"The Gift" That Keeps On Giving Me Nightmares and Making Me Vomit In My Mouth A Little. Okay, A Lot.

Because some members of my husband's family think they are funny when in all actuality they are total wankers, I got this CD for Christmas. The tag said "From Santa," and since I have known since I was 5 years old that "Santa" was a lie, this wanker is obviously using it as a pseudonym because they are too scared to sign their name.  As they should be. And the CD has been opened, which means that the perp obviously listened to it, and possibly even enjoyed it. Perhaps singing along to it in the car while driving around town running errands to places like SAS Comfort Shoe Store and to the local knitting store to get supplies to make their cat, Mrs Prissypants, a turtleneck. They probably even shed a tear or two on such lovely tunes as "Don't Dream It's Over" and "Perfect Day."

This nightmare of a CD is called "The Gift", which I think is an extremely terrible title. Because although this technically is a gift, it is not a good one. In all honesty, I would have preferred a big-ass dog to take a giant poo on my porch, which I would then step in on my way out to get the Sunday paper. And then, whilst balancing on one foot to look at the bottom of the other, poo-smeared foot, I would lose my balance and fall into the giant pile of poo therefore getting it all over my favorite pajamas as well as in my hair. Then, while I was shouting for help from my husband, the big-ass dog would hear my cries and consider me wounded prey and decide to come and drag me from the porch, taking me back to his dog house to eat me for dinner. But instead of eating me all at once, he would eat one limb a day, burying me in the yard between meals, then digging me up again for the next course. I don't think I'm exaggerating here. At all. And if I hated receiving this CD that much, imagine how much I would hate having to listen to it.

I drew this picture for you guys so as to better explain my feelings. Notice my arm is a greenish Zombie color. That's cuz I colored it yellow thinking it would look like skin. Which it did. But totally Jaundiced skin, which was sorta unflattering. And when I'm drawing my dog-amputated arm, the last thing I want is for it to look unflattering. So I added some blue thinking it would look like dead skin. But I forgot that yellow and blue make green. Hence....Zombie arm.

I wanted to drive my car over it a few times, then beat it with a hammer, then let a goat chew on it, then put it in the cat's litter box for awhile, then have a hobo rub it in all up on his junk, and then throw it in my fireplace. But since I try not to be wasteful and I am afraid the fumes of burning such a toxic CD might kill what remains of my family's brain cells, I decided to offer it up for free on my neighborhood website to see if there was some crazy person who might actually like Susan Boyle. My initial plan was to set a trap and offer this "Amazingly Beautiful" CD for free, just to see what kinda people I get. But since I am too honest for that I pretty much said what I'm saying here. Dog and all. I totally hoped that nobody wanted it. And you know what? I got a ton of responses, but everyone agreed with me. Of course, there might have been a few people who wanted it bad, and were maybe even desperate for it and all tingly inside. The way I get when I think about Paul Rudd. Or Guacamole. But I suppose that those people were afraid to come out of the Susan Boyle lovers closet. And you know what? They should be. I'm totally for coming out of closets, but the Susan Boyle closet is one that I prefer to have locked. From the outside. With, like, every kind of lock that Home Depot has in stock.  And combination locks on top of those locks. Plus one of those hand scanners. And an eyeball scanner too. And a few armed security guards with attitude problems. And a big-ass dog.

Warning: I'm About To Say "Vagina." A Whole Lot. And Not In A Sexy Way.

So last week I was sitting in the office surfing the internet for photos of tiny animals and mustaches, the way middle-aged chubby guys surf for porn, when I heard something horrifying coming from the tv in the living room (which I left on so the cat would think I was in there and not follow me into the office to meow her brains out and totally ruin my will to live). Of course it was that nightmare-inducing Dr. Oz, who I used to like but never ever watch anymore because of the fact that I am a person who has very very bad luck, medically speaking, and the last thing I need is him telling me about even more freaky stuff that can happen to me and keeping me up at night all paranoid that my unborn twin is living in my lung or that I'm gonna turn into one of those tree people with the full body warts that look just like bark. Because, you guys, someday I probably will. And then I'll have to be the subject of a Discovery Health Channel special called "Tale of the Tree Lady" or something like that. But if that happened to me, instead of getting all those painful surgeries to remove my wart bark, I'd probably just go with it and let kids hang swings from me and chipmunks and squirrels and birds live on me and stuff. But not crows, because me and crows, we have a history. And if there's one thing I know for certain, it's that crows are assholes.

But anyway, back to my story. I was sitting at my desk completely immersed in pictures of animals dressed as humans, when all of the sudden I heard Dr. Oz say something about how it's really quite common for someone's uterus to just FALL OUT OF THEIR VAGINA! So I'm sitting here in shock, trying to process what I think I just heard, and I hear a woman talking about the time she was going to the bathroom and her uterus just plopped right out and she just kinda puts it back and goes on with her life. So at this point, I'm freaking out just hearing about this, WAY more than the woman whose freakin' uterus fell out of her vagina was freaking out when her mother effing uterus mother effing fell out of her mother effing vagina. So I go into the living room to rewind that stuff to find out if I actually heard what I thought I heard. And guess what you guys? I did. So I reluctantly watched it for a few minutes, but when they started talking about how your bowels can fall out of your rectum too,  I was done. D. O. N. E. Done. I thought I knew a lot, you guys, but I have never heard anything like this. Sure, I've heard of surprise babies falling out of people when they're going to the bathroom and stuff, but those people are obviously just (a) really stupid, and (b) really out of shape. Because believe me, when I was pregnant I knew I was pregnant. My boobs knew. My ass knew. My belly knew. My brain knew. My cankles knew. So do I fear that a baby will just suddenly come out when I'm doing a number 2? No. But thanks to Dr. Oz, do I now fear that my entire collection of internal organs will fall out of my in-between the next time I'm doing a jumping jack? Hells yeah.

Unfortunately I didn't stick around long enough to find out why this happens, but I did hear him say that it's probably happening to me or someone I know, and I only hope that the Universe goes with the someone I know part because I really don't think that I could take it if this happened to me. I can handle lots of things, but having my uterus or my bowels falling out of my orifices is just not one of them. And what is this anyway? Some really awful vaginal version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? Is it really happening to that many people? And since I turned off the tv, I don't know how or if you can prevent this. And I'm too scared to even read about it. So my plan is to just do lots of kegels, always sit with my legs crossed, never go commando, and never, ever, wear skirts. Ever. Because if something is gonna go falling out of my vagina, I at least want the safety back up of pants to help keep it from doing a full-blown plop onto the ground. Which would be pretty embarrassing. As well as unsanitary. It's probably not the best idea to get your uterus all covered with twigs and old gum if you want to put it back in there. Just guessing. 

Dear James Franco

I think you're hot. Lots of people think you're hot. Girls think you're hot. Guys think you're hot. Animals even think you're hot. I showed a picture of you to my cat, and she was all "purr purr" and trying to rub up on my leg and stuff, so I'm pretty sure that she thinks you're hot. And let's be honest here...you think you're hot too. So why are you trying to f*ck it all up? Nothing pisses me off more than when a hot dude gets all "Man, I'm so hot. But it's such a burden. Ugly people are so lucky. Maybe I'll try to ugg it up a little so that people will see that I'm more than just a pretty face." And then you go all Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt on us and stop shaving and showering and combing things. And you start dressing like a hobo. If a hobo bought $500 jeans and $200 flannel shirts and rolled them around in some dirt and maybe drove over them a few times to give them that "This is what I wear in my cardboard box under the bridge" kinda look. Actually, you'd probably have your assistant do that because you're too busy being sad about your handsomeness.

You never see beautiful women doing this. Halle Berry isn't getting a muffin top and letting her eyebrows grow together. Perfect looking women are spending a freakin' fortune on fake boobs, lips, and botox so they can look even more perfecter. God forbid one of them gets a pimple or or a hairy mole or something....they're out of a job. But you handsome actors do it and it's all "He's so independent and hip and cool" and crap like that. I remember when Julia Roberts tried the hairy pit thing once, but she just looked stupid. And everyone said she looked stupid and she shaved those things, like, pronto. And I guess those Olson twins, or at least one of them, does look like a hobo, but nobody cares because she's just an out of work ex-child star and they are generally pretty mentally unstable and desperate for attention like that.

I admit to owning a few old man sweaters like this myself, but at least I button them correctly. Unless I'm drunk.
(Photo: Getty Images)

Maybe you've heard about my love of the 'stache. And maybe that's why you grew one? Because you thought that I might like you even more? Well if that's what's going on here, you're way off base. I have to admit, I am pretty addicted to mustaches. But not in an "I think they're sexy and I wanna lick one" kinda way. More like a "mustaches are so stupid that I think they're amazingly awesome" kinda way. I totally dig them, and I often wear them because I think they look funny. But I don't wanna make out with one. Even yours. And James, I'm worried about you. I'm worried about your future. So let me break it down for you: Your mustache is a gateway mustache. It's a classic puberty 'stache. Something you grow just to show you've got big boy hormones now. And even though it looks like you just grew your nose hairs long and combed them to the sides, you still feel manly about it.  And it is starting to fill out a bit, so next stop? Porno 'Stache. And James? Nobody likes a porno 'stache. Nobody except for Ron Jeremy. And if I were you, I wouldn't want to attract his attention. At all. So what happens if you still don't come to your senses and shave? Your 'stache blossoms into a full-blown Tom Selleck, which is waaaaaaay too much 'stache for you and your delicate features to try and pull off. And what happens if you can't even stop there? If you're over-taken by the urge to keep growing? That's when you hit rock bottom and do this:

That's a mother effing nipstache, my friend. And nobody, NOBODY, can pull off the nipstache. Not even you, Mr. Franco. Not even you.

I say this with love.

Christmas 2010: Steve Gets Murdery and My Nieces Totally Get My Vibe.

Christmas. It's supposed to be a happy time. And I was happy. I had my wine. I had presents. Then Steve had to go and commit attempted murder on someone I love. I think it must have been a case of jealousy. I guess Steve knows that no matter how hard he tries, he cannot compare to Mr. Stachey:

As most of you know, I purchased Mr. Stachey when I was visiting my sister last November (read about it here if you missed it). And from the moment I saw him, he was the love of my life. I couldn't wait to take him home to live with me, but unfortunately the airlines won't let you travel with snow globes because they think snow globe owners might be terrorists who are sneaking flammable plane exploding liquids on board, when in all actuality most snow globe owners are usually 8-year-old girls or middle-aged single ladies with cat hoarding problems. And very rarely snow globe owners are really cool blonde girls who have weird mustache fetishes. But I must admit that although I can't see how a Santa Claus snowglobe being carried by an 8-year-old girl looks terroristy, I can see how it's possible that Mr. Stachey might look suspicious. Facial hair always looks suspicious. That is part of it's lure. The danger of the 'stache.

So anyway, I had to leave Mr. S. with my sister and pick him up when I was there over Christmas, with my own wheels instead of flying. So Mr. S. was our midwest traveling companion. At least until December 21st, when Steve tried to murder him by leaving him in the car. In 11 degree temperatures. Which is below freezing, you guys. So a few days later, guess what we discovered? A frozen solid Mr. Stachey. I was horrified and almost kicked Steve's ass while he blamed me for the whole incident, because he's manipulative and sneaky like that. But I didn't fall for it. I would never put Mr. S. in danger. We are in love! I knew there was hope for Mr. Stachey, because I've seen "Encino Man," a movie in which Brendan Frasier was a caveman who was frozen in ice but was perfectly fine once he thawed out, like a gazillion years later. These things happen. It's just Science. So we thawed him out, which seemed to be working, then Steve removed the glass, which is like Mr. Stachey's space helmet. So obviously although Steve missed "Encino Man"  he must have seen "Mission To Mars" in which astronaut Tim Robbins removes his space helmet and totally dies.  So probably when he realized the freezing didn't work, he was trying to find a back-up murder plan and he obviously figured that exposing Mr. Stachey to a strange atmosphere was the way to go. Unfortunately for Steve, he greatly underestimated the depth of our love as well as Mr. Stachey's ability to tolerate oxygen, and was no doubt disappointed when Mr. S. pulled through like a champ. So now Mr. Stachey is back in TX, on my bookshelf looking healthy and handsome, and reminding Steve every day that he kinda sucks at both murder and Science.

After that crisis was averted, things were pretty good. We had Christmas day at my in-laws, where I discovered that my adorable nieces, Kaitie and Jillian, have maybe just a little bit too much information about me. Their mother took them to the Dollar Store and set them loose to purchase gifts for people. On their own. No input from her. At all. And this is what they chose for me:

Me, Jillian, and the mustache/nose/glasses she chose.  And me and Kaitie, with the Wine Bag she chose.

Then we posed for pictures, and I later realized that I may have a small posing for family pictures problem:

First attempt at family photo.                                                   Second attempt at family photo.

Then on to Steve's Aunt and Uncle's house for another Christmas and another attempt at photos:

First attempt at photo.                                         Second attempt at photo.

Are we sensing a pattern here? Maybe I'm goofy and a bit hyper sometimes, but I calmed down when I met Lucy:

And this is what The Universe should have given me instead of my whiney cat. Or what Steve would have given me if he actually cared about me. Well, Lucy plus 2 finger monkeys, plus the cruisin' cooler, plus the giant cat from Kansas City, plus the whole not trying to murder Mr. Stachey thing, plus a time machine, plus this pig:

I really don't think I'm asking for much.

                                                                                                        

Computers, Bear Grylls and Cankles. With a Dash of Zambie.

I was finally sitting down to write my Christmas blog yesterday, but something wacky was going on with the computer because the hub was trying to do some kind of updates, or installing of new things or something very computery that I don't understand since all I know how to do is type words and hit "enter." And I called him at work like I always do when I'm in a computer-induced meltdown and he tried to help me but I have some kind of disease where I ask a question and then tune out on the third word and start thinking about stuff like Zombies, going on an adventure with Bear Grylls, or how when the Zombies come I really hope I am with Bear Grylls because he would f*ck their Un-dead shit up and look handsome doing it. Plus he'd probably call them Zambies or something cool and Englishy like that and I think a Zombie Apocolypse would be much easier to take if everything had an English accent. Anyway, if anyone out there really hates my blog and wants me to stop writing it, all they have to do is sneak into my house and turn off the computer because I would probably just assume it was broken and go watch tv instead. But my point is, I never got the chance to write about Xmas but I promise I will next week. Well, unless I just gave some hater the genius idea to break into my house and turn off my computer.

In the meantime, someone found my blog by typing "Matt Lauer has cankles" into google. Google brings more weirdos into my life than Jerry Springer or Cops ever did. Thank you, Google.

Here's a picture of a tiny little rabbit stealing a cookie:

You are welcome in Pattitopia at any time, little bunny. But bring your own cookies you thieving rodent, cuz Patti don't be baking in Pattitopia. xoxo

A Very Special Episode (Menses and Milkshakes)

Because I'm super menstrual and trying to deal with Comcast has totally fried my brain, I'm going to post today, but I'm going to post completely random stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with anything because I have cable company and menses-induced ADHD. And I just used the word "menses" for maybe the first time in my whole life and now I totally feel like Doc Baker on The Little House On The Prairie, because that sounds like something he'd tell Mary in a very special episode in which she thinks she's dying but really she's just turning into a woman. Although I bet the townspeople, led by that bitch Mrs Olson, woulda had him hanged for saying that word back then. And now it sounds so dorky. Remind me that when I build my time machine, one of the things I'm gonna do is go back to the Little House times and run around town screaming "I'm having my menses!" And I might even deliver some Midol and Tampax to the womenfolk. Because after cooking from scratch, washing clothes in the river, sweeping dirt floors, and having to have birth control-less sex with sweaty guys who bathe once a month and never brush their teeth, the least these women deserve is cramp relief and good absorbency.

Random Thing #1: I saw a story on TV about a woman who murdered her husband by giving him a milkshake full of pills and then, when he passed out, she bludgeoned him to death and rolled his body up in a carpet and put him in her storage room. First off let me say that this woman's milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard so she can poison them and bludgeon them which is really nowhere near as good as why Kelis' milkshakes bring them. Second, it seems that possibly this all happened because she was in love with their electrician. And third, this woman obviously doesn't have the Lifetime channel or Showtime or HBO, because she is really really not good at murder. I mean, she obviously is good at making someone be dead, but she is neither efficient nor a good body hider. I would like my husband to know that if he ever falls in love with our electrician and wants to get me outta the picture, at least put enough pills in the milkshake so that you don't have to bludgeon me to death after I drink it. Actually, as long as you're making me secretly drink murdery pills, can you please put them in a margarita instead of a milkshake? You often offer me margarita's, but if you offer me a milkshake I'm gonna know something's up because I'm pretty sure the reason you offer me margarita's is to get me frisky and if you offered me milkshakes all I'd get is into a lactose-intolerant situation. And please look on-line or ask someone else who's murdery, how many pills you should put in so we can really avoid the bludgeoning, because you know how I feel about looking gross when I'm dead. And don't let me rot in a storage unit until I'm even uglier, okay? Preserve me in some formaldehyde or something like a good murderer. I want an open casket and I don't want a chocolate milkshake mustache or a bludgeoned up face or rotted skin when everyone's supposed to be looking at me and feeling sad about all my cuteness going to waste.

Random Thing #2: In the 1 1/2 years that I have had this blog, I have had many subscribers and only 3 unsubscribers. But the un-subscribers bug me because I have no idea why they unsubscribed. When people subscribe I assume it's because they like me, but that would mean that when they un-subscribe it's because they don't like me. Or else they got milkshake murdered. Or margarita murdered. Or went to jail. Or got amnesia and forgot that they liked me. Those last 4 are probably more likely than the not liking me thing. But I suppose anything is possible. Anyway, I now require that if you decide to unsubscribe, you must write me a 200 word essay on why you are unsubscribing. You must also include a photo of yourself which I can draw things on like pimples, hairy moles, and those x's over the eyes and post on my blog. If you fail to do this I will call comcast and tell them you want to switch your cable service over to them. Don't even think of trying me.

Random Thing #3: I have decided to become a prison guard. On our drive home from MO there were an awful lot of billboards about how you can train to become one. So many billboards that I got the feeling that they were maybe a bit desperate. Or that this was some kind of sign.  And although I think that I would make an amazing prison guard, I think that they might think I look too whimpy to handle the job, so if they're desperate I'm much more likely to get hired. What they don't know is that I have my mad street fighting as well as Zombie fighting skillz, therefore Prison Guarding a bunch of dudes at Huntsville should pose no problem at all. Just last week my Pilates instructor, Phillip, even said that if he ever goes to jail he'd want it to be with me because I'd run that place. He's right. And if I could run it as a prisoner I sure as hell can run it as a guard.  I don't even think I'd have to be tough on the prisoners. I think that I could get them to do what I want just by asking. Sure, I might have to flash a boob now and then, or taser a couple of them, possibly shiv one to show the others I mean business. But mostly I think I'd just have to ask nicely.

Random Thing #4: Yesterday we went to eat at Texas Road House and my husband, in one of those moments that makes me totally dig him, found a peanut that looks like a Toucan and gave it to me to bring home. I know that most of you chicks want your man to give you jewelry and crap like that, but I'm not into jewelry unless it's really weird and unique jewelry (like my new mustache necklace whose name is Mr. Winterbottom). But I'm definitely into stuff like peanuts that look like Toucan's. So since today I'm stuck at home waiting for the cable guy AND the carpet guy, I drew Nutbird a tree to sit in, and will soon move on to building him a tiny bird cage.

Random Thing #5: Over the Christmas break when we were at my in-laws house, we were talking about how people always tell me their personal information and how I often find myself in line at Target helping someone solve their mommy issues or whatever. Anyway, Steve's mom said that I should become some kind of therapist or something (part-time, when I'm not prison guarding).  And I think she was serious. Although I'm also 99% sure she was drinking her fancy wine at the time (read her lid). But regardless, I have now decided that I am officially a counselor and I hereby anoint myself as such. I'm even gonna print out a certificate and hang it in my office. So I would now like to announce that I am open for business, and if any of you have any issues you would like my amazing and invaluable help with, please feel free to email me. If your problem is awesome and/or humiliating enough I will post it on my site. Along with my brilliant idea for solving it, of course. And since I am nothing if not private, I will leave your name off if you wish. The Dr. is in!!

Random Thing #6: Since the cable guy and the carpet guy were supposed to come over around the same time today, I had big plans to entertain myself by getting them to have a fight. I was going to tell the cable guy that the carpet guy said something disparaging about his mother, and then I was gonna tell the carpet guy that the cable guy doesn't like berber, and then I was gonna watch the fists fly! But since when I'm having my menses (I'm bringing the word back) the universe often likes to crap on my head, the carpet guy came and went and the cable guy has yet to show. So now I'm left to think of other things I can do to torture my cable guy. I might just tape Nutbird to my shoulder so he looks like a parrot and have him "talk" to the cable guy in a weird little Polly want a cracker voice. Maybe I'll make him sing "Milkshakes." Or maybe I'll start a fight with him myself. I'll keep you posted.

Oh...and I just realized that the entire time the carpet guy was here my fly was open. And he was acting weird. So I'm pretty sure that he thought I was hitting on him. He seemed in quite a hurry to leave, so now I am totally hurt feelinged that he obviously didn't want a piece of this action and I need a margarita. A poison-free one please. Thank you.

Stuff I Woulda Got For Christmas If "Santa" Wasn't Such An A-Hole

2 mustache finger monkeys. 2 because 1 would get lonely. And 2 can do the chores I give them much faster than 1. Because 1 dangling from my ear as a monkey earring would just look stupid. If they're opposite sexes they might give me mustache finger monkey babies. If they start having babies I can get enough to organize a mustache finger monkey theater troupe that can wear tiny costumes and perform Broadway musicals.

A time machine. Or the necessary materials with which to build my own time machine. For the past 6 months I have been pretty obsessed with having a time machine, and have spent what some people might describe as a ridiculous amount of time daydreaming about it. But those people are obviously complete morons with absolutely no imagination. And as soon as I get/build my awesome time machine, those douchebag's will be all "Hey! Cool time machine! Can you take me back to 1988 so I can re-do my prom night when instead of getting it on all hot and heavy with Mike I drank too much Mad Dog 20/20 and puked all down the front of his tux then laid in the fetal position and cried for the next 8 hours because he dumped me for Susie?" And I'll be all "Suck my balls, jackhole!"

Someone to love me enough, fear me enough, or be completely psychotic enough to get the following tattoo on their head, just to make me happy:

A cat whisperer to come to my house and whisper some freaking sense into The Cat. She obviously doesn't understand English, so I need the following sentence translated to her by a professional cat linguist: "Cat, I love you....but you need to shut up, bitch!" If that doesn't do the trick, I would like Zach Galifianakis to come to my house as his character in G-Force and tell The Boy that he needs to recruit the cat for some secret animal spy business, or whatever it is those animals were doing in G-Force. I'm sure that Zach would know what to say since he was actually in the movie and I was just in the theater sleeping during it.

A Cruzin' Cooler. Tricked out with big ass motorcycle handlebars that the Hell's Angels use that they can barely reach but look super cool. I would also like a custom paint job and a mustache on front. And a really loud horn that plays "Bad." I have been telling The Hub for years that I NEED this for soccer games, to transport drinks and snacks because I am a delicate flower and shouldn't have to carry them. Plus, I want to see the looks of complete and utter jealousy I get when I roll onto the field on this baby. I also have big dreams about just riding this beauty around the neighborhood all full of beer with some sexy dude on back with his hair blowing in the wind. But obviously The Hub doesn't love me or care about my happiness. Or arm-tiredness.

Pre-Pattified Cooler and dude to ride on back.

On the subject of arms: A new arm. My right arm is all screwed up and keeps getting worse. You'd think that I might know why it's screwed up, but you'd be totally wrong. It was just not screwed up one day, then it was totally screwed up the next day. End of story. And when I tell people that they look at me like I'm hiding something sinister. Like I hurt it during a home invasion or gang initiation or while beating up my Grandma or something like that. When in all reality I honestly don't know how I hurt it. I mean, it's true that I'm in a secret fight club that meets in an alley in the 3rd ward every Thursday at midnight, but that's not how I hurt it. And there's no grannies allowed. I'm just klutzy and forgetful. Anyway, the pain has lasted for 4 months now so I need a new arm. Preferably a real arm. Those mechanical ones are cool, but I only want one of those if it looks exactly like a giant, arm-sized swiss army knife. I would want it to be red and have all the bells and whistles. If I can't have that then I want a real arm. From a real person. And not a dead person, cuz that's just gross. And also, I saw a movie (ok, maybe just the preview for a movie) where someone got someones dead hands or something and they were serial killer hands and you can guess what happened next. So I want an arm from a live person. And I want to pick the person, so I can approve of the arm. Preferably a Popeye-type arm so I can improve my Zombie and fight clubbing skillz. I'm sure there's lots of lazy people out there who aren't using their arms, and they need to stop being so selfish and give me one already.

New Year. Old Pants.

So...we're all gonna pretend that I'm blogging about the New Year before I blog about my Christmas travels because I'm trying to be different and creative and stuff but in all actuality it's because I'm kinda PMS-y and dim-witted the last few days and the Christmas stuff happened, like, a whole lotta days ago and that's gonna take a bunch of concentration to sort out and write about. And I'm not gonna lie to you guys. Something traumatic happened. And I'm about 98.3% sure that I have that post-traumatic stress disorder thing that Oprah and Dr. Phil are always yapping about and -like most things- I never gave a crap about until it happened to me. So I think the PMS, post-holiday exhaustion, family overload and PTSD have conspired to make me even more stupid than usual. And I also gained 6 pounds. Probably almost completely alcohol-induced. So none of my regular pants fit, and I'm wearing my fat pants until things settle down. Which had better be fast. Add to all of this the fact that I'm back home, with this cat THAT NEVER SHUTS UP, and my brain is Jello. Honestly you guys, if the government heard about this cat, they'd confiscate her and use her as a torture device that would work about a million times better than water-boarding. Water-boarding would be like a day at the spa compared to being meowed at by this cat (multiply the following clip by, I don't know, every freakin' moment of every freakin' day of my life?):

Anyway, this year we decided to spend New Years Eve with a couple of our friends and go out to dinner then ring the New Year in at our house with some drinks. This was a pretty major decision, since all we've done in the past for New Years is rent movies and totally fail to stay awake until midnight. Wait! I almost forgot! Two years or so ago we celebrated at my in-laws house, where Ethan was the party/game coordinator, and it did get pretty wild, as you can see by the photo below:

Me (in my PJ's w/ no make-up and a feather crown) getting ready for a major living room race with Steve's mom. 

And this year when our friend asked Ethan if he was excited to stay up, Ethan said he gets to stay up until 9:00 on weekends, so 8:30 wasn't any big deal. Which reminded us of a fact we had forgotten: We have been lying to Ethan all these years and telling him that New Years is at 8:30. So he'd go to bed. So we could watch grown-up movies. Alone. Not porn, though. That's not what I mean by grown-up movies. At all. Get your minds outta the gutter. Sickos. Obviously 2010 was a very liberating year for us. We got to drop all the Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy bullshit and we totally got busted in our New Years lie as well.  So now one thing is clear: I obviously need to come up with some new lies. Life could get boring pretty fast if you have nothing to lie to your kids about.

Back to this New Years Eve: Long story short, I had at least 7 margaritas (that I can account for), and the last few I made myself. So they should basically be called tequila shots with a splash of lime. In a regular sized glass instead of a shot glass. And I was feeling pretty awesome. Until Saturday morning, when I had the first hangover I've had since college. True story.

Number 5? Maybe 6? Practicing keeping the 'stache dry whilst getting my drink on. In retrospect I wish I hadn't been so good at it. Maybe the 'stache coulda soaked up some of the tequila before I ingested it. Note to self: I hate hangovers.

So I told Steve to never let me drink that much ever again, and he said "Why would I do that? You're fun when you drink that much!" And I'm pretty sure he meant something dirty by that but I had at least 7 margaritas, so I'm just gonna play dumb and add that he's obviously very, very selfish. Anyway, you know you're old when a hangover kinda lingers all weekend. At least in college (Or high school. Sorry mom.) It was gone by noon. Or after I ate an Imo's pizza. Whichever came first. At age 39 a hangover is brutal. And there is no Imo's Pizza in Houston so it really double sucks.

So New Years is over. Ethan stayed up until about 1:30 and I stayed up until about 2:30. And we're both still tired. When my alarm went off at 6:30 this morning I called it a f*ck-hole. Out loud. In a very angry voice. Like it has feelings and ears. And I could barely drag myself out of bed. And I fell down while trying to put on my pajama pants. And as I stood at the bottom of the stairs to Ethan's bedroom I almost started to cry because they basically looked like Mount Everest to my foggy eyes and wobbly body. But then I remembered that blind dude who climbed Everest and I thought to myself "That guy must be a freakin' moron. And he must not drink. Ever. And he must love him some Matt Lauer even more than I do to try that hard to get on The Today Show." Then I sat on the bottom step for a minute, thinking about Matt Lauer, and all the things I could do to get on The Today Show to meet him that didn't involve being cold or climbing anything (future blog). Then I remembered that if I get my lazy ass upstairs and wake up the boy I get to send him to school. All day. So I got that burst of energy I needed and climbed to the top, woke the boy, and went to make coffee. Then 10 minutes later I realized that Ethan never came down. So I did all of that again. Which obviously sucked balls twice as hard. But by 7:40 am when the carpool took him away (much better than Calgon has ever taken me away), it  was so totally worth it.