Whatever Mischa Barton!

That's my favorite thing ever overheard at a Target. A year or so ago I was wandering through the clothing department of Target around 10 a.m. on a Wednesday. There were two girls, maybe 14, browsing the clearance rack. They had a very J-Lo Fly-Girl-Era Porta Reecan look about them, but I live in Texas so probably they were just Mexican. Anyway, one of them held up an ivory lacey peasant sort of top and gave her friend the non-verbal "what do you think about this one" expression. The other one said "Whatevah Mischa Bahton!" I like to think there was a snap too (like in the air, not on the blouse) but that may be wishful remembering. Of course, being a nerdy teacher I almost asked them if they shouldn't be in school. Almost.

That really doesn't have much to do with being married except that it's one of the many random phrases Husband and I throw around for fun. I thought of it when I saw this picture on Go Fug Yourself.

I have never seen such an unsexy article of clothing draw so much attention to the vajayjay region. I know they say money doesn't buy happiness, a theory I refuse to accept until I've had the chance to test it personally. But thanks to Mischa Barton there is one thing I know for sure money won't buy: the ability to determine which fashion trends are suitable for your body type. For example, I would have known that thigh-accentuating Urkel pants would not flatter my hippy frame.

I can tell Husband looks down on me for obsessing about ways I am better than famous/rich people, but I don't care. I will go to bed feeling a little better about myself knowing that I never would have bought these pants.

Ka-chiiiing... D'oh!

Husband and I are about to get a relatively hefty tax return. Yay tuition credit! After we finished our taxes we were strutting around feeling very rich. Husband has been quoting that Chappelle's Show skit about all the black people getting slavery reparation checks on the same day. "I'm riiiiiich, biatch! I just bought this baby cash." And I have fallen asleep the past couple of nights imagining what our house would look like if it was redecorated by the Pottery Barn catalog stylists.

Then today we totaled up our wish list and realized that we have already mentally spent about seven and a half times what we will be getting back. Here's where all the imaginary money went:

• New garage doors and openers so we can park in the garage again. And also so we won't have to leave our trash can in the front yard anymore. Classy!
  
• I want to cut down the tree that is about to fall on our fence. Husband wants to cut down the tree that hangs over our driveway because he backed into it once and now it taunts him every morning. We agree on cutting down the dead one in the middle of the back yard.
• New floors because I can't even identify these stains in the carpet. They were here before me, which is grody.
• A bathroom redo so our guests don't feel like they are peeing inside a tuna can.
• I want to build a bunch of cabinets across the wall in our dining room so I can continue my obsession with acquiring dishes and serving platters I never use.
  
• Art for above the fireplace that Husband did not acquire from a hippy with a card table set up outside Jester Dorm in the late '90s.
• New living room sofa and love seat. And dining room table. And a pub table for the kitchen. And husband wants a leather recliner. Just generally furniture we didn't assemble ourselves.
  
• A functional overhead light in our living room.
  
• A new wardrobe for each of us. Husband because his old clothes are too big and me because I will surely get a job soon so I will need some cute career clothes. Dress for the job you want! It's a great justification for unemployed people to go shopping.

I think the lesson from this is never buy a house. We would just go to Hawaii or something if we didn't have this stupid home to improve.

What we learned this week

A few items of (possible) interest relating to me having a job now...

1. There is a lady at the school who wears lots of "teacher clothes" - jumpers that tie in the back, Keds with white socks folded down, wooden jewelry, etc. Actually the jumpers have a very homemade look, like perhaps she's like that Duggar lady on TV and she sews all the clothes for her 12 kids whose names all start with the same letter. Yesterday she was wearing a dress made out of... wait for it... wait for it... MY LITTLE PONY FABRIC!!!!! It looked just like this one I found online except pink. Oh sweet Lord I almost spewed Diet Dr Pepper all over her pastel pony-covered ass as I was walking down the hall behind her. I wanted to take a picture with my cell phone but I couldn't figure out how to do it without the simulated camera noise a foot away from her ass raising suspicion. It reminds me of this time at teacher school when our professor had us write on a piece of paper, "When I am a teacher I will never wear..." I think we were supposed to finish the sentence with "a push-up bra" or "a tube top" or "hot pants" because her point was that teachers should dress professionally if they are to be taken seriously. But I wrote "holiday-themed sweater vests." I didn't even know "clothes made from fabric featuring Mattel toys" was an option, or I totally would have picked that.
2. Here's the difference between being married 11 days and 11 months: This week I have been very busy and exhausted, and Husband has had a lot on his plate too. Last night we both acknowledged a general snippiness with each other that's been going on for a day or two. Instead of talking all about what that means, are we okay with each other, have we made a horrible mistake by rushing into marriage, blah, blah, blah, we just agreed not to bother being nice to each other for awhile and to regroup once we are in better moods. So much simpler!
   
3. I am addicted to Diet Dr Pepper. Like Trainspotting addicted. I take two cans with me every morning: one to chug on the drive in and another for lunch. The other morning Husband took the last two cold cans the day before and did not replace them with the reserves in the garage. So at 6:45 a.m. as I was preparing to leave for work I screamed at him from across the house. He stumbled in like a hungover freshman during a Jester fire drill thinking I had hurt myself or maybe the dog was eating shit again. I interrogated him about the situation and made a series of way passive-aggressive statements: "I guess I'll just have to drink a WARM Dr Pepper on my way to work this morning... I will have to put this WARM Dr Pepper in the lounge fridge so it will be COLD by lunchtime. I hope no one STEALS it... Hey could you get my Dr Pepper out of the freezer. I had to put it in there because it was HOT from being in the GARAGE instead of the FRIDGE." Then this morning we were completely out (here we come, Costco!) so I took a handful of change to buy some at school. But I only had 90 cents and the vending machine sells 20 oz. bottles and they cost a dollar. The day didn't go well. Let's just say I don't think it was fair to the children.
   

The In-Laws are coming into town this weekend, so I'm sure we will have something interesting to report on Monday.

Husband is going to have to start pulling his own weight around here

because I've got an almost-real job. I just took a long-term sub job, which means I will be the teacher until of the end of the school year because the last one got knocked up.

It's good news for several reasons. Primary among them is the $150 a day it pays. You loyal readers may remember that I previously made $63 a day, so this would be more. Still ridiculously little, but it will add up to almost $4,000 by the end of the year, after taxes. Husband and I plan to use the windfall on new flooring in our house. Although I'm not sure you can call it a windfall if you actually have to work for it.

Anyway, the point is I will be really busy and not paying any attention to Husband, so I will probably be able to post about an even smaller % of the stupid things he says/does. Like today, when he compared himself to McGyver because he fixed something on his car with string.

Imagine what I could do if I applied myself to something important

Last night I got a perfect 6 out of 6 on the People magazine "Pop Quiz: Who's That Celebutante." Husband played along too, but I totally smoked him. Here's an example:

WIFE: It says, "These stylin' sisters took their act on the road last summer to appear on Canada's MuchMusic TV."
HUSBAND: Uh, Jessica and Other Simpson?
WIFE: You suck! (A) Neither of these girls had big giant boobies pushed up to her chin, so it's definitely not Jessica Simpson, and (B) Neither of the Simpsons has stringy platinum hair like that girl on the right.
HUSBAND: Mmm, kay.

Hell Is Other People's Children

Today was Wife's friends' 8 year anniversary, so Wife volunteered us to go babysit their 2 year old twins and 9 month old baby. After this experience, I have a whole new appreciation for multiple levels of redundancy in birth control.

The scary thing is their kids are incredibly well behaved. There's no way our kids will be that nice to each other when they're 2, and certainly no way our 9 month old baby will ever just quietly amuse himself/herself for hours on end. It would be one thing if they were just miserable little shits that behaved horribly. Then we could just say, "Well, OUR kids won't be like that." But no, these kids were pretty great. So we have nowhere to go but downhill from this.

All bitching aside, it was actually kind of fun in a way. Their kids are sweet, and it was fun to test-drive the whole parenthood experience. It was like time-traveling to the future when we'll have kids, realizing "Oh shit, this changes every part of your life!" and then get to drive back home to blissful childless reality. Actually, it's more like being a juvenile delinquent and getting sentenced to spend a night in jail to be scared straight.

In honor of our friends (and our brief time in their shoes), I'd like to present the following Top 10 list of things I will really, really, really miss whenever we finally decide to start having kids:

1. Sleep
2. Quiet
3. Sex
4. Profanity
5. Going out to the movies
6. Spontaneity
7. Leaving the house
8. Relating to the outside world
9. Violent, profane TV shows
10. Not having to wipe anyone's ass but my own

Oh joy, Husband is all better

I can tell because he just poked me in the boob for fun. Also he's been singing "My Humps" in a very Alanis voice. Apparently when he's too sick to behave in his typical inappropriate and immature way he just saves it all for later. He seems to have some sort of weekly quota.

In other news, Cat appears to be hallucinating. She is currently hanging and upside down from a door frame with a wide-eyed feral look on her face. Husband is out of shoes to throw at her. It's bad news when we run out of things to throw at the cat because we are afraid of getting too close to her when she's in this state. Also neither of us seems at all motivated to put our shoes in the closet so there are always at least five pairs of shoes in our living room. I feel like sitting around watching Conan while tossing footwear at the cat is a very college apartment thing to do. I thought by now we would be more together or something.

Two things that have nothing to do with marriage

except that Husband and I both find them funny.

Alanis Morrissette's "My Humps" video...



My favorite website, Go Fug Yourself, offers insight into my favorite booty-licious singer...

BEYONCE: So what are you saying?

BEYONCE'S CONCERNED STAFF MEMBER: Those pants were in your dressing room for a reason.

BEYONCE: Pants?

Read the rest here.

Dear Husband,

I'm sorry I am not the kind of person who can pat you on the back while you barf. You had to have known that when you married me. I do want to take care of you when you are sick, but I am just not going to clean up your vomit. I did go to the store twice to get you Jello and saltines and soup, and I hope you see that as evidence of my love and devotion and not a desire to get out our germ-laden house.

I hear that once we have babies I will get over my aversion to vomit, and we'll see. But I warn you that you may have to be in charge of kid vomit when the time comes because I just don't see how it's going to be any cuter than yours.

The thing is, I have thrown up a total of seven times in my entire life and I remember all of them vividly and I have no desire to repeat them. It's why I didn't drink more in college. So when I look at you moaning in bed I wish I saw this...
But I really see you crawling with these...


So, again, sorry. Can I bring you some Jello?

Love,

Wife