Anne Nahm

Two other things that happened in the last two months that I didn’t talk about were 1) this blog turned 3 and b) I turned 34.

Turning 34 has been like a bar of Laffy Taffy that you find laying on your car seat. Halfway open and out of its wrapper. On a hot summer day.

The thing is, the candy looks all fine and square when you spy it. So you reach over and grab it, thinking: Thank God I saw that in time. Because if it had melted? That would have been a serious bitch…

And that is about when you notice that you? Are not in time. That sunbathing Laffy Taffy only looked solid until you tried to move it. That shit is melted all over, making gooey streamers from your grabby hand down to the car seat, curling over your knuckles, and getting all over you. And everything in your car now smells like Strawberry Shortcake’s asshole.

That’s when you realize: The best thing you can do for yourself is accept that every pair of pants you ever wear in this car are gonna have a sticky spot on them somewhere southeast of the right butt cheek.

Thirty four has been exactly like that.

In the months leading up to this birthday, I resolved to finish a book. I thought that would make 34 defined in my memory. Or would make me feel successful. Or complete. Or whatever. Because some years I have finished stuff and felt accomplished. And other years I think: Double You Tee Eff did I even do with my time? Because all I remember is a hangover and watching NYPD Blue.

But this time, 33 and 34 just stretched out in indefinite time and got stuck all over me. I feel neither accomplished, nor different, nor like I can put those feelings back from whence they came. Or even get them off me.

Anyway, for my birthday/Christmas I got myself Season One of The L Word. I realized after two episodes that I have far less lesbian tendencies than I thought I might. In most of those sex scenes, I’m not even sure what they are doing. Unlike the male gay sex scenes from Six Feet Under, where I felt pretty sure what was going on. It’s kind of humiliating. I have the owner’s manual, why can’t I figure out what’s going on when there’s no wiener involved?

In slightly less wiener obsessed talk, my blog turned 3 last month. I feel real depressed about this. I’ve seen a couple of blogs I loved take nosedives since I started reading them. Reading those other blogs, I wanted to scream (In anonymous capslocked drive-by): God. Just admit you suck right now and I’d have so much more respect for you.

I’d keep reading through their stupid phase of suck and the blogger would never mention it, and I’d start wondering if maybe they didn’t realize they sucked. And then finally, when I was barely interested reading anymore, they’d finally, finally have this I SUCK post. And instead of being all, YAY!, I’d read through all the OH NOEZ, YOU TOTALLY RAWK! comments and I’d think: Oh this is so much worse than if you’d never mentioned it, you sucky attention whore.

Because I’m super generous to people in my own mind is why. But now, lo! I am stuck in the trap of my own snarkiness, for there appears to be no appropriate way to broach this subject matter without internal mockery of the worst sort. And BTW, I can tell you right now the person(s) I’m thinking about are not you. They do not read this blog. Presumably because if they happened to chance on it lately, they were all: God, this blog sucks. And left never to return.

Where was I? Being Ms. Jackson if I’m nasty? Oh yes.

I just wanted you to know I am aware things have become somewhat sucky and redundant (suckdundant?) and am trying to deal. But without inviting sunshine-upskirt-commenting. I think that I’m starting to like you all too much. If I care what you think, it becomes impossible to tell you anything important without needing you to tell me it’s OK. Like I’m some stupid little kid at show’n'tell with my ugly ass homemade clay ashtray. Which makes me want to Old Yeller this stupid blog behind the barn.

I warned her three times, but after my Middle sister showed her new husband the third picture of me, in high school, in ’90′s grunge, Cindy Crawford hair, and bedazzled jean jacket, I decided on revenge. Unfortunately, Middle never takes an ugly picture, so I had to get creative.

Two minutes later, while my mom cleared pie plates off the table and my own husband stepped out to look at my dad’s garage project, Middle and her husband started rolling around giggling over the photographic evidence of the circa ’92 wedgie I was sporting in my too tight waist high jeans and my lumberjack shoes, I retaliated.

Me: So now I have to tell you about the first crush I ever had. I was nine, so that means Middle was…. five.. His name was Matt, and he came over to play at my house. It was a huge deal.

So my little boyfriend and I didn’t want to hang out with Middle. She ratted us out to Mom, and so we were forced by parental mandate to all play out in the yard.

In retaliation, me and Matt went to the very edge of the yard and ignored Middle. You know what your wife did when she couldn’t get our attention? She danced around us in a big circle, flinging off her clothes, until she was Butt Naked Squealing Heathen Girl. Now Matt was an only child who usually hung out with the boys in our class. So it took him a minute to find his eyeballs, pick them up out of the grass, and put them back in his head.

Despite my total humiliation (PS: To this day? Still the worst. date. ever.) Matt and I walked away and went to play under the play structure, determined to ignore the Butt Naked Squealing Heathen Girl.

You know what Middle did when we did that? She climbed on top of the play structure. Naked. You know what she did when we still ignored her? She tried to pee on us. The rest of my date was spent running away from Middle “the super soaker” dePlume. Matt never wanted to come over again.

(I sat back, wondering for a moment if I had gone too far.)

(I needn’t have worried. I should have gone farther. They just laughed at me. Stupid bonds of marriage between them.)

Middle’s husband: The moral of that story is that you don’t ignore Middle.

Middle: The moral of that story is that I? Have terrific aim.

PS: Middle and her husband also got tickets to the presidential inauguration. I. Am. So. Jealous.

My mother-in-law did four loads of my family’s laundry while she was visiting. Including a metric ton of my underwear. Should I be grateful or icked out?

I’d initially decided that when I do look in the basket, whether or not my panties were folded would be the deciding factor. But since I made the executive on that issue, I’ve been unable to investigate.

Subcategories for your neurotic- sub-categorized-decision-making pleasure:

A) She asked first.** It was my husband who Okayed her doing the laundry. While I was out with my sisters.

B) Sporadically over the last ten years, I have asked my husband if my mom can do a load of laundry (like when I had an infant or was deathly ill) and he was all OhHellToTheNoez! My underwear could be in there and your mom could see it!

• B1) So was this wily revenge on my husband’s part? Or

• B2) Did he just assume I had no hang-ups about any motherly types washing my pube catchers?

C) I was actually hoarding all fallen briefs from the entire week in one big pile to do when she wasn’t looking. Gym undies, those ones I wore downtown and then had to jog four city blocks while six months pregnant before I found a bathroom, etc. So I’m sure my MIL happened upon a pile of things that felt like old banana skins and smelled like an elephant’s butt.

D) Previous Trauma. Once on vacation, I accidentally got a pair of her underwear in our laundry. And in that particular case study, it turned out we wore the same brand of vacation panties. It occurred to me: Maybe this was just the first time I was noticing that our underwears were getting mixed up. What if we had already been on some grand panty exchange without my knowledge? And then I had to run into the bathroom and check that I was not, in that very moment, wearing cotton briefs of mistaken identity.

Maybe lighter fluid and a match is the best answer to this quandary. Or is that going overboard?

** For the record, not only is she the nicest MIL ever, but she is also the least intrusive person on the planet. Also this week, my oldest daughter dropped the b-bomb (“mommy took a picture of this pirate ship for her blog“) and my MIL got all excited and asked if I had a blog. I didn’t even have to lie, I just looked shocked (which hello, I was – ’cause after all this time, I still haven’t thought of a decent cover story in the likely event that happens again). Lady dropped the subject and has not asked a follow-up question since.

So after we finished putting out the stockings and presents for the kids, my husband and I snuggled into bed and waited for Christmas morning.

Some time in the middle of the night, we heard something going on inside our own house. I snuck downstairs with a baseball bat and a bloated sense of my own defense skills, ready to crack intruder skulls. Instead, I found the whole nativity jamming out to this song.

And then this one from the awesome ishkadebble:

It was really cute to see the wise men smoking their Frankincense while Mr. & Mrs. Christ jitterbugged around the manger. Baby J kept hugging everybody – I think he was really happy to be back home. It got a little crazy when the tiny naked Matthew McConaughey streaked through the nativity banging his bongo drum, so I snuck back upstairs. Those guys are going to be tired tomorrow.

Happy Holidays!

The holidays must be getting to him. He was fine one minute, and the next? Scorched earth nuclear event – kicking his feet, pounding his fists on the floor, and screaming at the top of his lungs.

I put his tiny wooden butt in time-out and told him he could come out when he used his big boy words. He did use a couple of adult words when I said that, but I won’t repeat them here.

As I settled down in the kitchen with a cup of cocoa and waited for the screams to stop, I realized I probably shouldn’t have let my kids hide him like an Easter egg for three hours yesterday.*

Anyway, when he stopped crying, I went in to check on him. Little guy was fast asleep.

When he woke up, he was full of smiles and wanted to snuggle.

*The two year old adores this game and calls him ‘The Geez’. She tries to put him in the manger’s cradle when no one’s looking. As soon as the five year old notices, she kidnaps J and hides him somewhere in the house for the two year old to find. I was a little concerned he might go missing, but we’re in round 182 of this game and so far, he keeps returning. It must be some sort of miracle. Although after his tantrum, I must question whether there have been some unintended emotional consequences for the J Meister.