Allow me to introduce my friends...

I've always named my blemishes, of course, but I've never envisioned myself displaying them on the World Wide Web for all to see. I haven't had a chin like this since Bill Clinton's first presidential term. In fact, that's what inspired their names. Ron - he's the little guy. He's just hanging in there. Newt - he won't go away, no matter how I try. Rick - he's a contender. He's right up there with Mitt. Speaking of Mitt, he's our top pick. Things are really coming to a head now for Mitt.

I think it's the stress. I was discussing this with my sister this morning. I think I'm a stress sponge lately. I've been stressing out about everything from genetically modified produce to the Republican primaries to Dr. Seuss Week. Usually I hear stressful things and I either think about them for a minute or I immediately deflect them. Not now. Now I internalize them and allow them to affect my blood pressure and manifest themselves on my own personal face. My chin looks like the handle of the big dipper.

Sorry to be gross. I hope you weren't eating. I will be ladylike again tomorrow.

This garbage brought to you by: Elise, with the assistance of Editor Lady Joyce

Because I promised: a link to this week's column.

I am warning you - even I didn't like what I wrote this week, and I'm usually my own best friend. The saying usually goes "you're your own worst critic." Not me. I'm way too nice to myself in this department. I am shocked that Editor Lady Joyce (that's her official title) even published this trash. She's too nice to me.

Enjoy?

I want to kill my dog.

Did you guys know that Winston Churchill suffered from depression? He called it his "black dog." It followed him around. If he was having a particularly down day he would say he "had a black dog on his back."

Guys, I think I have a black dog following me around. It's not a big dog - kind of a yippy little Scottish terrier. In the morning, it follows me around barking: "You can't do this anymore!" "You're failing as a mother!" "Your pants wouldn't be so tight if you would stop eating chocolate chip cookies!" And when I collapse into bed at the end of the day and close my eyes, I can hear him yipping at the foot of my bed: "You didn't do enough today!" "You are ruining your kids!" "You are thirty-one and you still have zits?!"

I hate this freaking dog.

He has been a particular nuisance of late. During the day I can drown him out with friends and children and running and housework and cracking jokes. But when the house is quiet in the morning or when I'm falling asleep he's still there, barking away.

I don't know why my metaphorical depression dog is male, but there it is.

I'm not trying to get sympathy from you guys. We both know that there are plenty of people in the world who are much more deserving of your sympathy. I'm just trying to figure out a way to kill this dog once and for all so that I can spend less time focused on myself and more time focused on other people.

I'm reminded of the time that DJ threw a frozen block of elk meat at our barking neighbor dog one night a few years back. He hit it in the head, the dog ate the meat (freezer paper and all), and we finally got to sleep. I guess what I need is a metaphorical frozen chunk of elk meat.

Memory of Warmer Times Lane

Raise your hand if you love St. George. 

Say what you will about St. George not having a Chick-fil-A, but I don't want to hear any complaints about the weather. 

That little warm spell we enjoyed last week reminded me of a trip that DJ and I took a few years back.  We went to Hawaii when it was January on the mainland.  I think it's perpetually June in Hawaii.  I was in the throes of pregnancy, dealing with Seasonal Affective Disorder, and overall feeling crappy.  The trip was heavenly.  Care to join me for a stroll down Memory Lane, where we can all live vicariously through myself five years ago only without the morning sickness?

 

Words cannot describe how much I love this picture.  But I will try anyway.  This was taken at the Polynesian Cultural Center, where I began my career as a semi-professional hula dancer.  This was my first lesson.  The best part of the picture?  The old other people in the picture with me.  They are so happy.  And their outfits are so festive.  Most people scuba dive or sky dive or some other form of diving when they vacation.  Not me.  I kick it with the AARP.

Speaking of the AARP, feast your eyes on this fellow:

I love that guy. Besides the obvious satisfaction he derives from photobombing unsuspecting tourists, I just appreciate his overall attitude. You know, "Screw it, I'm retired. You don't like my back hair, that's your problem." 

One more comment on this picture. If you will, please take a moment to compare my hairdo in the hula dancing photo to my hairdon't in the photobombed picture.  Are you guys like me--do you make really bad decisions when you're pregnant?  And very ill-thought-out decisions when you're on vacation?  We all knew going into this trip that something bad was going to happen to my hair.  That hairdon't is both the worst and most expensive haircut I've ever received.

Thanks for joining me on my trip down Memory of Warmer Times Lane.  Only three months until summer!

P.S.  Like I threatened last week, here is a link to what I wrote for St. George News this week.  I didn't really care for it, but I didn't have anything else to write about and I didn't think they'd appreciate vacation pictures from five years ago.  Not like you guys.  En. Joy.

The Great and Powerful Oz

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from a guy, who for privacy purposes we will call The Wizard of Oz (since I've never met him and I'm not entirely sure he really exists), asking if I'd be interested in writing a humor column for a local news website every week.  Since he didn't ask me for my credit card information and the website appeared legitimate I said, "What the hey."  Actually, I wrote something else.  I don't remember what I replied, except that it was almost physically painful for me not to use emoticons in the e-mail.

So...I started writing a "humor" column.  Please note my liberal use of the term "humor."  Being asked to write humorously is a lot of pressure.  It's one thing to write about current events--you just write about stuff that happens and hope that you get your facts straight.  Writing humorously is kind of the opposite.  The facts aren't so much an issue (or they are and I just don't give a crap), but being witty is something that is difficult to do on command.  I feel like I have a guy shooting a gun at my feet and yelling, "DANCE!"  I feel like I was a decent dancer before, but the gun's making me nervous.  Is this simile too complex?

Anyhoo.

You guys oughta see what I wrote this week.  I'll probably put a link on here when I write for the website, since every week my mom asks me how to find it.  (Just trying to make things easier for you, Mom!)

How I Almost Died This Weekend

Yeah, I know it's Tuesday. I was crazy busy yesterday wiping the dust off of my baseboards and eating DJ's birthday Twinkies. (Amusing sidenote: My husband doesn't necessarily care for Twinkies, but for some reason his sisters think that he loves them. Every year he receives a box for his birthday. I eat them. The end.)

On Saturday our friends invited us to go rock climbing with them. I've only rock climbed a few times in my life, most recently in 2001. Let's do the math...that was eleven years, four kids, and one husband ago. I've been in the mood to test my fear and anxiety threshold lately--I also tried Zumba last week--so we agreed to go.

DJ was a trooper. He came straight from work in his Levis and gave it a shot. For those who've never climbed before, usually you wear these tight little climbing shoes that make you look like a nerd. We don't know anyone who wears a size 13 climbing shoe, so DJ went in his nice work shoes.

Macey and Olivia tried it out, too:

I didn't get really great pictures of Olivia, because while she was climbing my other kids were taking pictures like this one:

At one point it was my turn. I borrowed my friend's tight little shoes, strapped into the Climbing Girdle of Joy and Flatteringness (TM), and deliberately made my way up the cliff face. I climbed for what felt like hours. Eventually my arms began to weaken.

"I don't think I can do this," I told my friend.

"Everyone says that. You've got it," my friend replied calmly from the rocky desert floor hundreds of feet below.

My legs began to quiver with fatigue. The bones in my arms liquified until my entire upper body had the consistency of Jell-o. "No really, I can't do this. I don't want to die today."

"See that crevice about seven feet above your head?" my friend asked. "See if you can reach that with your right arm."

I reached, but couldn't make it. I lost my footing. The world spun around me. My life flashed before my eyes just like a bad cliche. I plunged down to my waiting death...

...five feet below.

I climbed five feet before I fell. It felt a lot higher. Given the right shoes I could've jumped from five feet up and been okay.

You're probably wondering how I almost died this weekend. It wasn't the rock climbing. It was the Twinkies. Roll credits.

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"Little" Red Dress

This dress weighs one hundred and ten pounds.  It was premiered a week or two ago at Couture Week in Paris. (Yeah, I missed it, too.  I don't know how these things slip past my radar.  Or, raise your hand if you didn't know Couture Week existed until reading that sentence.  High five!)

Doesn't this seem like a step in the wrong direction, ladies?  Doesn't this dress seem like a hearty slap in the makeup-less face of feminism?  We've managed to get rid of the whalebone corsets.  We can wear pants now.  Nylons are on their way out.  I have some serious beef with these Parisian fashion designers, I'll tell you what.  Give me something I can work with, guys. 

Just something on my mind today.  As you were.