Um, okay, I know. I haven't written in awhile. I could give you excuses--I actually have them. But you don't care and I'm not hurt that you don't care. You've got your stuff and I've got mine; let's leave it at that.
But just in case the dearth of my voice in your blogosphere left such a hole that you went searching back through the archives (all 29 of them) to "hear" me yap, I want to clear something up. Some delightful (anonymous) friend made a comment a few posts back about my grammar. In friend's world, my grammar is single-handedly bringing down the education system in this country. Nay, across the globe! That is not why I stopped blogging.
I also did not stop teaching writing, as this friend backhandedly suggested. So you can just heave a collective sigh of relief, readers. I'm still at it--poisoning your minds online and your children's in the classroom with my run on sentences and Oxford commas. Like a boss.
I have made a few changes this year though. I mean, isn't it a January imperative to start a diet and clean your house and get a pass to the rec center? I wouldn't be me if I wasn't a walking cliche.
For the record, I only cleaned my house because I moved out of it. That would have never happened under other circumstances. And the diet/rec center thing? We can't fault me for that either. Ok, that's not true. We can blame only me for needing to be on a diet and needing to work out. But actually doing it? That's all Eric's doing.
Now before you go getting in a man-hating huff (if you're already there, just redirect it to women, because I think this is actually our fault), let me explain. Eric didn't suggest either of these things. He's far too smart for all that. He did, however, propose a wedding in June. And it's his wedding that's got me doing the stupid January cliches.
Well, not his wedding so much as the whole wedding dress business. I went to buy one with my girls, right? It was a glorious day. I tried on 68 dresses. Looked decent in at least 23, hilarious in 55+, and bridal in like three (stop doing the math, sticklers!). Two of those were three times as expensive as the other one, so viola! I got me a dress. And I love it.
Or rather, I loved it. I loved it until the very next day, when I went back to the bridal shop to have my measurements taken. Now here's a thing women should just never do. Getting measured is basically paying someone to tell you you suck at life. And it's like I paid them extra or something, because damn.
A girl like me can't get too terribly down when a designer tells you your bust is a size zero in her dress. I mean, I've had my boobs (read: no boobs) since puberty and I know the score. Zero, I can live with. I would have liked a size zero waist to match, but the two wasn't too hard to swallow (please enjoy the last part of that sentence. all correct uses of the words to/too/two). I might have even taken a moment to be proud if this hadn't happened...
"Um, the thing is, you're kind of a whole different dress on the bottom."
Wha?
"See, if we get the dress big enough to fit your bottom half, we'd have to take in, well, the difference is too big."
Big, huh? That's a word my hippopotobottom knows, but doesn't so much like. "How big are we talking?"
"Uh, don't worry about it. I'm just going to call and see if they can..."
"For real. How big are we talking, here? I mean, a girl has to know, right?"
Wrong. A girl could have lived forever without knowing she's a zero up top and an EIGHT in the trunk. This girl sure could have.
The worst part? The suggestion was bandied about that I should gain weight elsewhere to make up the difference. As though it was clear to all that my gym and diet efforts would be thwarted by genetics (read: general laziness) and lack of time (read: love of food). Thanks a heap, Mom.
I don't really know why I'm telling you all this, except to admit right now that yeah, I'm still going to have a size eight butt when I get married. I would love to tell you I'm all evolved and wonderful and I don't care because I'm beautiful; but that's a lie and we both see right through it. I care. I just don't care enough.
So here I go, here I go, here I go again. To the gym. To the veggie drawer. To the scale and the mirror. At the end of the day, none of it will change. I'll still publish blog posts without doing a grammar check. I'll still wiggle into my jeans. I'll still buy the heaviest padded bra VS sells, even though my mom tells me that's false advertising.
It's not false advertising, Mom. It's putting a little balance in the world.
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