Big Girls Don't Cry

A week ago, my life could've best been described by Donna Fargo, circa 1972.  If you get that reference, by the way, you will seriously be worthy of my undying respect and admiration.  I imagine there will be a lot of competition for that particular prize, so comment early and comment often.

Have you seen the Dog Diary vs. Cat Diary?  I was the dog.  Every part of the day was my favorite thing.  It was a good - albeit brief - time to be me.  I even had a post planned out in my head, but I was so busy being happy that I never got around to writing it.

That was then, this is now.

The damnedest thing is - all of the events of the day that I had listed in my mind - the things that were making me so happy - still occur.  Tom still hits the snooze button so that he can hold me for seven more minutes.  Or twelve.  Or twenty...  I still watch the sun rise and get alone time in the car with each of my girls (not for very much longer, but still...).  I still go to the gym and work out with my trainer.  I still come home and eat my breakfast and catch up on Facebook.  I still go to a job that I love.  I still take my sister home - more one-on-one car time.  Tom still makes delicious dinners and has them on the table when I walk in the door.  I am still left with just enough time to watch something on Netflix and knit a few rows before it's time to go to bed.

Those things made me pretty happy.  Pretty content.  Pretty damned pleased that I was given the life I have.  Simple.  Good.

"But Tammy," you must be thinking, "If none of that has changed - and all of that makes you happy - then why have you become so damned pissy all of a sudden?"

Your perplexed response is completely understandable.

The answer is just as simple as the simple bliss I'd been experiencing moments ago.  A lifetime ago.  I forget which.

I was reminded that fat people don't deserve to be happy.  They deserve to be punished and deprived and rejected.  By the way - if you're reading this - and you're a fat person - I DON'T BELIEVE THIS! - but the world chose this week - this holiday weekend - to remind me that it does.

And it's so damn hard to fight the world.

So I hope you enjoyed your weekend.  I hope you did things that made you happy.  I hope you barbecued and drank too many beers.  I hope you laughed with your friends.  I hope you were happy.

I wasn't.

I pretty much hermitted up in the house and avoided the mean-spirited world.

I cried a lot.

It took a long time to get to happy and I'll find my way back.  But it won't be today.

And Another Thing That Pisses Me Off...

My buzz was killed so thoroughly last night that it's hard to believe I ever had one.

I have been a grouchy, irritable don't-look-at-me-wrong-or-I'll-cut-you bitch ever since.

As such, let me present what I hope will not become the first in an ongoing series, but certainly contains the potential.

I don't shop anymore.  It's not fun.  There's never any money and we have too much crap anyway. 

Today, though, I needed to go to the store.  I needed laundry baskets.  How I've managed to lose all of my laundry baskets, I do not know, but if I find out, it will probably piss me off.

Of course, by the time I got to the checkout, I'd picked up a lot more than laundry baskets.  Stores, man.  Always trying to make you buy stuff.  They piss me off.

When I say I picked up a lot more than laundry baskets, I really only mean a couple more items.  I was well under the ten item limit for the express lane.  That's right.  I was shopping at Target.  Judge me if you want, but you should probably know that that will almost surely piss me off.

I got in the lane behind a woman who - what the hell! - had the entire conveyor belt filled and was still reaching into her buggy for more.  My left eye got a little twitchy and I started looking for something stabbity.  But I was already there and the other lines were long, so I stayed where I was. Wanna know what she did then?  She split the order into three separate orders - ALL well over ten items - and paid for each of them separately. And she had coupons.  Do I have to tell you she was on her phone the whole time and never acknowledged the cashier except to wave her credit card at her a few (three, to be exact) times, or have you already made that assumption?  Because she sure 'nuff was and did.

As she walked away, Bitchy McBitcherson (that's me, if you haven't been following along) said to the cashier, "Boy, you sure don't take that ten item rule very seriously, do you?"  Rudy McRudepants overheard, as had been my intention, turned around, glanced at the sign and shrugged.  Her daughters joined her as she walked out the door.  They were both wearing T-shirts from a local Christian Academy.

My kids don't go to Sunday School.  But if I ever found out they'd behaved like this woman behaved - in front of her kids - well...

It would really piss me off.

It Just Doesn't Match

Every Friday morning Liv and I go out for donuts.  The boy who waits on us is undeniably beautiful.  "Such a pretty boy," we say.  A few weeks ago Liv said, "I think I know what makes him so pretty."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah.  It's his eyes."

"I guess he does have pretty eyes."

"Not so much that," she added, furrowing her brow in thought, "It's that his eyes don't match the rest of him."

As soon as she said it, I knew she was right.  Indeed, that was it.  His skin tone and hair color don't match his eyes.  His eyes are unexpected.  They throw you off balance.  In that wobbly place before you find your bearings lies beauty.

I realized that most of the people I like and all of the people I love have that same effect on me.  Not so much through their physical appearance, but something.  Something doesn't fit, something is just off balance and that is intriguing.

One of my Mother's Day gifts was a pair of red chucks.  Liv told me that when they were shopping for them, "Daddy and Lea wanted to get black or gray or white because they go with everything but I said, 'Mommy doesn't go with everything.'"

Indeed I do not.

I don't know that I've ever received a compliment that pleased me more.

Go find beauty in unexpected places today.  If you are so inclined, you could start at the donut shop.