I don’t have much to say today, but was feeling the need to write. After a quick glance through my Drafts, I realized I had the perfect material right in front of me. I spend most of my day repeating mundane tasks: changing dirty diapers, nursing, making baby food, helping with homework, racing cars around the house. Riveting stuff, really. A good portion, if not all, of this time is spent tripping out on my own thoughts. Trust me, my mind is like a dangerous neighborhood: always bring a friend and some pepper spray. Occasionally inspiration will hit and I will save a post title with a few, short, descriptive words to remind myself what I wanted to write. I almost always forget what the hell I was talking about. Thus, my Drafts Folder reads like the thoughts in a crazy person’s head. (Hmm. Well, that explains it.)

Hole In The Pants For Him
What hole? Whose pants? His pants? His pants have no fracking hole!

Things I Am Thinking About
Um, I think I’d rather not know. Also? I think we all know how that turned out.

Baby Moo: Month 6
I know! I’m a little bit late. Whoops!

Something Fishy
I’m guessing that would be our dearly departed fish friends, Sonny and Crockett. But! Who knows!?! I might have been referring to the time Baby Moo pooped and it missed the diaper and slid out the side and landed on the floor! How do these things happen? I also might have been wondering who was the genius going around stealing tires off of cars in our development. I opened the front door to take Bugsy to school and was met by our Acura up on cinder blocks. Awesome!

Slippers
Oh, wait! That is a good one. I’m saving that for later.

No Title
But I did write something! It starts off, “Growing up in my house. . .” Growing up in my house, WHAT? It was crazy? We had fun? I have two sisters that no longer speak to me? WHAT?? Was I about to regale you with the time I sent my father to the E.R. when he was about to spank me? Oh! A real knee slapper! Or was I going to tell you about the time the police brought me home, drunk (me, not the police), on Thanksgiving break? WHEN I WAS IN EIGHTH GRADE! Good times! Who knows, but I bet it was a really juicy tale.

Three Purple Socks
Huh? I have NO CLUE. Clearly, my ever helpful titles aren’t ever really helping me to remember whatever it is that I wanted to write about. I once knit a sock. One sock. And it was kind of purple in color. But I definitely didn’t knit more than one, so obviously I didn’t knit three.

Ba-Dum-Shee
Apparently I was about to tell a joke. Although I now can’t remember what joke that was because I KNOW NO JOKES. So whatever. On second thought, perhaps I was going to relate something that recently happened. I might just be the clumsiest person alive, so a lot of mishaps go on throughout the day. I tripped and fell down the stairs yesterday, I rolled off the bed the other morning, I was trying on a pair of my Jimmy Choo stilettos when the heel got caught up on the rug and I took a tumble, and I nearly broke my ankle trying to maneuver a nursing baby and myself up ONTO the bed and OVER the guard rail last night. I have no excuse, other than standing vertical is clearly a challenge and throws me all out of sorts.

And that concludes our walk through my brain Drafts Folder. I now know I need to write a short blurb before I hit save to give myself a few more clues as to what I was thinking. Because if these titles are anything to go by, clearly I’m cross-eyed crazy clueless.

I can hardly believe another week has passed. Christmas is looming ever closer and I’m beginning to start the Holiday Meltdown. Seeing as how it is the Holiday Season and all, it would be easy to see how I might use this time of year to my advantage and exhibit my more unfortunate seasonal sweaters and Christmas Dinner gear. But! (And there is always one of those, isn’t there?) That would be child’s play! Too easily done and it would require nearly no effort on my part. Kicking around in the back of my closet are sweaters appliqued within inches of their lives with gingerbread men and jingle bells, dresses strangled with yards of lace, earrings and pins so merry they’ll make eyeballs bleed. So! I discarded all of those in favor of something much more offensive. At least all that Holiday Garb is supposed to be cheerful, but this is just downright unsightly.

I now present the World’s Ugliest Skirt:

For the moment let me ignore (if I can) the migraine inducing pattern, to focus on the basic cut and
silhouette of this atrocity. If I replaced the bright orange and yellow flowers with, say, something more elegant and sedate and replaced the heavy brocade-like fabric for something lighter and more flowey, IT WOULD STILL BE UGLY. The skirt sits on the natural waistline and would make someone like myself, with a long torso and short legs, look like a squat elf. The pleats only serve to add girth AND HIPAGE, revealing me to be not long and slender but PEAR SHAPED AND UGLY. So, right out the starting gate this piece of shit skirt sucks. There is NOTHING, short of finding a new skirt, to make this thing better.

Onto the print!

Someone lower the lights, hand me a wet washcloth for my forehead, and leave the Imitrax on my night stand. I need a minute. The old joke, “The 60’s called and they want their skirt back” couldn’t be more appropriate. I feel like I need to be riding around in a VW bus, daisy chain in my hair, smoking a joint for me to pull off this magic. Although the print really might be harshing on the group’s buzz, so even they might kick me to the curb.

The extra, triangle-shaped fabric draped from the top of the hanger is not a case of double vision. The designer of this skirt clearly loved the print so much, s/he thought the wearer might appreciate a rag one could fashion into a top. It’s obviously not big enough to be a scarf and it’s triangle-shaped, so it’s not right for a pashmina either. It is just perfect, however, to be tied into a top! Yay! I can almost hear the relief. For example if one wore the skirt on Monday, but didn’t have her fill of the ugly on Wednesday and needed more of this ghastly pattern there is a solution: she could wear the top! Squee! It’s like a party in pink, orange, and yellow fabric!

In the interest of not wanting to burn any more holes in any more retinas, I’ll leave with this final thought: If we’re having this much fun and it’s only the third Wardrobe Malfunction Tuesday, can you imagine how much more cuh-cuh-crazee it’s going to get? (Yikes. Me neither.)

“You need to buy fish food,” my mom said into the phone when she called to tell me she was bringing the Older One home. Because we have no fish, this statement would be perplexing if I did not know that Grandma and the Older One had spent a marvelous day dropping ping-pong balls into fish bowls for prizes. And fun! Fish give me the heebie-jeebies. I don’t own them and I certainly don’t eat them. There is just something about that flaky texture that send electric creepies down my spine. Gag.

Meet Sonny and Crockett:

My mom dropped off the Older One, the fish, and a small, plastic, filter-less bowl with the specific instructions to acclimate the fish in their bags to the water in their bowl before ceremoniously dumping them into their new home. I spent 20 damn minutes making sure the water was the right temperature and I wouldn’t shock them before moving them. I took such care organizing the blue marbles and colorful shells the Older One had picked for their tank. What I didn’t realize, however, was that they would most definitely, without a doubt need a filter. I figured that out the next day when the water took on a murky, greenish hue and it was hard to see the fish.

I took my lazy ass on over to the local pet store to find a relatively cheap, nice looking tank with a filter with which to relocate these beasts. I’m really not crazy about fish. All night whenever I glanced in their direction, my stomach felt queasy and my spine tingled and hee-bed-a-jee-bed-a-yuck-yuck-yuck. I don’t know why I just imagine them making some grand escape and sailing through the air to land right in the garbage disposal, while at the same time my hand will involuntarily hit the On switch. EW. I’m grossing myself out just thinking about it.

I bought stones. Wait. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? I actually paid money for something I could find out in my driveway or back yard. Anyway, I BOUGHT STONES, two bags worth actually. I picked out several different kinds of plant life and also a pretty pink flower because I am the only girl in this house and sometimes I JUST NEED PINK and also a BREAK FROM ALL THE POOP JOKES (although ha ha ha). I grabbed a treasure chest with a diver and a net and the fish food. I also thought we should definitely get a ph and nitrate tester for good measure. I think the grand total was around $75. Which is a whole lot when the fish are probably only 99 cents. For the both of them. But when it comes to my child’s happiness, NO EXPENSE IS SPARED. I spent all day setting up this blessed tank and testing the water and just generally making sure these little farkers would live.

By 4 PM, the water in their old tank was really nasty and I was pretty sure that their new tank was a whole lot more healthy of an environment, so I moved them. I didn’t get the chance to get them used to their new water because I did not have BAGS, but it felt like the right temperature. Plus, they looked like they were totally going to die if I left them in their old tank. The Older One had a tennis lesson, so we packed up and left the Him to keep an eye on the fish.

Fifteen minutes later, after I was installed courtside, watching the Older One smack yellow balls INTO the net, my phone rang. Surely, he can’t be calling to tell me the fish died. Right? I laughed to myself as I hit the answer button. “The fish died. I put them in the garbage disposal,” the Him said. Okay. I made that last part up, but they died! They kicked the can not ten minutes after they moved to their new digs and I spent $75 for absolutely nothing. I’m awesome.

Thus ensued a lengthy discussion with the Older One about death and the great, big fishbowl in the sky. He didn’t cry all that much, but he definitely wanted to know when we would be replacing Sonny and Crockett. Me? I’m over the fish and that whole little experiment. Does anyone need a snazzy, new, barely used fish bowl or should we just get him two more fish for Christmas?

Clearly, not having any computer(s) ruined my chances for completing NaBloPoMo. FAIL. There’s always next year, or month, I suppose. I am trying not to be discouraged by this recent turn of events and to help me bring the smiles, I have the perfect Happy Maker. Over the years, I have made some pretty questionable fashion choices. Mostly, hindsight is 20/20 and I don’t realize the full extent of the Ugly until I look at a picture. I have also been victim of the Special Event Outfit. Those are the times that I must purchase the dress or skirt or whatever, knowing that I’ll never deign to put such a hideous garment on my body again. Like a Bride’s Maid Dress, for example.

The item I am showcasing today would not be one of those times. It is a shirt made from another shirt. As in, a designer looked at a man’s dress shirt and thought, “How can I prettify this, so that a woman can wear it? How can I make this shirt better?” And then, he/she came up with this:

Oh, the horror! And, no, there is not enough fabric for this to be a wholly covering garment. As in, there is no back. Wait. Let’s take a better look see.

Clearly, I can’t explain what I was thinking when I bought this disaster, but it couldn’t have been: Gee, I look awesome! I’m not even sure I can properly explain what I am seeing. It is half of the front of a man’s dress shirt and half of the back of the dress shirt made in to one, whole shirt. By definition, this shirt should be a rag. This is not what a button down shirt should be made of, but should be made into.

I think we all need a closer look. Obvs.

Gah! It hasn’t gotten any better! Ignoring the tattoos and that jelly roll disguising itself as my stomach, I have no good excuse for this rag parading around as a shirt. Shield your child’s eyes, minimize this window until your boss walks by because I’m pronouncing these images NOT SAFE FOR ANYWHERE. Especially not for someone to wear. In public.

The shirt itself is scary enough, but take a moment and look at the second picture again. That tag? I can’t cut it out without damaging the shirt. Which, I suppose, wouldn’t be a bad thing as this shirt deserves to be burned, but what if I chose to wear it out in public? That tag would be the equivalent of a pocket protector. Extremely Dorky. And look more closely here:

Those buttons? They serve no purpose. What really holds the whole piece together is two strings one should use to hang themselves with tie around the back. I am just one loose knot away from tragedy.

Here’s the thing: In the five years that I’ve owned this shirt, I’ve never even worn it. I’m not sure this shirt would go unseen (or unlaughed at), so I’m positive the wearer needs copious amounts of alcohol self-esteem to wear it. Amounts of which I no longer have, nor am I sure if I ever did. Thus, this shirt has got to go. Where to donate it? I’m pretty sure The Salvation Army and Goodwill don’t accept handkerchiefs or rags. No friends of mine would ever wear such exotic (read: hideous) duds. Do you want it? I know you do. I know you’re ready to partay in this shirt. I know you have the perfect skirt/pants/shorts. I kid! Obvs. You really just want to frame it to immortalize my Bad Taste in clothing.

Mr. I-Won’t-Nap-Without-Being-In-Mommy’s-Arms just fell asleep. In the interest of wanting to spend a little time on the computer, I decided I’m not fighting the Battle to Put Him Down today. I’ll just hold him while he naps and catch up on the blogs in my Google Reader. My husband’s friend walks in to relate something. I can’t remember what because I kept wondering why she wouldn’t LOOK ME IN THE FACE. Is something hanging out of my nose? Is there pen on my face? Oh, wait! My nursing tank top is unhooked and my boob is totally exposed. Awesome.