Daily Diatribes

This week I have been extremely stressed. To deal with the stress, my subconscious decided to fixate on winkies. Suddenly, winkies were the dominant image in my head, and every thought I had was filtered through the winkie image. Two of my Facebook posts were about winkies. And yesterday culminated in the ultimate winkie event, although fortunately, no actual winkies were sighted. Believe me, had I seen a winkie, I would be posting this from the psych ward right now.

Winkie Fest began last Sunday, when I attended a pool party for one of the neighborhood kids. There I am, sitting at the pool, minding my own business while I gossiped about my neighbors, when I had my first winkie sighting. Sunbathing by the pool was a man in a Speedo. First of all, Speedos are icky. I realize they are all the rage in Europe, but this is not Europe. This is Alabama and appropriate poolside attire for males consists of a knee length pair of swim trunks, comfortably tucked up under the beer gut and emblazoned with either the Rebel flag or the number of his favorite NasCar driver. Speedos have no place in the Deep South. And yet there he lay, baking in the sun, with his weenie bulge out there for God and everybody to see. Naturally I was fascinated. I gawked at him, wondering why he was there at an 8 year old’s birthday party, flaunting his winkie. I wanted to throw a towel over him, but I’m sure the right to Flaunt Winkies is Constitutionally guaranteed and I didn’t want to risk a lawsuit. So I settled for mocking him quietly under my breath.

Two days later, I found myself in the library at UAB, desperately trying to produce twelve crappy pages for my literature class. The paper was not coming together at all. I flipped through the book, searching for any kind of meaning in the text. When I found a passage about Twinkies, I wrote the following: The twinkie is a pseudo phallic representation of the male dominated order…” Think about it and you’ll see the logic. Twinkies are winkie shaped and have a CREAM FILLED CENTER!! And look at the similarity in the root (phallic!!) word: WINKIE/TWINKIE. I know I’m right. I then proceeded to make quite a case of the Twinkie as an archetypal representation for the protagonist’s molestation at the hands of his aunt. This is why I’m an English major. You can say things like “Homoerotic symbolism” or “Pseudo Phallic” and your professors think you are a genius. I can make a case that ANYTHING is a phallus!! I won’t be a bit surprised when they ask me to write a dissertation, exploring the exploitation of America’s youth by the evil Hostess company. Hostess Snack Cakes: delicious dessert or the products of a perverted empire creating phallic snake cakes to corrupt America’s youth?

So my week continued. I got the paper written yesterday. It’s a crappy paper. I fully expect to make a “C” on the paper, if not a “D”. But it was a crappy and completed paper, so to celebrate I went to lunch with Sarah. We sat down and ordered, then I decided I needed to go to the bathroom before our food came. I had been consuming mass quantities of Diet Coke in order to stay focused on the paper. Humming a little, feeling good about my completed paper, I entered the bathroom. I found an empty, reasonably non-disgusting potty and did my business. I flushed, opened the door and was confronted by a row of strange little sinks. I thought it was odd that they were right there in front of the stalls. And they were so tiny. “Well, that’s odd,” I muttered to myself. “Who would put a row of tiny sinks….”

And that’s when it hit me. They were NOT sinks. No, dear reader, they were URINALS!! In fact, I had entered the men’s bathroom by mistake. The world abruptly went gray and I swayed a bit, overcome by horror. How in the HELL I had entered the men’s room without even noticing it escapes me. I guess I was so emotionally and mentally drained that I entered the first bathroom I came to without stopping to read the sign. It’s obvious that my subconscious mind, obsessed with winkies, had decided to direct me to a place where I might see an actual winkie! Thank goodness our God is a merciful God and there was no one USING the urinals!! I’m telling you, after the week I had, a winkie sighting would have put me in the hospital!!!

I took a deep breath, composed myself, and went to the BIG sinks to wash my hands. I walked out of the bathroom, muttering to myself “I can’t believe I used the men’s room.” An employee was apparently behind me because he patted me on the shoulder and said “don’t worry, no one saw you!” Um, no one except YOU I wanted to shriek!!!

It’s now Friday. I am about to go out for the day, but before I go, I will say the following prayer: Dear lord, please protect us from carjackings, nuclear missiles (phallic!!!) and from rogue winkie sightings as we shop today!!

Once upon a time there was a soccer mommy named Jennifer. She did not work; instead she stayed home, ignored her children and surfed Facebook all day. On rare occasions, she would wash a load of clothing or vacuum the floors (when she wasn’t actively breaking the vacuum cleaner). If she was feeling very June Cleaverish, she would whip up a batch of Hamburger Helper. It was a time of peace and prosperity; contentment ruled the land.

But Jennifer was bored. ‘There must be something more,’ she thought despairingly, ’something more fulfilling than washing underwear!’ She became brooding and unhappy. One day, while surfing TMZ, she was possessed by a desire to take the entrance exam for graduate school, just to see how well she could do. And so, one bright sunny day, she set out for the college campus where the test was being administered. When she arrived, she looked around the campus in awe. College life looked much as she remembered it: there was the group playing with a hackeysack; there was the giggly group of sorority girls meandering across the quad; there was the group of serious, stringy haired poindexters discussing the latest quantum physics theorem. She was engulfed by a wave of nostalgia for her lost youth, and the desire to rediscover it washed over her.

So Jennifer took the test and was surprised when she scored very well (although she shouldn’t have been since she is totally jazzed by standardized tests!!) and so she decided it might be kind of kicky to go back to school. Without really pausing to consider any of the implications, she went ahead and enlisted. The first semester, she only took two classes, wisely recognizing that going to school would have a somewhat negative impact on family life. She did so well that she decided to double her classload the following semester.

Oh wicked hubris!! Oh cruel ego, thou hast led me astray!! Because Jennifer discovered that not only had her youth left the building, she was actually bordering on nursing home material. Suddenly there were too many new concepts flying at her at once. Papers and projects and due dates were coming at her from all directions. And her family still expected clean underwear and hot, nourishing Hamburger Helper!! Her stress level abruptly ratcheted up 237 points.

Pretty soon, Jennifer found herself speaking nonsene. When asked a question by her family, she would respond “the pedagogical practices of Charles Dickens included a standard deviation of Victorian assessment measures” and other mumbo jumbo that made no sense. She began staying up late at night, surfing the internet, not for the latest pictures of Heidi Montag’s surgical procedures, but for sample tests on Beowulf and for thematic insights into the symbolism of farm animals of Victorian England (not what you’re thinking, get your mind out of the gutter!!!)

As finals approached, Jennifer found herself in a heightened state of confusion and despair. Names, dates and theories swirled about in her head, contradicting each other. Her slumber was disturbed by nightmarish visions of showing up for the final on the wrong day and visions of turning in a paper, only to discover that it was not the 17 page essay on “Jungian ideologies in ‘Anne of Green Gables’” she had slaved over, but was, instead, the operator’s manual for her washing machine. She was at the breaking point and the tiniest nudge would send her plunging into the abyss of eternal despair.

And guess what???? As of this writing, that’s where she is, perched on the brink of complete mental and physical breakdown!! She is considering abandoning the great school experiment and pursuing a career in the convenience store arts. Right about now, selling packs of Marlboros to multi-pierced drug dealers sounds much more appealing than writing a paper!!

I’m feeling a wee bit stressed out right now. Yesterday I had two final exams; one was announced ahead of time and the other was an unannounced “pop” final. What kind of sadist does that to people?? On the other hand, it was open book, I made a 98 on it and now it’s behind me. So there is that. However…I still have two huge projects and two huge papers looming over me like King Kong. I’m starting to get giddy.

This is how I know I’m starting to unravel. I just pitched a paper idea to one of my professors. I proposed doing a close reading of “Goodnight Moon” by Rosemary Wells. I feel pretty sure I can stretch it into fifteen pages; who can BS better than me?? Here is my proposal:

Marxist Themes in Children’s Literature: A Close Reading of Beloved Children’s Classic “Good Night Moon”

…In the great green room, there was a telephone and a red balloon and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon….” What parent is not familiar with the opening lines of Rosemary Wells’ beloved tale of a bunny saying goodnight? Yet upon closer reading, the story is transformed from an innocent children’s tale into a more sinister narrative of Communism and Marxist ideology. In fact, one wonders just how closely tied to the Party Comrade Wells was.
The first clue the reader has to Wells’ diabolical intentions is the red balloon. Red is the color associated with Communism and the shape of the balloon is suggestive of a global takeover by Communists. Clearly Wells is suggesting that children should be encouraged to join the Party in their early years so they can be molded in the ideology of Marx. The red balloon in the bedroom denotes a pseudo-phallic representation of the sickle, cleverly disguised as a child’s toy.
The telephone is a jarring note in the room, out of place in a nursery. In fact, the telephone is suggestive of political power and nuclear dominance. It’s no coincidence that the telephone appears in this story. It’s a subtle and frightening message to children that failure to comply with party ideology could result in nuclear winter.
Another message in the room manifests as a print on the wall. At first glance, it is simply a cow, jumping over the moon. However, it’s a SICKLE shaped moon, again, the symbolic representation of Communism. The cow is jumping away from capitalism, over the Communist Moon and into a new social order defined by plenty of grazing for everyone. The color of the room, green, echoes this sentiment as well. In the new Communist world order, there will be plenty of grass for all good Party cows.

Yep, I’m losing it!!!

Pretty soon, people will stop checking. They will start to drift away, gravitating toward other bloggers who actually post more than once a month. You’ll leave me for “Tales From the Lettuce Bin” or “My Legos, My Life” or whatever nonsense is out there. To spare you from reading blog entries about a woman and the pet rock she loves, I decided I would post. Lately, I haven’t had much to say. Oh, I’ve had plenty of THOUGHTS but nothing seemed to gel into a post. But today has been an awful day and I need some positive affirmations. So I’m going to blog about poo. Posts on feces tend to generate a lot of comments and I need some love right now!!!

I just returned from a four night trip to Chicago. I accompanied the high school band as a chaperone. Because I am wildly popular, everyone wanted to be my roommate. I am not making this up; I had people asking left and right if they could room with me. Possibly it’s because I am entertaining. It’s equally possible, however, that because I wear no makeup and keep my hair pinned up in a clip most of the time, these women were thinking they would have more time in the bathroom since I apparently spend very little time there. So, even though I had requested a double room, I ended up with three roommates. Whom I adore. And we had a blast.

However…I have a little issue with making poo in mixed company. There are certain conditions necessary for me to poo. I need a fan to generate white noise to give me the illusion of privacy; I like to be private when I poo. I want to know I have unlimited time to sit on the potty to make my poo. And I need magazines, preferably Reader’s Digest or People, but Guideposts will work in a pinch. Unfortunately, these conditions were not present. There was no fan. There were no magazines. And it’s hard to carve out a chunk of quality potty time when you are sharing a room with three other women. And so my colon grew. And grew. And grew some more until the walls became the world all around….Wait, I’m starting to sound like Maurice Sendak.

Wednesday I was fine. We didn’t leave until evening, so I had all day to poo at home. Thursday was good; I was too tired after the all night bus ride to pay much attention to my colon. By Friday, however, things were starting to get uncomfortable. I was able to sneak upstairs when the room was empty and seek a little relief, but it was not enough. Not nearly enough. I was beginning to feel a little bloated and uncomfortable. And gassy. Which is not good for anyone in the vicinity. By the time we headed home on Sunday, my colon was the size of Texas.

Too make matters even worse, we stopped and had two fast food meals on the way home. Arbys PLUS Wendys PLUS already full colon EQUALS ONE BIG POO!!!! I was in agony. The bus was full. The restroom on the bus had a sign on the door that said “Number One only”. I’m not kidding. I wouldn’t have done a poo in there anyway. Who wants to be known as the band mom who used the bus bathroom to make a poo, thereby causing the whole bus to smell like poo? I am known as one of the “fun moms” and I want to keep it that way. So that means no Number 2 on the bus.

I made it home without exploding. Barely. But I shoved Napoleon out of my way to get up the stairs so I could poo. “I don’t know what the big deal is,” he said as I rushed by. “I blew up the toilet at the Sears Tower and then today, I blew up the toilet at the Hardees.” True courage is not an absence of fear in the face of danger. True courage is being able to poo in a bathroom at the Hardee’s.