New Year, New Me (but likely the same me but hopefully I’m a little less lazy about it)

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I spent New Year’s Eve laughing and drinking with neighbors and my husband and kids. The kids weren’t drinking, obviously, but I did my part anyway and drank what they couldn’t. We had fun and drank too much and sang Beatles’ songs at the top of our lungs really late into the night. It was the perfect catapult into what I think is going to be a fun year. And then I was awoken from a peaceful dream about swimming in the clearest, bluest, warmest, sharkless ocean by a champagne headache and a cat with a death wish.

I have made grand plans to have a “Me” year, though. Around this time 2 years ago, I vowed to have a Mariah Carey year full of me being my diva self and not caring who knew. Well I had that year and it was exactly like I’d imagined but without the money or the shoes or the personal assistants or the Yes Men. No one cleaned for me. No one made sure my mimosas were filled.

What’s a girl have to do to be seen as a diva and not “Amy, put on pants”?

I’m still on the ultimate quest of living my “Mariah Carey Year” which may or may not have already panned out depending on how liberal we are with the rules. For example, sitting around drinking wine without pants on and talking about myself while everyone else around me does everything I didn’t get around to doing, we’ve probably had similar years, hers is probably a lot more gold plated and sparkly and she has someone to do her hair and stuff. I just look like an episode of Roseanne. (Speaking of Roseanne, did I really see that that show is coming back??? Please tell me it wasn’t a champagne fueled hallucination and it’s really really really happening.)

I am going to have my year this year. I’m doing it.  I say this every year and as a matter of fact, my 2018 so far has been me sitting on the couch juggling mimosas, napping, eating pizza and Doritos, and scrolling the internet all day so, exactly where I left 2017 off. Although, I have showered, gone outside, and am blogging, which, if you’ll notice on the forthcoming list, I’m not doing too shabby.

My RESOLUTIONS are as follows.

  • Try to go outside everyday
  • Exercise for 30 minutes everyday
  • Read for 30 minutes everyday
  • Shower. Everyday.
  • um, Eat an apple or something that grew out of the ground?
  • Blog. Everyday.

Once again, this list looks like a cry for help. But I do intend to blog everyday which is fitting as I leave town for several days soon and the idea of bringing my laptop will probably be met with eyerolls and “Come on, like you’re really going to write everyday. You’re not even going to open that thing once. Leave it here,” which sounds like I’m vacationing with my parent but no, just the husband. But I will be sitting in front of a cozy fire, probably super inspired by my new Oregon surroundings, it’ll be like Funny Farm only hopefully I won’t throw the whole thing into the fire when super husband, Ward Cleaver over here writes a best selling kids’ book about squirrels.

Ooh! Very important side-note: I just remembered that I had a baked potato for dinner so add that to the list of accomplishments because it grew from the ground. It counts. See? I’m doing even better than you thought I was.

There I go, fulfilling resolution list things right and left. Tonight’s supermoon is making me a super human. Or a werewolf. We’ll see what happens when I go outside. If you see me running around Encino naked and howling, you’ll know where we’re at but you have to let me go for at least a half an hour so I’ll be able to add another checkmark to my resolution list.

The Elf on the Shelf

I’m re-gifting this post like a holiday basket of meats and crackers. Grab a beverage and enjoy this Christmas tale as old as time. Or two years. Whatever.

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Christmas time means that houses around the nation are flooded with all these naughty little elf faces doing all these naughty little elf things while reporting back to Santa on whether you washed your hands after you peed or not. The elf knows. He was watching you while he left mint poops in the toilet. And now we all know because your mom posted a picture of it on Facebook.

Now if you know anything about me, you know that setting up tableaux of espionage and wicked tomfoolery to mimic something I saw on Pinterest and then posting it on Instagram for status elevation is right up in my wheelhouse, and yet there is something about those cherry-cheeked little rats and their clandestine operations that sets my alarms to “Nope”.

When my oldest child, or Wally as I like to refer to him on the web because it subconsciously plants the “Amy’s like Donna Reed and totally has her life together!” seed in all your minds, well when Wally was around 2 years old, everyone kept asking me when I was going to hop on the Elf Express and invite one of these smiley spies into my home for the month of December. Intrigued, I did the natural thing and hit up my local Pinterest to check what these little rascals were about. Oh my eyes how they twinkled at all the glittery laughs and innocent fun!

“I’ll do it!”, I exclaimed to no one with a wink and one of those jaunty cross-body punches the kids do.

All that drunken Pinterest spirit fizzled, though when I saw that the toy store was selling those things for like $40 a pop. Forty dollars. For a stuffed elf. Plus those elves are kind of creepy looking, anyway. I don’t need that thing going all Chucky on me and slicing my Achilles tendon as I step out of bed one morning. It is not worth $40 to invite a demon into my home when I’m fairly certain I can do that for free with some red paint and carefully placed candles. Plus I don’t think that real demons can even hold knives so, cheaper AND safer.

Needless to say, the elf remained on the store shelf and I lived vicariously through my Facebook friends and their ever-increasing elf scenery that showed up on my tiny iPhone screen.

Still, the need to over-do everything nags at me to this very day and every year I wonder if I should either break down and buy an elf, pose some dinosaurs in festive ways, or just give in full stop and dress as the elf myself. The only problem with this plan is that I would have no photography assistance. My husband not only can’t manage to take a clear photo, but he also stays far away from my grand schemes and nonsense, so he’s out. Then there’s Wally who only takes selfies or really close up, arty shots of action figures doing strange things.

 

Source: my son

 

Source: my son

That just leaves The Beav and he’s 6. He’ll just take my phone, walk away and start playing Bubble Witch with it.

Also, the manipulation of this elf stunt is a whole different matter in that Wally, while incredibly imaginative, is also very scientifically biased; if he can’t see, touch, hear, or smell it, it doesn’t exist. For example, Wally informs me one Easter that “haha, the kids at school think the Easter Bunny is real, Mom! When it’s clearly just a man in a suit that comes into our house. Hahah fools,” and two years after that it was “Fairies don’t exist! Mom, please. It’s a man in a pink dress that comes in my room in the middle of the night and takes my tooth and leaves me money. Hahahah tooth fairies. Please.”. Because apparently a man in various costumes breaking into the house in the middle of the night, isn’t the weird part. I wonder if he thinks they’re all the same guy. So no matter how elaborate my lies about the elf menagerie become, he’s still going to know they’re not really spying on him and his brother and reporting back to Santa, and I don’t really need my kid being THAT kid that spoils it for the rest of the Christmas celebrating believers at the elementary school.

He would appreciate a James Bond themed elf set-up…. hmm…still no.

The more I think about these elves, the more I feel like sad, lonely business man, Michael Douglas who has just signed his life away by cashing in a gift certificate that my drifter brother, played by Sean Penn, gave me for a birthday gift, but I don’t know that anything is weird, yet, until the creepy clown, (elf), that I almost run over in my fancy, rich people driveway, (toy store), and decide to bring into the living room with me for some reason, (Pinterest and Facebook likes), starts to talk through the tv and vandalize my house while Jefferson Airplane blasts in the background as depicted in David Fincher’s 1997 film, The Game, that nobody wants to talk about with me anymore because, “Amy, that movie is like 20 years old. We’ve seen it. It’s good, but let it go!”. I hate everyone that I know.

Quite obviously, my desire to The Game everything is still in tact and I’m creeped out by inanimate things smiling at me. Put your smug face away, Elf, and tell me what you think you know. And don’t kill me please. Or tattle on me to Santa. Just, you know what? I’m just going to watch you ratting out all the other families this year on Facebook from the comfy position of not wearing pants and slouching on my couch.

 

Happy Holidays!

The Doppelganger

“AMY!! Your doppelganger is here at Best Buy! I just walked up to her and said hello. It wasn’t you”

My friend texted this to me HOURS ago and despite my many demands for a picture, a description of her outfit, if she was wearing pants, if she was as nice as me, nicer???? If she was out there ruining my reputation in the community, I have been ignored. Left on read.

Let’s examine this for a minute. If I had an actual twin out there, what would be the ethical restrictions about actually having her stand-in for me like a stunt double? Would I have to pay her? I’m not paying her. I mean, it wouldn’t require inhumane things, just some things I don’t want to do. Some things that stand in the way of me looking up the latest drama in the One Direction fandom. It would be like the plot to an innocent 60’s sit-com episode. The typical motivation behind most of my big ideas.

She could go to the PTO meetings at school for me, she could go outside with my family so I could stay at home on the internet in peace. I mean, let’s face it, if she’s at Best Buy today anyway, there’s a good chance she goes outside. She’s already done better than me. Well, no I did go outside today. We went to the library. It smelled like poop in there. I was very uncomfortable the whole time and tried not to breathe. See? Maybe she could’ve gone in my place.

Maybe this lady would be a good stand-in for all those dinners with the ladies that I keep RSVPing for and then flaking out on because I’m awkward and I hate all my clothes. She WOULD have to have some grasp on my interests though or she would be caught out a fraud. We’d both be caught and if The Brady Bunch taught me anything, it’s that there’s gonna be a snag and it’ll be something dumb and we’ll both get caught and have to apologize and emerge better people. This is not what I’m trying to do. I’m going to make her wear a wire and and an ear-piece and I would communicate with her from a van parked down an alley, although this defeats my whole plan of being lazy at home without pants on. Okay, she’s just going to have to study my ways and wing it.

I would have to teach her to have a mild obsession with the paranormal and celebrity gossip. And when she has too much wine, she has to start talking about boybands and TMZ. And ghosts. She’ll have to start talking about ghosts. She would also have to report back on all dramatics that go down. I need to know who said what to who, who got mad, did anyone fight? I need to know about fights. Very important.

Do you think she would sift through and answer my emails for me? No, that actually doesn’t have to be her. I can have someone else do that. Or, realistically, my emails will eventually get so full that they’ll just stop. I will be cut off from receiving any new emails and I will be free. This is the better option.

Would she be willing to cook dinners? Get my children sandwiches every 20-23 minutes and listen attentively to hours long tutorials on Minecraft and Roblox? And grocery shopping! I need her to do that because a lot of times in the middle of a grocery trip,  I just want to lay down in the frozen foods aisle and somehow arrive home in my bed with a mug of tea. Maybe I’m carried off in a fancy stretcher by hot firemen, no one is even aware of how bad at shopping I am because the refrigerator is stocked with everything on the list, coupons were used so effectively, the store owed us money, everyone is happy with me, the house is cleaned, I have showered, Etc.

This is actually starting to sound like a cry for help.

Listen. I don’t even know that this Best Buy woman looks like me, to be honest. She could be Joanna’s version of me, and who knows what that is. She could be a monster. Plus, Joanna still hasn’t texted me back and for all I know, my monster twin killed her and the authorities now think I did it because of the doppelganger thing. Now, while this has the potential to get me out of all the activities that brought me to this double life fantasy, I wouldn’t have a whole lot of fun in prison. I’m kind of not that tough. I know I talk a big game but, I’m actually very fragile and it’s just not going to be a good fit. Plus, I don’t really want my friend to die. HOWEVER, house arrest. Okay, if doppelganger monster commits a crime, it has to be low level enough to not get me beat up or in prison and the punishment is just “House Arrest”.

The perfect excuse to sit around in my jammies and watch 60’s sit-coms while I scan the internet in peace.

Housewifing 101: “Ladylike Exercises” (part 2)

part 1

I’m supposed to be doing the daily exercise thing as soon as I wake up in the morning. “Only 5 minutes a day!” but I woke up this morning cold and annoyed at the cat so my first thoughts were things like, “I’m going to feed you to pigeons, cat.”, not looking at my neighbors from my open window while dancing an Irish jig because I need the “open air”. Although now that I think of the bar I could raise around here by kicking my own buttcheeks while I stare down a groggy-eyed neighbor who was just woken up by Riverdance, the morning jigs take on a whole new importance.

I haven’t done the exercises yet, though. I’ve thought about doing them, or rather, how I’m not doing them while I sip my coffee and judge people on social media before the kids wake up and demand their breakfasts. I should do them, if only for the power-play on unsuspecting neighbors and the added bonus “concerned look” from my husband.

I haven’t been sitting around on my comfy pants laurels, though, so give me a break. I have regularly been walking around the neighborhood with my nurse friend (I take a nurse in case I die) on her days off, or when she forgets how much I embarrassed us on our last walk, and yesterday I went on a hike through the Malibu hills (or are they mountains? I’m from Colorado so everything else is hills. Deal with it, hills) anyway, we were hiking with the Cub Scouts and it was a thing and I demand exercise credit and possibly an award for it.

First of all, we get there, we’re not even walking yet, we’re just there in a big group and the bugs begin surrounding me like they can already smell my death, which is flattering considering we decided to meet in front of the bathrooms.

I smell worse than public bathrooms.

I’m trying to act cool like this doesn’t bother me as the Scout leaders start talking about safety.  They’re showing us these high resolution, charts and arty photographs and I’m standing here looking like Pigpen suddenly realizing that I still have no idea what poison oak looks like even though I’m right here looking at a picture of it.  Like I see it on those charts in all of its various forms and colors, but I promise I will be the one who will walk right into a whole patch because they’re pretty much like any other plant growing around. And here’s the thing with this crappy plant, from what I think I understand, you don’t even know you touched it for like days and then your skin sets itself on fire. Like is it shingles? Is it an angry demon? How would I ever know? This is why I avoid the outside. Bugs and poison. Maybe there is something to exercising inside in front of a screened window. I mentally note this as I slap away some flies that were hanging out and probably starting to lay their bug eggs on my calf. I should’ve gotten one of those beekeeper suits or something. In fact, maybe that’s just how I go outside from now on. I’ll just become “The bug suit lady” to the kids. Annoyingly, I did not have a suit on this journey and I did not know what plants were demons and I hoped that maybe my cloud of flies would protect me and I don’t wake up in a week clutching a bible.

But we did it. We hiked. My legs were shaky, the den leaders were picking up trash as they went and looking at me like it’s my turn next. Dude, I was lucky I could lift my leg to climb up the really steep path, the candy wrappers will not be picked up by me. You’ll have better luck thinking that a bird will get excited by the glint off the shiny wrapper, pick it up and fly it off to a trash bin than you do of me doing it.  I was also in my high-top Chuck Taylors because athletic shoes are super ugly and I will suffer for my fashion. Even if it means slipping off a cliff to my death. I did not slip and die but I felt like it could’ve happened at any given moment.

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This picture makes it appear that I am really tall, towering over all these men and children.

Anyway, I went outside. I did exercise. I worried that kids were going to fall off tall rocks, I got bit by bugs. I do not know what poison oak looks like, I am not tall. See, I do not feel the same sense of dread or general bug infestation from my living-room, so tomorrow, I jig.  And stare down the neighbors. It’s much more my speed.

Housewifing 101: “Ladylike Exercise” (part 1)

As soon as I saw the quote, “This practical handbook for the home […] offers advice that ranges from cleaning white gloves, making miniature table gardens and living-room pouffes to lady-like exercises ” on the back cover of this book, I knew a few things.

  1.  I would never be able to keep white gloves clean, so as classy as they would make my dinner sweatsuit, I’m glad they went out of fashion and I won’t have to lick liquid cheese off of them at a dinner party hoping no one notices the stain.
  2.  Everyone I know is getting miniature table gardens for Christmas whether they celebrate it or not.
  3. I don’t exercise and as much as I try to fool people, I don’t often get praised on my ladylike behavior, but since I walked like 6 miles today and my legs hurt really bad, AND because I finally found the “Lady-like exercises” portion of this book after laughing at the back cover for 3 days, that’s it. That’s the place I start on this blog challenge.

I know. I’m already late starting this even though I’ve had this planned out for like week now, but look, this wouldn’t be a proper “Amy challenge” if I didn’t procrastinate the whole thing and then roll up late and unshowered because I was investigating ghosts on the internet so, LET’S GO!

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Okay, this page already makes me uncomfortable because as much as I’m supposed to 100% LOVE my body, uh… my cellulite in those shorts is gonna already be a thing I don’t want to deal with. Problem 2, I don’t like feeling the back of my thighs touching anything that’s not soft pyjama material. Problem 3, am I being recruited into some kind of Army of Evil? It’s suspicious. Way too symmetrical. Problem 4, and maybe the biggest one, in that bottom picture, okay, I get to lay down, but now I have to think about waxing, not farting, and somehow preventing a wedgie that will inevitably have me never being able to face any of these people again in my life?? In one page, I’ve already broken the lady-like clause. We’ll see how this goes.

It’s 10:40 pm, I’m exhausted, and I’ve had wine and the first instruction is called “Irish Jig”. Oh, I misread, that’s the music I’m supposed to sumon. I’m also directed to kick myself in the buttcheek. And clap. Is this a prank?

Alright, this is going to start tomorrow because I need to sleep and then download the new Niall Horan album to get this party started.

Get ready!

part 2