I had a whole bunch of visuals of my trip to see Skinny Bitch. Unfortunately, they are all in my head. You may be sure that I was greeted with coloured chalk drawings, as before.

I should explain where SB lives. She has a lovely, heritage Victorian home in what has become the ghetto. Colourful characters abound on her street, although her house is fairly safe from crime because it is directly across the street from those ever-vigilant firefighters.

And by colourful? I mean mostly chronically drunk or stoned. The younger ones are the stoners. I’m not talking soft drugs like pot here. One guy was lurching down the middle of the street, his arm, and only one arm, rising with each lurch, all zombie-like. You could tell he was baked, fried, and not with it at all. In addition, he found walking very painful. I imagined that he had gotten beaten up pretty badly, or even hit by a car, considering he walked in the middle of the street.

Then there was Margot. It was kind of obvious Margot was into the booze. You don’t even have to be able to smell it on them. Old habitual boozers have strange facial expressions, have you noticed? Gotta be from some form of brain damage. SB leaves her smokes outside on the verandah, and Margot helps herself in a pinch. SB and I had gone inside to exclaim over something or other, leaving our humongous wine glasses outside. When I looked out the window, lo and behold, there was Margot, helping herself to SB’s glass of wine. Bizarre.

A bit later that weekend, Party Guy appears. He’s an older guy, so a boozer, and what does he see while staggering across the street? Yes! Two women relaxing on the verandah with refreshing beverages. He started to make a beeline for our location. I headed him off by telling him that this here was a girls only party. Sorry, Party Guy. We just didn’t think you would fit in with all our girly stuff, plus we knew you would guzzle all the wine, and probably put some kind of wino secret glyphs to mark the place as one that has wine. Also? We suspected from his condition that the prospect of puke was highly likely.

There were a few others, but the stars of the shows were the firemen. They spent lots of time standing in the open truck bay, washing and polishing the vehicles, as well as getting sweaty in the workout room, which coincidentally, was very visible from our vantage point.

You do realize how much women love to watch men work, don’t you? Especially when they get sweaty. It was heavenly to behold.

When I left, SB gave me a big kiss on the lips and told me she loved me more than her shoes.

I can die happy now.

I knew I was going to be away from my keyboard for a while, so I put out a last minute begging session for a guest poster or two, and lo and behold, good ole Laura stepped up to the plate. And life was good. I’ve been reading her since I started reading blogs, and she is smart, sassy, talented and a very hot looking mom. Go visit her. She’s all kinds of awesome.

Her post follows. Hope I got the links right. Thank you, Laura!

For the last two days i have been infected by something that has been keeping me up at nights, giving me that uncomfortable annoying feeling that i can’t quite shake.

Ladies and germs, i have an earworm. That irritating tune that runs over and over again inside your mind… like an audio worm has crawled right inside you and has gnawed off the intelligent part of your brain.

I don’t know how, or when it happened - but over the course of the last 48 hours I have, going over and over again in my brain, “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-lot. All over the house i’ve been humming it, as i run errands i’m singing under my breath: “…so your girlfriend drives a Honnnnda, plays workout tapes by Fonnnnda, well Fonda ain’t got a motor in the back of HER honda, my ANACONDA. don’t. want. non. unless-you-got. BUNS. hon.”

For someone who is so musically inclined, i have a horrible memory for lyrics. B-rad always corrects me when i sing lyrics wrong - he has a photographic memory or something, but it seems like I am constantly singing the words to the songs I like wrong.

So - with my track record for lyrical memory being what it is, WHY IS IT that i can remember all the words to the Big Mac jingle? or to Tommy Twotone’s Jenny? 867-530-niiii-ee-iiine….

I have always had this problem. Earworms.

But the absolute worst was when my son, Chewie, was born 8 weeks early and was in the hospital - I had “The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room” by Flight of the Concords running through my head… and everytime I would come into the hospital to visit my baby it would trigger the song all over again.

I wanted to literally tear my hair out of my head to make the song stop. Gah!
There were moments when I’d be getting up to go to the bathroom, and in the half asleep bleary eyed moments of my post-partum worried-sick-about-my-preemie son induced sadness…. the words started running through my head like one of those light up dealies that they show stocks on…. “and when you’re on the street, depending on the street, your are most definitely in the top three…Good looking girls on the street… depending on the street…” and I started crying.

How could I explain to B-rad that the reason I was crying was because I just couldn’t get that song out of my head? I felt like a crazy person.

According to this study “…women, musicians and people who are neurotic, tired or stressed are most prone to earworm attacks…” well… i guess that pretty much sums up why I wanted to tear my ears off… I was/am all of those things - and being stressed out and tired must have amplified the earworm.

Eventually The Flight of the Concords found their way out of my head….but it was there for a good solid 12-15 days. I am hesitant to listen to that song, even now, remembering how badly it was stuck in there.

Flash forward almost a year… Baby got back. We’re not quite at the level of The Flight of the Concords, but we ARE into day two - anything more than one day now, and I start to get a little worried.

They say the only way to get an earworm out of your head is to infect another person, and I’ve tried… I’ve tried singing it around the house, mentioning it to the B-rad, nothing! No go! I’ve tried listening to the entire song, but all that’s done is reinforce lyrics I didn’t remember before.

When Psychicgeek took me up on my offer to guest post for her i sat here staring at my blank screen for half a day. Nothing. Not one thing came to my mind…except “littleinthemiddlebutshegotmuchback…
….littleinthemiddlebutshegotmuchback…..”

So, here we are… and I’m passing my earworm on to you (sorry)… but I am interested to know what songs get stuck in your head constantly? In this post alone I’ve - hopefully - pawned off several of my own earworms…. and i realize this could be a very dangerous post/comment thread - so I apologize now for any earworm infection that may be caused as a result from reading this!

Love,
Laura

I’ll be leaving early Thursday morning en route to Skinny Bitch’s city. I’m travelling much lighter than I usually do because of the nerve irritation in my neck. I’m not supposed to lift much.

So I got me a toy computer to record my sound files on, and since it has a wireless card that is speedy, I can upload them to the server. Built in mic and webcam, so less to lug around. It fits in a normal sized purse. It’s kind of the Bic of computers. It was so cheap I wasn’t about to shell out an extra $80 for two more years factory warranty. Bic.

Of course, it takes forever to bookmark sites and type in old passwords to web admin sites. Luckily for me, I had the good sense to write them down in my little six ring binder that also serves as a mobile datebook. The only way the data will be lost on the datebook is if I can no longer decipher my scribbles. Or if there is a flood or fire. Still, flood or fire will so scroo an electronic keeper of information.

Ass Burger Boy is ecstatic and has already transferred all of my data off the clunky big laptop, which he has dubbed ‘his precious’ and promptly taken to work with him. I don’t think he’ll miss me.

Of course, I will be staying with Skinny Bitch. Any time I go to her city, it’s a given I will stay with her. I desperately need to laugh my self silly, tears streaming down my face, maybe even peeing a little. Now that we don’t have torture to plot for the now ex Mr. SB, we will have to find other ways to amuse our bad selves.

I may or may not get kidnapped after the show.

There will only be internet access at the venue, where I’ll probably be busy with work. With any luck at all. I may be tweeting like a dirty little bird, but probably won\t be posting here while I’m gone. I linked this post heavily to give you something to catch up on while I’m away.

You know those people you just play off? And egg one another on in silliness? Skinny Bitch and I are like that. So are Krissa and I.

To demonstrate, I bring you the second portion of an email exchange which started with me saying I hurt myself in my sleep and she was urging me to describe it as a sex injury. Where, really, I probably rolled over onto my physio targeted shoulder, which is being mean to me. But? It had to be a sex injury, because it happened in bed. That’s when I shared that I had never had a threesome, my last twosome was a decade ago, and now I only have onesomes, since I got all discriminating with my sex partners and all. She’s pretty sure I should describe it as a sex injury though. Sheesh, she’s bossy. Which would only be annoying if I were obedient. So you’re welcome for the background. Maybe you had to be there.

Krissa: I dunno…. the true test is sleeping in the same bed with yourself. Heh.

witchypoo: I keep getting annoyed. Bitch snores.

Krissa: Get her some of those nose strips.

witchypoo: She’s selfish. Says it doesn’t bother her sleep any.

Krissa: WHAT A BITCH! I wouldn’t put up with that.

witchypoo: If she’s not careful, NO SEX FROM ME!

Krissa: Oh shit. You need to get into couples counseling. I mean you can’t let this effect your lives like this. It’s not fair to either of you! Heh heh.

witchypoo: I’d sooner just buy her the fucking nose strips.

Krissa: (The voice of Little Mary Sunshine), It’d be cheaper!

Oh. Hi! Remember me? I’ve been one big sweaty ball of pain for the last six months or so. Which might account for my minimal posting. Or not. But I have finally got me a diagnosis, and with that, a plan. Plans are good. They give me confidence. Confidence that I can manage this pain without killing my liver any deader by using anti-inflammatories and wine in combination. Well, dead is dead, of course. What was I saying?

Oh yeah. I have a diagnosis for the pain in my neck and shoulders and arms and OH GOD I THOUGHT I WOULD DIE. Did I shout that? I’m sorry. Put your eyeplugs away now. It basically is a degenerative condition involving my C4 vertebra, which is odd, because you all know my aversion to bras, and I wish I had been kinder to this one. The good news is that I can take steps to really slow down or even stop the degeneration, and that is why I am excited about the plan.

Today, I saw my physiotherapist, Selda, who is totally not a sadist, so score! Over ten years of pretty steady computer usage (remember I went to geek school? I totally did.) and being unaware of my posture actually causes damage. Who knew? They should entirely cover how to sit so you don’t kill your liver in geek school. The geeks would be so grateful. Well, maybe just the older-than-the-instructors geeks.

Anyway, Selda was totally patient as she explained what was going on, and how I could benefit from the exercises. She told me what the goal of each exercise was, and how to modify the way I had been doing them the past week. And why. Why is important. I committed to 100% compliance to the schedule of exercises between last week and this week, and hot diggity, I saw some results! Small results, but it gives me hope. And my liver is gasping in exhaustion, but proud of me. Besides, I’ve been taking a product that is similar to glucosamine without the pesky side effects, and I’m convinced that I can keep this thing from getting worse.

So now that I have hope and all, I also have a plan to dig myself out of the financial hole the pain put me in. Well, that and that pesky trip to visit Skinny Bitch and get together with my father’s side of the family, including Grammie! We all love us some Grammie. It won’t take me long. I can do this. Shut up, I can. Ass Burger Boy is helping tremendously. On all fronts. I’m so proud of him.

And the pain in the butt? Has a name. Herman. (Thanks, Krissa.) We’ll address Herman when he is screaming for attention again. You’re welcome.