Thanks for the Sperm!

Well, certainly it starts there, but when it comes to Dads, it doesn’t end there - or it shouldn’t, anyway.

Let me introduce you to my dad: Melvin Decker. He spent most of his life as a mailman (now retired) and has the scars to prove it. I bet you didn’t know that being a postal carrier can be hazardous to your health, but it can. From the little things like paper cuts and dogs chasing you as you try to do your job, to the big things like cancer - which can happen when someone spends the better part of their life with half of their body hanging out of a vehicle in the hot Florida sun. Yeah, Dad’s battle scars took the form of a cancerous growth on the side of his head and eventually he had to have half his ear removed.

All of you people who got your mail delivered in a timely manner can thank him now.

I’m just glad it was removed and he’s in remission, though that heart attack he had last year wasn’t exactly a picnic for him, I’m sure. He’s had his personal crosses to bear and he’s always born them with dignity and his trademark dry sense of humor.

Dad had the distinct pleasure of only siring female children, and I’m pretty sure he’s purchased more than his fair share of tampons. Yes, he’s the type of guy who will go up to the store at night if called upon, and not complain about it.

I also remember him being woken up well after midnight once, and driving me to the beach to fetch a few of my stranded friends. Again, no complaining. (Out loud, anyway.)

I was always bad at math and I remember sitting in the back yard one year, going over my ‘7’ multiplication tables with him. For some reason, I had the hardest time with those damn “sevens” and now they’re the ones I can count off with ease:

7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63, 70...

He also had the horrific task of popping my knee back into place when it dislocated, which happened no less than four times before I had it surgically repaired when I was in seventh grade.

I vividly remember doing an unsuccessful one-handed cartwheel in my neighbor’s front yard and landing wrong. Horribly wrong, in fact. What followed was mind-numbing pain and instant nausea, and a kneecap suddenly located on the left side of my leg; not a position a knee is ever supposed to be in. It doesn’t look pretty and feels even worse.

The pain is unimaginable; the worst pain I’ve ever experienced (no less than four times). This is saying something because I’ve since given birth to two big-headed kids AND have a permanent case of painful hemorrhoids to show for it. Neither were (are) as painful as my knee dislocating.

Wherever he was, Dad would come running, pale faced at the sight of his eldest daughter on the ground with her leg wrenched into a position that no leg is ever supposed to be bent. He’d calmly take my calf in one hand, cup his other hand over the out-of-socket knee and say, “Ready?”

I’d nod, on the verge of puking, and he’d firmly jerk it back into place. I still get sick to my stomach when I think of it and, looking back now, I know that beneath his calm exterior was inner tsunami of emotion he had to keep in check… for me.

The picture below is just one time when either my knee went out or I knocked it in just the right place that it caused me to faint. At the time, we were at Niagara Falls, I believe. I’m lying on a cool rock, recovering.



There are way too many memories I have of my father for me to share in one blog post but, on this special day, I want him to know that I remember them all, and love him dearly.

Not to get too mushy, but to this day, he’s still one of the best men I’ve ever met.

My dad: former pot-smoking hippy, guitar player, avid boater, amateur photographer, Beatles fan, mailman, father of three, husband (twice, God help him!), son, husband, brother, and all around great guy.

Happy Father’s Day Dad. I love you.

Some pics, oldies but goodies:

Me and my sister, Resi



Resi, Dad, Mom & I, circa 1974



Resi, Mom, Dad, and me behind him (with the “haircut that dare not speak its name”) NOTE: My sister could always pull that shit off; I, however, never could.)

Spam I Am

Human junk they say I am.
They do not like me, Spam-I-am.
So what if I don’t know Voltaire?
I don’t think that’s here or there.

I don’t give a tinkers dam,
I’m representin’ Uncle Sam

Have you seen my big ’ole house?
Or my sporty, hunky spouse?

How I hate every lame-stream louse,
Can’t they appreciate my nice blouse?

Did you see my appearance on FOX?
The rest of the media can suck Todd’s co*&!

Only on Fox…Only on Fox…
Not in Wolfe’s house. Not with that mouse. (Rachel Maddow!)

I won’t speak to them here or there.
I won’t speak to them anywhere.
I will not take their oral exams;
gotcha questions from the lame-stream band.

I do not like bagels and lox,
but I will eat them live on FOX.
I do not really trust my spouse,
but I’ll fake it till I hit the White House.

I couldn’t care less if you hate who I am.
Just, please, follow me with your video cams.

A brain! A brain! I’ve got a big brain!
How ‘bout a misquoted quote from Mark Twain?

I know Mark Twain! Wrote a book, didn’t he?
I got it right! Look at me, look at me!

I would not, could not, stop in the Bronx.
I heard “those people” would give me small pox.

What did you say! There in the dark!
That’s no place for my bus to be parked!

I would not, could not, step on the F Train.
Around minorities my interest does wane.
I’m not comfy with disenfranchised peeps,
I do not like mediocrity.

Not in my house. Not in a box.
Not with my spouse. Not even on FOX.
I will not meet them here or there.
I will not meet them anywhere!

Did you ever read Green Eggs and Ham?
Seuss was a fascist, wasn’t he?

Could you, would you, buy MY books?
There’s lotsa big words, just take a look!

You will not like them? So you say.
Try them! Try them! And you may.
Buy them and you may, I say.
Do it for the USA.

The "Blatant Self-Promo Ho's Tour"

AMERICA NEEDS TO EXPLAIN HERSELF.

Premise: Two average Americans cross the country as rapidly as possible because one needs to get back home to her two autistic sons and the other needs to get back to babysitting her grandkids.

Two writers on a mission to discover as many real Americans as possible - average farmers in the Midwest; bar owners in New Orleans; kids whose parents came over illegally years ago and who now serve in the military; elderly native born Americans who only speak Spanish; gay advocates in San Francisco; football fans; opera lovers; rodeo clowns; Muslims; Jews; Atheists; mimes...

America needs to tell us why we're all in this together.

If the “One Nation” bus is still on the road, we’ll catch up to that rolling behemoth and choke down their exhaust fumes as we tail (stalk) the Palins around the country. With a camera in hand. Hopefully we’ll get pics of Todd or Bristol or Sarah filling the gas tank.

In honor of Sarah Palin, we’ve dubbed it the “Blatant Self-Promo Ho's Tour.” Please, won’t you send a poor retail worker and a tired mother of two autistic kids on a whistle-stop tour of America this summer?

Remember, we’ll only get as far as YOUR money takes us.

God bless America!

PS: We’re happy to plaster ourselves AND our bus with YOUR ads, so if you’d like to sponsor us, click on the notSarahPAC picture in the sidebar and head on over to the site!

The Curious Incident of the Stinky Dog, Vomiting Kids and Hemorrhoids in the Night Time

It all started Friday afternoon.

~ Call from Thing Two’s school: “Jeni, I don’t think Thing Two is feeling well. He took himself to the quiet area and is lying under the weighted blanket. He feels warm.”

“I’ll be there right away!”

~ Bring Thing Two home, get a dose of medicine in him, he falls asleep.

SuperMom on the job! Check!

~Midnight, same night. I hear moaning from Thing One’s room. (You know, the kid that WASN’T previously sick.)

Wait for it, wait for it…

Three seconds later, he bolts upright from sleep and projectile vomits all over the carpet, his bed, himself, the wall, and for his grand finale, me. If you’ve never seen projectile vomit, let me tell you, it’s a thing of wonderment. It sprays from its origin with the force of a fireman’s hose taking down a three alarm fire.

I was disgusted and in awe at the same time.

~1a.m.- I stripped down, made Thing One strip down, and began cleaning the carpet. The kid had three brats for dinner with red Gatorade to drink so his room looked like a gory crime scene, complete with chunks of what looked like brain matter IN THE CARPET!

~ Next day: Two sick kids intermittently puking up medicine just as I administered it. (Which is a Catch-22 situation, as any Mom knows. You need to figure out how much they’ve puked up. Do you risk giving them another dose so they don’t wake up with a fever, or do you wait it out? I always opt for not overdosing my kids, but that’s just me. A trip to the ER with a comatose kid doesn’t make my top ten list of things to do on a holiday weekend.)

We all scraped by during the day. Puke basins were placed around the house at targeted locations. I washed three loads of sheets and towels in between scrubbing my hands 5,348 times, always topped off by a generous slathering of antibacterial hand sanitizer.

SuperMom Status: Withering with every hour that passes.

Seventeen Thing Two baths later, after a few hits to my teetering sanity, it was bedtime again. (Thing Two still wears a Pull-up® at nine-years-old. Because of this, the autistic kid who’s not-interested-in-shitting-on-the-toilet must take a bath after every bowel movement in place of wiping his ass. At least hygiene is a priority for him.)

~ 9 p.m. - Sweet, silent bliss. Husband conveniently spent the day outside, then hightailed it to a friend’s house to drink beer and hang out anywhere else, presumably where vomit wasn’t flying around in all directions. (He did take the pukey sheets out on the front lawn and hosed them off before I put them in the washer.)

With two resting kids, I had an episode of House cued up and ready to go when I heard the dog scratching at the door. I got up to let her in and, as soon as she crossed the threshold, I noticed she smelled like she’d just spent a few unseemly hours inside the vagina of a skanky ho who’d recently finished working a double shift.

SuperMom Status: Debilitating depression has set in.

Let me back up and mention that earlier (between puking kids and a particularly nasty Thing Two diarrhea incident ) I spent 30 minutes brushing the dog because she’s in the process of shedding her winter coat. Also, I’d vacuumed the entire house three times because golf-ball-size hunks of fur had taken up residence around the house.

“Out!” I screamed and pointed to the door. My sweet dog hung her head - knowing she’d been a naughty, naughty girl - and went back outside. The stench! It took half a bottle of Lysol to surmount the insurmountable smell of whatever she’d rolled in - and the dog never made it past the mud room.

I grabbed my phone and called The Bread Winner, fully aware he wasn’t going to be amenable to the message I was about to leave. Unfortunately he answered. I hadn’t counted on that. (Leaving testy messages is easier than an actual phone confrontation.)

“Hey hon. Just to let you know, Sugar rolled in something that is abhorrent to my general sense of well-being, so before you can enter the house tonight, I’m gonna need you to give her a bath. I left a towel and some shampoo outside. Also, I taped a note to the front door in case you forget.” (Remember, he’s out having a beer… or twelve.)

MY SILENT BUT DEADLY INNER MONOLOGUE: I’ve also engaged the dead bolt so neither of you will be getting in until the job is done.

Yeah, I’m hardcore. Call me a bitch; whatever. Listen, I’d done multiple loads of laundry, vacuumed more than twice, washed every sheet on every bed in the house and disinfected every flat surface. After all that, I’d taken a bath and was smelling all girly and nice, so there was no way I was going to take my fragrant ass out there and get that stinky crotch smell on me.

I heard a sigh on the end of the line. “Okay, I’ll be home later.” Good answer!

“Okay hon, see you later.”

Click.

~ 11 p.m. - The Breadwinner comes inside, fresh from bathing the dog. She ran past him and proceeded to shake, shimmy and roll her way to getting the carpet nice and wet-dog smelling. Although there was a faint scent of rose emanating from her drenched coat, wet dog is wet dog.

To my credit, I did not yell. Breadwinner HAD bathed the dog and it was my fault I wasn’t specific enough. Next time I will elaborate on the importance of drying the dog thoroughly BEFORE entering the house.

So, now along with the rosy-wet-funk and slightly wet carpet, I had a dog dragging her body over every carpeted surface in the house in order to rid the water from her ears and fur. It sounded like someone was having an epileptic seizure in my living room as she pounded her way to a state of dry-ness that would please her. I noticed, however, that everywhere she dragged and rolled was left matted with fur. No longer were they weightless tumbleweeds, but globs of wet hair; furry landmines all over my living room carpet.

~11:15 - Vacuuming again because my OCD would not allow me to watch TV in peace without my eyes wandering down to the hairy mess on the floor. (Shit, will I ever get to find out what that sexy Gregory House is up to this week?!)

SuperMom Status: Goddamn it!

An hour or so later, everyone had fallen asleep, nestled comfortably between clean sheets. I finally got to watch that episode of House before dragging my weary bones to bed. I was out before I knew -

BLOODY FUCKING HELL! I woke up somewhere around 2 am. I believe my hemorrhoids wanted to have a chat; at least this was the impression I got as my anus throbbed and my stomach, legs, and back dealt with evil tendrils of fire wrapping their way around me from the inside. (Because of my distaste for Karl Rove, I’ve decided to hereinafter refer to them as Rovian tendrils.)

This time, unlike the first time this happened, I knew what I needed and exactly how many steps away it was. I slowly hobbled to the bathroom, found the tube, and took care of business. Still, after five minutes, the evil Rovian tendrils of enmity only minimized to a dull, throbbing animosity.

Step two was in the freezer.

This was not the first time I'd foraged behind the frozen peas and popsicles to grab the lime green screw-on lid attached to a protruding six-inch plastic dowel. Meant to keep a sports cup cool for hours, the frozen phallus jutting from a convenient handle had once spent a memorable night talking the little perpetrators in my poop-chute down from the proverbial ledge.

SuperMom Status: Alive, barely; possibly experiencing SMPTST (SuperMom Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)

I shuffled back to my bedroom, dropped my panties, laid down on my side and let the icy phallus get reacquainted with my anus.

For the second time in my life I feel it necessary to note that there was no insertion. Again, I want that on record. Anus-adjacent should paint the picture for you, so we’ll leave it at that.

So… how was your weekend?

Waiting for Karl Rove - NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

Waiting for Karl Rove is irreverent, politically incorrect satire masquerading as road trip memoir.

Think Thelma and Louise—only Thelma’s menopausal, Louise is an erratic big-mouth with a penchant for discussing her hemorrhoids, and they’re on a road trip to wrestle an apology from Karl Rove by any means necessary.

And now it’s available on Kindle! (*also available in paperback on Amazon.com)

Early praise:

~ Although both authors profess to be left wing liberals (and truly their opinions reflect that) the writing style - snarky, sassy and satirical - is such that even a right wing conservative like myself found humor on every....single....page.

~ "Waiting for Karl Rove" is filth, pure and simple. These two ladies (I use that word loosely, as they are probably loose women judging by this Left-Wing D-Crat LIEberal CRAP) need their mouths washed out with soap and hot sauce.

~ Oh. My. God. This book is NUTS! I've never read anything like it and was laughing out loud by page two… a great way for the authors to self-promote …they do it through the entire book, plugging themselves with all the aplomb of a leaky bathtub drain.

~ ...a psychotic poke at some of the most powerful people in the country. Not to mention poking fun at the publishing and movie industries. Laugh out loud funny. Brilliant, and a must read for all. I'm still laughing.

~ Wow, this book will make Preparation-H sales go up overnight, I'm off to my broker to buy more stock!

Menopause Rhapsody: Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

In my house, when you want to pay tribute to your family matriarch, nothin’ says lovin’ like an off-key song parody of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody - particularly if said matriarch is the butt of the joke.

Okay, so I look like an idiot, I can’t sing, and Freddy Mercury is rolling in his grave. But I had fun making it.

Mom, this one’s for you. Love ya dearly, you madwoman! (You have only your DNA and Dad’s sperm to blame.)

The Exquisite Corpse

I'd like to think that my President would be the bigger man - or woman. I'd like to think that the person holding the highest office in the land wouldn’t think it necessary to release gory death photos, even if said photos are of someone who has proven himself a monster.

So far Barack Obama hasn’t let me down. Sarah Palin, however, is another matter. (And I’m not sure if that matter is made of animal, vegetable or mineral. Probably potato.)

Always ready to fan the flames of reason into a full blown bonfire of insanity, Palin said this on Twitter:

SarahPalinUSA
Show photo as warning to others seeking America's destruction. No pussy-footing around, no politicking, no drama; it's part of the mission

~ Here’s what a few responded:

TruthOrBetter
@SarahPalinUSA it wasn't a hunting trophy. it was a man with powerful allies that already want to destroy the US - it’s not a bragging tool.

F_r_e_d_o
@SarahPalinUSA You gave George W. Bush all the credit in the world for Bin Laden's death...have him release the pictures.. #goodluckwiththat

Jeeta Gurjeet
@SarahPalinUSA I thought the mission was to capture or kill Osama. Didn't know we were going to make greeting cards.

Sarah - if you’re OK with simply rising to the level of a terrorist, that’s fine. But I'm not. I’d like to think I’d be the better person. Not the person showing the gory photos of my sworn enemy. Clearly that’s not you. You think it’s “part of the mission” to release a photo that will then be Photoshopped with wild abandon; Dead Osama with a thought bubble saying one of a myriad of catchy phrases. Dead Osama holding a dildo, Dead Osama next to the President holding a thumbs up and standing under a MISSION ACCOMPLISHED SIGN, Dead Osama Coffee Cups and t-shirts...

And this WILL happen. Why? Because this is what we have become. (Lest we forget the picture of Obama’s face on a baby monkey recently e-mailed widely by Marilyn Davenport, Tea Party activist and elected member of the Orange County Republican Central Committee.)

This is the face of America. Do you actually think the crazies out there screaming for photos want them because they somehow think Osama is still alive? I don’t. At its core, it's about something much more base. It's rubbernecking as you slowly drive by a bloody seven car pile up, gawking at the gal with the severed head who’s being wrenched out with the jaws of life.

I like how Obama has handled this, but if he bows to the pressure of rabid extremists on either side who, for some reason, simply must see graphic photos of a man shot in the head, I will be disappointed in my President. He knows it isn’t right - I assume that’s why he made the decision. Okay, so the “official” reason is that they are inflammatory and could create retaliatory situations. But I’d bet, in his heart of hearts, he knows it’s wrong. He knows that we're better than that.

I can’t say the same for Sarah Palin. That there are many who would have preferred it if we strapped Osama’s corpse to the grille of a NYC fire truck and took him on a whistle-stop tour around the country… well I think that disturbs me most of all.

I asked someone at the store today how they felt about the Osama pics, and they were apathetic. “I didn’t like the guy. I don’t care if they release them or not.” That, I can live with. But someone who revels in seeing bloody pictures of a monster - doesn’t that kind of make you a monster, yourself?

I think it does.

So that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. Don’t agree with me, that’s fine. But save the nasty e-mails for someone who gives a ripe, squirty one. On this, you won’t change my opinion, and I’m certain if you’re that other type, the one I’ve illustrated above, I’m not going to change yours.

But, I'll leave you with this: How about we make a deal NOT to let the terrorists' past bad actions dictate what our future actions will be.

Peace.

(…and sorry for the “downer” blog post, folks. I know you usually expect humor from me, but sometimes, you just have to get shit off your chest, or you’ll find yourself pondering the inhumanity of humanity while dipping into a hopeless state of malaise, with a empty bottle of wine in one hand, and a dull Lady Bic to your carotid.)

You Can’t Have it Both Ways

HEARD IN THE CAR ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL A FEW MORNINGS AGO:

JAKE: (14 year old autistic boy) "Mom, if Jaxson doesn't learn to poop on the toilet, he'll NEVER be able to be President of the United States."

After I cleaned the mocha frappe spray from the windshield, I took a moment to ponder just how much damage a 9-year-old, autistic, barely verbal, non-toilet-trained kid could do in the White House. Remembering Dubya Bush, I realized Jax could probably hold his own.

Which brings me to today's topic:

It seems Republicans are happy to take credit for the dead terrorist, but Allah forbid you remind them that our country is circling the drain today mostly due to their last leader’s tenure - or what I like to call “the eight years of breaking wind heard ‘round the world.”

According to them, Osama Bin Laden is dead because someone in the Bush Administration provided a bit of shock and awe in the form of water-boarding. But the ass-raping of America’s economy? Not them, that’s all on Barack.

You can’t have it both ways, people.

Then there’s The Donald. The Trumpster. The Don - otherwise known as the guy who has taken American media-fed politics to the level of theatre of the absurd. With his merkin-topped head and his blathering mouth, Donald Trump, having been given Obama’s long form birth certificate, has decided that’s not enough.

He needs more. Obama’s education records. What’s next. Dental records? Amazom.com account information and his recent purchases? Perhaps the length and girth of the Presidential wee-wee?

Donald, sir - you’re a dick. Well and truly, an ass-hat for the masses. This vid’s for you. Enjoy!



And don’t forget to run (not walk!) over to get your copy of WAITING FOR KARL ROVE at Amazon.com. I promise, it’ll be worth it! (just scroll up to the top of the blog and click on the Waiting for Karl Rove BOOK COVER)

Look who else has a copy:

Suspicious of His Penis

“I’m suspicious of my penis. I don’t trust it,” my fourteen-year-old autistic son, Jake, mumbled from the passenger seat.

Sigh. There are so many things about that statement that trouble me.

Along with toileting issues, “weiner” issues are a recurring theme in my household. Jake’s nine-year-old brother would rather poo in his undies than hover a single butt cheek over the commode. He’ll go in his underwear, thank you very much, then proceed to knead the PlayDough-like load with his hand (through his skivvies). (I’m pretty sure I don’t have to tell you people what kind of smells, as well as hygiene issues arise from this kind of behavior.)

If Jax is my problem pooper, Jake is my problem obsesser. If it can be obsessed about, Jake will obsess about it. (See my blog post:” I’m Going to Heaven, Right? )

Jake’s penis is also a constant source of distress for him. In my upcoming book I Wish I Were Engulfed in Flames, I have a chapter called “Tickling the Weiner. ” I discuss how I came to know that Jake found out “tickling his weiner” was normal. The doctor who gave the discussion in health class said so, and all was right with the world (briefly) when Jake got off the bus that day.

Other, more troubling things, were covered in Heath Class this year, but I won’t bore you with all the rape and oral sex talk. (If you’re interested in middle school sex-ed and what it (disturbingly) consists of these days, see my blog post: "Let’s Talk about Sex, Baby")

So, Weiner Tickling, OK. Check. I try not to form a mental image of my fourteen-year-old autistic kid, in his room, doing whatever fourteen-year-old boys do, because if I - blech… Ugh, no thanks.

But these changes in Jake’s body are very disturbing to him, hence the first line of this blog, which he uttered this morning on the way to school. Jake has sensory issues. He doesn’t like the feel of paper in his hands, or the sound a pencil makes when he writes on paper, or the dry sound of someone touching paper. Stop to consider what a fucking ticking-time-bomb this kid has to be on a daily basis, at school.

Paper, pencils, not to mention, he’s very sensitive to sounds, is grossed out when people eat, and gets particularly rattled by certain smells. I imagine the pubescent sights, sounds and smells are unbearable to Jake; kids in the lunchroom eating sloppily with open mouths, loud cafeteria, hallways and (aneurism-inducing) gym class, and the natural funk of five-hundred middle school kids.

Now, add to this, all of these new “feelings” he’s experiencing south of his naval, and you can see how his school day might seem more like being sent to a third world country and expected to immediately assimilate.

I shudder to imagine Jake’s internal monologue. Probably something like, “Help! Me!”

Also, his sensory processing disorder translates these “feelings” that might be considered tingles to the ordinary teenager, into something more closely related to pain. Jake gets one new “twinge” and he’s off on a crying jag - standing, pants around ankles, in the bathroom, with an ice pack or sopping wet washcloth on his private area. These new sensations can freak any teenage boy out, but for an autistic boy who obsesses about everything, it’s more akin to expecting something really painful or freakish to happen any minute - like his penis falling off, or Pop-Rocks® spontaneously shooting out of his “penis hole”. (His phrase, not mine.)

It’s not that he’s actually experiencing pain (I’ve had him checked by a doctor - everything’s working fine), it’s the apprehensive, debilitating “What if?” that plagues him.

God bless this kid. Truly. I’ve got my own hang-ups, but if I had to constantly worry about my vagina falling off, or gummy worms sliding out my who-ha - well, let’s just say I’d be taking copious amounts of prescription drugs.

It’s at moments like these that I truly need people to know how much MORE autistic people have to deal with than the rest of us. How much stronger they have to be than the rest of us. How special they are, compared to the rest of us.

Do me a favor. Today, take the time to tell an autistic family member or friend how inspiring it is that they are able to navigate waters most of us would drown in. Type “autism” into the search engines of Twitter or Facebook, make a new friend, and let them know that they are seen, heard and appreciated; that the extra mile (or fifty) they trudge daily isn’t lost on you.

Or just plain tell them they’re cool. I assure you - the effort won’t go unappreciated.

~*~

The Grateful Undead: They're So Vein

Okay, I guess I’ll (grudgingly) take a minute from pimping WAITING FOR KARL ROVE to do my mom a solid… and perhaps I’m biased because she wrote it (and I’m a character in the book) but I think you should check out The Grateful Undead: They’re So Vein (Black Matrix Publishing).

Mommie Dearest (as she’s known in Waiting for Karl Rove - SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT!! Available now on Amazon.com!! - wow that minute passed fast, huh?) based the main characters on herself, my sister and me, my eighty-something Nanna, and my aunt JoAnn. Yes, she too has committed the ultimate in literary horrors - writing herself (and family) into a work of fiction.

But, I have to ask - what’s funnier than a octogenarian who suddenly finds herself undead, with a vociferous appetite for sex and the lingering mentality of a senior citizen? (Except, perhaps, potty-mouthed fifth-grade cartoon kids a la South Park, and since there’s a Vampire tyke in the story who’s got quite a dirty mouth, she’s covered all the bases.)

A fresh take on the oft-bitten vampire milieu, They're so Vein is a book that illustrates (hysterically) what happens when all (except one) of the estrogen-producing members of one family suddenly find themselves blood-suckers.

The characters are each funnier than the next: Susan is their bitchy leader, who got them all into this undead mess, but couldn’t care less since she’s now wrinkle-free and has perky tits.

Then there’s her sister, JoAnn, who can't quite get on board with the whole "drinking-human-blood-thing." She ends up screwing with the eco-system by feeding on animals and accidentally turning them. PETA would be pissed.

Susan’s eighty-something mother keeps bringing home men half her age, and is having a love affair with her battery-operated sex toy.

And the kids… one daughter who’s happy to play the fanged version of a kick-ass action hero, while the eldest daughter (me!) - the only sane one among them - decides to stay human, thank you very much. (This is true to life. I do NOT want to be a vampire. And I am still wondering how I should feel about her writing a werewolf character as my love interest.)

Anyway…it's all fun and games until the "serious" (old!) vampires come knocking, and expect this motley crew of newly-turned idiots to pay for their every Vampiric transgression. Sex, blood, and heads will roll...I think you’ll find They’re So Vein a funny, enjoyable romp.

(PS: I smell a sequel!)

BOOK TRAILER:




Oh, and while you're over at Amazon.com, don't forget to pick up a copy of Waiting for Karl Rove...do it for the children, people. (My children. You know - the two autistic kids who need new video games, food and, (unfortunately) little Jax still requires pull-ups due to his toileting issues. Those puppies are EXPENSIVE! Ha!)

Both books will make you laugh, and isn't that what we need a bit more of in this world? A little bit-o-funny, yes indeed.

Last Will and Testament

To Whom it May Concern,

If I die or end up in a stupid coma & become a vegetable (I hope yam or tomato because I don't want to be spinach) then my half of the proceeds from sales of Waiting for Karl Rove shall go in a trust fund for Thing One (Jake William Lopez) and Thing Two (Jaxson Walter Lopez) - because I have blatantly exploited them for personal gain, so it would only be fair.

This windfall, however, should be administered by their step-grandfather Bob, because my mother, sister, and husband cannot be trusted with such a chore. Mommie Dearest would drive everyone crazy, husband would buy way too much pay-per-view and beer, and sister would instantly bury herself under a ten-foot high mound of scratch-off lotto tickets.

If something happens to Step-Dad Bob before an anvil falls on my head or I slip in the shower, the above duties will then go (grudgingly) to Resi Decker (sister with lotto fetish) with the IMPLICIT STIPULATION that no lotto tickets, hair color, or chocolate shall be purchased with the proceeds from Waiting for Karl Rove under the guise of “Thing One and Thing Two management”.

If Step-Dad Bob and Resi Decker should succumb to a fishing/hunting/home repair accident, said duties should then fall to my husband - hereinafter called The Bread Winner. Oy, vey… I don’t even want to think about it. (SEE: ABOVE REFERENCE TO PORN AND PAY-PER-VIEW)

If a fishing/hunting accident, terrorist attack, home repair accident should befall Step-Dad Bob AND Resi Decker, AND The Breadwinner, simultaneously, then I REALLY GRUDGINGLY pass the buck to Mommie Dearest and hope like hell she doesn’t drive Thing One and Thing Two batshit crazy while lording over their money. She will...(sigh) but I will have no other options at that point.

If everyone above dies, I guess a stupid meteor hit the earth and it won't matter, anyway. (Which would be a damn shame.)

This official half of a contract between Jeni Decker and Kat Nove* is electronically signed on April 15, 2011 by:

Jennifer L. Lopez (YES, this is my legal name, so stop laughing, NOW!)


*to see her official half, go to katnovian.com

No More Tears from the Clown

Ring the church bells! Sing a chorus of Hallelujah!

Glenn Beck has LEFT THE BUILDING !! (His “imminent departure” not imminent enough for this gal.)

I break here to dab the corner of my eye with an American Flag hankie. I'm feeling a bit verklempt.

No doubt, he’ll pack up his conspiracy chalk board, the mountain of Kleenex hidden under his desk, his teetering sanity, and zip them all up in the suitcase of unmitigated hubris he calls "truth".

Beck often vacillated between describing himself as a “voice of truth” (she coughs into her hand, “Bullshit!”) and “an entertainer” (if sobbing, retching, ranting, conspiring, and whining is considered entertainment) - though this writer would describe him as a “blathering idiot with sociopathic tendencies" who had no place in prime time on a news network (even if it's a Faux News network), to begin with.

But, I’m nobody, (just an average American) so my opinion doesn’t matter.

I will shed no tears for this clown. This is, most certainly, a happy day. Now, if we can just get rid of Limbaugh, O’Reilly, and Ann Coulter, the world might begin to spin a bit more soundly on its axis.

Here's his 'announcement'. If this video doesn't scare the beejezus out of you (or make you laugh hysterically at the irony), nothing will...





And... here’s a video I did a while back about the absurdity of American ‘politics’ and my personal disenfranchisement. (Glen makes a wacky appearance.)

It’s a fitting tribute to The End of Glenn Beck.

Haiku: Trypdick(s)

birther talk aside
merkin on your head trumps you
disingenuous




pop goes the weasel
Do me baby goes the whore
everything makes noise.



rusty cogs groan, why?
Bleating, attention seeking
absurdist tweets trend

(the making of) Waiting for Karl Rove

Who’d have thought a bunch of crazy e-mails would turn into a book?

Surely not I.

Okay, I lied. It was all a part of my Sixteen Step Master Plan to Take Over the Universe…(along with Kat Nove, my sidekick).

Here we are, about to publish Waiting for Karl Rove (already available on Smashwords and soon to be available on Amazon.com for Kindle) and I decided to take a trip down memory lane and fondly remember how it all started…

(I will say, preparing manuscripts for e-book format is a slow, painful walk through hell and whoever invented the process should get a pick-axe through the temporal lobe. There’s simply got to be an easier, more effective way to get something to print on an e-reader and STILL not screw the formatting six ways from Sunday if you make any of a number of tiny errors. Seriously - Bill Gates, get right on that, will ya?)

The whole thing started when a writer friend told Kat and I we’d be perfect co-writers. So, first we thought about something like “My Day Sucked Bigger Balls Than Yours Because…” and then we’d just compile our saved e-mails and have ourselves a bestseller.

At some point, however, we decided an actual plot might be nice. Sometime later I said, “Hey, what about if we write ourselves into the story - and it’s a road trip book about a menopausal woman and her erratic sidekick who are on a mission to wrestle an apology from Karl Rove by any means necessary?”

Kat sent an e-mail that went something like this:

LMFAO AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

And, we were off...

JENI: Holy *bleep*-a-Doodle!

That's a lot of e-mails. If even a third of them are remotely interesting, we've already written a book. Well, that's assuming anyone else finds us even half as funny as we do each other. But let’s not use any that make me sound stupid... or fat. I want people to think I'm sublimely intelligent and wasting away at 99 pounds--until we end up on David Letterman.

Oh, screw it. We’ll use it all. ;) On to greatness - or infamy, whichever comes first

KAT: Hmmm...I wonder which agent will call me first as I'm being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer.

"Well, Wolfie...may I call you Wolfie? I always knew she was a total nutjob because anyone with access to that many dildos and boob lifters has to have access to guns, right? So the truth is, when she demanded I write Waiting For Karl Rove with her, I was too scared not to. Is Blitzer a Nazi name?"

Then I’ll stop in and see Geraldo…

“Nice to meet you Geraldo. So this is the Fox News Studio? Frankly, I thought it would smell much worse in here. So kind of you to interview me after Jeni Decker's treatment of you in WFKR - which, by the way, was NOT my idea. I can tell you the exact day she snapped if you're interested in the truth. You are? Hmmm...surprising. It was the day she gave Rick Sanchez the Geraldo treatment via song parody. Yeah, it drove her bat-shit crazy. Uh...I can't say batshit on Fox News? You're kidding right? I assumed bat-shit was okay, what with the two most obscene words in the English language having their own show. Snap, Geraldo. I thought you'd get the joke seeing as how Puerto Ricans usually have a better sense of humor than old white people. The two most obscene words are (drum roll) Glenn Beck. Now, let's talk about me.”

Oh, and Jeni - screw Letterman…I'm shooting for The Daily Show. I'd ignore my menopausal tendencies to sit next to short little Jon Stewart and fantasize about his circumcised Jewish penis. I'm certain it must be massive. Har!

JENI: While I, myself, don't care to ponder the length and or girth of Jon Stewart's penis, circumcised or otherwise, I'd be happy to genuflect before his greatness, with you by my side. Are you saving all this, because if you're counting on me to do it, your screwed. It's bad enough I'm having to spell check things before clicking send.

KAT:

TO OUR READERS : Jeni is referring to compiling a book from our unorganized e-mails. Thank you for your attention and for your money.

Kat Nove

JENI: We accept checks, money orders, and the occasional bartering agreement, in the form of sex. ;) Expect to be de-loused prior to engagement, and it's probably advisable to BYOB.

KAT: Do to my current menopausal state, Jeni will be providing the sex, unless your check or money order is taped to Jon Stewart's circumcised penis, in which case I'll suck it right off and deposit it into my bank account.

JENI: Sure, sure. Leave me the dirty work. Ah, well. I suppose it'll be my penance for blatantly riding your pantyhose to literary success. Though that shouldn't surprise you. I have no issue exploiting the two autistic children I squeezed out of my uterus for literary benefit, so why should you be any different?

KAT: You idiot! I'm riding your coattails. And now I'm walking over to the skateboard park to find the skater who said he'd buy a copy of Global Swarming. That *bleep*er better be there with the cash, I need a pack of cigs.

JENI: Well, that's just dandy. Looks like we've got the menopausal leading the morbidly obese. Look out world, here we come.

KAT: Uh, I had to pee before I went to shake down the skater dude and made the mistake of looking at your emails again! Okay, now I'm off to a drug...I mean book deal.

JENI: BTW, Mitch thinks a better title for Engulfed would be: Where's My *Bleep*ing Bliss? Do you think dropping the f-bomb in the title would put agents off?

KAT: I guarantee they would make you change it to Where's My Freaking Bliss? I like your original title better, but that's probably because David Sedaris and I are such good friends. Oh! And when you respond, maybe you should reply using what you're responding to. That way we won't have to try to figure it out later.

JENI: Oh! so already you want me to make your life easier? What's next? Shall I draw you a bath? You're SO going to hate me before this is all over. And, where is the world heading that a writer can't use the word *bleep* at their leisure? I'm not sure I want to be a part of that world... Oh, yeah. How is Mr. Sedaris, anyway? Let him know I'm gunning for him - though I could be persuaded to cease and desist all future writing endeavors if he and Hugh found it in their hearts to adopt me. I think I'd have turned out better, all things considered, if a gay couple had been my parents.

KAT: Draw me a bath? Har! Quit imagining me naked, you pervert. Besides, in my world, bathtubs are not safe for baths. It's showers only, baby. Otherwise something worse than a yeast infection would be crawling up my who-ha.

JENI: I'm sorry, my dear, but being that it's almost 2010 and a free country (at least until the Republicans crawl back into power) I am free to imagine anyone I wish naked. Don't get all excited - there's quite a list in front of you, including but not limited to Rachel Maddow, Andre Braugher, Hugh Laurie, Suzanne Malveaux (CNN) and Newt Gingrich... (that last one, merely as a curiosity under the sneaking suspicion that something's gone horribly awry there, physically, and I'd like to get to the bottom of it...) And, clearly you're under the mistaken assumption that I'm not 'stoo-pid' as Mitch says...

KAT: Seeing Newt Gingrich falls under my 100 million tax free dollars umbrella, wherein for said amount I'll have sex with anyone on the planet of legal age, regardless of gender, religion and/or political party affiliation as long as most of them are gagged with duct tape, hosed down with disinfectant, the lights are off and nobody ever informs me I just *bleep*ed Ann Coulter.

Months later…

KAT: Last night I went to a college production of The Foreigner and laughed my fat ass off, which is a good thing because the cheap-ass seats in that dinky theatre are like sitting on a turned-on chainsaw (and I don't mean a chainsaw that is so aroused by my asshole that it wants to return the favor) I mean a chainsaw that wants to rip out my asshole, make me eat it and then rip it out again. Then I came home to a paranoid Richard who has finally snapped that I'm writing down his every word and sending it to you. He told me to tell you he'd like to apologize for his inappropriate remarks. More later on his idea to start a gang (as in Bloods and Crips) of pink-curler wearing, rubber dishwashing glove prancers.

So, where are we at on the next WFKR chapter? What am I supposed to be writing next? Help me get the order straight. We go to casino and we're wearing our Mardi Gras masks. We start riot and Conga line and run out being chased by security. Right?

JENI: Yes, that's your part. You can end inside wherever we are and do your usual RUN line because mine takes up with us actually running down the street.

KAT: You take it up and we crash a wedding and we're both super drunk.

JENI: Yes, mine takes us running down the street, going into the wedding, and ends with us walking down the strip leaving the bride and groom…then a bunch of shit happens while we're drunk that we don't remember. I thought it might be good for the next book to leave some stuff purposely open so that if we need anything to 'come back to haunt us' we can use that as a tie in. LOL I cover it briefly in the FBI interview - but that part of the document is REDACTED.

KAT: Then I wake up with black Elvis. We do some shit and end up at the fund raiser wearing masks. Did we decide who wears which mask (Palin/Cheney) ? Because whoever is wearing Dick Cheney's needs to be exposing some hellacious cleavage.

JENI: Entirely up to you. You're choice. Do you wanna be the Dick or the Bitch? LOL Take care to time your 'day' so that we end up in the bathroom at 7:02 PM. I figure Karl's speech could be around six or so in the evening.

KAT: How do I need to end that chapter? Being chased out by security again? Or one of us needing to pee and we hide in the men's restroom?

JENI: Mine starts with us sitting on the toilets, Geraldo comes in after that. You have to get us there or at least establish a chase because somehow we heard Rove was heading to the toilet (does he have handlers or security that we could overhear but get the message wrong--go to the wrong bathroom?) and we assumed that's where he was going.

BTW, which hotel is this that we're in the bathroom of? I assume whatever one the speech is in.

KAT: Let's have that scene in the Parisian. Probably some good jokes to be made about Freedom Fries and how ironic it is since Republicans hate the French. And I'll have us leaving in a hurry, but not writing about getting there. I think it's funnier to have us sitting on the toilets.

Oh. My. God! Did you hear that Cheney is in the hospital again? Be just like that *bleep*er to die and *bleep* up our book. Of course if he does kick it, we can substitute all his parts with someone else equally vile.

I'm Going to Heaven, Right?

“I’m going to heaven, right Mom?”

Jake asks me this about 1,593 times a day. Seriously, the kid will be in his room and peek his head out just to ask, then waits for me to respond in the exact same way every time, “Yes, sweetie,” before retreating back to the safety of his Pokemon game.

He asks this question, not because he's busy pondering death, so much as because he's obsessed with being a good person. Also, he hasn't wrapped his head around this whole heaven thing, and probably never will, so he continues to obsess about it...

I don’t think I have to spell it out for you, but I will. The kid is riddled with OCD.

According to the National Association of Mental Health, obsessive compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder and is characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Repetitive behaviors such as hand-washing, counting, checking, or cleaning are often performed with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away. Performing these rituals provides only temporary relief, and not performing them markedly increases anxiety.

This question is like a tic for Jake. He’s completely unable to keep himself from asking, and he needs to hear my answer. It gets so bad, the barrage of The Question(s)! occurs with such urgency and frequency, that while I answer the exact same way every time (Yes, sweetie!), my tone of voice ranges from sweet, to exasperated, to just plain pissed off, depending on the time of day. Well after the sun has set, I sound as if I might be clinically depressed as the onslaught of The Question! ratchets up with frightening exigency.

“I’m going to heaven, right Mom?” Jake yells from the bedroom, threatening to wake his brother while eviscerating the last vestiges of my crumbling sanity. By the end of the night, I want to become an ice cream eating zombie who gets to watch a few episodes of House (I believe I’ve mentioned I have a huge crush on Hugh Laurie) without being interrupted. I do NOT want to be yelling back and forth from the living room and the bedroom… “Yes, sweetie… yes sweetie…YES SWEETIE… YES SWEETIE!”

So, the other day I was in the bathroom straightening my hair and Jake, having had a stressful day, was yelling The Question! to me from the living room, where he sat watching television with his brother, who was settled comfortably within his own tic-like OCD moment - rewinding and replaying a thirty second clip from Robot Chicken he’d somehow taped. I freely cop to the fact that it was not even remotely close to being an age-appropriate clip which contained an expletive and I immediately erased it when he went to bed that night…

“Mom, I’m going to heaven, right?” Jake must have asked more times than even his nine year old just-becoming-verbal brother could bear, because suddenly (and because I was purposely pretending not to hear) Jaxson sighed very dramatically and screamed, “Yes, sweetie!”

Ha! Okay, that was f-ing funny. Jaxson and I understood one another in that moment - the nine year old autistic boy and his overworked mother came together over the sacred bond of complete and utter annoyance.

It was a beautiful thing.

Not so beautiful, however, a few days later when Jake was particularly worked up and spinning like a top because the following day two very big changes would be made to his normal Friday school schedule - changes which involved a field trip to the ice skating rink and an hour after school for some much needed socializing, via the geek-lab.

(TRANSLATION: Computer lab video game night.)

Yes, both would seem to be fun changes, but changes are changes in my boys’ lives - good or bad, they’re not particularly welcome. Because I change my haircolor with about the same regularity as I change my panties, you'd think Jake would be loosening up a bit in this regard. Not so much.

So Jake had been tossing out the question with alarming ferocity and I was answering him like a good mom when Jaxson started to mimic the question, not even realizing he was doing it - his eyes glued to the inappropriate fifteen second clip from MAD which involved Dora the Explorer barfing into her lunch bag before being dismembered. (I’m not sure how he manages to tape episodes of wholly inappropriate shows that come on well past the time he’s in bed, but I spend at least twenty minutes every night erasing them form the DVR.)

“I goin’ heaven, wite Ma?” little Jaxson mumbled four times.

Oh, sweet Jesus, not him, too. I am not sure I’ll be able to handle it if The Question(ing)! metastasizes to the second kid. Maybe I can get the boys to answer one another and I can free myself from the OCD loop altogether.

“I’m going to heaven, right Mom?” Jake will ask.

“Yes, sweetie,” Jaxson will answer, before asking, “I goin’ heaven, wite Ma?”

“Yes, sweetie,” Jake will say, rounding out the circle jerk of dysfunction.

Now that will be a beautiful day...


***



This post is dedicated to my friend Michael Amrien, who has sailed into Plato’s invisible - where every sound tastes like butterscotch, where smells mingle and crescendo to a ballet of wind chimes - where the sun shines with the force of a thousand unblemished truths, and laughter swirls in Technicolor; a place of perpetual early spring. Where the Sisyphean task we call life is no longer in his memory, and for that I am grateful.

I’ll see you when I see you, my friend. Till then, like the song says: …Take it easy.

Decapitating Oprah

My wack-a-doo friend Kat often e-mails me with strange Photoshop requests, so I was not surprised to get this from her in an e-mail yesterday (along with some pictures she’d snagged for me off the Internet) :

“What I need is one of the Oprah heads (it can be sitting on the sidewalk if necessary and doesn’t have to be attached to a body, but a body might work better) -the cymbal flying through the air - the guy flying through the air - the band bus stuck under the overturned garbage truck. Simple, eh?”

Later she told me Oprah was to be decapitated by the flying cymbal… Yeah, probably information I should have gotten up front.

So, as I’m putting my photo masterpiece together, while simultaneously shirking my manuscript editing duties, something occurred to me:

Oprah could squash me like a bug.

Really, if you’re a writer who hopes to be on the New York Times Bestseller List one day, (hopefully before you’re too old and wrinkled to appreciate it) is it wise to be using Photoshop to decapitate the Queen of All Media? I mean, look what she did to that disingenuous James Frey when he dared to tell a few little (READ: humongous) white lies in his book. She took to Larry King and ripped his anus (and reputation) into a million little pieces.

The woman could drop me with the flick of one of her perfectly manicured pinky fingers. And yet… I threw caution (and common sense) to the wind and created the picture, anyway.

What the hell, you only live once. Being decimated by Oprah isn’t the worst way to go, I guess. But since I spent so much time working on Kat’s blog picture, I figured I’d parlay it into a blog post of my own. (Editing isn’t the only thing I’ve been shirking lately.)

Good news is, you get a double dose of yummy today - my back-story on the picture above, AND a copy of Kat’s blog to see what the image was created for.

Hopefully I’ll get back to blogging on a regular basis soon, but I just finished my first round of edits for Far From Happy and still have two more to go.

So, sue me - I’m about to become a PUBLISHED WRITER!!

Now, for our feature presentation:


WATCH OUT 2011, by Kat Nove *

I’m not going to start this by mentioning what a shitty year 2010 was for me personally. Millions had a worse year. And after all, some good things did happen to me.

A stranger begged me to take an adorable black kitten. I named her Mow (rhymes with WOW!) and she’s hilarious. This brings the official cat census at our house up to five. The unofficial number is eight due to three strays who now seem have made themselves at home.

I had a blast co-writing Waiting for Karl Rove with Jeni Decker. Now if only someone would publish it.

I won a writing contest and my short story It Ain’t Funny is now part of an anthology – The Cloud. Very gratifying since literary fiction is not exactly my comfort zone.

On December 30th Richard passed the test to become a master electrician, so within a few months we might actually go from living below the poverty level to sub-level middle class Americans. Woo-hoo!

Jeni and I have decided that 2011 is going to be our year. Her novel Far From Happy will be released soon and we’re making plans to finally meet in person so we can film ourselves doing something (no telling what) which will go viral on YouTube. Any suggestions? And no, I’m not into slap fighting. Unless it will sell books, and then I’ll slap that bitch on her bare ass if I have to.

For once in my life I’m going to be positive about a new year. I got up on the first morning of the new year and really looked in the mirror. I rarely do this because it’s counter-productive and can send me spiraling into a black hole of depression which makes a life sentence in a Turkish prison seem like a trip to Club Med. As I gazed at my reflection, I snapped to the fact that with the help of a professional makeup artist and approximately $10,000 worth of dental work, I could be beautiful. Who knew?

This year is definitely our year. After all, it’s 2011 and I was born in November. (The 11th month for those of you who aren’t calendar savvy.) My birthday is the 14th and if you add the 2 and the 2 ones, that equals 4 and if you put one of the ones in front of the 4, that’s 14! How could this not be our year?

Gotcha! I don’t believe in the power of positive thinking (or I would have won the Lotto by now), astrology, numerology or any other shit like that. There’s not a damn thing you can do about bad luck. Even someone like Oprah could be decapitated by a cymbal flying at thirty mph after a metal band’s bus collides with a garbage truck.

It’s our year because we’re good writers and we believe this well-kept secret is finally going to come out. (Now if Anderson Cooper only would.)

I refuse to let the silly omens which occurred January 1, 2011 diminish this belief in myself.

Omen #1 – The first sip of coffee I took slid down the wrong way causing me to nearly drown.

Omen #2 – One of the cats peed on the kitchen floor and I stepped in it.

Omen #3 – As I walked the first two miles of one of my new year’s resolutions, a punk biker tried to run over me. No, he didn’t have a skull and snake tattoo – he appeared to be about eight years old. I fucking hate third graders, don’t you?

Omen #4 - The first day of every year, my mother always made us eat black eyed peas for good luck. Next up to spoil my new year buzz – the black eyed peas. While eating mine, I discovered I am lucky since I didn’t choke on what I hoped was a piece of plastic and not a factory worker’s gnawed off big toenail.

Omen #5 – While watching a movie late in the evening, Mow decided to jump right on the stray cat Super Snatch. (I think Super Snatch loves me so much because I gave her such a cool name.). Unfortunately, Super Snatch was sitting on my lap at the time. I headed to the bathroom to staunch the bleeding in fifteen places. (Fucking cat missed with five of her claws so I guess that’s lucky.)

Omen #6 – In an uncharacteristic lapse into total honesty, Richard revealed he only watches dreadful movies like Megashark vs. Crocosaurus in the same room where I constantly sit in front of the computer as a form of retribution. For what? Can someone really receive a defective blow job?

I don’t believe in omens either. Even after I saw The Omen on my honeymoon and realized if I got pregnant that same night, I’d have a kid born on June 6, 1976. Three sixes in that birthday! Explain to the groom there’s no way you’re going to have sex with him because you don’t want your legacy to be mother of the Anti-Christ. (As if you can explain abstinence to a Mexican. So, yeah. We did it.)

So watch out 2011! You’re our bitch!

'Priscilla The Great' author, Sybil Nelson

Today I’d like to welcome Sybil Nelson, recently published author, as my guest. Welcome Sybil. So…let’s jump right in, shall we? Do you remember the first book you ever read?

I’m pretty sure it was Green Eggs and Ham. I’d have to ask my mother though.


Can you tell us what was one of your favorite books as a child? As an adult? Why?

Just one? I don’t know if I could pick just one. I know when I was in middle school my favorite author was V.C. Andrews. I just loved Flowers in the Attic. I recently re-read the entire series. I still love it. In high school, I loved Jane Austen, but I think my favorite book was Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. I went through a huge European literature phase. Currently, I think my favorite book is I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe. If you can’t tell, I love books with female main characters. I always find a way to relate to them in one way or another.

What made you want to become a writer?

Honestly, I wanted to become a writer because so many books I read did not feature any black female characters. I used to find that books were either all black or all white. I wanted to write books that were diverse and featured a mix of characters.

How do you handle writer’s block?

I do math homework. I’m studying to get my PhD in biostatistics and I find that I get my best ideas while I’m doing something that’s as far away from writing as possible. Doing math fits that.

As a writer, what types of stories and characters do you gravitate towards? As a reader?

I usually like to read and write books that have a romantic theme. I’m a sucker for a love story. But my debut novel is a superhero kids’ book. It’s actually not my thing, but it’s what came to me so it’s what I wrote. I do have a couple of romantic suspense novels written under my pen name, Leslie DuBois. I’m also a big fan of historical fiction, oddly enough. I love Philippa Gregory. I’m not likely to find any black characters in those books, that’s for sure. But I still love them!

As a writer, what responsibilities do you feel toward your readership, if any?

I feel that I have to let the character tell the story. Sometimes I don’t agree with what the character says or does, but I feel I have to be fair to both the character and the reader and tell the story the way it’s supposed to be told.

What book are you reading now?

I’m reading A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon. I loved The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by him and decided to give one of his other works a try. So far, it’s fantastic.

As a reader, what are some of your pet peeves when reading a published book?

I know I’m bound to have typos in my book. Some always slip through the cracks, but I hate glaring errors, especially with continuity. I once read a series of books that had tons of grammatical errors. I let those errors slide and made it to like book four, but when book four mistakenly reported something that happened in book one, I was done. It was like a different person wrote the book and didn’t know what happened in the previous books.

You’ve recently published 'Priscilla the Great'. Congratulations! Can you give us a quick synopsis?

Priscilla the Great is about a spunky twelve-year-old who learns that she can shoot fire out of her fingers as well as a bunch of other cool powers. With the help of her genius best friend, Tai, they figure out that one of her parents was a genetic experiment and that she inherited certain gifts. When her parents’ identity is discovered, Priscilla has to come to the rescue and save her family.

What was your inspiration for this story?

The original book was called The Adventures of PMS Girl and Priscilla got her powers along with her first period. The book went through three revisions with a major publisher and they convinced me to take out the period angle. Even though that publisher eventually dropped me, I don’t regret the changes. I think it’s an even stronger book.

Oh, I remember that! At the time I remember thinking, “What a fantastic premise!” I think these behind-the-scenes book negotiations are fascinating, but also help writers see things from the perspective of the publisher. So, what was their reasoning for taking out the menstruation angle?

They didn't think a story about the menstrual cycle would appeal to kids. They thought it was too embarrassing for the age group. I agree to a certain extent. I think it would be a great concept for an older audience. I think I might try to turn the idea into a chick lit novel one day.

I think you should. I love the idea. So, on that note, what are the challenges and/or differences in writing for a YA audience?

I think all ten books that I’ve written could be considered YA. I don’t think I know how to write to an adult audience. I love the innocence and the open-mindedness of Middle Grade and Young Adult readers. I remember when I was that age, I would read anything and everything. Older readers tend to have a specific genre they gravitate towards and mainly stick to that area.

What are you working on now?

Right now I’m working on a Young Adult Historical Fiction novel about an interracial couple during the 1917 race riots in St. Louis

That sounds interesting. We'll look forward to hearing more about it and your other work soon. Again, congratulations on the publication of Priscilla the Great!

~~~

Sybil Nelson is represented by Uwe Stender of TriadaUS. Her debut Novel Priscilla the Great was published on December 15th, 2010 by WorldMaker Media. She is currently a PhD student at the Medical University of South Carolina and has a master’s degree in mathematics from the College of Charleston and bachelor’s degrees from Washington and Lee University.

Her Websites:

www.priscillathegreat.com

www.sybilnelson.com

www.sybilnelson.com/wordpress

The Amazing Let Down

THE AMAZING RACE: Well, the Season 17 finale was last night. I was happy for the winning team (though I’ve been forbidden to mention their names because Kat taped the show and hasn’t watched yet.)

As a teaser for next season, they announced that it would be called: The Amazing Race: UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Dun, dun, dun!

Basically, season 18 will be returning team mates - you know the ones - previous contestants who argued the whole time or regularly broke the rules, whined their way through the race, couldn’t drive a stick shift, forgot their travel documents, were prone to crying jags. Yes, the entertaining people. So even though Kat and I won’t be accompanying our ‘dream teams’ -

- a pair of nuns, two gay guys who argue like an old married couple, an Italian grandmother/granddaughter team who have to be ‘bleeped’ every fifteen minutes because they have naughty mouths, a magician and his dimwitted apprentice, a sheep farmer and his wife, brothers who own & operate a sex toy manufacturing business in New Jersey, an old nudist couple who have trouble keeping their clothes on, a biker couple, and a pair of karaoke rappers - it should still be the most amusing Amazing Race yet.

The producers must have seen my pleas for more entertaining cast members on their web boards. Yeah, that’s probably what happened.

As you all know, we were preparing our submission package for next season - this newest announcement kind of puts the kibosh on our plans, but it’s just as well because we could both stand to lose a pound or twenty before we’re chosen as contestants.

And we will be chosen as contestants, mark my words. Any producer in their right mind - after reading our applications - wouldn’t be able to resist a menopausal woman and her erratic sidekick with a penchant for discussing her hemorrhoids (which we made much hay of in our video presentation, as well as the combined size of our mammary glands.)

Boobs + running = RATINGS, baby!

Below are some of the questions and my answers from the application. I've decided to share them because by the time a year rolls around and we're ready to submit for Season 19, I could be dead...or have figured out even better answers - in which case, why waste the clever bon mots, right?

You tell me: doesn’t this sound like a contestant you want to see fumble their way through a leg or two of the race before being carted off on a stretcher following a mid-air heart attack after being forced to bungee jump from the Eiffel Tower?



What is your current occupation? Please describe in 2 words.

Homemaker, writer

In two sentences, please describe what you do.

Mine the house for shit-pebbles hidden behind furniture by my toilet-challenged nine year old autistic son while fielding obsessively compulsive questions from my thirteen year old (also autistic) son. Then, I write about it.

How will these skills help you to win the Race?

I am a multi-tasker; I have dealt with enough bodily fluids that I don’t get queasy easily, and I have a good handle on my gag reflex and temper, respectively.

How long have you and your teammate known each other?

Three years

How did you meet?

Oh, we’ve never met in person. We’ve written a book together, though. We belong to the same writer’s workshop on the Internet. Tell me, how cool would our first meeting be if on THE AMAZING RACE? I see HUGE ratings. Huge like my boobs that would bounce up and down if I was required to run.

What do you hope to gain from participating in The Amazing Race with your partner (besides winning)?

Getting out of the house. I have two autistic kids, I don’t get out much.

What communication issues do you have with your partner that you would want to address while on the Race?

Kat (like my kids) has her own toileting issues. Apparently I’d be required to be at least 50 feet from the bathroom door at any time she needed to pee and 50 miles away should the need to evacuate arise. I would address this by regularly tormenting her in this regard, since the idea of going to the bathroom anywhere out of her comfort zone (the bathroom at her house) is most certainly a mental health issue for her.

What is the biggest disappointment you have experienced from your teammate?

She has steadfastly refused to videotape herself belly dancing so I can post it on YouTube. We’re working through it.

How did you resolve it?

I Photoshopped her head onto the body of an overweight Belly Dancer and sent it, via-email, to sixty of our closest friends - and all of her co-workers. Because, that's how we roll, people.

What famous person reminds you of yourself?

Bette Davis

What famous person reminds you of your teammate?

Truman Capote

What is your biggest pet peeve about your partner?

The above mentioned toileting issues and her inability to discuss said issues. I’ve suggested therapy. She’s suggested I mind my fu*%^ng business.

What time(s) together with your teammate are/have been the most memorable? Why?

We’re both fantastic writers, so working on our novel WAITING FOR KARL ROVE was pretty damned cool. (SHAMLESS PLUG: Soon to be e-published on Amazon.com for Kindle.)

What is the worst experience you have had with your teammate? Why?

I will direct your attention to what I refer to as The Snuggie® Incident. I purchased one and Kat said that spoke volumes about who I was, as a person, teasing me about it relentlessly and with the same regularity as an octogenarian whose first meal of every day consists of bran cereal and prune juice.

How are you and your teammate most alike?

We have the same sense of humor as well as a great love of coffee, chocolate and cigarettes.

How are you and your teammate most different?

She is menopausal while all my hormones are all still working effectively.

How could the Race change the current state of your relationship?

We’d actually meet in person for the first time - which could possibly mean the slow disintegration of our relationship…but anything for ratings, right? Because of her malady, you could look forward to tension between us, particularly if we were the first team to be eliminated because of our inability to work together effectively due to her hot flashes, mood swings and regular flatulence issues.

What is your opinion of foreigners?

Foreigners are people too. I’m very foreigner friendly. In fact, I would probably enjoy foreigners more than most of my immediate family.

What was the last vacation that you took?

Does my overnight stay at the hospital giving birth to my second child count as a vacation? If not, it’s been over 12 years and I only have a slight memory of a zoo in Miami and sand chafing my thighs.

Are there any locations in the world to which you absolutely will not travel? If so, identify where and explain why.

I’d rather not spend the night at Karl Rove’s house, though I would if it was one of the stops on THE AMAZING RACE itinerary. I’d do it, but I wouldn’t like it.

Have you ever traveled outside of the U.S.? If so, to where?

Is Mexico considered outside the US? I took a cruise there once in high school, but can only remember half of it due to the Singapore Slings. (which was the last time I drank alcohol, BTW)

Do you speak or read any foreign languages? If so, which one(s)?

My husband is Puerto Rican, so I speak a little Spanish, but only the naughty words. Basically, enough to get me beat up or arrested.

What country and place would you most like to visit and why?

Beggars can’t be choosers, but I’ve always wanted to see Yemen. Because I like the way it sounds when you say it: Yemen….Yemen…

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

Oh boy. It would have been more funny if it hadn’t left the poor kid traumatized for life. And yet, it was all I could do to stem the tide of giggles threatening to explode from within me and wash over Jake like a tsunami of parental dysfunction.

The topic for today: Sex, via a study sheet from 7th grade Health Class. Let me remind you that Jake is thirteen years old, autistic, and riddled with OCD. He’s smart, overly sensitive and worries over everything to an infinite degree.

I pulled out Jake’s homework file and began quizzing him on his vocabulary words in preparation for his health test. It became immediately clear that he had a handle on the True/False questions as far as sexually transmitted diseases were concerned.

Quite a conundrum, then, that when I asked him to define sexual intercourse, he seemed to draw a blank. So while he knew, for instance that, ‘some STD’s are very dangerous; a few can permanently damage or kill you’, he didn’t actually understand how someone would get the STD in the first place.

“Jake, what does sexual intercourse mean?” I asked nervously.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what sex is?”

We’d briefly covered the whole ‘how babies are made’ a year or so ago, but apparently Jake hadn’t put together the fact that penis + vagina = baby (or anything else, for that matter). They’d also covered the topic at school last year, via one of those ‘Your Maturing Body’ movies. But Jake doesn’t even like the idea of discussing kissing, so it’s somewhat of a touchy subject. We’d also previously discussed matters of which we Catholics refer to as ‘self-abuse’. He’d been duly informed that ‘tickling his wiener’ was completely normal and wouldn’t cause it to fall off. It was touch and go there for a while, but after what I assume were many private trial runs, and his penis remained firmly attached, he’d stopped obsessing about it.

Now, with his vocabulary list clutched firmly in one hand, I proceeded to give Jake a nuts and bolts description of sexual intercourse using one erect finger and a hand curved into a little circle.

“So…” I concluded, using as many of his vocabulary words in the sentence as possible, “…this is the penis (finger) and this is the vagina (hand in a little ‘o’) and a Mom and Dad have sex like this and the semen comes out of the penis when the Dad ejaculates, and there is sperm in the semen.” I was about to explain that the Mom produces an egg and when the sperm and egg meet, a baby is made, but he’d already put his hands over his ears and started whining.

“Oh my God! Stop. I don’t like Health Class. I want to take Spanish. When does Spanish class start?” Jake’s face was in full-on panic mode, while my inner sadist was hopped up on Red Bull and ready to rumble. I am proud of the fact that I was able to keep it under control, letting only a minor chortle escape.

“Not until the end of the semester, Jake. Calm down. This is a perfectly natural thing.”

“No, it’s gross! And now I don’t know why someone wrote on the bathroom wall, SEX RULES, because it does not rule, it’s GROSS!” Jake turned his back on me and sat in a nearby chair. “Only weird people do that.”

“Jake, I hate to tell you this, but if your Dad and I hadn’t done it, you wouldn’t be here.”

Jake mumbled something I didn’t catch, slumping down further into the chair. I took a deep breath and looked over the rest of the vocabulary words. Next on the list: clitoris.

Are you kidding me?!

Listen, we’d only minutes earlier discussed the definition of foreskin and circumcision - before we got into the whole STD thing - and he wasn’t happy about the fact that I’d let the pediatrician lop off a part of his penis he never knew he had. He found it pretty disturbing, but managed to assimilate that information and move on. If the whole sex thing had him freaked out, I was sure it was unwise to venture further into female pleasure.

Even though the definition on the study sheet seemed rather banal…

Clitoris - The part of the female genitals that’s full of nerves and becomes erect. It has a glans and a shaft like a penis, but only its glans is on the out side of the body, and it’s much smaller.

…I can assure you that this definition - should I have chosen to explain it - would have left Jake thinking I had a tiny penis, and that wasn’t something I was comfortable with. I made an executive decision to skip it. In fact, we skipped a few, which didn’t bode well for his future test score, but at that point I felt the need to pull him back from his horrified, trance-like state, rather than try to explain things that I didn’t think the kid was even remotely able to process.

I nudged him around to look at me and after a few moments of obstinate silence, we went over a few of the easier words like erection. I used the finger again for a visual aid.

Jake cringed.

Unfortunately, when we got to buttocks, the politically correct Mom in me felt it necessary to elaborate on the fact that not only man and women had sex, but also men and men, as well as women and women. Don’t judge me! Anus was one of the vocabulary words so the discussion naturally progressed! Also, we’ve had the homosexual discussion before - when Jake was six, in fact - and asked if a man could marry a man. I’d used age-appropriate language, but he knew the basics. (I will also note that the vocabulary list alluded to oral and anal sex in the definition of sexual intercourse.)

“So, not just men and women, but also men and men can have sex, and when they do, a man can put his penis into the anus of another man.” I held my breath.

“Oh, come on! Be serious, Mom.” Jake groaned.

“I’m serious, buddy. That’s how gay men have sex. It’s nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. Nothing about sex is bad as long as both people want to do it together.”

“I’m never doing it. NEVER!”

“Well, that’s up to you, but I’m pretty sure you’ll change your mind one day.”

The thing is, I don’t really know if Jake will change his mind one day. Any sort of physical intimacy, shy of a hug or a peck on the cheek, makes him uncomfortable. All I can do, for now, is give him the facts and hope that one day he comes to a better understanding of sex, love and emotion. There will certainly need to be more discussions to follow, but all in good time.

I’m just thankful he’s only got about four more weeks of Health, and then he’s on to Spanish class.

Hola Jake. ¿Cómo estás?
(TRANSLATION: Hello Jake. How are you?)

Bien gracias. No vamos a discutir el sexo de aquí, ¿verdad?
(TRANSLATION: Fine thank you. We won't be discussing sex in here, right?)

Amazing Race: Chunky Addict Edition

…or as Kat calls it, Death March 2011.

You see, I’ve got an idea, spurred on by the fact that I doubt Kat and I will ever be chosen by the producers of The Amazing Race. As one website describes the show:

“The producers of The Amazing Race are looking for a certain charisma and personality from the contestants and want the teams to have an interesting or strong relationship. You have to look good on camera and offer a certain dynamic and confidence if you want to be chosen.”

We’ve got charisma, confidence and personality in spades - but neither of us are ‘camera ready’ in the sense that you won’t find a six pack, eating disorder or head of blonde hair between us. (Unless an anorexic, bleach blonde aerobics instructor happens to come stand between us.)

So we bandy about ideas in a flurry of e-mails discussing our next move:

KAT: Okay, the looking good part disqualifies me right away...they probably wouldn't even bother reading our HILARIOUS applications if they saw the video first. Although I'm not opposed to putting it up on YouTube and making an ass of myself. Now how on earth do we get followers, though? Could it be possible that people would click on this particular video when they seem determined to avoid all our other videos? We’ve done everything short of appearing on camera in a ménage à trois with Dick Cheney, to no avail.

JENI: Hmmm. Yes, people seem to be purposely obstinate regarding our continued need for attention and praise… (youtube.com/agorophobejeni)

KAT: I'm TOTALLY committed to losing 20 + pounds by the end of January, so at that time a new video can be made where I SHOULD look better...or at least thinner. Jeni, start walking and lifting weights! The Race requires major upper body strength which I KNOW I don't have and SUSPECT you don't have! Hahaha!

JENI: Yeah, all my upper body strength is in my mouth. ;) But, I’ve got an idea. Let’s pitch them a BETTER reality show idea. One that would provide much more humor (as well as audience participatory mocking and even higher ratings!)

Amazing Race: Chunky Edition

All contestants must be at least 20 lbs. overweight and be smokers. They will not be allowed to smoke at all during the race (on and off camera times included). Any contestant found cheating (on first offense*) will be subjected to a loss of 4 hours of race time and public humiliation in the form of mud-wrestling a native of whatever country we’re visiting, while wearing a bikini (applies for women AND men).

(*Second offense - Immediate expulsion from the show with a parting gift of two King Size Nestle Chunky™ bars to comfort them on their humiliating trip home. NOTE TO PRODUCERS: Look at me! I’ve even got your first sponsor.)

Also, contestants will be given a strict diet to adhere to which contains no sugar, saturated fat or carbs. They could weigh contestants before the start and at the end to see how much weight we lost running our fat asses off!!! It's like The Amazing Race and The Biggest Loser rolled into one!

I can already see it:

Death March 2011: Update

Excerpt from a report from the producers to the Studio Execs. after first round eliminations:

As the contestants wheeze their way toward the end of the first day, thighs chaffed, skin mottled and sweaty, the first pair to be eliminated was Jeni Decker & Kat Nove, who mutually decided they’d have more fun spending the rest of their time in Amsterdam in ‘Toke Up’, a popular cigar-slash-marijuana bar. They were last seen entering the establishment, laughing uproariously before an ensuing coughing jag required Ms. Decker to drag Ms. Nove the rest of the way inside the building.

What I'm Willing To Do To Get On The Amazing Race

I have one question. Where are all of the Reality-TV-Worthy oddballs - people we can really sink our teeth into? If I were on The Amazing Race, I’d want to compete against a pair of nuns, two gay guys who argue like an old married couple, an Italian grandmother/granddaughter team who have to be ‘bleeped’ every fifteen minutes because they have naughty mouths, a magician and his dimwitted apprentice, a sheep farmer and his wife, brothers who own & operate a sex toy manufacturing business in New Jersey, an old nudist couple who have trouble keeping their clothes on, a biker couple, two politically incorrect humor writers (my friend Kat and I could cover that base) and a pair of karaoke rappers.

I think the producers need to spice that show up, so my friend Kat and I are going to apply. I’m told that show needs an injection of humor. I don’t watch reality TV much, but since Kat asked me (begged, actually) to apply to be her partner on the show, I started taping episodes in mid-season.

So, I watched last night.

What I’m seeing already concerns me. I don’t look like any of the contestants, and for me to watch an entire season of this show, I’d need more than what they’re offering.

So, Kat and I are willing to help them out in that regard. I think a menopausal woman and her erratic sidekick (the mother of two autistic kids with a penchant for discussing her hemorrhoids ) would be a welcome addition to the show.

When I told Breadwinner (the husband) what I was up to, he was pleasantly supportive, though I’m pretty sure his left eye started twitching, ominously. He asked, “How long would you be gone?”

I said, “A week…or twelve.” I’ve never been away from the kids for more than the time it takes to do my grocery shopping, so it would also be an adventure for him. He’s a good father, but he’s not exactly tuned in to the delicate balance required to deal with two autistic kids on a daily basis. I’m not sure he’d even be able to get them both ready for and safely delivered to school. But for a chance at winning a million dollars, I’d do just about anything and cheerfully make Breadwinner suffer for it.

Let him deal with scat-a-licious undies, bedtime rituals, and Jake’s asking him, “I’m going to heaven, right?” like 759 times a day. Besides, I’m pretty sure it’s his turn. I need a vacation.

What would I do, you ask, to get my hands on that cash? Anything they ask. (Is the whole casting couch thing still a reality?) I will run till my big bazooms give me black eyes - and still keep going like the Energizer Bunny - I will eat anything but a cockroach, I will jump out of an airplane (with a parachute) I will tongue-kiss a sweatshop owner in Yemen (I’m hoping to go to Yemen. I like the way it sounds when you say it.) I will run topless through the middle of town singing Ricky Martin’s “Shake your Bon-Bon”…I will do a great many things and the stuff I won’t do, I’ll force Kat to do.

That’s what partners are for. Stay tuned for blog updates on our Amazing Race effort.

Shut up and Let Them Touch Your Junk

Man I’m tired of all of the media coverage about the TSA crap. Seriously, how slow does the news cycle have to be that we’ve got to make such a huge deal of this? Isn’t North Korea making more bombs, or doesn’t that count as terrorism? I guess that isn’t as ‘sexy’ a story as a little public molestation.

Frankly, I don’t get what all the hubbub is about, bub.

For my money, I’d rather know that everyone getting on the huge metal object that I’ll be shooting through the sky in, is being fondled for bombs. I have no problem with submitting to any and all procedures required to make sure my airplane lands safely and I get to live another day. Hell, I’ll take my bra off if you need to check underneath the twins, and I won’t even need to remove my shirt to do it* - THAT’S how serious I am about pat-downs in the interest of my safety. (*All the ladies out there will know what I’m talkin’ about. It’s a party trick we’re taught when we turn fifteen and we spend our lives amazing the males in our lives with it. Apparently it never gets old.)

Look at it this way. The whole premise of the ‘last line of defense’ is frightening in and of itself. I mean, if someone has managed to make it into an airport with a bomb, we’ve kind of dropped the ball, haven’t we? That means the CIA and FBI and all of those other secret government agencies listening in on phone calls - presumably to ferret out possible terrorist intent - haven’t done what they get paid the big bucks to do.

I’m not sure why a terrorist group hasn’t figured out that they could get three or four of their buddies and each strap on a bomb, then position themselves in a few different areas of the airport: Check in, baggage claim, airport bars and the duty-free shop. And don’t forget the guy who could set off a bomb WHILE IN LINE to be screened - you know, when he’s in the middle of a crowd of a few hundred impatient passengers. Talk about irony.

3 - 2 - 1- KABLAM! I don’t know much about explosives, but I’m pretty sure they could at least take a few chunks out of a terminal and maim or kill a few hundred people in the process, without ever getting near the airport screeners.

And what about Disney? They aren’t patting people down to get inside the Magic Kingdom. I always thought, if I were a terrorist, that sending a small militia of terrorists in with bombs inside their Mickey Mouse backpacks would be a fantastic way to get our government’s attention. The children, people!!! They’re taking aim at the CHILDREN!!

Or what about dispatching terrorists to apply to be Santa’s at the local department stores!!!! Macy’s doesn’t require a full body scan on entry, so at noon on the ‘big day’ every jolly-old-terrorist could push the button and blow St. Nick to smithereens right in front of dozens of kids. Multiply that by a couple of stores per state and you’ve got a story that won’t lose steam till Easter, my friends.

Okay, take a breath now and hold your hate mail. What I’m trying to say is this: if the ‘bad guys’ want to get us, there are plenty of ways they can get us. So, if airport security wants to feel us all up prior to boarding so that we are able to take another flight on another day, and not crash in a fiery explosion, I say let them do it. I think it’s pretty damn amazing that we can walk onto a big flying machine and in two hours be in another state. That alone seems kind of risky, and if I’m willing to take that risk, I’d like to mitigate any other risks, whenever possible.

(By the way, I'm not saying the proceedures in place are the most effective - that's another topic altogether. But until such time as they implement different proceedures, how 'bout we just do what we're asked to do?)

So, if I may be so bold…just shut the hell up and let them touch your junk. You never know, you might just like it.

Or, you know, you could just… not fly. It’s not a right, people. It’s a luxury.

Just sayin’.