How do you spell that shuddering groan the Simpsons do?

I am now about to share the number-one all time most embarrassing thing that's happened to me in my 38 years and 7 months. The one thing that even now reduces me to whimpers and rending of garments. This is the story that, when I tell it, elicits not raucous laughter but groans of sympathy.

It's not some mispronounced word or inappropriate phrase yelled at a stranger. It's not poorly-timed sickness in front of coworkers. It didn't happen in public, and it's not a funny vignette from my life. No one even witnessed this, it was just us two.

Even still, I don't feel an uncomfortable embarrassment, I feel shame. Shame because of who was involved; a deep shame of a personal nature that should never, ever have involved that other person. It is lasting and it is so sad that I still wince (to this day, even, were inclined to use that phrase, and I am not) when it pops into my head for no reason, like a champagne cork to the head from the table next to you at that expensive tapas place that puts too much mint in their drinks.

It is this:

I was once invited to a birthday swim party in high school. I was on my period, and I had never used a tampon before. The only woman around to assist me in understanding the mechanics of tampons was that woman.

Let that sink in. Roll it around your head like you're tasting it at a fancy wine bar: let the tastebuds of your mind pop as that bitter slab of my dignity withers and dies. Just try to pry the kernels of popcorn sticking painfully between your tooth and gum when you realize you know how that must have made her feel: pride that I "trusted" her to ask such an intimate question, the rush I'm sure she felt when she realized that she knew something that I did not.

Ok, that's maybe too much metaphor. Sorry. I'm trying to heal with words and sometimes tortured prose is the only way to make it work. I turn real emotions into imagined things that I can crush and stomp and hit and hopefully try to get out of my head.

But then I remember the story she once told of one of her husband's stays in the hospital. I have a lot of history with that lady that is painful to think about, but at least I wasn't married to her and I didn't nearly die having been kicked in the balls by a homeless guy.

It's going all pants

Embarassing Things, all six-like

I once was at a dance club with a friend of mine. The vodka urged us toward the bathroom and we were surprise there wasn't a line, especially since there was a single stall. Friend of mine was checking out her hair in the mirror and I went into the stall. I remembered I was wearing brand new underwear purchased earlier in the day from the Disney store. As I flushed, I called out,

"Hey-- you wanna see my pooh undies?"

And then noticed that friend had left and that I did not know the person standing at the mirror.

Just like my desk: messy and full of crumbs from lost lunches

** You know what's surprisingly alarming? A dentist coming at your un-numb mouth with a drill-- even when you know he's just sanding down a new filling.

** Why does Radio Shack sell candy?

** I was napping on the trip home from Canada in April. The radio was on. The Husband was startled when I suddenly bolted upright, lunged at the radio off button and screamed "Jesus Christ, it's Madonna!" I think should always be everyone's response to Madonna.

** Werner Hertzog has a new movie about Antarctica (Encounters at the End of the World) that I will definitely see. I don't know a whole lot about him, but my respect was embiggened enormously when I read the following:

Reporter: Much of [the movie] is very funny but what stuck with me most at the end are the sublime aspects of it. The latter part, where you get the sounds of the seals and the underwater footage, to me they suggest not just otherworldliness, but a divine intelligence. Do you agree?

Hertzog: Are you trying to persuade me to become an adherent of creationism?

Reporter: Not necessarily, but to me the sounds of the seals, for instance, suggests something supernatural.

Hertzog: No, it doesn’t. It only suggests the sounds, and they are wonderful and sublime. I wouldn’t read anything God-like into it. However, creation itself, as it is, has something magnificent, and the film celebrates it, the film names it, the films shows it. And the film ends like that. And I like this notion; you do not often have a chance in a movie to show things that are of utmost beauty, and of course the music has a big part in showing a certain sacredness in what we have in front of us. [Emphasis added]

- John Del Signore, interview with Werner Hertzog, Gothamist.com

That's a great response to the "The world is so amazing it has to have a designer" argument:

No. It. Doesn't. Calm, firm and totally right.

Commercials I hate

To the chagrin of the husband, I like to talk back to the television. I mock the timelines on Cold Case, I yell "go, buddy, go" during sports exhibitions, I yell out the answers playing along with game shows.

I save my loudest exclamations and my snarkiest snark for commercials. I don't know why, but I require consistency and common sense from the ads that are trying to shill their potions and widgets. I do, in fact, think of these things whilst browsing the corner shops. Here are the worst offenders:

1. The Oregon Lottery

(Damn if I couldn't find the spot online. They show it all the fucking time-- how is it not on You Tube? I guess I'll have to describe it to you without being too biased. I must be patient; my wrath will out soon enough.)

Scene: A man is standing on a street corner in the financial district of an unknown city. He holds an upside down fedora in his hand. A businessman in a suit walks by and the first guy holds out his hat. The businessman waves him away. Next, a well dressed hipster walks by and hatman reaches into his fedora, pulls out a wad of cash and hands it to the guy, who is confused, but takes it anyway. This continues for three or four more people. As the camera focuses on a woman in a business suit staring wide eyed at the man while talking on her cell phone, the lottery logo comes up along with their catchphrase "What will you do?"

Why do I hate this commercial? Because the lottery winner is handing out cash in the *financial district*. You know, the one filled with people who already make wads of cash? The majority of the people walking by and taking the cash are white, distinctly vice-president-of-marketing type men. This just kills the democratic socialist in me. Why would you give money to people who didn't need it? Could he not find more needy people? Not even homeless people, necessarily--because lord knows we don't want to reward the indigent and down on their luck-- but maybe students? Parents with large families? Maybe a barista or a cashier at Ross? Hell, I'd even look past my distrust of religious charities and accept a fucking Salvation Army Santa. Jesus, you don't need to give money to The Man. The Man squeezes plenty of money out of us already.

Next?

B) The Oregon Lottery, again

Scene: The outside of a single bathroom stall. Everything is plated in gold. A woman comes out of the stall and climbs into a gold plated golf cart. The camera follows the woman as she drives down a long hallway-- also gold-- until she comes to a similarly plated basin, where she disembarks from the golf cart and proceeds to wash her hands. The lottery logo and catchphrase come up on screen.

Seriously, how gross must that golf cart steering wheel be? Every time that commercial airs, scores of molysmophobiacs convulse and die.

Wait, there's more!

III. AT&T - Alter-ego Hong Kong Greeting





"He's not going to answer because he doesn't have AT&T"

And whose fault is that, you think? Could it be... the VP of Sales' fault for choosing to save money by providing the sales team with inadequate communications service? Maybe we can blame the boss who neglected to give his salesman important information like the pronounciation of the best client's name? Jesus, any company that relies so heavily on an individual employee's choice of phone provider and ability to learn a complex language like Chinese deserves to have their business fail.

I will leave you on an upbeat note, for once, with my favorite commercial so far this year (it's one of a series of commercials that are all pretty great):




Yoinks and away, indeed.

I has a happy

All seems to be going well on the health front for the family, and it's about goddamn time. We are cancer free and continuing to improve and I can't tell you how happy it makes me to type that.

K still has to take that gazillion-dollar medicine apparently made of lutetium and magic, and J is still in hospital* and not 100% but it's so nice getting good news. We've been a little low on that this past year.

* if Canada says it that way, then that's good enough for me. Plus, I save all that time not saying 'the'. Efficiency, people!

Not embarrassing until now

Embarrassing Things, Part Five: some quickies

• I got my car stuck on a planter box four hours after I was issued my first driver's license.


• I once threw up whilst clinging to the side of a moving dumpster that I accidentally dislodged from its place in the parking lot on the first day of a new job.


• I once lied about spilling soda on an adding machine that begat a huge office whodunit that ended with my tearful admission in front of an office full of managers.
• I once called my husband "Mommy" in front of guests.
• I once asked for a ticket to "Edinbur-g", even though I *knew* it was pronounced "Edinbrur-rah".

Hot flashes, check it and see

Art shamelessly stolen from Paper and Threads.

For the past several nights I have woken up bathed in sweat. Since that is a symptom of Insulin Emily at Night*, I have been dutifully getting up and checking my blood sugar. But it's been normal (well, high - but that's normal for me). So, what gives? Is it the great ceasening? The big halt? The bloody conk-out?

I don't know. What say you, Wikipedia?

"Rarely the ovaries stop working at a very early age, anywhere from the age of puberty to age 40, and this is known as premature ovarian failure (POF), also commonly referred to as "premature menopause" or "early menopause." 1% of women experience POF, and this is not considered to be due to the normal effects of aging. Some known causes of premature menopause include autoimmune disorders, thyroid disease, diabetes mellitus, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, however, in the majority of spontaneous cases, the cause is unknown. "

[Family members: stop reading here] A six foot tall douchebag once told me that I "wasn't sporadic enough", by which he meant I wasn't spontaneous enough for him because I refused him a hummer whilst he was driving across the Bay fucking Bridge in a two-seater convertible. So, clearly, spontaneous occasions like this are not for me. Oddly enough, though, my issue does qualify as sporadic... spooky.

[Family members may resume reading now]

So anyway, I'm two for five. Is it enough to push me prematurely into cotton ponylessness? Kick Aunt Flo to the curb? Finally stop this litany of painful euphemisms?

Of course not. And yes.

*She's not as fun as the daytime IE since everyone is asleep. The dreams that precede her appearances aren't even any weirder than normal. Nighttime IE is just a pain in the ass.