I leave for Denver in 10 days, and I’m struggling to pack. I’m a historically bad packer; I either bring 257 outfits too many or I bring only a wife beater and some yoga pants. I’m shooting for just a carry on bag, so I’m carefully negotiating what exactly I bring. I can live without the Keen’s, I have to bring the Crocs (shut up, Kelley, it’s Colorado. They kick you out if you don’t wear them in.) I am bringing the hothothot jeans, but I’d better bring the jeans that fit perfectly now fat jeans, too. The cardigan comes, the hoodie stays. You get it.

I decided a few weeks ago to leave the mustache at home.

Normally, I’d do what I always do with my awesome goatee and massacre that fucker in the privacy of my bathroom. I have, however, had mixed results with this tactic in the past. Because I’m going home for 4 days all by myself, and because I’m hoping to look even slightly like a girl, I decided I’d get a professional wax job.

I have never been waxed before. There are a small handful of tortures I’m willing to pay for, and having tiny little baby hairs ripped out of the most sensitive spots on my body just didn’t make the list. I can shave my legs, I have tweezers, and as for the rest of it? Well, I do believe that it is written somewhere in Leviticus that I am biblically obligated as a dutiful wife to make my husband’s life as hard as is humanly possible, and so if he has to bring a weed wacker, a garden trowel, some flour and a Mag Light into the bedroom with him just to figure out where he’s supposed to land, that’s just me making him work for it. I’m pretty sure that means I’m getting into heaven.

Back to the wax. I decided that I’d splurge a little and get the eyebrows, the lip and the chin waxed a week before I left for Denver because god knows the trip itself isn’t a splurge of any sorts because I’m going on OFFICIAL BLOG BUSINESS involving throwing a party for a couple hundred people who won’t even know I’m in the room and it will do nothing for my traffic and no one’s paying me to do it and in fact it’s kind of costing me an assload of money and my kids are pissed they’re not coming, but that’s not a splurge.  Waxing is a splurge.  This has entailed me not plucking anything for a few weeks to get everything nice and long for the impending carnage. This is not easy for me in any way. I am a picker, a plucker, a trimmer. I tend to go too thin with my eyebrows, and after a few weeks of planned neglect, here is what I look like as of this morning:

I am freaking the fuck out. But I want them to be full and even after they’re waxed, so I’m letting it fly. We’re not even going to talk about my upper lip right now, sufficed to say that I get to enjoy my chocolate milk longer than most of you do.

Anyway, I’m sitting on the couch the other night, kind of rubbing at my neck a little (it was hot, I was sweaty, and no, we’re not getting all soft core right now) and I noticed something. There was the tiniest littlest sort of a bump.  I was all, “oh shit, do I have neck cancer?” because I always think I have cancer.  Like my Cherry Angioma that I have all over my damn body that are multiplying at at a rate that’s making all the rabbits in my ‘hood go, “Err?” and I know that they’re genetic and unavoidable and totally harmless unless I’ve been exposed to mustard gas and OH SHIT HAVE I BEEN EXPOSED TO MUSTARD GAS but still I am constantly counting them and measuring them and they just laugh at me and grow, just like they do when I’m pregnant and OH SHIT AM I PREGNANT because these things only do this when I’m pregnant but since they tend to pop up in geometric shapes just like my zits do, I at least get whittle away 9 long, heavy months playing Tetris on my huge thighs, and was then I was all “Oh shit, do I have neck acne?” because yeah, like I need neck acne to go with the back zits and the chest zits and the left side of my nose zits and that one zit that I found in my cooch a few weeks ago and OH SHIT DO I HAVE GARBAGE DICK but I don’t and really, people sometimes get zits in weird places just because there are pores there and I sweat like a stuck pig and people really do commonly get zits in girly places, you can google it, and SHUT UP I DON’T HAVE GARBAGE DICK but I’m pretty sure I was done with puberty when I was, like, 18, so I guess I’m just getting ready to make The Change and OH SHIT AM I MENOPAUSAL?

And then I remembered to take my damn meds already.  I kind of fiddled around with the bump for a second, and the next thing I know, I have

a wiry, gray, coarse, 1 1/2 inch long HAIR

in my fingers. There is a hair, a long ass hair, growing out of my neck. NECK. Not, like, just my lower chin; like, where my chin suddenly becomes my throat.

You. Have got. To be Motherfucking.  Kidding.  Me.

I ripped that sucker right out, but then I got all paranoid. I mean, it’s not like subjecting my poor neighbors to my growing beard and my unibrow all these weeks wasn’t enough, but how long have they had to look at the hair protruding from my neck? How long has no one around me been looking me in the eye because I’ve got an escape rope hanging out of my fat ass underchin even though I’ve been really good about putting on eyeshadow AND mascara every day for, like, a month that’s obviously totally been wasted and I’ve even busted out my super hot smoky black eyeshadow and not just because I’m trying to cover up the goddamn cherry angioma that has appeared in the corner of my left eye and OH SHIT I HAVE CORNER OF MY LEFT EYE CANCER.  I started checking around the rest of my neck, and sure as hell is hot, I found another hair on the other side. It wasn’t as long, and it wasn’t as wiry, but it was THERE, yo. I couldn’t handle it anymore. I ran up to the bathroom, and I busted out my wax.

Have you ever waxed your neck?

I think it would be a lot like waxing your nostrils. There are places you simply should not rip anything out of. I couldn’t just stop at my neck, either. I HAD to do my chin, too. It’s one thing to attempt to make my esthetician’s job easier, but really?  Seriously?  Come on.  I can’t walk around the rest of this week with a reverse landing strip on the bottom half of my face.

So, um, yeah.  Should bring the sensible, respectable dress or the red corset?  I can’t decide.

See, I am supposed to be talking about my little weekend getaway still, because yeah….there’s some unfinished business there, but I’m not ready just yet. As Jane the Sane so beautifully put it, I’ve gone all Rainbow Brite on crack for a few days. I am in love with Every. Single. Person. In. The. Whole. Wide. World. Specifically, everyone in The Grand Ballroom of the Westin St. Francis Friday last. Really, if you were there, and you are reading this, I would really like to stick my tongue down your throat and wiggle it around ever so slightly.

Unfortunately, Brainy Smurf over here packed 27 shades of eye-shadow, 15 hair products, 3 dresses, 2 hairbrushes, and 0 cameras. Did you know that there are several pictures on FlickR, and that sifting through them for ones to steal borrow is the slightest bit time consuming? Who’da thunk it? (PS: If you happen to have any that I am in, my email is heymrlady at gmail dot com and if you send them to me, I’ll promise to never ever make you cry in public again. EVER.)

Long story short, we’re not discussing that just yet. So, dammit, I have to find something ELSE to talk about. Let’s start with my insane child, shall we?

Do any of you have two year old girls? Two going on three very soon would do. Riddle me this; are they all neurotic freaks? Here’s the thing: I gave the kid her bottle back. Shut up. I gave her the bottle back, because it’s her One True Love, but she doesn’t just take the bottle and drink it. She has to PERFECTLY align the label on the bottle to her mouth. We toy with this, thinking it’s just been a 34 month long fluke. We hand it to her with the ounces side facing one way or the other, and every single bloody time she takes it, she turns it so that Avent is right under her lips. Today I upped the ante by replacing the bottle nipple with the pop-in sippy cup nipples they make (best invention ever, btw) and they OF COURSE will not line up. That obsessive compulsive fuddy duddy spent 5 minutes trying to figure out how to make it work, and then told me her bottle was Bwoken. Seriously, this cannot be either normal nor an excellent sign of things to come.

She also follows me around the house, closing cabinet doors behind me. I am 99% sure her father taught her this trick, to shame me, just as he taught his sons that ‘You can give momma a wedgie in the front!‘ Long story, another day.

And because I am the shittiest mother to grace God’s good earth, this child has no concept of Getting In Trouble and cannot handle it when it happens. On the rare occasion that I decide to play mommy, it goes a little something like this:

Me: 3of3! No! No writing on the couch with Sharpie Smearing black lipstick all over the bathroom Using an entire bottle of Windex on the houseplants Sticking that *whatever* up your hootchie cootchie Eating entire pounds of butter!

Her: Waaaaaaa! Momma, I hunry!

Me: No you’re not. You have half a sandwich IN YOUR MOUTH.

Her: Momma, I too hot!

Me: It’s 50 degrees out.

Her: Momma, I too cold.

Me: You are under a blanket, fool.

Her: Momma, I too small!

Me: You reached the Sharpies just fine.

Her:  Momma, I meed wash my hans!

Me:  You’re in the bubble bath.

Her:  Momma, I meed bubble baf!

Me:  You’re IN THE BUBBLE BATH.

Her: Momma, I sweepy.

Me: You’ve been awake for 35 seconds.

Her: Momma, why you hurt me?

Me: I’m calling you from San Francisco.

Her: Momma, no screaming! You HEAR me?

Me: Donor! (for the few new kids here, we call dad The Donor. It’ll grow on you)

Tell me that whole song and dance isn’t the slightest bit Freudian.

You know when you’re cooped up for a few years months weeks with your kids and then, by the grace of god, someone lets you get away from them for a few hours, and you come home all anxious to see them and pumped and primed to be the Greatest Mother Alive! ? Yeah, that lasted for all of 12 hours. My kids were Double Grounded on my first day back. I imagine they just plum forgot that mom doesn’t always take kindly to one kid smashing the other kids face into the carpet while the smashed kid whacks the smashing kid in the back of the head with a baseball bat.

Whatever. It’s an easy thing to forget, I suppose.

I did come home to the World’s Cleanest House. Those of you who have been reading around here for a while have heard some rather jaded (read; straight up snake venom) come out of my mouth about The Donor. Well, let me tell you something I haven’t before…that man keeps a house the way Alice the Maid (aka Mr Brady’s little afternoon delight, I’m betting. Minx, that one) only wishes she could have. My man? Can clean circles around me. And if you don’t think that’s the single hottest quality a man can possess, well, you’re just deluding yourself. I have never, EVER, been so attracted to him in my whole life as I was the day I got home. In 4 days, he dug me out of a very large hole that I had worked months on getting myself into (even matched the three separate grocery bags I had full of ‘unmatched’ socks hidden in three separate locations) and I am currently accepting wagers on how quickly I will be undoing all the good he did. Starting bid is whatever a maid service charges for one full days work. Or a hooker. ‘Cause I’m going to either have to clean or keep him so busy he won’t notice.

One last thing before I go; If you’re planning on being in Denver around the Democratic National Convention, well, um, we’re kind of throwing you a party after Obama’s speech and since we’ve had some technical difficulties on the Business end of the deal, David and I are starting from scratch. So, yeah, I need a head count. Who wants to come get all silly drunk either toasting Obama or drowning their sorrows? I KNOW BlogHer’s coming in full effect, and I’d better see all your shining faces at our party that night.

I’ll totally be there. In a black little low cut number. And a bar. With BOOZE. Just sayin’.

There. Sufficiently dodged another bullet. Whew.

In 8 hours, I will hop in the car and head back to America. I’ll drive for a little bit and then hop on a plane bound for San Francisco.

(Did you know the only city I’ve been to in California is Fresno? True story. Fresno is super awesome if you like meth*. I don’t like meth.)

Moving on….

Am I nervous about flying? Hell no. A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I piloted an airplane or twenty. Just when it was getting awesome (read; just when my instructor started taking us way up over The Rockies and stalling our Cessna, leaving ME to pull us out of the stall) they asked for my medical history. Did you know they frown upon pilots with two holes in their heart? I couldn’t imagine why.

At 4:45 on Friday, I am scheduled to speak in front of 999 people, and Dooce. Am I nervous? Hell no. The best thing about growing up in a cult that likes to proselytize is the endless public speaking training they put you through. I could talk in front of the President, no prob. I know that’s not saying much right now. Shut up; you know what I mean.

The rest of the weekend will be spent with those 1,000 people, some of which I know, some I don’t. Am I nervous about meeting all these people, putting voices to their fonts? No, not really. I actually do really well in public settings now-a-days. I will sweat like a stuck pig in a sauna before I enter any room, and probably chain smoke when the whole thing’s over, but in the thick of it, I can hang just fine. I guarantee you I’m going to pick my nose at some point, and I guarantee you I won’t be the only one. Besides, my old next door neighbor will be there, so I know I’m a’ight.

For clarification, I:

• Pick my nose
• Chew my nails
• Stutter when I’m trying to say something dirty
• Say a lot of dirty things when I’m drunk
• Also cry when I’m drunk
• Am not so big into the whole shoe wearing thing
• Never shave far enough down my legs, leaving me with hairy ankles
• Sweat a lot
• Turn red for no reason
• Smoke
• Only really drink shots
• Have a horrid Philadelphia/Mid West hybrid accent
• Chew my hair
• Doodle on everything
• Will pick any underwear I am forced to wear out of my butt all day long
• Will then take it off and shove it in my briefcase after 1 1/2 shots
• Bypassed muffin top and went straight for mushroom cloud top
• Spin my nose ring when not busy picking said nose

There. I feel better. Am I nervous that 1,000 people I don’t know, and who I’d really like to read my blog, will see all of that? Actually, no. Wanna know why? Because they all do too.

Wanna know what I am nervous about? I am nervous that I can’t find my toothbrush. I have a toothbrush thing. And my good one, my best one, the Holy Grail of Toothbrushes, has gone missing. What is this magical toothbrush, you ask? I’ll show you:

Oh, shut up. You don’t even know what you’re missing out on. See, I got my mother’s, well, nothing, and my father’s freaking awful pasty skin and his crinkle-cut front bottom teeth. It’s crowded in there. No, I don’t care that everyone’s going to see that, either, it just comes with the territory, but I do worry that Kimmylyn is going to be a little frazzled when she staggers into our bathroom Friday morning and sees a kid’s brush. Yes, I use kids brushes. TWO of them. One baby one that’s really narrow for the crowding and one Strawberry Shortcake Reach Kids Toothbrush. SS Crew, representin’, dawg. I am also nervous that my brand new toothbrush that The Donor picked up for me after I made him stand in the toothbrush aisle of the drugstore on the phone with me sifting through kids brushes which was totally more horrifying than making him buy me tampons will not work as well as my Strawberry Shortcake Reach toothbrush works. Because I have issues with my teeth.

Why yes, I am a neurotic freak of a mess, why do you ask?

Other than that, I have my hangover cure all ready to go (1 SlimFast, I glass of water, and 2 Midol before you pass out. Works like a charm) I have my Crocs packed just for Kelley and BusyDad, and I, with tears in my eyes, kissed my sweet if not slightly smelly children goodbye before they went to bed tonight.

And now, into the great wide open. With an average toothbrush. See y’all Monday, and please enjoy the guest posts in my absence.

*If you happen to be FROM Fresno, please don’t be insulted. A LARGE chunk of my family is from there. Go Fresno State, yo! But seriously, admit it. Buying tinfoil in Fresno is just as hard as finding a virgin on the Disney Channel.

Once upon a time, my good friend Chris le’Cactus went and caught himself the shingles. Oh, the chuckles I had. How I laughed and laughed at his Herpes medication he was prescribed. How I giggled at the beers his doctor FORCED him to drink to relax. How I delighted in reading his wife’s side of the story, which was honestly so funny I almost peed a little.

This finger? Pointed and laughed. It was great. My abs hurt after.

Guess who’s TWO YEAR OLD has the mother-scratchin’ shingles?

Never heard of a toddler with Shingles? Neither had I. It’s actually sort of rare. They (they being the ER docs, of course; we had to get our monthly dose, you know?) were talking biopsy-esque talks when the specialist came in, checked her over, said she probably got exposed to the chicken pox somewhere along the line, grilled me when I said she hadn’t, sneered at me for a second and then said, “Well, she’ll be fine. See ya later.”

With that, we are back home. With the son-of-a-nutcracker-shingles. Which really aren’t bothering her all that much. But me? Yeah, it totally bothers me that my kid’s hand looks like it has 4th degree burns. I wonder if Chris’ doctor would prescribe ME some beer.

Whatd’ya think? Guinness in my Sippy Cup? Does kinda have a ring to it…..

Today’s usual fare was scrapped in anticipation of something much much more embarrassing cooler. In fact, yesterday’s post was almost scrapped for it, too. Alas, an emergency work golf has stood in the way of my self-deprecation progress.

Apparently, this is the post of strikethroughs. Bygones.