here I come. One whole week of sand, sun, and sleep.