Vegetables Are Not Funny.

I read a book about an owl. I have told this story so many times it's ridiculous, so I will shorten it, like this: I read a book about an owl and then I decided not to eat animals. I do not mind if you eat animals. I do not mind removing the shrimp from the moo-shoo. I have nothing to preach about and I am not converting to a new religion. It's just something that happened when I read about the owl's feelings. Yes! I said feelings, and then I looked at some chicken, or watched a dumb commercial, and I thought that looks disgusting and I don't wanna eat it.

I had the same reaction to blue cheese, only for my whole life. I looked at it, smelled it, and I thought, gross, it's not even food. I don't care if other people eat it, I just do not want it. Naturally, The Men in the household think this is hilarious. (My apologies if you are mother to a boy. One day he will be A Man.) My son (referring to the vegetables, not the manhood) says "it's a phase." I say maybe it is. How should I know? Maybe I will miss sushi and start eating fish again or maybe one day I will want meat but I don't right now. So for awhile Ball & Chain kept putting big hunks o' meat or fish in front of me as if I'd change my mind instantaneously or maybe just to see what I'd do? He stopped that when I had green beans and potatoes one night for dinner, without complaint, and his salmon sat in the pan uneaten.

Still, they think it's funny. They tell very bad jokes about dead animals. I come from a family of butchers and I have eaten liver, chicken neck, giblet, and all sortsa other stuff. It's not like the jokes about meat are going to make me queasy. My great uncle useta greet us at his butchery with a bloodied apron, a big smile, and a friendly lollipop. What a sweetheart, really. I didn't think about the apron because I was used to it. A buncha pigs stuck in a cage and suffocating on their own methane? Well, that might make me a but queasy.

Today they were wondering about shumai, the Japanese dumpling. What if it has pork? Won't I miss it? Not right now. How tedious. What makes vegetarianism so funny to people? Have I inflicted it on my family? No. Have I served tofurkey? No, but we all like tofu with stir-fry. Rugelah has never liked chicken and Ball and Chain as always pretended that it's a phase. She just turned 13! The gal does not eat the chicken! There seems to be a perpetual family moment when one decides to take vengeance and move the joke one step further, or leave the joke be, and hope it dies. Not like an animal, like a vegetable. I am not sure whether to serve tofurkey for real, or simply wait to see when the next animal-slaughter joke lands in my plate. Hmmm.

Hair Removal is Not Fun, and Not Private

I decided to look at all of my old blog links. One link led to another and there was a column about body hair removal and my pubic area is utterly traumatized - my pubic hairs are uncurling right this very moment - because this robot-face lady wrote:

So whatever you like to do is fine. Really, it is. Do what feels good to you. Experiment. Have fun! But for heaven’s sake, keep it private.

She was referring to removal of pubic hair! Do what feels good to you?
1. What feels best is to leave it the hell alone, actually. I would prefer that my ancestors had not been hairy women, but there you have it, and it would feel good to me if my pubic hair was minimal and I could just avoid it. What feels good to you, Robot Face?

2. Miss Robot Face says whatever I like to do is fine. Some women actually do leave their pubic hair totally alone! Does she really think that is fine? No, she does not. She gives several painful options: American, French, Brazilian. How hairless do ya wanna be? Does she have an actual vulva going on or is it robot vulva, too? She referred to the hair "down there." I think she meant her cunt.

3. For heaven's sake, keep it private? Why? Why does it have to be private? I think I'll go talk to the old guy across the street and tell him I chose Brazilian! Or maybe I'll mention it to my mother-in-law. She'd love to hear about that. Perhaps Robot Lady means I should be careful, lest anyone actually see that I have pubic hair in my pubic region. Oops that wasn't lady-like. I meant my cunt. No worries, Robot Face! As the nice torture lady is rubbing hot wax on my thighs I will tell her not to look, because it it very private to me. Maybe she will read a magazine or talk on her cell. I don't mind a few layers of my labia removed just to keep it private.

4. Let's get to the "fun" part. Have fun, she tells us. I will remember that. Basically, I can go to the beach and have strangers see my pubic hair, which I cannot manage because, well, I can't, we live in the uptight U.S., or I can go get waxed, which is very painful and unpleasant. When someone pours hot wax very close to my cunt and then tears off bits of my hair with it, I do not feel happy. It is not fun. I sort of hate myself for doing it and I wish I were a hippy or a Swede with no hair.

5. As protest, I am thinking maybe I should grow a vulva beard and braid it or maybe get some hair extensions "down there," and start a new trend for hairy and proud women. It would be very public. Pubic, and public. Maybe it could be a performance art piece and I could get a buncha non-robot women to join me in the protest against the corporate wax-investing anti-cunt movement.

6. Or maybe I'll just wax again this summer, but it will not be fun and I will talk about it openly as I cross my legs in protection of my traumatized cunt.

In Bed with Bug not so Bad

I am sick as a dog. I feel like horse shit. Why do we always compare ourselves to animals when we feel lousy? I wake up and I fall asleep again. This is the first time in recorded history - that means that I can remember - that Ball & Chain is actually accepting that I am ill without using passive-aggressive maneuvers to imply that I am just wanting attention. It has never mattered what the illness has been - ruptured cysts, ruptured disc, migraine headache - a bit more than the usual litany of middle-aged complaints, but nothing too terrible. Nevvuthuless, he has always managed to sigh, to outright complain, to kvetch (a nagging complaint) about the disruption in his plans, be they ever so small. Never mind that I could not move, or that I was vomiting, or that everyone else at school had the flu, too. When I had it, it was an exaggeration.

But I digress. It's the day before Father's Day, and Ball and Chain is actually quite sympathetic to the little bug the little doobers seem to have given me as a parting gift at the school year's end. He sees me doing nothing on a beautiful day and he realizes hmmmm, most days she's fine! He does some laundry and he realizes hmmmm she's done the last few loads. He may have noticed that I do not have my usual beauty pageant presentation. The fact is we are cultural opposites. In my family, if someone had a cold, it was pull out the thermometer, push the fluids. In his family, if I tell his mother I'm sorry she's sick, she protests that she is not sick, even as she blows her nose repeatedly and hacks all over everyone.

Years ago, Big Kid was seriously ill. Then it was scary. We both knew how sick he was and I took him to the hospital while Ball & Chain stayed with Rugelah. That sickness lasted a long time. Yet somehow we have reverted to our old neuroses. Every once in awhile, one of our kids has a symptom and we both do sit up and pay attention, or sometimes I sit up and pay attention and Ball and Chain wakes up a bit and realizes. We were lucky then, even though other people thought we were unlucky. And now, instead of falling into a hole of cryptic sentences to protect my kid's privacy, I will say I am really not so sick at all.

My New Pal Can Write & She's Funny, Too.

CG works with me and now she blogs. She is very funny in person and also in text. So for my one reader and the dog, I recommend Cystic Gal.