Pants-Free at the BMV

(post copyright 2013, Dawn Weber)

I had always thought of myself as something of a gangsta. It was evident by my mom jeans, sensible shoes and attendance at several major country music festivals. 

Turns out, I was right. I AM a gangsta.

I am, in fact, a straight-up thug.

It all started the other day, when I discovered that I needed to drive to beautiful downtown Canton, Ohio for a meeting the following week. So I filled out the corporate pool-car form, the way I've done a hundred times before. I gave them my birthdate, license number, maiden name, several pints of blood, first-born child, etc., etc., and clicked "send."

And then I went about my work-day, completely unaware that I was a wanted criminal.

Later in the afternoon, I returned to my desk from my Buddy Al's cubicle, where we had been discussing (on our break, of course) Important Work-Related Topics such as weekend plans, Reese's cups and Aerosmith's "Greatest Hits" album, when I saw the email:

Subject: Request Denied.

"Dear applicant, We're sorry. Your pool car request has been denied because your driver's license appears to be expired."

What?! Surely this was a mistake. With trepidation, I grabbed my purse, unzipped it  and slid my ID out of its pocket. My eyes traveled down the card and I looked to see if . . .

Well, shit. Apparently, time flies when you're  having no fun at all.

I took my criminal status to Facebook, where everyone was extremely compassionate:

"Be afraid. Be very afraid," said Heidi.

"You forgot to renew? Well, the memory is the first to go! " said Gaynell.

"Be prepared to pay the $20 fine!" said Kim.

"And don't forget the vision and hearing tests!" said Susan.

So supportive, these people. With friends like that, who needs BMVs?

I'd be able to go to the license bureau and get a new ID on Friday. But this meant I'd have to apply makeup, fix my hair and wear pants.

Friday is my day off. Hair, makeup and pants are not part of my plan . . .

(To be continued! In my as-yet unnamed, unpublished, unfinished book! See below for another quick excerpt, already in progress . . . )

_________________________________________

The Trouble With Bacon. And Mother's Day

. . . But the kids love bacon - they ask for it every weekend - so when I heard about the microwave tray, I was all over it, as I am a huge fan of ridiculous, space-hogging kitchen gadgets that may or may not work. 

The husband made Mother's Day Wish Two come true with $12.99 and a quick trip to Walmart, and I nuked up some bacon with the new tray. 

There was no mess. There was no fire. It was a big ol' bacon success. 

I knew, however, that Mother's Day Wish One - family time in the great outdoors - would prove far more difficult to achieve. My children would much rather stay inside and stare passively at computer/iPhone/video game screens than engage in any sort of interaction with actual humans - especially parent-humans. Even on the most beautiful of days, these kids sit frozen in a screen stupor, clicking and tapping their lives away. 

This drives me batshit crazy, and every so often I suggest to them, in a calm, rational fashion, that they should go outside.

-"It's gorgeous today, Hobo. How about you turn off "Call of Duty" and we throw the ball?"

-"Look, Princess - how nice it is out there! Why don't you put down your iPhone and sit in the sun with me?"

-"Oh my GOD you two! Don't you realize that you  will spend your ENTIRE ADULT LIVES in front of a COMPUTER SCREEN at work? Turn that shit off and go OUTSIDE while you still can! NOW-uhh!"

Mother of the Year, right here.

So, yes. I just wanted spend time with my family in the fresh air and sunshine, and I decided to accomplish this by asking/coercing/demanding that everyone go fishing with me. Without complaint.

"Let's go fishing," I thought.

"It'll be fun," I thought.

(Again - to be continued in the book!)

__________________________________________

A few readers have written to ask if I was sick (no), incarcerated (not yet, give it time) and/or breathing (yes).

That's because I haven't been posting much lately, especially in the way of full posts.

There's both good news and bad news regarding this. Because I am a pessimist, I'll give you the bad news first:

I am not posting much in the way of full posts.

Oh wait. You already knew that.

Now the good news. The reason for that is I am hammering away on my book. I just this week completed chapter/essay 22! I am right on time, as I'd hoped to do a chapter each week beginning January, 2012 and finishing at the end of December, 2013, for a total of approximately 50 chapters - about an essay a week allowing a little leeway for vacations and holidays and boxed-wine hangovers.

Here's the ironic part: Many of the essays I've been writing have begun as what I thought would be blog posts. Just funny little stories intended for you-all. These stories come easily to me, and my fingers fly typing them up.

When I start a book-chapter/essay thinking of it as a book-chapter/essay, well, it's not so easy. I get all choked up with doubt and worry and "Oh-my-God-I-suck" angst.

It's killing me, not sharing my shenanigans with you. I have a blast reading your comments and receiving your feedback.

But as I said before, I don't think people would buy a book full of material that's already been published. And I need to write a book for myself, the way I have written a blog for others.

So stick with me. It'll be interesting, I can promise you that much.

Thank you,

-Sending you hope, excerpts, inspiration and boxed wine,

Dawn

Purse Envy? No Way.

(Post copyright 2013, Dawn Weber)

Well, it's official. I appear to be one of the only women in the free world without capital Cs all over her handbag.

Damn. I forgot to spend $400 on a purse.

Those Coach bags - they're everywhere. City streets, elevators . . . just last week at Kroger, I watched a teen mom pull food stamps out of hers. I thought about asking "Brittany" how she could afford such a purse, qualifying for state assistance and all, but she was very busy chatting on her iPhone 5. Plus, I had to get back to work so I could support her.

Oh great. I sound like a Republican now, don't I? That is what ridiculously overpriced accessories do to me.

I know, I know. Many of the designer bags you see around are counterfeit - I'm aware of those purse parties. But even the fake ones cost more than a decent dinner at Ruby Tuesday, and given the choice, I know which one I'd choose. Have you seen me? Yeah. I pick Ruby Tuesday.

Priorities, people.

I just can't understand this trend. I don't care who made my purse; I don't care what it says, or where it's from. I have one requirement for my purse: It must be huge.

I guess the "C" is supposed to stand for something besides "Coach?" Maybe make a woman feel like she's rich, successful? What could that "C" stand for?

I have a few suggestions.

"Cost," "charge" and "credit" are some of the words that come to mind. Let's use them in a sentence:

"The Coach bag Brittany wanted cost more than her welfare check, so she charged it to her pimp's credit card."

Hahaha - oh, I have fun with my sweeping generalizations. And really - I don't mean to suggest that all women who buy grossly overpriced handbags are posers/hookers/Brittanys/welfare recipients. No.

Indeed - I have a dear, gainfully employed, non-hooker friend from my old hometown who carried one. I asked her once why she spent more on a Coach bag than she did on her Chevy Cobalt.

"It is SO well made," she said. "This purse will last forever!"

She used it for two months. I never saw it again.

Here's the thing about handbags - they're just like boyfriends. They seem great - for a while; they might even service you well - for a bit. But women get tired of looking at them, and there's probably a better one out there.

That? Is why females have so many different purses.

Though I don't condone the idea of expensive purses, I'm a big proponent of the concept of many purses. I have handbags upon handbags, tumbling out of my closet, all reasonably priced, all large.

And the bottom line is, a good purse is like a good man: It should be huge, and provide me with a bunch of money.

Not cost me a bunch of money.

Because I have other things to spend $400 on - such as groceries.

For myself, and for Brittanys.

****

Below is an excerpt from my upcoming book. (Sixteen essays done now - whoo hoo!)  If you don't know what Scotch tape and toxic chemicals have to do with hair, well, then, you didn't know my grandmother:

. . . "Fifteen dollars for a haircut? Ha! No way. Bring me the Scotch tape and scissors."

Oh, Lordie. Scotch tape, the scissors and my grandmother. Never a successful combination.

But there was no telling her that. She was a child of the Great Depression, and paying someone else to do something she could accomplish ranked as a totally foreign concept. Anyway, It was 1974. We did as we were told back then.

No, I'd been through this many times before, and there wasn't any use arguing. I handed her the Scotch tape and scissors, then assumed my perch on the folding stool for the inevitable.

"Let me just get it in a straight line here . . . "

I squirmed, and she frowned thoughtfully while taping the width of my forehead, smashing hair down into my eyes. She squinted through thick bi-focals - her bad vision was legendary - and with wide, frightened eyeballs, I watched the sharp scissors approach my face.  

''Hold still now!''

I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath.

*Scritch-scritch-scritch*

She cut across my bangs, then ripped off the tape . . . and hair. . . also eyelashes.

"Ow-uhhh!"

"There!" she said. "Much better. Fifteen dollars for a salon haircut? Ha! Look at this!"

She gave me a mirror. Gone were my bangs. Gone was my dignity.

Gone were half my eyebrows.

The length of my hair, thin, raggedy, dishwater blonde, fell limply onto my shoulders. She hadn't touched that. But my bangs, cut in a razor-straight, Scotch-taped line, rose high on my forehead. I looked like an orphan. I looked like a little beggar.

I looked like I qualified for state assistance.

Things didn't improve much for me or my hair in the 80s, especially on the days I saw Grandma frowning thoughtfully at me from the kitchen.

"Bring me that box of Toni perm in the closet. And get a big bath towel."

Oh, Lordie. There went my plan of roller-discoing  in the garage all day. The Toni Home Perm, the bath towel, my grandmother - once more, never a successful combination . . ."

Golf: I'm Doing It Wrong

(post copyright 2013, Dawn Weber)

Golf - what's not to love? You're outside, you're drinking beer, and you're around lots of happy, relaxed men - many of whom may buy more beer.

Everybody wins.

And so each spring it happens: I get the Big Idea. I really should just lie down until these ideas go away, but I never do.

No, I get it in my head that this will be The Year, the one Wherein I Learn to Play Golf.

Now, I am a middle-aged white woman with a big wide rear-end and plenty of hideous, sensible shorts. So you'd think I'd already know how to golf.

But I don't. For many decades years now, I've been engaged in the process of just learning how to hit the ball, or "drive" I guess the kids call it these days. This is much harder than it looks - for me, anyway. 

So every March, I drag out my clubs, a gift the husband bought me one year after I excitedly told him my Big Idea:

"I want to learn to play golf!"

He's heard many of my "I want to learn . . . " Big Ideas - drawing, painting, piano-playing, jewelry-making. Most of these I've taught myself - or completely forgotten about; all of these have left us light in the wallet and heavy on accumulated junk supplies.

So, being the smart, sweet cheap frugal man he is, when I said, "Golf!" he went out and bought me a set of clubs - at a garage sale.

And that's fine with me, because the red-and-white, 30-year-old Wilson golf bag looks cool and kind of retro, and also meets what - in my eyes - ranks as the Most Important Golf Requirement:

It matches my shoes.

Ah, shoes.

Where was I?

Oh yes - golf. He bought me the cool bag and a bunch of clubs, all of which had numbers - 3, 5, 9 - that signified nothing to me, although I did recognize the putter from playing Putt-Putt. I can kick some Putt-Putt ass.

He put a tee and ball down in the grass, and began showing me how to hit the ball, or "drive" as the kids call it these days. He taught me how to grip the club, and he demonstrated the swing, the "all in the hips," then he set me up and came up behind me to lead my body through a swing, whereupon he faux-humped me and I punched him in the nuts. Lesson over.

His obssessive faux-humping is a chapter unto itself . . .

(Stay tuned! This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, and you'll want to read the rest because it contains boobs. 

No, not PICTURES of boobs, you perv. 

Just boobs. 

No, not pictures!)

Winston Churchill: Naked Napper

(post copyright 2013, Dawn Weber)

Like so many folks, I am a fan of things that can be done without pants.

I refer, of course, to napping. What did you think I meant?

I'm certainly not alone - even the great Sir Winston Churchill was a strong believer in the art of the apparently naked midday rest:

"You must sleep some time between lunch and dinner, and no half-way measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That's what I always do. Don't think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That's a foolish notion held by people who have no imagination . . ."

I ran across Sir Churchill's quote on the computer the other night, surfing the web, after realizing that I'd overlooked an Important National Holiday of Great Significance:

National Napping Day, March 11.

Hey - you snooze you lose. Ba-dum-bump. Thank you! I'm here all week. Tip your servers!

It doesn't really surprise me that I missed such a notable event; I have been engaged in an increasingly futile attempt to nap since 1997, when my first child was born.

All forms of sleep, in general, elude me these days - my brain never shuts off - and the older I grow, the less I sleep, to the point where I don't think I will ever lay down long enough to die. I'll just stagger around for centuries - the planet's first certified zombie - a wild-eyed, hideous, rotten old woman, begging strangers for Ambien.

Still, I wish I'd known about this National Napping Day, created in 1999 by presidents of The Napping Company - Boston University (BU) Professor, William Anthony, Ph.D., and his wife, Camille - to promote the health benefits of napping.

In a 2005 Napping Day press release from Boston University, the couple listed several significant advantages of napping. Here at Lighten Up! I am all about pilfering that press release and investigative reporting, so I have backed up some of the Anthony's claims with Scientific Facts from Me - The Expert - on account of the fact that I never successfully nap:

- Napping improves mood - makes you feel better
- Scientific Fact: I am a crabby bitch. Just ask my family.

- Napping improves performance - makes you more productive
- Scientific Fact: I am perpetually tired, therefore, lazy.

- Napping is no sweat - no shower needed
- Scientific Fact: Showering sounds like work. See sentence re: productivity, above.

- Napping is non-fattening - you cannot eat while napping
-Scientific Fact: I'm fat, and getting fatter all the time. Did I mention I cannot nap?

- Napping is no cost - no expensive clothes or equipment needed 
- Scientific Fact: As we've discussed, Winston Churchill and I support activities that don't require pants.

- Napping has no dangerous side effects - unless you are driving
-Scientific Fact: I have not, personally, napped while driving, nor have I heard back from anyone who has done so.

Well, thanks to those bits of hard-hitting journalistic research, we can see that naked mid-day siestas can benefit everyone. The Anthonys summed it up in a mission statement:

“Our goal is to encourage folks to take a nap wherever they may be, at home, at the workplace, or on vacation, and to make it a regular part of their healthy lifestyle,” said William Anthony, who, with Camille, is a co-author of "The Art of Napping at Work."

Yes, I think I speak for many when I say that sleeping in the workplace is a concept most people could support.

Of course, there are those who insist that napping - pants-free - on the job is a bad idea.

But that is a foolish notion held by people with no imagination.

Freaking Geniuses. They Walk Among Us. With Weeping Feet

(post copyright 2013, Dawn Weber)

So many of my readers have touched me - deep inside. 

Without even buying me a drink first. 

There's Pearl, who calls me her "weirdo," and Vixen, who's affectionately dubbed me "asshole." Twice.

Thank you, thank you, ladies. Truly, I am "flattered."

However, of all my commenters and readers, I have to admit that there's one who's captured my attentions these days with his shrewd, insightful counsel. He's a genius; and like so many of your garden-variety geniuses - Aristotle, Ghandi, Fabio; Socrates, Plato, Snooki - he goes by one name.

He is the one they call "Anonymous."

Yes folks, I am pleased to announce we have been blessed by Anonymous himself here at Lighten Up! That's right. This wise, wise sensei reads and comments on my blog, and he has graced us with his wisdom, clairvoyance and podiatric advice. After all, he was the first to point it out: 

My feet. They weep within my sneakers.

It's so true! After a long day of sightseeing or a few miles on the treadmill, my feet DO weep within my sneakers. How did he know? Read on - a direct quote from Anonymous himself:

"When the feet are weeping within the sneakers as a result of distress, it truly is far more probable which you can't give your really best general functionality on that day."

You see? Remember, you read it here first, courtesy of Lighten Up! and our boy Anonymous. When YOUR feet weep within the sneakers, you can't give your really best general functionality on that day.

Yes, Anonymous has really made a difference in my life - and sneakers - with his shrewd, insightful counsel on my blog posts.

But I'm going to have to have a talk with Blogger - they're automatically redirecting his brilliant musings to my junk folder. You can imagine my surprise and dismay at opening up my spam tab to find such genius comment-nuggets as:

"What's up friends, how is all, and what you want to say concerning this article, in my view its genuinely remarkable in favor of me . . ."

It's all about YOU, Anonymous. No doubt!

"Hi, all the time і used to chеck blog postѕ here in the early hours in the break of day, because і loνe to learn more and more . . ."

So happy to help you, your Highness! We're all about the education here at Lighten Up! Especially in the early hours in the break of day.

"Now I am going awaу to do my breakfast, when having my breаkfast coming ovеr аgain to reaԁ other nеwѕ . . . "

Don't let us keep you from your breakfast, Anonymous, or from breakfast coming over to read news. Again.

"Thus, as a way to earn within sports activities, apart from the demonstrating off talent and abilities, each and every ingrained in addition to made, it can be essential to use the best footwear. Learn about how a best footwear might be cherished from the foot . . ."

You know what my feet cherish? Free, Anonymous footwear expertise, that's what.

"You manаged to hit the nail upοn the toр anԁ dеfined out the whole thing withοut having side-effеcts, peoρle coulԁ take a signаl."

People COULD and SHOULD take a signal from me - that's what I always say. Anyway, that is certainly what I tell the husband and kids, because I do, occasionally - just sometimes - manage to hit the nail upon the top.

"I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was good. I do not know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger if you are not already . . ."

Don't know how you ended up here? You're drunk, Anonymous. But I'll forgive you because you said I'm going to be famous.

"What i don't realize is actually how you are not actually much more smartly-favored than you may be right now. You're so intelligent. You already know therefore considerably in the case of this subject, produced me personally consider it from so many various angles. Your personal stuffs nice. All the time care for it up!"

You're right again. I am intelligent! And my personal stuffs ARE nice: Over the years, a couple of other men have also said so.

Remarkable things here. I'm very happy to peer your post. Will you kindly drop me a e-mail? Thank you a lot and I'm taking a look ahead to touch you. 

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy there, big boy. I appreciate all your wisdom, Anonymous, but I’m not letting you at my personal stuffs. Or my sneakers. Or even my weeping feet.

There’ll be no touching, wise guy.

Not without buying me a drink first.

____________________________________________

And speaking of geniuses . . . here's a little something about a fella I met a while back, on a flight from Atlanta to Columbus:

. . . There are seven billion people on the planet. Of these, I enjoy actually physically talking with . . . maybe . . . oh . . . nine.

I'm not sure why, but I seem to have the opposite effect on others. I think people see my short stature and light hair-color and assume I have a friendly, bubbly personality.

This couldn't be further from the truth. I am quiet and actually kind of a bitch. Just ask my family.

Here on the plane, my seat-mate's glassy eyes stare me down as he leans close to me, his saggy pants offering up a plunging rear view, a scandalous posterior eyeful I neither expect nor desire. Before my attempt to nap, I had noted that he carried no luggage, and this - along with his bloodshot eyes and visible crack - make him seem kind of gangsta.

Then again, I'm pretty gangsta myself, what with my polo shirt, mom jeans and sensible shoes.

Still, he seems a friendly fellow, an amiable hoodlum, intent on talking to me no matter how much I'd rather sleep. He chatters on and on until I'm good and awake.

"So. What you do for a living?" he asks.

"I work in communications," I reply. I've learned that it's best to be vague in these situations.

"Really? Where you work?"

"Oh, it's downtown," I dismiss it with a wave - again with the vague. "How about you? Where do you work?"

He pauses, rubs his chin, smiles to himself and sits back.

I have a sudden feeling things could get intriguing.

"Well, you know, there's this medicine - these pills - you see . . . "

"Uh-huh . . ." Oh, we're going to have fun here, I can tell.

"They're cracking down on them in Columbus, big time," he says.

"Really . . ." This conversation might be better than a nap. Maybe.

"The people . . . they're addicted to them - bad. You know, they're pills for pain, pills for pain," He looks at me, waiting for my reaction, his expression dancing a thin line between warning and sales pitch.

"Yeah . .  . you're talking Percocet and Vicodin, things like that, right?" I ask.

He's relieved that I'm familiar with such "pills for pain," I can tell because his shoulders relax. 

He leans toward me, and I smell nachos. Again.

"See, they're cracking down in them in Columbus . . . so what I do, I get on a plane . . . "

His voice a whisper, he leans even closer to me . . .

_________________________________________

Stay tuned for the rest in my upcoming book! Someday!

Hey - I am working on my tenth chapter/essay now. Not bad, right? That's almost 1/4 of the way done. Right? Please tell me that's right . . .

And then I have to get someone to actually publish it! HaHaHa!

*Sob*

Every single essay/chapter has been a struggle, a battle of "I can't do this! But I did it before - how did I do that? Ugh. I can't do this!"

But I powered through somehow. And I said I'd reward myself when I reached little milestones. 

What should I get for myself? Some Percocet? Vicodin? A new pair of sneakers?

Nah. I'll settle for a pony. 

Or - perhaps - a unicorn.

And a rainbow. Definitely a rainbow.

How a Hobo Breaks a Heart

(post and photos, copyright 2013, Dawn Weber)

I've bought a wee Spiderman backpack and filled it with only bare necessities - a lunch box, a blanket, a light jacket. 

Everything you need is in your pack; I made sure. The thing only weighs two pounds, tops, but even as small as it is, its size and heft threaten to topple you. You carry it like a tiny, wobbly homeless man - like a little hobo failure. But you don't complain. 

You seldom do.

I've been looking forward to this for a while now; I'm going back to work, you're starting pre-school. We have been home together for two and a half years. It was mostly wonderful - and sometimes awful - and the fact that I feel this way makes me horribly, heart-wrenchingly, gut-clenchingly guilty.


Time at home hadn't been my idea. I was part of a mass corporate layoff shortly after your birth, and my fast-paced, jet-setting world quickly became Barney, burp cloths, the couch.

I should have been grateful - and partly, I was. The rest of me missed my career -  the adult companionship, the paychecks, the capability to buy new shoes. 

But there wasn't a choice.


So I plucked you from the crib each morning, hugged, changed and fed you. Then, we plopped down Indian-style, and I pulled you into the space between my knees and began searching the paper in vain for something it would take me 2.5 years to find - a job that paid enough to cover child care.


A job that paid enough for me to leave you again.


Towards the end of our stint, you lost the diapers and began talking, and those were the best of times, the days you leaned your head back on my t-shirt, heaved a contented sigh and said things like:


"Ahh, boobies. I like boobies!"


You are your father's son.


And we made the best of things, you and me.


All of this runs through my head as I walk you through the hallways to your room. I look down at you, you look up at me, and I know we're both thinking the same thing: Let's turn around. Let's go to McDonald's. 

Let's go home.


I might do it. I might pick you up and carry you to the car. Because all those times I'd wished for one hour, one nano-second, one new pair of shoes for myself - I take them back.

I don't want you to go.

Stay tuned! This piece is an abridged excerpt of an essay from my upcoming book. It was inspired by the pictures shown here, taken that day, as we walked into the school and down the hallway.

He's 10 now. But he's still a good little Hobo.