Thursday, July 19, 2012

My Horizontal Life

Miss Chelsea Handler. How you made me giggle out loud many times in this book. If anything in this book is even 85% true, I applaud your honesty, bravery, and your doctor's antibiotics. Kidding. Kind of. If everything is a lie, I can breathe a sigh of relief and let you know that your imagination is both depraved and delightful.

I cannot say what compelled me to buy this book, or why, after so many months in a pile of other unread novels, did I make a bee-line for this one, pick it up and finish it in an airport, practically in the same spot I started it in. I can say that Chelsea makes one night stands sound even more hideous and mortifying and reaffirming of loneliness and dissatisfaction than anything else I have ever read.

I can also say that when I lent this book to my best friend, I was expecting a lighthearted comment in her review. Or nothing. What I was most definitely not expecting was a story about how her fiancee didn't "appreciate my giving her that kind of stuff." He apparently has been asking her if there was something I was trying to say to her.

Something to say? Like, you should have on night stands and here is a book that will teach you how? If he spent five minutes with one of the short stories, I would think he would be calling me to thank me. I imagine the call would go something like this:

"Thank you for giving my girl many, many more reasons to stay with me. I owe you and Chelsea Handler a sincere thanks for making this happen."

Maybe he thinks that a novel can really shape someone's mind set. Could you imagine?! Just in looking back to recent books... After The Hunger Games, I find myself near a group of 30 people and just start fighting for my life? After 50 Shades of Gray, find a near perfect megalomaniac with uncommon sexual predilictions and an unlimited amount of money and then... maybe I don't need to worry about that scenario as much.

And now? I can't help but want to succumb to this urge I have to buy her more books. Old ones, that he would appreciate. I have to see if such books exist on the internets. I am thinking, "How To Iron My Husband's Socks While I Wait For Him To Come Home And Read This Book To Me." Or, "Words Are Dangerous, So This Book Is Only Filled With Pictures Of Food That My Husband Would Like Me To Prepare For Him."

I will refrain from further comment. It doesn't get prettier from here.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Shot 'O Wha?

My foot is broken. Long story- it could be worse. It could be better. Such is my life.

I decided to move forward this past Saturday, helping a friend in need of some friendly hands help him move. Since I had already mapped out a plan of attack for the prior week's packing schedule to aid him in organization and hitting goals, I knew what we were walking in to: Boxes and neat piles of organized chaos. (Do as I say, never as I do, please.) Instead, what we walked in to was chaos... that had been kicked around for 12 months, growing dust and CD limbs with slight hoarding undertones. My previously realistic goal of helping unpack boxes and rearrange furniture in said new place became lofty and laughable. Instead, I stayed in the old apartment, packing and sweating and sticking my swelling foot in the air every twenty minutes to help my pain killers do a little something more than taste funny. I had help. His mother, in a full mechanical knee brace, not only packed alongside me, but she was excellent company as I watched my more limber friends pouring sweat off their shoulders, packing and unpacking the moving van. If it wasn't 100 degrees, and we weren't moving boxes, and my foot wasn't broken, it would have been the perfect day. I will settle for great, most of the time, though.

My head and heart were a lot happier to help than my stress fracture. And later that night, as I lay immobile on my couch with an ice pack on my elevated foot, I thought back on my favorite part of the day. I have been doing that a lot lately. Is that bizarre? Taking a step out of reality to observe it? I feel this need to capture vignettes outside of the 8 to 5. Here is what I came up with:

After hours of feeling pain in his heel, Ben-jammin decided to take his sneaker off only to find an earring post had punctured the rubber sole of his sneaker and was standing up straight, brazenly even, in his shoe. It had also managed to pierce the bottom of his heel, which was lightly bleeding. And as I made a scrunched up, "That sucks" face, I look up and see his eyes widen with horror as the realization that someone else's bodily secretions at some level were inserted in to his foot. And we were in Jersey City! More people could be culprits on that one street than in most people's entire towns. And his question?

"Oh no! Does this mean I have to get an AIDS shot?"

I hear those are the worst!