so much for that last idea

I should know anytime I put myself out there with some sort of “commitment” of  writing something, it’s pretty much a nail in the coffin for whatever bright idea it was I had.    

In this case it was my !new and improved! hard-hitting and edgy! gritty and REAL! recovery blog. My initial idea was to check in on a daily basis for the first year of my recovery and detail every horribly uncomfortable white-knuckle moment with searing truth and RAW, stripped down emotion.  

The only problem is…is that right now, I have no emotion.  For the past two weeks I have been as dull and flat as I was when I was an awkward prepubescent. Ok, bad analogy. But flat. Flat is accurate. It’s not even depression, I don’t think. I’m not sad. I just don’t give a shit. About anything.

At least when I was drunk, I felt something…even if it was stupid, and like shit.

I think the term is anhedonia. It would be a pretty name, Anhedonia. But not with my last name. Anhedonia Lee is just stupid. Anyways, it’s sort of  like being the walking dead.

It’s the awful kind of grumpy-funk that makes hours of semi-catatonic head-nodding to Foster The People the most thrilling part of of my day. Yes, Foster The People. I know. I should be shot. The Gigamesh mix of that daffy song is pretty festive, I must say.  I hope secretly I’m not planning some Virginia Tech kinda freak-out massacre. Nah. I’m just sadly enjoying really really awful music. I am old and way past my peak freshness.

YAY ALEX!!!!

Yo GO GUUURL!

I know who really loves me. My boo Alex is more than happy to accompany her fatuous maternal unit to the Wild Waves sooper kewl happy times funtastic waterpark. Yay Alex, you just made my day. Now I can put off all thoughts of suicide until at least after the May 31 Big Splash event, it’s gonna be so much fun, with all the innertubes and my favorite Christian recording artists are performing! Yay! I’m gonna go buy my sunscreen and fake tan-in-a-bottle right now!

But before I go, I just want to give a quick shout out and props to my kick-ass baby girl, who just kicked to the curb her dungnugget of a boyfriend and showing him the importance of treating a young lady with the utmost kindness,love and respect, and never to take her wonderfulness for granted. Hopefully he will recognize now that she is gone that he has lost out on a beautiful, charming, dynamic and funnier than hell sugar cookie of a girl. That’s what you get hosehead! Pay attention next time, if you get to be so lucky.

Yay Alex!!! I am so proud of you! You rock my world. 🙂 Keep up the good work, sweets, and I’ll see ya at the Hooks Lagoon activity pool!

I Told You I Looked Scary When I Wake Up In The Morning!

This here was the morning I wokeup and thought…”DAMN! I guess I really should stop drinkin‘”

Has anyone here seen my concealer? I can’t seem to find it, I think I need a touch up. And where’s my visine? Do any of you guys have a recommendation for a really good tooth whitener? I mean one that REALLY works? These Crest Strips just aren’t doin’ the trick.

My New ?’s For The eHarmony Profile

Ok, I admit it. I am a completely sheep-minded, easily malleable, suggestible, susceptible, bidable, manipulable foon. My is brain is like a magnetic lump of silly putty-I am just that impressionable. Palm trees in Florida in the midst of hurricane season are not as easily swayed as I. I am the ultimate marketing quarry, a fledgling ad exec’s wet dream.

I am a sucker.

And because I am a sucker, I am easily worn down by repetition. Just ask my daughter. She has calculated out that although it can take an upwards of 86-90 pleas for me to break down and give into whatever the hell it is she wants at a given whim, I will give in eventually, and that’s more important than the time she has to invest in the asking. Some may frown upon this as wishy-washy and ineffectual parenting, but I beg to differ. By taking the time to wear me down with her incessant whimpers and demands, she learned early on very valuable life-skills such as persistence, goal-setting, and determination-the importance of never taking no for an answer!

So, it’s easy to see why, after years of being barraged by hundreds of thousands of exponentially annoying eHarmony commercials-you know the ones-with all the images of your prototypical white-bread,vanilla-bean-makes-me-reach-for-my-kaopectate-perfect couples( You know,like this one:

“Oh, we’re so normal! We’re so successful, but in a no-too-showy way! Oh, and we’re happy! So very very happy!!”) and promises to find MY perfect match-yes, MY perfect match -a match made based on pivotal information about me,my life, and all it’s inner tinkererings, gathered by detailed questionnaires focusing on 29-YES! TWENTY-NINE key Dimensions Of Compatibilty. Not 25. Not 26! Not even twen-ty-seven or twen-ty-EIGHT, but fuckin’ A, no shit, TWENTY NINE MOTHERFUCKING DIMENSIONS OF COSMIC COMPATIBILITY! Drop kick me,Jesus, through the goal posts of life! Hallefuckinlooyah, but that’s a certifiable shitton of personality dimensions. Now, I don’t know why there’s not thirty dimensions-I’m guessing the folks writing the profile have attention issues like myself, got bored and went, fuck it! Twenty-nine’s good enough! I’m takin’a nap! At anyrate,I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to take their free personality profile and find out for myself what all the hoohah was about, and honestly, I just couldn’t wait to find my soulmate.

So, I go through about 35 minutes of vaguely worded questions that I’m sure are supposed to be deep, complex, esoteric and soul-seeking, but are really flimsy little feel good beat-around-the-bush-isms that all center back to three key points of concern:

1) Are you happy,motivated,success-driven?

2) Do you have a lot of money?

3) Do you love the Baby Jesus? ***

*** Although ‘loving Baby Jesus’ is actually an implied theme, it is glaringly apparent this service is geared towards a more conservative, middle of the road client, folk who are most likely homely and have fostered an artificially superficial and optimistic outlook on life. Although I’m not one to generalize,these types generally tend to tend to fall into the Bible=thumping category.***

I felt there were large gaps in critical data one would need to decide if someone was an ideal match-hell, I wouldn’t even go out on a first date with the 7 hose-heads they wanted to hook me up with. The reality is the current eHarmony profile is a lot like a track house. It’s pretty on the outside, but on the inside, it’s a worthless piece of shit. And being the spearheading kind of gal I am, I took the liberty of contacting eHarmony and shared with them my critiques, and surprisingly, they were very open to suggestions and asked me to compile my own set of questions to enhance the current personality profile. Energized by the prospect of creating a vehicle that could deeply delve into the inner bowels of a persons soul and extract out the true essence of their fetid nature, I have come up with an amazing personality profiling tool. These questions get to the “meat” of the matter, so to speak, and reveal what we all truly want to know about our potential mates and their character.

NEW AND IMPROVED ADDENDUM TO LAMEASS eHARMONY QUESTIONNAIRE

rate on a scale of 1-5, with 1 suggesting Strongly Do Not Agree, 3 Neutral, 5 Strongly Agree:

1. I like to drink wine with my dinner.

2. I like to drink wine,or perhaps even beer,or possibly refreshing mixed drink beverage such as margaritas after dinner.

3. I like to drink wine, beer,whisky,vodka,mouthwash,or rubbing alcohol up until bedtime, or I pass out,whichever comes first.

4. I like to start my mornings with a breakfast of PBR and the Bible, and maybe some some sausage while I’m reading.

5.Drinking at lunchtime is one of my favorite pastimes.

6. Drinking on the job is how I aced my last promotion.

7.Drinking and driving doesn’t count if you’re a)less than a mile away from home or b) under 25 mph.

8. I would consider myself an advocate for the legalization of marijuana.

9. Video games are a great way to spend “together time”.

10. I would say cocaine or methamphetamine users often get a bad rap.

11. I am in favor of better dental care provisions to be available to crackheads and tweakers.

12. I look at Grand Theft Auto the same way I look at library books.

13. I routinely put out on a first date.

14. 100 one night stands with people whose names I cannot recall is really the norm for me.

15. I have sold my body for money. Or drugs. Or a piece of pizza.

16. Manufacturing illegal substances is a great way to supplement your income.

17. Jail time is not much more than a bar mitzvah-it’s a rite of passage.

18. Recycling bins are great makeshift nap areas in a pinch.

19. Criminal charges are a great way to meet sexy lawyers.

20.Living with schizophrenia really isn’t as debilitating as I thought it would be.

21. The voices I hear in my head mainly say positive things.

22. My neighbor’s medicine cabinet is a great source for Vicodin.

23. Hot tub parties with your neighbor’s spouse/partner is ok, as long as their spouse/partner is a great big bitch/asshole/douchebag.

24. I feel most comfortable when I’m at an orgy.

25.I rarely, if ever, have sexual relations with relatives.

26. I am happiest when I secretly have a vibrating anal plug pleasuring me while I work/shop for groceries.

27. I always check out my poop and giggle at it monstrous size before I flush it away.

28. I am prone to fits of explosive diarrhea.

29. My feet are free of corns, callouses, excess dry skin and assorted toenail fungii.

30.I was not molested as a child.

31.I best express my negative feelings and emotions by punching things.

32. I only argue with stupid people and those who don’t agree with me.

33. Monogamy is really so yesterday.

34. Compulsive masturbation is just what one has to do to get through those “dry” dating periods.

35. Anal sex is totally kewl.

36. Midgets turn me on.

37.I haven’t tortured or sexually mutilated anyone since I was a wee child.

38. Felonies are a great way for a potential employee to provide business owners much needed tax breaks.

39. I believe that the GED stands for “Great Education, Dude!”

40. I think adults who still live with their parents are sweet people who value family bonds.

41. I really am a MGD ,football, buffalo wing loving guy/gal.

42. I would much rather dine at a Sizzler than at a Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.

43. I LOVE SHOPPING MALLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

44. Babies are more like tiny drunks to me than precious angels.

45. I have a lot of tattoos.

46. I would rather have a sharp stick jammed in my eye than listen to a Dave Matthews song.

47. You can tell a lot about a person by their choice of karoake tunes.

48. The recreational use of psychedelics allows me a precious opportunity to connect with God.

49. I think recycling is for sissies.

50. In the morning, I tend to resemble a muppet.

I have many more, but they will come later. For now, I sleep! If you have any suggestions, please feel free to share. 🙂

This is Alex

Hey everybody, I would like to introduce you all to the light of my life, my beautiful daughter Alexandra. She’s the one on the right. Which I guess is kinda obvious, as there is only one female in this photograph, and although her friend here is pretty, I don’t think pretty enough to confuse with a girl. But you never know these days with kids and all the gender-bender cornfusion so prevalent in today’s heathenistic paganized devil-worshipping youth culture. Damn trannies are everywhere, you don’t know who is what, and what’s an optical illusion. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m looking at a man, woman, something somewhere in between, if I’m suffering an acid flashback or if I just got something smudged on my glasses. Frankly, it’s frustrating.

I don’t even know who this kid is in this picture. But I’ll tell you what, he needs to get is damn arm up from around my baby, he’s a little to close for my comfort there and I don’t want to have to go grab my shotgun. Do you see his hand there on her knee? I swear these damn kids only have one thing on their minds, and that’s filth.

Would you believe my sweet little petunia there is 18 years old? I know I certainly can’t. It’s really hard for me to grasp that my tiny little sack of taters has blossomed up into a full-grown spud. It seems like only yesterday I was bottlefeeding her favorite blend of rice cereal and spaghettios, reading to her my favorite excerpts from Macbeth, and telling her fun fairy tales like the one about the Easter Bunny living outside the back of Walgreens in a cardboard box.( He needed to live close to where all the candy was, and Walgreens cut him a much better deal than that evil over-priced Eckerd Drugs. Alex and I were having an important conversation about entrepreneurship, and it was really helpful for me to paint a picture of how to launch a successful start-up using the legendary Easter Bunny Buisness Model Method.) Alex and I were just like the Gilmore Girls-if Lorelai and Rory were escapees from the psychaitric unit of some other planetary dimension.

That poor child deserves a Purple Heart for surviving 18 years growing up with me as a mother and living to tell about it.

You will be hearing many more Alex stories as this blog continues on. Some will be happy, some will be sad, some will be surprising,but you can guarantee that with Alejandra as the subject, all will be entertaining. (And don’t freak out on me, child, they will only be mildly embarrassing. 🙂

I love my woobie. *smiles*

Lord, Why Am I Such A Damn Slob?

Hey, ya’ll like the latest shot I added to my portfolio? I don’t know, I’m just not as pasty and bloated in this one, I don’t know if I’m comfortable with it. I asked the makeup girl to go a little lighter with the bronzer, but she just kept puffing my face shouting, “Miami! Miami! Miami!” I guess she’s trying to get me ready for all those bikini shoots I have scheduled down in South Beach. Which reminds me, I hope those custom snakeskin thongs I ordered are ready, I sure have been looking forward to them. And man, I think I need to grab some more root touch up while I’m on my frozen burrito/gatorade run to Rite Aid. Didn’t realize I was showing so much gray!

All my life, I have had a bit of a problem in the slob department.  The problem seems to stem from the fact that I am a slob. I have tried many times over the course of my life to rectify and cure myself of this sloppiness, but every time I try to clean up and get myself organized, I just get distracted, bored, or just plain fall asleep.

I can tell it’s starting to grate on my boyfriend’s nerves, he shows it in all these really funny passive aggressive ways, like calling me names under his breath while taking the teetering tower of Diet Coke cans I piled so delicately and skillfully out to recycling (Doode! It’s Modern Art!), cursing as he trips over the 12 pairs of heels strewn about the living room floor (Honey, they’re part of my new workout routine called Hopscotch Hurdles. You’re supposed to jump over them! Now, don’t be a spoilsport, just do it, hop! it’s good for your heart) and tossing the 118 months of back issues of CatFancy I had loving accumulated even though I don’t own a cat out the window in a fit of fury (Hey! I WAS SAVING THOSE FOR A REASON!!!!!). I don’t get what his problem is. It’s not like a months accumulation of Qtips encrusted in earwax is a health concern or anything. Sheesh, lighten up. I try to make the trash can, sometimes, I just miss and forget about them. You’re not perfect either,you know.

I’ve been this way all my life, although I’m not sure why. Maybe it does stem from Mama, she was a bit of a packrat. She used to keep EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING. Instead of buying me toys, she used to give me bags of her old prescription pill bottles and empty Afrin Nose Sprays to play with. Which was kinda fun, all my dollies were so healthy and always had the cleanest nasal passages! I remember one time when I was in high school, my friend Jarrod was over and he started going through this drawer of random shit in our den, and he pulls out this bottle filled with what appeared to be maybe rocks of some form or another, or perhaps some miscellaneous car parts leftover from a tune up, and asks me what exactly they were. Upon closer inspection, I realized that those had been Mama’s leftover teeth from when she had them pulled and gotten her dentures.

Why she was saving them, I could only imagine. Maybe she thought they were heirlooms, and wanted to pass them down to me as part of her legacy. I imagine that’s probably the only thing she’d leave me in her will.

If you were to peer into my room as a little girl, and didn’t know who lived in it, you would most likely have concluded that this was a crawling hole for a schizophrenic rat from the land of H.R. Puffinstuff, or wondered if Sanford and Sons had expanded their business by opening a shop out on Sesame Street. (Did you guys miss that episode?) The floor just always seemed like a logical place to store things. It’s not like I used the floor to actually walk around on or anything, so I needed all my key items piled up close to me where I could reach them without breaking a sweat.

Every year at school, I would start out so resolute, with all my nice new folders and dividers, determined to make this year the best year ever! and transform myself into this UBER-organized autotron, consistently and effortlessly filing every scrap of schoolwork neatly into its rightfully designated place. “I will be organized this year!” I would chant to myself. “I will be successful! I’m going to pay attention and make good grades and be the best little Aldine Senior High School Student, EVER!”

And then, I’d get a crush on some stupid boy who had no idea I existed and would have screamed in terror if he had have known I existed, and daydream about having sex with him all day long, even though I had never had sex or even been kissed, but -I had read a lot about it in Cosmopolitan and those Penthouse Forums my dad used to sell at his grocery store, and so I had a pretty good idea what it was all about. {editor’s note-evil grin right here}Needless to say, although my mind was focused on biology, it wasn’t exactly the type that would get me a passing grade, and I became easily frustrated, and not just sexually….I just started cramming papers wherever, whenever I bothered to even to the work, and by the middle of the semester my locker looked like I must have been studying up hard for Bag Lady 101 or maybe Advanced Theorums In Hoboitry. In fact, my senior year, I was voted Most Likely To Reside Out The Cardboard Recycling by a panel of my teachers and counselors. I love awards, so I was pretty stoked to have been recognized.

But you know, it does get a little old struggling with the same old self-defeating habits, and I guess it would be nice to maybe wake up and not think, “Damn girl, you smell like foot”. I have been trying harder to change lately, but it’s one hell of a process. Every day, I pray soooooo hard, “Pleeeeeeaaase God! Make me a Type A personality. Even just for a day. PLEASE!” And everyday, I’m lucky if I come up a Type B-. It’s just really hard when you have a hard time paying attention, and your mind wanders, and you can’t ever finish what you sta

I sure do love to help. :)

I’ve decided to start volunteering recently, and happily, one of the opportunities that has come up is providing support to victims of domestic violence. It’s great, because this is absolutely one of the A #1 causes I am passionate about, so I’m excited to have a chance to get in there and do whatever I can to make a difference in these women’s lives. I’ve found that it can be a bit of a challenge finding a good volunteering gig, the really good jobs seem to already be taken. For instance, I went to Nordstrom and asked if they needed any help with advertising, for I would be happy to model any of their 1000’s of high-quality and fashion forward garments all around the downtown area. Oddly enough, the answer was a No!

Then I headed over to Gordon Biersch and volunteered my superior beer-tasting talents absolutely FREE OF CHARGE! just to be a good citizen and help them out in their QA department. I mean heck, it has to be tough for an outfit like themselves to consistently produce a great-tasting product, and I’m sure it would be helpful to have some folk on hand to serve as sort of a “frontline of defense” and save some poor elistist schmo from overpaying for a brew that might possibly even be just a skosh not up to snuff?

I was floored when I was politely shown the door and asked to never return. I even inquired about tasting opportunities with any of the new brews that were still in the development stage. I’d be happy to give those guys my opinion on how they taste! Plus, I’m sure I’d have some helpful feedback for them, after all, I have spent a lot of years swilling a LOT (and I do mean ALOT) of beers, and trust me, I know good beer when I taste it.

Again, the answer was NO! What is the deal with these people? Maybe I have something stuck in my teeth. And what was up with the arm-twisting thing the security guy was doing as he was escorting me out the door?? Dude just about ripped my arm off my shoulder. Man, what a jackass, that really hurt.

Oh, I guess it’s for my own good anyways. I don’t need to start drinking again. It was kinda early, anyways, I think it was like 8:00 in the morning. Now if it were 10? Maybe a different story. Ok, ok, I gotta focus now.

So yeah, the plan is for myself to provide encouragement and solutions by phone to callers who are seeking help to extract themselves from some sort of potentially dangerous situation. So I guess I’ll start out by being a good listener, assess the situation, then give them resource information and any helpful tips or perhaps some encouragement or advice. Which is great, because that is exactly what I am best at. 🙂

You know, one of the most valuable lessons I have learned in my journeys down this wide and rambling road we call life, is that every cloud really DOES have a silver lining. It’s true. Attitude is everything, and when it comes to life, it’s up to you to decide whether you’re going to put a positive or a negative spin on any given situation. And domestic violence is no exception.

I know there are a lot of “standardized ” wisdoms in the world of counseling victims of domestic violence, things such as “Yeah, if he hit you with a hammer,you should get that checked out”, and “Um, yes, sweetie, I think the part where your “partner” shot your mother and set the dog on fire, may indeed be a red flag”. Those sorts of things are kind of no-brainers, and honestly, I think I’m gonna feel a little weird stating the obvious to some of these women. In fact, most of them I’m sure have heard the same meaningless line of tripe crisis lines always tell callers anyway…they got the standard “run for your life” shpeel the last time Earl beat the living tarfeathers off their behinds. I’m thinking these women would really benefit if I could possibly bring something different to the table. So, I’ve been working on some fresh new twists on looking at the subject of domestic violence, and I think they’re really mighty encouraging. Take a look and let me what you think:

1) Yes, having been punched, choked, and grabbed from behind I’m sure was frightening and is horrible! But hey, it’s not gonna seem so weird or scary the next time someone tries to mug you!

2)Try to make dodging punches and bullets a bit more like a game. Try to imagine that you’re just acting out a real life game of Grand Theft Auto, or something else along those lines.

3)Try to make the most out of each trip to the courthouse when you’re filing your Order Of Protection paperwork. They’re a lot of really hot Family Law Attorneys down there, and if you’re on your game, you might just land yourself a sugardaddy. Stay away from the cops though. They’ve got the anger management issues, too.

4) Hey, you get priority placement for social services!

5) You know, you get great free samples of shampoo and stuff at those domestic violence shelters. Be smart and scoop up all the love you can!

6) If he’s stalking you, try looking at it as “Hide N’ Go Seek”. You know, think “Stratego”, make it a challenge! Oooh…where’s he gonna be next? Is he gonna be – here?? Noooo, ok…maybe he’s HERE hiding out in the bushes. Or will he find me HERE and be waiting for me behind the door with a butcher knife? See! Gives it a slightly more frothy, fun, frivolous feel, like “Where’s Waldo?”

7) You know girl, “bruise” is the new “black”. You didn’t hear about that? Guuuurrl, you better go on and work it NOW!

I’m totally stoked. It feels so good to be giving back and helping others. I’m sure if I keep coming up with more of these freshfaced words of hope and encouragement, I’ll be the hotline’s favorite counselor in no time. Maybe I could parlay this into like a full-time gig. Yeah, I think I may have just found my calling. Wait! I just came up with another one, listen to this:

“Don’t be sad about that shirt he just ripped right off you. See, use these shreds of fabric to make dandy fashion hair bows. Or, you can use them as bondage restraints to really put some extra sizzle into your make-up sex!” Good God, at times, my genius…