You're so vain...you probably think this blog is about you...

Today's topic, kids, is vanity. Doesn't a blog, by its very nature, represent vanity?

I'm very vain. As a matter of fact, just today, I threatened to end a relationship with one of my best friends if she continued to tag me in unflattering photographs on Facebook.
I can't control my vanity. I was raised by a very vain woman-we'll call her Mom. I would sit for what seemed like hours to my tiny little brain, watching my mother meticulously apply her make-up. I had her routine memorized. Always the same order, same colors, etc. She went through a particularly long, tramatic phase we'll call the Blue Eyeliner Phase. We line the top lashes with one socially acceptable color and the bottom INSIDE eyelid with bright Blue Eyeliner. Always the bottom, inside. Why, I don't know, but this phase lasted well into the '90s when everyone else stopped wearing Blue Eyeliner. I tried to talk her out of it because I knew she was misguiding me. I think I tested the Blue Eyeliner theory one time and that's when I knew she was wrong. I could devote an entire blog to her hair, as well...but I'll spare you. However, despite her misgivings, my mother created a vanity monster. I am a big advocate of plastic surgeries and wrinkle creams. I would have pickled myself in formaldahyde at 22 if it wouldn't have resulted in my immediate death (death isn't pretty!).

Another result of the vanity gene is the constant need for others to recognize me for being vain. This is where being an actor comes in. Acting feeds the monster. I like to blame everything on my parents, so in addition to blaming my vanity on the hours I spent watching my mother apply her face, I tell people that she didn't hold me enough as a baby and that's why I vie for everyone's attention. A new actor-friend of mine said something along the lines of, "Is it just me or do all actors have a micro-orgasm when they read their name or hear someone say it?" You're not the only one, new actor-friend. Did someone say Carrie? OH! Yes! Right there! Again! Yes! OH! OH! See?

So, I would like to dedicate this blog to my mom. Thank you mom, for teaching me that you should always meticulously apply your face before gracing the world with your presence for the day and for subsequently taking so much time applying said face that you forgot to hold me, because I turned out so much better for it!

I have and infestation of bathroom gnomes. Once every two or seventeen months, I get the urge to scrub my bathroom top to bottom and organize all of my toiletry items that line my expansive bathroom counter. Then, without fail and in the balmy darkness of the night, the evil bathroom gnomes start infiltrating. Their favorite thing to do is wreak havoc on my countertop. They take lids off of things, leave make-up, Q-tips and accessories everywhere. When I say "bathroom gnomes", I mean me. I keep a messy bathroom, I'm not gonna lie. Actually, I'm a messy person in general, but my bathroom sloth is the one I take most pride in. The bathroom is where I create. An artist cannot be bothered with organization. At least that's my motto.

Getting to my point. Last night, I came home from an evening with friends, perhaps still a bit tipsy. Now, I've come to realize that the greatest revelations occur when you've had a few drinks and last night I had just such a revelation. Before I began washing my face and performing the pre-bed ritual, I needed a bobby pin. Just one bobby pin...

I like to make a game of finding bobby pins in my bathroom. It is one of my favorite things to do. If I were an organized person, this wouldn't be a fun game at all because I would know exactly where to find the bobby pins-all neatly stacked in a row on the manufacturer's card or in some tidy little plastic tote or a girly little basket...you get the idea. Well, fuck that. There is nothing that I love more than fishing for bobby pins in Lake Bathroom. It's much like hunting. Not that I've ever hunted, but I get the general idea of how it works. The hunter stalks it's prey, lurking in dark places, being all stealthy. Only, I don't hunt like that. I shove shit out of my way, throw things on the floor, over my shoulder. Land where it may, I'll not be stopped until I find that one, glorious little bobby pin. And never fail, I ALWAYS find one. They're everywhere. Like thousands of little fish in the sea. It's one thing in my life I can always depend on-I never lose at bobby pin fishing. Admittedly, I do promise myself that I will at least attempt to keep them neatly stacked on the little card they come on, but I don't even know why I bother trying. I think next time I'll just pull them all off the card as soon as I get it home, close my eyes and throw them up in the air. It's like restocking the pond...

Hello Fellow Aliens!

Last night I got an eyeful of one of the best movies I've seen in a long time, Religulous. I'm a little slow and it only occurred to me right before the movie started that "religulous" is a play on "ridiculous". I know...I told you I was slow.

Just to offer a little background on my beliefs, or lackthereof as it were...I am an atheist. I have no qualms about admitting that. I believe that long, long ago some space particles made sweet explosive love and things just kinda started happening. I don't believe in any sort of intelligent design whatsoever. I have many more intelligent things to say on the topic, but I'll spare you. That being said, I wasn't raised practicing any sort of organized religion. God was rarely, if ever mentioned in my family. To date, my mother claims to believe in god, but loathes organized religion and the last conversation I had with my father on the topic, he claimed to align himself with some sort of ideology loosely based on Scientology. I think he made it up, I'm not sure. All I know is it involved us being aliens from another planet. And you wonder why I ended up the way I did? Ahhh, I love my dad...

Anyway, back to Religulous. So in the movie, Bill Maher travels around to various religious hotspots in the world, interviews various persons affiliated with said religious hotspots and attempts to blow holes through their logic. It is at the same time, hilarious and mindboggling. I subscribe to the same school of thought that Mr. Maher does: How on Earth can an otherwise completely intelligent, logical, reasonable mind believe in something so absurd? Of course, if you're a person of faith, you might ask the same about me (that is if you believe that I am intelligent, logical and reasonable). At one point in the film, Bill interviews a high (very liberal) priest at the Vatican and asks him how you can convince believers of the incredulous loopholes in their belief system. The priest says something to the effect that you can't...you just have to let people continue on believing their crazy ideas. I accept this and you, dear readers will have to accept this of me and I will, unfortunately have to continue allowing my father to believe that he's an alien. Oy.

Missed Connections

How does that saying go? "Don't frown because you never know who is falling in love with your smile"? I was going to write a big long post about how my kids woke me up too early this morning and how I'm in a grouchy mood, but instead I decided I would share with you one of my guilty pleasures and an awesome lesson that it taught me.



A friend of mine once told me about the trainwreck/hot ghetto mess/awesomeness of the "Missed Connections" section of craigslist and now I'm addicted. For those of you who aren't familiar, this particular section is for people who have met or seen someone in passing and didn't have the balls to speak to them at the time, so they place a Desperately Seeking Susan ad on craigslist in hopes of finding them. The ads are at times hilarious, heartwarming, sad, completely ambiguous and often a little frightening...



Last night I introduced this little gem to my husband and started reading some of the funny ones out loud in different voices to amuse him. Fun times. Then I came across this particular ad:

Friday Night at the Vollrath - m4w - 27

We were standing next to each other at the bar on Friday night, hoping to eventually get the attention of one of the bartenders. You tried to make small talk with me, but unfortunately, I'm about as good at small talk with a cute girl as I am at...well...at coming up with similies, since I can't think of one that's appropriate for this situation. But let's just say it's bad. You might have picked up on that when I failed to make eye contact, or when I rudely went ahead and ordered my drink before you, or when I walked away without even introducing myself or offering to buy you a drink. Yeah...I fail THAT bad.

The problem is, I already noticed you a couple of times, and everything about you made me weak in the knees. The cute patterned skirt, the grey tights and flats, the tattoos, the adorable
smile. So I was immediately aware that the super cute girl was standing next to me at the bar and I didn't know how to proceed. You were even nice enough to give me a second chance to redeem myself by flashing me another adorable smile in the pool room later in the evening.
Obviously, I blew all of my chances though, since I'm now looking for you through Craigslist.

I don't know if I was even reading your signals right. Maybe you were just trying to make idle chit chat and have someone to keep you company during the lengthy wait. But if you're so
inclinded, you should get in contact with me. Or perhaps I'll see you at the Vollrath again
soon?

By the way, so I know it's really you, tell me what the tattoo on the back of your left arm
and/or what drink I ordered that prompted your response of "Oooh, fancy, fancy".

I swooned like a little school girl when I read this. How freakin' adorable is that story? Not only that, but it teaches us some very valuable lessons. 1) Looks can be deceiving. This poor girl, who was trying her best to get this clueless man's attention, probably just thought he was disinterested, when in fact he was pining after her too and just didn't have the balls to say anything. 2) I can't stress this enough, gentlemen. When you see a cute girl...say something to her! Introduce yourself! What's the worst that could happen? She might kick you in the balls...but to my knowledge no one has ever died from that. Also, if she turns you down, all you have to say is, "Whatever, I was just kidding." and then knock her drink onto her dress and walk away. It really is a win-win situation...3) Always be the best person that you can be. Be kind. Be genuine and don't frown...because you never know who is falling in love with your smile. :)

Foster's Home For Real Neighborhood Children

Recently I've felt an awful lot like a foster mother minus the nice accompanying stipend normally paid to foster parents. It's not an easy job raising all of the neighbor children, but I'm hanging in there like a champ. As a matter of fact, today I inherited another subdivision orphan. He's smallish and hopefully won't eat as much as the rest of them...

Fortunately, all of the children that my son invites over are well behaved...almost to the point of being comical. As I was feeding half of central Indiana the other day, I made the mistake of mentioning to my son and in the presence of the neighbor girl that I has strawberries for LATER. To which said neighbor girl responds longingly, "Oooooooooooooooh, I just LOOOOOOVE strawberries. They're my favorite." Note that I don't want to give everyone strawberries, but rather would like to reserve them for a delicious family treat LATER. I wipe the sweat from my brow when I realize that Hungry Neighbor Girl's strawberry craving has apparently subsided...until five minutes later when she asks, "So, where are those strawberries?" Bless her little heart...she fought back the temptation monster as long as she could. So, being the sucker that I am (thank you Carol Brady), I gave her strawberries. I just really hope that the government realizes what a service I'm doing for the poor destitute children of my community and starts to throw some cash my way, 'cause now I'm out of strawberries...

Joan vs. Carol, ROUND I

Welcome to Thursday, kids! You made hump day your bitch and now you're well on your way to conquering yet another day in your quest to reach the weekend.

I have absolutely nothing exciting to talk about today, so I'll just go ahead and talk about boring stuff and make it sound interesting....

Last night, I informed my children that bedtime would be promptly at 9:30 pm. I've been pretty lax about bedtime so far this summer, so naturally...

"(insert whiney voice) Whyyyyyyy?" asks my son.

"Because Mommy needs quiet time," I say.

"That's not fair! You're gonna make us go to bed early so you can have quiet time?"

At this point in the game, I'm losing. He's got a point. But then again, I'm the Mom, damnit! You'll go to bed at 3:30 pm and like it! No, bad Mommy. It's summer, let them stay up late.

See, I perpetually deal with this internal Mom-struggle. It's like I've got Carol Brady on one shoulder and Joan Crawford on the other. Carol won last night-I didn't get the kids to bed until after ten. Then, Joan wanted a beer. We were out. Carol won that one because good Mommies don't get drunk after the kids go to bed. Then...

Joan says, 'Ooooooh, let's watch Secretary!'

Carol: Oh, I dunno. That's kind of soft-core, isn't it? S & M? I don't know...maybe we should just enjoy a quiet evening of a little chit-chat with Facebook friends and then an early bedtime.

Joan: Carol, stop being such a twat. WIRE HANGERS!!!!!!!!!

Carol: Noooo! Please! Not the hangers again! FINE! I'll cover my eyes when they show the dirty parts...

Joan: 1/Carol: 0

Secretary is a really good movie. I highly recommend it...

Spoilers, Screaming and Cocktails

If you're reading this, you survived a day without my glorious blog. Congratulations, you get to move onto the next level!

I was incommunicado yesterday because I was being filmed for a scene in the Indy indie, Freight. It's a quaint, heart-warming story about four people who attempt suicide to escape their sordid existences. I do not portray one of the four, but rather a church-going woman implicated as having an affair with the pastor of my congregation. I don't wanna give away too much, but the pastor is actually doing my husband and so then the pastor attempts suicide to keep his naughty secret hidden. Oh wait...I've revealed too much, haven't I? Whatever...you weren't going to see it anyway...

So today I'm home and my husband left this morning for another business trip. Yippee! I get so accustomed to having his help tag-teaming with the kids, that when he leaves I sort of feel like I'm riding a feral rodeo bull naked and without a helmet. Remember in the movie Dumb & Dumber when Lloyd breaks out his "most annoying sound in the world"? Well, obviously the writer of that movie has never heard the resulting ear-splitting screech of a two-year-old girl being chased by her ten-year-old brother. I truly wish that my son understood the meaning of personal space, because clearly my desperate screams to "STOOOOOOOOOP!!!! STEP FIFTY FEET AWAY FROM YOUR SISTER BEFORE I KILL YOU!!!!" are not getting through to him. If you have any handy tips on how to accomplish this, please leave them in the comments section. Also, if you have any tips on how to explain to your bawling toddler that the shoes she is trying to fit on her chubby little feet are too small for her and aren't going to fit no matter how much you cry or how many times I try to "Hepp you! Pweese!", leave those too. Mommy is not the magic cobbler. If I were, I'd create some special shoes that would teleport me to the bar, because Mommy needs a cocktail.