Susan and her family attended her youngest niece's high school graduation over the weekend (Hooray Liz!) and came home to a house that smelled like dog diarrhea which had been baking in a hot airless environment for hours because Susan, ever paranoid of home invasions, locks the windows every time she leaves the house.
Was that sentence too long?
Well, she's not changing it.

The source of the stench was located behind the couch, a cleanable area. Susan walked away and let the husband clean it.
In the meantime, she sent the kids over to be nice to the dog who was cowering in the hallway with her tail between her legs.

As Susan listened to the sounds of dog diarrhea being cleaned off the floor she reflected on how how lucky she was to have a husband who takes on dirty tasks without being asked.

When he finished they retired for the evening.

A few hours later the dog requested to use the restroom by sticking her wet nose in a sleeping Susan's face. Susan let her out into a dark yard then went over to investigate the cleanliness of the crime scene while she waited. Gasp! It was splattered with diarrhea again!

It was Susan's turn to clean.

On Monday Susan knocked her son's brand new Old Spice bodywash off the shelf in the shower and onto her foot.
Ouch you m*therf*cker, ouch!
She watched as a monstrous red bump rose immediately from the instep of her delicate size 10 foot.
She wore flip flops to work even though Acme Sweatshop does not observe a flip flop dress code.
Every day she watched the mark on her foot get larger and purpler, eventually it began to reverse course and get lighter because, how much damage could 16 fluid ounces really do? By Friday her foot was back to normal.
The end.

Susan thinks she fell asleep in front of an Excel spreadsheet. Late in the day she rested her eyes for the teeniest moment, the next time she opened them three columns of information were missing and her head was about to crash into the desk.

She's fallen asleep in public before, but that was back in her twenties and she was usually drunk.

Her old man used to fall asleep in church all the time. He'd listen devoutly for as long as he could before his attention span gave out and sweet sleep came to rescue him. Slowly he would tilt forward in his seat until his head jerked back and he'd wake himself up. A teenage Susan found this horribly embarrassing and poked him awake as often as was necessary.

Susan has always been a BIG fan of the nap. The ability to remove oneself from consciousness for an hour is the height of luxury. The absolute tops.

Susan dropped off the map for a little bit to spend time with her folks and then recover from having spent time with them. Over the weekend she held her BIG happy birthday party, the one from which she banned all children. In fact, she banned everyone under forty and it worked out so well she may employ that criteria again. The day after the party she felt the full effect of having stayed up late enjoying her guests, drinking and smoking cigars.

Susan struggles with entertaining and tried to avoid the areas of previous party failures like not having enough food, chairs or ice. She rarely provides enough soda because she doesn't think anyone should be drinking it to begin with. In the past she's had to stop mingling in order to wash dishes, hunt down serving utensils and climb up on chairs to look for more red plastic cups.

This time she did as much planning as she was physically able to tolerate but still found herself making critical decisions the day before she needed to feed and entertain people. She abandoned most of the food she was going to make in favor of things she could purchase, and a trip to the health food store provided her with all sorts of options for the compartments of her '70s lazy susan.

She took Friday off from work to clean her pantry, it's not what she intended to do but it's what she ended up doing. Saturday was spent stomping around the house in a completely humorless state taking care of all pre-party tasks. She found the time to scream at the husband when the CD player stopped working even though she knew there was something wrong with it two years ago.

Don't say anything, she's aware that CD players are ridiculously '90s.

She cleaned the bathrooms, strung colored lights along the deck, set the table then jumped in the shower where she relaxed and unclenched her jaw. Susan emerged refreshed, put on her party dress and had a lovely evening.

In a day or two she'll tell you about the wonderful gift she had to hand back to the givers.

When Susan got up yesterday morning Wild Bill was on the couch under a pink Barbie quilt and her folks were drinking the weak coffee her mother makes. When she got home they were gone. Susan read the note they left, did laundry, went through a week's worth of newspapers, returned a few things to their regular locations and advised her son how to get spray paint off his hands.

Her parents were pretty good guests, they ate what they were served as long as they didn't think they were eating onions, garlic or peppers, they were nice to the dog even after she growled at Susan's old man, they even read one of the books on Susan's shelf.

During their visit both Susan and Wild Bill's daughter had birthdays so there was plenty of cake to eat. There was also take-out because the husband was away for three days and he usually does the cooking.

Even though Susan missed her company she quickly fell back into the rhythm of her normal home life and felt very un-TWISTED.

Saturday morning Susan, her little sister and their mother went yard sale-ing and OMG did Susan get some good stuff! Five dollars went to a stylish rattan handbag then another five went to a dead lady's black beaded necklace. Her biggest yard sale coup came in the form of a genuine 1970s artifact; a red, orange and gold ceramic lazy susan which she purchased for a dollar. Absolutely horrible.
It would be perfect for her impending birthday cocktail party.

Even though Susan's been planning her party for two months one very important component is starting to fall apart; the food. Susan researched intriguing recipes fitting the criteria of what she'd like to serve and has been roadtesting them one by one,
thus far she doesn't like anything. She has a week to get things together or she'll be mixing Lipton onion soup mix into sour cream and serving chips.

Anyway. In the afternoon Susan took a break from never spending any money on her children and brought them to the mall. The son needed sneakers and a soccer ball and the daughter needed shorts and a giant icecream drink with whipped cream.

The daughter's friend came along and Susan allowed the girls to shop without her as long as they kept in touch via text. The son didn't mind sticking with his mother for awhile which was a pleasant surprise.

Susan's daughter texted her location almost immediately. Good girl. Then she texted another location. Good again. Susan left the son in one store so she so she could go across to another.

While in the dressing room the son texted something requiring a response, so Susan sent a quick text back.

Then the daughter texted something requiring a response. In the interest of expediency and because Susan was in mid strip she phoned and got the voicemail. Susan texted Answer your phone! which solved the problem.

Little sister was headed to the mall with one of Susan's nieces, she texted wanting to know Susan's location. Susan texted back.

Then Susan's mother phoned wanting to know what everyone was doing for dinner.

Then Susan's husband called to let her know that he was on his way to the airport to come home from where he had been for the last three days.

Then Susan's son texted looking for her.

Then her daughter texted requesting that Susan come quickly with her charge card.

Then little sister texted looking for her.

Susan's still in that dressing room stripped to her underpanties.

Hugs and kisses from Susan to all her bloggy pals who take time out of their regular lives to write nice things and make her feel good every day.
Simple Jack probably best captured how she feels when he said
'You m-m-m-m-m-make me happy!'

Susan turned 50 today, hooray for her!

She cartwheeled out of bed and was greeted by applause everywhere she went.

What a day.

But really folks, it was a great birthday that started with a pumpernickel bagel and ended with cake. In between there were mojitos & a nap, Wild Bill's garlic soup, unbelievably fantastic mashed potatoes and fried chicken cutlets. Oh, Susan got a couple of good gifts including a brand new laptop just for her!

Susan's house guests took their babies and went back home. For the rest of the day she still heard them in her house even though they weren't there.

Susan likes having guests although she can't always adjust to having their stuff in her house. She found herself looking for a balance between completely turning off her OCD brain and collecting, cataloguing & grouping everything together in one location every five minutes.

During their stay they turned Susan on to

3o Rock and 992 coupons while Susan made mojitos and shared Fawlty Towers. After they left Susan occupied herself by washing all the towels in the house to prepare for the next wave, her folks in two days.

Susan's been writing late at night which has resulted in a decrease in her ability to think up funny sentences.
She's sorry. She wants to be funny for her modest fan base but her little BLAHgy paragraphs take up a lot of time as well as mental effort and she can't do any of this stuff at work because she's really gotten used to being employed. But she takes notes during periods of inspiration and tries to get to the computer before midnight.

Another problem comes from knowing who reads her BLAHg which limits what she is willing to write. Like, her mother. She could have gone in a whole other direction with that. Mothers are funny to make fun of anyway. I mean, wouldn't it be hilarious if she wrote that her mother was like the monkey who ripped the hands and face off that lady? Susan's LOL-ing just thinking about writing that.
But she can't because her mother would cry and that's not funny. Susan absolutely does not want her mother to cry, she doesn't want anybody's mother to cry. You know, because of her.

Susan decided long ago that she didn't want to be mean, just angry. Mean is better done in person when vocal inflections and facial expressions can be employed. Words are easily misunderstood if the right ones are not used in the proper order. Susan's much more comfortable with anger, it sort of fuels her day. Besides, there's plenty to be angry about.
Being broke is a scream, OMG is that funny!
TWISTED bad moods? Funny.
Farts? Funny.
The husband talking while Susan reads the papers? Funny.
Dentists, banks, drunk neighbors? Stop, stop! Susan is doubled over!

Enjoy your Sunday, guys.

For the third time this week Susan came home to a hot house and began yelling at people to open the windows. Susan exempted her house guests only because the regular occupants of the house are completely aware of what they must do when they get home; open the f*cking windows! Holy crap, how difficult is that? Surely they must recognize when they're hot. Susan feels like she's living in bizarro world with this bunch.

Susan's house is not equipped with central air conditioning, which is perfectly fine because she likes open windows, fans and cool drinks with ice cubes in them. When things get particularly brutal she jumps in the pool and floats around. She floats because she doesn't swim. She wouldn't mind learning how to swim except for the fact that she's really not keen on being in the water to begin with, it's a little claustrophobic for her. So, she floats and paddles and is very comfortable as long as she can touch the bottom. Touching the bottom is good.

Susan didn't grow up with a pool, she had a sprinkler.
She remembers being pretty happy with the sprinkler,
it was cold and wet and got the job done. The summers of her childhood included low tech ice pops made of frozen juice which she guesses were better than nothing. Sometimes they'd go to Carvel and Susan would get a Cherry Bonnet. OMG, Susan still loves Cherry Bonnets!
In fact, she ate one belonging to a houseguest today.
The husband tried to get some of it but Susan wasn't sharing and sent him away.

Susan had a bunch of nice things happen to her over the last week.

Every morning she found a happy gurgling baby and his big sister mashing bananas into goo and spilling Cheerios.
Plus, they were always glad to see her.

Susan's little sister, inspired by a particularly TWISTED tirade about a broken patio umbrella, bought Susan the most beautiful patio umbrella ever made anywhere, ever. Susan spent all weekend having cocktails, reading the papers and enjoying her guests in shaded splendor.

Susan's co-workers surprised her with a cake, a verse of Happy Birthday a fantastic handmade necklace and a generously stuffed card which Susan turned into her summer wardrobe on the way home.
She spent that money crazy fast.

Lastly, Susan received two interesting compliments in one day. The first was provided by a foot fetishist acquaintance of hers who said that she reminded him of Princess Diane. At first she thought that the deepness of her new turquoise shirt messed with his brainwaves but then realized he was just responding to her good breeding and regal authority. Later in the day a lady stranger told Susan I love your hair and admitted that she had been admiring Susan in such close proximity that she was surprised Susan didn't feel the lady stranger breathing on the back of her neck. Susan was flattered and excited to have a stalker, TGIF everybody.

Things Susan had forgotten about nine month olds:

They're naturally very charming
They have zero common sense. None.
Little chicklet teeth
Dribble
They topple over if not supported
They're comfortable being sticky
They yank out earrings
Everything goes in their mouth
They don't travel light
They are happy with whatever plans you make
Poopy diapers

Things Susan had forgotten about three year olds:

They talk all the time
Sometimes you can trick them into doing what you want
Bedtimes require pre-planning
They have something to say every time you curse
Chicken nuggets
Bubbles get spilled immediately
You push them on the swing till your arms fall off and still have to push them some more
They want to help with everything
They open doors without knocking and peek behind shower curtains
Their conversations can be quite elaborate
They're nice to pick up and carry around

Susan took a quick run over to the library to pick up

this book which was being held for her since last week.

She arrived to find that it had already been returned to the shelf and taken out by another reader. She placed it on hold again then went to get some cocktail party music for her upcoming BIG birthday party.

A few weeks ago she found Pink Panther Penthouse Party and has been on a roll ever since. Today she selected six or seven CDs that looked promising including a compilation of James Bond soundtracks which was sitting right out in the open as if it were waiting for her.

While Susan was checking out she overheard one of the librarians provide some information to a mom with a stroller. Susan recalled what a large part the library played in her life when the kids were small including the time her toddler son spread his little frame across the library floor and drew a picture which helped lift Susan from a notable depression. Some day when Susan has more energy she'll tell you about it.

Anyway, the mom extended her conversation with the librarian beyond its expiration date with who really gives a crap stuff revealing her strung-out self to be desperate for grown up conversation. Poor thing. Susan saw that the mommy was also accompanied by a second-grader and a husband and wondered why she was boring a librarian when there was a perfectly serviceable husband to blather at? No matter, Susan took her CDs and left.

As Susan was exiting the parking spot she saw strung-out mommy pushing the stroller followed by the rest of her family. Susan sat with her foot on the break as Mommy walked directly in front of Susan's car without ever glancing over in Susan's direction.

Susan waited for them all to get sufficiently far away then drove off.

It's after 10:30 pm and Susan has a very un-tired three year old singing in her bed.
She doesn't want to go night night, she wants water.
She wants to tell Grandpa she loves him.
She wants to know what Susan's name is.

Susan is doing her best not to respond to the unbearably adorable three year old who is singing about mashed potatoes and putting her bracelets on the table so that she doesn't lose them and drinking as much water as will be necessary to wet the bed later on. Earlier Susan tried witholding the water but was driven into submission by tears.

The relationship is new so Susan doesn't have an arsenal of things that will get the three year old to submit to sleep. Susan's strategy is to type softly on the laptop with the lights off and classical music playing through the TV while Miss Three relaxes.

Miss Three yawned while she was humming
then she kissed her stuffed companion
then she asked do you have Fly Me To The Moon do you have Fly Me To The Moon do you have Fly Me To The Moon do you have Fly Me To The Moon?
then she heaved a big sigh
then she fell asleep and provided Susan with a blog post.
Goodnight.

Forget about Sangria, Sangria is out, Susan needs RUM.
Rum and lime and mint and sugar and seltzer are the divine components which have been delivering Susan from a series of bad motherf*cking TWISTED moods.

Susan is aware that she's been relying more on drinking lately. In the name of keepin' it real she rolled on over to the the A A website to see how many questions she might answer yes to.
How do you think she did?

Every one was a big NO. Thank goodness because many of those questions were hardcore;
Need an eye-opener?
Having black-outs?
Calling in hung over?
Getting drunk when you don't mean to?

Who gets drunk when they don't mean to?

Anyway. Susan's glad there weren't any questions about her zealous observance of happy hour or spending money on liquor that's been earmarked for her family's food.

Susan's daughter saw a picture of Mick Jagger with his name in the caption underneath.

D: Who's that?

S: Mick Jagger.

D: His name is Mick?

S: Yes.

D: I thought it was McJagger.

Every time Susan uses the restroom she sends a little prayer of thanks to the person, or team of persons who invented plumbing. OMG, plumbing is so fantastic!

Imagine if we couldn't flush our bodily filth away?
It's too horrifying to even consider. Plumbing is the number one necessary component to any decent quality of life. Let's say we were all rich and beautiful and in love,
that would be pretty fantastic, right?
Now, what if we also had to live with our own pee and poop? Horrible!

Susan's almost gotten into fist fights with people who didn't pick up their dog poop from in front of her house, imagine if she had to run after people who didn't pick up their personal poop? She'd have to become one of those full contact fighters or risk getting her ass kicked every day and that's no good because Susan's a lover not a fighter.

Well, Susan's only a lover after her husband reminds her of her marital obligation, but you get her point.

Susan is lucky enough to have two bathrooms in her modest, architecturally bereft house. Two bathrooms means one is for her and one is for everyone else.
The one that's for everyone else has a wonderful vintage 1986 aesthetic; frosted glass and mirror shower doors, peeling flowered paper and big round lightbulbs sent into a mirrored medicine cabinet. She's got plans, but for now she just keeps it clean and stocked with nice smelling soap and plenty of reading material for those who won't just be in & out.

Thank you Romans or Greeks, thank you.

Not too long ago, like last Friday night, Susan pretended she was thirty and went out to a bar to hear a band.

For many years Susan was no stranger to bars and bands. No stranger. Her current status as a grown-up and positive influence to her children really doesn't allow for this sort of recreational activity. But, she doesn't miss it because she's able to get her drinking and loud music listening done at home.

A co-worker of Susan's little sister was the lead singer, the band was in Susan's age range, Beatles songs were in their repertoire and the evening was shaping up to be unremarkable. But, beggars can't be choosers and there would be Guinness on tap for one post-menopausal suburban beggar with a potty mouth and a big birthday coming up.

Little sister's childhood girlfriend, code name Hot Widow, met them in the parkinglot. Inside was m*therfucking LOUD, it was so loud that the bartender couldn't hear Susan even though she was screaming her drink order in his face. Eventually the band took a break and Susan got a chance to interact with her companions.
The crowd was mature. Was that Max Von Sydow in the back of the room? There were an abundance of nice boobs and bad hair. When a drunk grandmother dressed like Madonna tried to insinuate herself into the conversation Susan removed herself to get a second pint.

The band came back on, Susan withstood their racket until she couldn't tolerate another second and fled outside. Outside into the cool, quiet refuge of the night, under the illuminated Guinness On Draught sign. She wasn't alone, the bouncers and smokers were out as well as a highly stylized girl's motorcycle. It was zebra striped, very low slung and had long fringes hanging from the handlebars.
It was pretty. After a short time she got bored looking at the bike and walked across the street to buy a vanilla cigar at the gas station.

Susan stood outside smoking her cigar and signalled to her sister to join her. Little sister was out in a flash.
Things were much more lively for Susan then.
They shared the cigar and watched everything going on inside; the band screaming, Grammy Madonna bothering patrons with her drunk nonsense, a big unstable Lurch looking guy standing in Hot Widow's personal space blocking her view. What fun it was outside!
Eventually Max Von Sydow came out too. He got on his zebra striped motorcycle and rode off.

The band ceased their racket and the sisters went back in.
The band came back on and Susan went out.
She returned with beef lo mein and signalled to her sister to join her. Little sister was out in a flash.

The beef lo mein got Susan noticed. One gentleman inquired if she had beamed in from somewhere because the Chinese food seemed like it came from outerspace. Susan didn't want him to be afraid so she assured him that it only came from down the block.

This time when Susan was outside she saw a normal looking motorcycle on which rested a minimalist helmet with a HELMET LAWS SUCK sticker. Susan wondered about who owned the helmet and why helmet law sucked. Surely helmets only wanted to help people, not become the object of derision. Susan ate her lo mein, joked around with her sister and eventually the owner of the bike and helmet appeared. Paul. Susan asked Paul all her questions, learned all his answers and had a nice exchange of information. In the midst of their conversation Drunk Larry stumbled over and steered the sisters' attention his way with questions like are you as smart as you look? and have you always been pretty? Drunk Larry was funny in a charming and sad sort of way. Eventually it was time to leave so they rescued Hot Widow and went to the diner for some essential grease, starch, sugar and caffeine.

Susan attended a seminar one day this week instead of going to work.

Before she left, the husband handed Susan a modest number of bills for lunch money which she combined with what she had in her purse. She counted it then walked directly into the kitchen and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Susan arrived at the seminar, eyeballed the complimentary breakfast bar, signed in then made the acquaintance of those sitting nearest to her; Raul, Kim and Virginia.
During the first break she went into the hall to get herself a cup of coffee and maybe something to eat. She picked up a plate, considered her choices and was poised over a muffin with the tongs when a uniformed gentleman stopped her. This was not Susan's food, it belonged to the other conference room. Holding her head a little higher than usual she returned to her seat and ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The lunchbreak came, Susan packed up her belongings and was headed toward her car when Raul, Kim and Virginia invited her to join them in the hotel's cafe. Susan was charmed by their offer and impulsively accepted knowing that she didn't have enough cash for a proper lunch.
What the hell, she had more than enough for coffee.

Susan read the menu in reverse, searching for the lowest number then following along until her lunch choice was revealed; Soup Du Jour for $5.
Alright! Susan would have minestrone soup with her coffee.
A mature twist to the liquid lunch.

The four acquaintances had a friendly lunch with plenty of interesting conversation. The bill came, Susan pulled out her bankroll and Kim started figuring out how much each person owed by dividing the bill into quarters.
Susan couldn't do a quarter of the bill, she could do exactly what she ordered + $2.75 for a tip.
Um, I have ten dollars.
Kim accepted Susan's money and recalculated the bill. Everyone was very nice and Susan spent the rest of the afternoon filling up with gas from her minestrone.

Susan got up early on Saturday morning to watch her son play lacrosse. The husband carried and set up a foldable chair so that Susan would have a comfortable place to sit. It was a lovely misty morning, the field was surrounded by pine trees and Susan couldn't imagine anywhere she'd rather be than sitting with a cup of coffee watching her boy (whichever one he was, they all looked alike) in the full flourish of his youth.
Simple pleasures surely are the best.

Then the parents showed up.

They were unassuming in appearance wearing jeans and windbreakers, bearing Snapple bottles. They came in twos and threes, greeted each other and then took their place along the edge of the field.

Susan would like to take this opportunity to mention how ferociously she has argued with the husband over his need to yell from the sidelines.
You're not the coach, why are you yelling?
The son backs her up, We can't hear you anyway, Dad.
A compromise was struck; If he feels he must yell then he is to position himself as far away from Susan as is practical, otherwise he is to completely refrain from yelling while she is in attendance.

The game started and the parents yelled.

They f*cking yelled like they were being overcharged at the butcher. They yelled at their kids, they yelled at the coach, they yelled at the referee, they all yelled at once. The women yelled like men and the men yelled like baboons.
Susan was horrified.

During periods of inactivity the parents chatted quietly, one scratched his private area in full view of anyone unlucky enough to be facing him. Another, aided by his spouse, gave incorrect directions to the field through his cell phone. Shortly thereafter the game was called because of lightning and Susan was returned to her calm universe.

Susie Booty Humps wants everyone to give themselves
a new RAP name this weekend. She and P Patty Trip are just gonna be kickin' it with their gangsta ass niggaz Furious Seanny F and Wicked LL Money.
Maybe they'll bake cookies.

Susan wakes up each morning a full on TWISTED b*tch. She puts on her TWISTED b*tch face and stomps around the house making her TWISTED b*tch comments about everything in her line of vision.
Was that light on all night?
Nobody fed the dog again?
How long is that pile of sh*t going to sit on the table?
Is that a wet towel on the floor?

It's the husband's function as her life partner to receive the full force of her anger. Well, not the full force, but certainly a large portion of it. Disclosing every last thought in her head would likely be de-motivational for the relationship. In the same way, she doesn't want to know every opinion the husband holds about her. It's enough that she's got to be in the same room with him during the periods that she can't stand him. Like now.
She particularly can't stand the sound of his voice.

She would love to make a list for her modest fan base of all the things she can't stand about the husband.
OMG, she'd love to! But she won't because everyone in a committed relationship knows what she's up against.
On Wednesday we're plodding along being a supportive spouse and by Thursday morning we've reached our saturation point. Critical mass.
Even someone as special and giving and wonderful as Susan is given to fits of miserable TWISTED spousal hatred.
However, we all know that hatred signifies one still cares.

Susan was temporarily drawn out of her tiresome depression over being broke by this
NY Magazine article about bed bugs.
Thanks guys, you're awesome!

Susan gets totally TWISTED anytime she's near people doing things she can't do;
Buying new clothes? Good for you
Going out to dinner? Fantastic
Planning a vacation? Go f*ck yourself

She can't enjoy her favorite fluffy sections of the newspaper anymore because she's only interested in articles about people living in poverty.
She's been having trouble regulating her bad moods and has to coordinate them with the husband so they don't have one at the same time.

This morning she stayed prone long past her alarm watching a silent movie because she didn't have the strength to throw her legs over the side of the bed and crawl toward the shower. She got to work an hour late, forgot her pocketbook, couldn't get her computer working till 4pm then came home to a broken window (Mom, I fell in that hole in the yard and my lacrosse ball popped up and broke the window) and not a drop of sangria left.
She can't take much more.

Haiku

While brushing her teeth
She hears a rumbling outside
And investigates

Through the open door
She sees the husband engage
The man with a truck

The cars! she panics
Still wet and in a towel
She runs to get dressed

Hands shaking she thinks
Which car are they here to hook?
Or will they take both!

She calms herself down
And works it out in her mind
It's only a car

Dressed, she walks quickly
To join the husband outside
And remove her things

Wait, that's no tow truck
But a PODS container truck
Here for a neighbor

Barely averting
A f*cking heart attack sets
Her mood for the day.

Susan farted in front of a lady in the supermarket.
She ran back to get the two boxes of Pop Tarts she abandoned on the shelf and farted as soon as she got there. She didn't even know that she had to fart, it just happened.
Susan is normally flatulent but this was different,
like a little surprise puff of air passing through her anus.
It was almost cute, like a quick Bronx cheer.
That was quite unexpected she said out loud, not directly to the woman searching through the breakfast bars, but for her benefit. Susan took her Pop Tarts and ran away.

Why is it that nobody in Susan's house can;
Do anything without a television on
Lock the back door
Indicate that they've used the last of something by putting it on the grocery list
Refrain from leaving their fingernail clippings in the bathroom
Put the cereal away
Shut lights off
Engage in any requested action without saying in a minute
Feed the dog
Throw a wet towel over the top of something to help it to dry
Keep small electronics from hitting the floor
Hide the dirty clothes when company is over
Quit talking when Susan's had enough of listening

Susan's back to being a redhead again;
RR07 Intense Copper Red.
She cut her hair to within an inch of its life too.
It's so short now people say Oh, you got your hair cut instead of Oh, I love your hair cut.

Tonight Susan and her daughter made dinner together. Susan did most of the grunt work like shopping for tomatoes, scallions, parsley & basil then doing most of the chopping but the recipe and enthusiasm came from the daughter. It's got all the food groups as she learned when she made it with her Family Consumer Science class
(that's Home Ec, old timers) and only requires boiling the water for macaroni. Dare Susan bore you with the recipe?
She thinks she will.

1 lb pasta
2 cups fresh tomatoes
8 tblsp fresh scallions, just use fresh everything
4 tblsp parsley leaves
4 tblsp basil leaves
1/8 cup olive oil
4 tblsp Parmesan cheese

Chop tomatoes, scallions, parsley & basil, put them & the olive oil in a bowl. Set aside.
Boil pasta, drain (reserve 1/4 of pasta water) and toss into the tomato mixture. Add Parmesan, toss again and serve.
Feeds 4.

After dinner Susan was making fun of her son for misplacing his cell phone. He got even by reminding her of the time she put the rental car keys in a Slim Jim container and then had a melt down in the Florida heat when she couldn't find them. Florida is not a good place for Susan. Her first exposure to that sunny hell was when she was 15 and had a f*cking stroke because a palmetto bug the size of her fist was running rampant in the motel room.
Her second exposure was two summers ago when she took her kids to Disney and lost the keys.
The final time will be to bring back her parents' bodies.
Maybe she'll make her little sister go instead.

Susan had a very short interaction with a sheriff of the county in which she resides. She wasn't getting in trouble or anything, she just had to accept a legal document on behalf of someone else. As part of the interaction the sheriff had to write down a description of Susan including her date of birth, weight and hair color. Susan breezed through the 6-9-60 and 165 lbs but then hit a bumpy patch.

Sheriff: What color is your hair?

Susan: Um, it's supposed to be red.

Sheriff:

Susan: I know I'm past due for my L'Oreal.

Sheriff:

Susan: It was orange when I was a kid.

Sheriff: Let's just say brown.

'Mom, your breath smells so bad, I'm not even kidding.'

Susan was reading Jessica's blog, (she's very funny take a look) and Susan decided to lift Jessica's topic of her worst date ever and use it.
Susan's dating experience was limited because she went right from being a virgin to having affairs. In high school she didn't understand what going all the way was.
Really!
But, she did have two dates with the best friend of a co-worker which qualifies as her worst date ever.
This is what she remembers from thirty years ago;
Her date told her that he had a 'sexual problem' as Susan ate her salad,
When they walked along the street her shadow was like five feet longer than his shadow,
and she spent the whole drive home thinking of a way to avoid kissing him which she did by agreeing to go out with him again.

Susan's in between paychecks and got caught doing her food shopping in the dollar store tonight.
She stopped in for burritos and a bag of peppermints but ended up getting Hamburger Helper, tomato sauce, frozen cubed potatoes, green chilies, kosher salt and 48 ounces each of iced tea and a fake orange juice drink.
Horrified?
She would have bought more but she ran out of cash.
She went home to drink sangria and fix her third day of chicken leftovers.

Susan had a painful bump on her eyebrow yesterday.
A hot compress made it feel better but she went to bed knowing that it was the beginning of something bad.
She woke up with a real old fashioned ugly high school pimple, the sort of thing she would have taken care of if it were anywhere else. She hit it again with a hot compress, a dab of concealer, eyebrow pencil then threw on a distractingly large necklace and left for work.

She looked in a mirror every chance she got, it was getting bigger and turning purple. She avoided her coworkers and kept her conversation to a minimum whenever she was in their company so they wouldn't look at her. All day long she daydreamed about going home and popping that thing.

Eventually she got her chance then hid her work underneath a modified band aid.

The next morning it looked better but still required a bit of camouflage; concealer, pencil and multiple strands of wood and glass beads. She gave herself a headache from poking it every hour to see if it still hurt.

Susan was rewarded for being up very late the other night with a movie from her teenage past, Burnt Offerings.
She propped herself up in bed to watch Karen Black in all her '70s glory transform from wholesome mom on vacation to crazy lady in the attic. A creeptastic hearse driver was on hand to keep Oliver Reed from enjoying a good night's sleep and Bette Davis was collecting a paycheck for being cheeky and adorable until it was her time to die.

Susan made it through a good portion of the movie but
3 am is her cut off for being awake. Anything after 3 am and she risks having an anxiety inspired episode.
Susan formerly suffered from panic attacks, totally debilitating panic attacks which she controlled through sheer force of will. Really.
Since that time she carries around a certain amount of residual anxiety which she sidesteps by employing proven strategies, like not staying up all night long.

The last time Susan was on a plane she felt herself declining into a state of overheated claustrophobia. She adjusted the nozzle above her head and directed a stream of cool air directly onto her face. Immediately she relaxed. The claustrophobia, which does not generally reverse course before pushing the host to the brink of hysteria, disappeared. Banished by cool air.
Fascinating.

Well, tonight was the night that Susan was unable to join Bossy and her bloggy posse in NYC. She assumes that they were all able to enjoy themselves without the company of Twisted Susan and she'll catch them next time.

Susan likes to see her children getting bigger. She never wanted to keep them little like some mothers she knows. She never engaged in any boo hoo this is my last baby behavior because it's silly. She liked watching them figure stuff out. Giving up the breastfeeding was a little sad, but she wouldn't want to still be breastfeeding them. Plus, the breasts were sort of taken out of circulation for other things during that time period if you know what she means.
And you do.

She likes that they have lives away from her, relationships and experiences that belong only to them. She wants to see what they'll do because she trusts them. To a point. She knows that  when she's not screaming at two lazy kids to do their homework, feed the dog and pick their sh*t up from the livingroom floor, she's forming adults.
Susan accepts that they're not as cute as they used to be. They used to twirl and sing and jump and talk, and get lice and pee in their beds and trade away their brand new birthday toys to the kid on the bus and spill nail polish on their feet eight hours a day. Adorable.

Now they're sarcastic, dramatic and loud when they're not being totally silent. They're within sight of bringing home boyfriends or girlfriends and smelling like pot.
Susan's waiting in the dark lacing up the gloves.

Susan had the most delightfully entertaining conversation with Wild Bill this afternoon.

Earlier in the week he sent Susan a series of texts related to something about which he was a little apprehensive.
A few days had passed so Susan sent him a follow up text while she was running an errand. Wild Bill responded immediately! with question marks? and exclamation points! and wanted to know why she was asking?! Sensing some underlying hysteria Susan thought it would be fun to mess around with her brother a bit and was formulating an appropriate text when he called.

Without breaking any HIPAA laws Susan can safely reveal that Wild Bill's not like regular people his age. He's smart without being mature and everything about him is extreme; his views, his humor, the tone of his voice, his recreational activities, everything.
He's consistently maintained the same personality characteristics since he was five and can be tons of fun until one reaches their saturation point.
He has no fear of consequences and the more you try to get him to do something the less likely he is to do it, that's why it was so funny for Susan to find him in the middle of a full on panic about the possibility of impending consequences.

In the past he's told her I always bring a book to court in case I end up in jail.
Oy!

Wild Bill couldn't wait for Susan to text him back because he was hiding behind the sofa and had to know right that instant what she was talking about. Susan assured him that one Dumb Yankee Assh*le didn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world and he should redirect his time toward less paranoid pursuits. During the course of their conversation Wild Bill tried not to have a heart attack and Susan roared with laughter at her brother's expense then spent the rest of the afternoon with a happy smile.

Susan found out that she'll be unable to make the acquaintance of Bossy during her road trip through Susan's home state two weeks from now. Que drag.
Susan was apprehensive about being immersed in bloggy peers to begin with because she's still in fifth grade and everyone's better than she is. But, she was going to ask two old pals Margarita and On The Rocks With A Rim to accompany her just in case. Oh well, she'll have to see them another time.

So, what has everyone else been up to?
Susan's been sick which she knows is boring to read about because Sevedra told her. Alright!
Not another word about how she still can't f*cking SMELL or TASTE anything after an eternity! Oy, you've heard your last complaint from her on that topic.

Susan has been aware of American Idol noises coming from the living room. American Idol has never been watched in her house until recently. She thinks the daughter has been turning it on just to bug her mother because how could anyone possibly enjoy watching such an insipid show? Even an eleven year old? Susan, still perplexed by where Seacrest came from, googled him and found he originated from one of those Amazing Sea Monkeys kits in the back of a magazine.

Over the past two weeks Susan has received her music CDs from Dawn, and Meg and Cutie Judy! Susan has not yet listened to all of them because she's been a little funky, and not in the George Clinton way. She wants to have an open accepting brain to receive the musical gifts that were made for her. She doesn't want to run the risk of thinking I hate this shit, she wants to hear each song the way her lovely bloggy CD makers hear them. In the meantime she has made 2/3 of the reciprocal CDs but has not yet mailed anything.
What a loser.

She's getting ready to be a productive person again.

Susan's also been contemplating her impending birthday, not the age, just the commemoration. How does a person celebrate a milestone, alright fifty, on a budget without looking cheap?
Thus far she's come up with NO KIDS, especially hers.
The rest is under development.

A week later and Susan is still sick, she even went home early on Friday to take a nap in the middle of the afternoon. Susan loves naps as long as her brain doesn't use them as an opportunity to remind her of all the bad things that could happen in the world, or specifically to her. But, if she's living a healthy life and her anxiety is in check she loves naps. There's no day that can't be improved by a nap sez the husband and he's right.

Susan's kids are sick too, they came back from the doctor with antibiotics for bronchitis and stayed home from school for two days. The doctor also prescribed an inhaler for her son even though he wasn't having any trouble breathing, but because the doctor mentioned it the kid wanted it. Then the husband climbed on the inhaler bandwagon, which is unusual because he doesn't normally get involved in stupid arguments. Susan observes a zero tolerance for stupid arguments, unless she's arguing that position, and quickly shut them down. No inhaler.

Susan made another batch of her white bread chili and since she still can't taste or smell she doubled everything hot & spicy. Pow! It blowtorched her tongue and cleared up her stuffy nose by the second bite. Other than the sensation of heat and a faint acknowledgment of cumin, she couldn't taste it.

Susan has a recipe she'd like to share for home made Italian Cough Syrup which is favored by the daughter.
No pencils necessary, it's easy to remember:

1 tblsp LEMON JUICE (as an antiseptic)
1 tblsp OLIVE OIL (coats the throat)
Mix together, shake, sip by teaspoonfuls as needed.
If you're phlegmmy then add SALT as an expectorant.

God bless!

Susan has nothing to blahg about. Nothing.
There's not a thought in her head.
Nothing interesting has happened. She's bored.
Her blogging has been erratic. She still can't taste or smell and now her throat hurts. What a cruddy St. Paddy's day.
Susan is overpowered by funk.

Susan's had a little cold this week, nothing terrible but she can't smell anything or taste her food.
This morning when the husband mistakenly put sugar in her coffee she drank it instead of pouring it down the drain. She made a pot of chili with extra garlic and chipotle peppers but it may as well have been white bread.
Even her dog, whose smell Susan always has to wash off her hands after playful interaction, doesn't smell.

Susan thanks everyone for accepting this in lieu of a real post.

Susan's hand shot out and grabbed a jar of marshmallow fluff as she walked down the marshmallow fluff aisle in the supermarket last week. It wasn't her regular supermarket which made her sort of disoriented and led to the suspension of her regular rules about such things. Marshmallow fluff is outrageously sweet until you're in the mood for it then it's sugary bliss. And when paired with peanut butter a certain TWISTED person could sit alone at the dinner table every night with a jar of each and a spoon and get in trouble.
Susan's in trouble.
She's been eating sweet things
which means she's been craving sweet things
which means she's been eating sweet things.
Vicious cycle thy name is sugar; beautiful white gritty sugar spun into Fruit Loops and miniature Almond Joys
and red pepper jelly.

Susan hasn't grown out of her pants yet but she's been cutting off the circulation near her belly button.
Tonight she ate a grapefruit.
Tomorrow she'll start writing everything down and calculating points. But she's not going to meetings.
No f*cking way.

Susan was sitting around on Sunday morning lamenting the lack of anything to blahg about when, on his way to the toilet, her husband asked her if she'd seen the recent Architectural Digest.

I threw it out.

Susan loves magazines because they bring together her two favorite activities; looking at pictures and sitting. However, Architectural Digest is big, shiny and soul-less,
if it were lying face down in a muddy puddle in the street Susan would jump on it and keep going.

Architectural Digest made its way into Susan's life completely uninvited one year ago when the rotten publishing company that killed off her beloved Domino magazine substituted it for the balance of the subscription period. Oh, Domino!
Susan still has her last issue from March of 2009 wrapped in the original plastic propped up on a table surrounded by candles, crystals and incense.

Domino was all cheery sunshine filled with colors and ideas that Susan could incorporate into her own home if she felt like it, and sometimes she did. Domino was pure potential wrapped up in sedentary joy.

Never once did Susan rip a page out of that inspirationaly-bereft other magazine for future reference.

All this thinking about that other magazine drove Susan to her breaking point she and called up the rotten publishing company's 800 number to tell them that she couldn't stand their magazine and to please refrain from sending her any more. They were very polite and asked her if she'd like to replace it with another publication or would she prefer a refund? Susan said that she did like their Lucky magazine even though she was twenty years beyond their target demographic. They said that they would be happy to make the substitution and even tacked on another six months for all Susan's pain and suffering.
Indeed.

Susan's good mood at having Dawn and Cutie Judy and Meg send her some music has been temporarily obliterated by having to make nervous poops all the time because she got in trouble at Acme Sweatshop.

Susan works sixteen hours a day and sleeps on a little cot in the back but her boss still isn't happy with Susan's work. Susan understands that she's always in the middle of her own conflicts so she's not going to blame anything on anyone else, she's just going to figure it out. Until she does, she'll be sitting in the potty feeling like a failure.

In the midst of all this personal misery Susan missed her first bloggy anniversary! Was it really a year ago that her little Twisted Susan was all cute and brand new? Feel free to check out her virgin post, it's not very exciting but it was a start.

And, Susan's not done campaigning for her musical reciprocity project. She went to the library today, paid her $4.65 in fines and came home with a crap load of CDs, didn't like any of them and forgot to look in the magazine recycling bin, drats.

Susan needs some new music.
She's previously asked two of her three nieces to make her a CD and thus far all they've done is nothing. Thanks girls, guess who's Aunt Sue's favorite now?
Anyway.
Susan has a idea involving musical reciprocity,
if any member of her modest fan base wish to make a CD for Susan she'll make one for them.
Don't be shy bloggy pals, hip Susan to your fave music but hurry up because she's bored.

Karma blew Susan a kiss and arranged for her to be able to sit on the couch and spend ninety minutes with her new dandy best friend, Ruggles Of Red Gap.
No one except the dog was interested in watching a movie from 1935 about a English butler who ends up in the 'land of slavery' after his boss loses him in a poker game. So, Susan snuggled up to her favorite family member and watched an adorably charming Charles Laughton reinvent himself.
The End.

Sunday morning Susan got her family out of the house by 10:30 am and spent the day at the most wonderful place in the world, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Susan can't f*cking stand the sight of the husband right now. The whole f*cking day he's been irritating her in an undefined but very real way and she'll blowtorch the f*cking house if she hears his voice.

She first notice that he wasn't looking at her this morning when she spoke to him. What the f*ck's wrong with you? He didn't answer her inquiry but that was alright because she wasn't interested in his answer anyway.

They got into a little silent angry thing when he said that he was going to pick up the daughter at Brittney's house. The husband is always saying Brittney when he means Marina, which is where the daughter spent last night. Susan assumed that he was headed to the wrong house and told him so only to find that the daughter really was at Brittney's house. How the f*ck is Susan supposed to know anything if no one tells her and you can't tell the difference between Brittney and Marina anyway, assh*le.

A little later, after Susan mis-heard a portion of an anecdote the husband half mumbled to her he adopted a bristly demeanor.

The gloves came off during a conversation about what time they wanted to leave in the morning,
Susan suggested 10:30,
and the husband smirked.

Susan's response to the husband sounded similar to the way Kate Gosselin used to speak to her former spouse only with a lot of cursing followed by total silence.
All night.

Nineteen years ago Susan suggested that her little sister, brother in law and cousin Lisa accompany her to a movie. Little did she know that this Mad Max knockoff starring Rutger Hauer would win her an award as the chooser of the worst movie ever. Susan's companions didn't even wait for the movie to end before they presented her with a plaque, organized a parade and carried her around on their shoulders then made fun of her for two decades.

Even though their assessment was correct Susan's personal favorite most awful movie had already come out two years earlier, again cousin Lisa was present as witness. That one was a first date love story set against nuclear war and was totally unbelievable because Dr. Mark Green was the leading man.

Susan can tolerate a number of unpleasant things; dog sh*t in the grooves of her snow boots, enthusiastically chatty co-workers, having to dry herself off with the bath mat but she cannot endure bad movies.

She and the husband have a lengthy history of walking out as soon as a movie bores them. They even walked out on Sting in a very expensive concert although it serves Susan right for being there in the first place.

Susan does not watch bastardized Hollywood versions of foreign films.
Susan will fistfight her way out of a romantic comedy.
Susan has napped through every movie she ever took the kids to. Every one.

During her last visit Susan's mother brought a number of movies popular with people who don't care what they watch including one with two surefire elements for a new contender; Richard Gere and Diane Lane. Susan's sorry to report that it wasn't bad enough even though everyone broke out in hoots and hollers when Richard Gere died at the end.

The husband planned the most marvelous gift for his favorite valentine, Susan. He got up early, went to Home Depot & purchased whatever was in the bag that he used to fix the bathroom sink. Susan assisted him by stuffing a pillow under his head, locating a channel lock and holding a screwdriver in place for a few minutes. When he was done people were once again able to brush their teeth & wash their sudsy spit down the drain.
As if this weren't a wonderful enough gift, he accompanied Susan food shopping then made meatballs just the way she likes them.

Susan spent the day in her PJs, a combination of the
t-shirt she wore yesterday underneath her work clothes, minus a brassiere, plus sweatpants.
Very comfortable for having nowhere to go.
Every once in a while the son would come in to bore her with details of the game he was playing and Susan noticed that he'd check out her t-shirt lightening fast without missing a beat of his monotonous, uh, monologue.

Susan just fills out her B-cup and that's only because she's gained some weight in her forties, she used to be able to go without a brassiere completely, but no more.
An unrestrained B-cup is a little sloppy but it isn't going to distract anyone for more than a split second.

Up until two years ago Susan used to walk around the house without clothes, not in front of windows or company, usually only because she was interrupted after her shower, before she got dressed.
Her kids didn't pay any attention, they'd seen it before.

Years ago when Susan was pregnant she thought about the type of mom she wanted to be. She wasn't warm & cuddly, she was a little stiff and had personal space issues.
Susan wanted to locate her inner hippie, she wanted to be comfortable with her unclothed body and all natural-ish. She wanted to be like the pictures in Joy Of Sex only with babies and motherhood and stuff.

Susan figured out how to create a much less stiff self and after a period of total discomfort with breast feeding found that she kind of liked it. She was much better being the mother of toddlers than she was as the mother of infants even though she let her son eat a screw and her daughter fall off the dining room table. She liked being naked when the kids were little and found it funny when they'd have entire conversations while staring at her pubic hair. Slowly they got older and still didn't give Susan a second look if they found her naked in the kitchen making coffee before work.

One day she mentioned this to her social worker friend and OMG, Susan had better quit that right now! because she was in danger of making her kids all twitchy and ax-murdery. Later when she told her husband about the ridiculous opinion of her social worker friend he agreed.
So, that was the end of Naked Susan.

Susan's always on the prowl for a good blog,
kind of like hers only interesting and funny with big words and smart ideas. Unfortunately there's some powerful stinky blogs out there.
Stinky winky.

Susan declines to badmouth all the moms hitting the keyboard for obvious reasons but there's plenty of boring family blogs with misplaced apostrophes;
Hello From The Smith's. Ugh.
Double Boring Wedding blogs, we're in love!
Twenty-Somethings Living Life to the Fullest blogs.
Let Me Bore You With My Political Opinion blogs.
I'm Me And There's No One Else Like Me! blogs.

All the musings and journeys and ramblings and musings and random ravings and musings and Carpe Diems gave Susan a stomach ache.

Susan was reading Deidre's blog and totally stole her idea, um, was inspired to write about her own first crush. Susan was already thinking about using her first crush as fodder for a BLAHg post anyway but since she told her fourth grade flashback story last week she didn't want to tell two fourth grade stories so close together.
But, she's going to.

Sidebar: Susan's pretty sure that fourth grade was when she figured out that teachers generally call on the kids who don't make eye contact. So, whenever Susan didn't know an answer she looked right at the teacher and was spared.

One day a new girl was introduced to the class. Lynn.
Lynn sat next to Susan.
Susan shared her textbook with Lynn.
Lynn invited Susan to come to her house after school. Alright!
Susan would escape the monotony of her family for an entire afternoon.

Susan can remember the details of Lynn's house to this day; center hall colonial, front door opening to a black and white tiled floor, sunny kitchen in back, a spinning wheel in the livingroom, a big golden dog and a scary third floor.
Everyone in the family was very nice to Susan and even asked her to say grace at dinner. Say what?
Susan sat with her head down until someone bailed her out by reciting a simple prayer.

Susan and Lynn became quick friends and stayed that way for a while. Little by little other classmates elbowed their way in, Susan didn't mind until it became obvious that Lynn preferred another's company.

Susan was miserable and tried to regain her position by hounding her former best friend into submission. When that didn't work she'd cry, think about what fun secrets Lynn was sharing with her new best friend and cry some more. All her weekends were spent wallowing in her personal pit of agonizing sorrow until she eventually decided to knock it off.
Later when Susan embarked on a career of being rejected by boys on whom she had crushes she recognized the feeling; it was Lynn all over again.

Fourteen years ago Susan was sitting on a toilet with instructions to pee into a little cup. She was doubled over in so much pain that she couldn't even say
'Arrrrgggghhhh!' when she heard a knock on the door. Neither could she turn her head in that direction when an unsuspecting stranger walked in on her.
Or the next stranger or the stranger after that.

How is it possible to be in so much pain and not be dying? Holy crap! It's like all her years of menstral cramps were rolled up into a single contraction reoccuring every five minutes.

Eventually Susan got a stretchy waist band monitor strapped to her belly and found out that this crushing pain was normal for the circumstance. After pushing for three hours she had a baby. Susan didn't even think to ask what type of baby it was, she just asked for a can of Coke.

Three mornings later she woke up in her own bed, tiptoed to the basinette at the other end of the room and was almost suprised to find her teeny baby still there, right where she left him. She knew logically that he would be there but until she peered in and made visual contact she feared that he might have evaporated. This was made possible by a grant from Demerol, hormones, lack of sleep and regular old paranoia.

Keep your eyes peeled for related future posts;
Susan sits around with her top off all day long breastfeeding
Susan has a crush on her OB-GYN
Susan can't get out of the house before 4pm
Susan has another baby and learns how to cook.

In honor of Susan's son's fourteenth birthday this weekend here's fourteen things she likes about him:

• He's not mean
• He eats his vegetables
• He doesn't take crap from people
• Often he's cooperative
• He gets right out of bed when his alarm goes off
• He tells the truth much of the time
• His toilet cleaning skills are improving
• He's respectful
• He got into a tussle coming to the aid of a girl
• He's trustworthy within reason
• He's still affectionate, unlike his sister
• He likes to smell good
• He can be funny when he's not just making noise
• He's been the most delightful company since 1996

Saturday morning Susan's family did something they never did before, ever. They got up, brushed their teeth and went to the mall. Now, Susan's been to the mall with the daughter and she's pretty sure that the husband has been to the mall with the son, but they've never gone together in a pack.

They divided by gender as soon as they got there and went in different directions. Susan was happy to follow the middle school daughter around as she looked for clothes. She favors a wholesome sporty style so there's no arguing with her mother over fit or length and there's no boobs yet to hang out.

Susan spent the afternoon immersed in pre-teen girls, most shopping with their mothers, and saw that they all shared the same body language. First, everybody played with their hair. Many made eye contact but held their heads slightly downward and most moved as though they didn't want to disturb the space around them. One looked disapprovingly at another's choice in footwear, but Susan does that too.
Sidebar: Susan recalls eyeballing a fellow class mother in cleavage and heels during a trip to the ecology center at the local beach.

The son only needed wrestling gear and tee shirts with skulls, so he & the husband were done quickly. Most of their time was spent on comfortable seating in the middle of the mall. This didn't stop the son from texting
r u almost done? repeatedly making Susan move that much more slowly.

Susan was driven out of a stinky specialty bath and body shop by the intolerable stench of too many candles, plug in fragrances and lotions. She tasted the smell in her mouth.

Susan drank a seltzer while watching her family eat Food Court food then broke free long enough to fall in love with a pair of tall appliqued boots that didn't come in her size. She consoled herself by purchasing Patti Smith's book, and her beloved expensive decorating magazine then ran into a favorite girlfriend while standing on line.

On the way home there was a trip through Trader Joe's where Susan stocked up on a six month supply of Spicy Peach Salsa as well as bags and bags and bags of frozen dumplings.

The day ended with double sleepovers allowing Susan & the husband to escape to cousin Lisa's house for the game of unspeakable fun, Taboo where Susan discovered something that the husband can NOT do; give clues.

Lucky Dog

Susan's modest fan base is well aware that Susan likes to bake. Susan is in the habit of keeping a decorative box filled with biscotti for her personal dunking enjoyment. Biscotti is an outstanding cookie choice because they're good enough for company, you can't tell when they get stale and no one in her house ever paid attention to them. Until recently.

Susan has a short repertoire of biscotti she bakes.
No one gave them a second thought until she added chocolate biscotti with cranberries (feel free to refer back to this post for the recipe, it's very easy) and found her family lined up outside the oven. Of course Susan likes to see her family enjoy the proceeds of her baking talents but she gets TWISTED out of her f*cking skull when they eat everything up in one day. Susan has no patience for folks who can't control themselves and this goes double for the husband and kids.

Anyway, she shared her thoughts on portion control in her b*tchy mommy voice then removed the cookies from her family. She hid them and then was forced to change the hiding spot everyday because the kids have plenty of time to look for cookies after school and the husband can reach all the high spots. Unfortunately hiding spots are in short supply so Susan found herself stuffing the cookies into drawers where extra towels are stored.

Susan baked some chocolate biscotti tonight. As she put the ingredients together she included two teaspoons of cayenne pepper. Susan likes her chocolate spicy while her family does not.

Twice this week Susan has had a kind of flashback to fourth grade, she's only approximating that it was fourth grade, it could could have been fifth grade. Or third.
She thinks it was initially triggered by the fluorescent lights at work combined with the rain and maybe a teeny bit of deep internal anxiety. Anyway, her flashback came on and ended within a few seconds and took the form of a feeling combined with a memory, like she slipped back into herself as a kid.
The memory was of a trip her class had taken. Nothing really happened; everybody got on a bus, went someplace, sat around & went home. And they all got airline pilot wings in a little manila envelope.
Susan found herself experiencing a long ago insecurity, different from the way any current insecurity feels, and a little sadness. This was accompanied by a blurry mental photograph.

The second flashback was triggered by a lunchroom smell. It came and went so fast Susan couldn't identify it but she was catapulted back to the East Lake Avenue Elementary school. She let her mind wander to the classmate who ate egg salad every day for years, the ammonia that the lunch ladies used to wipe down the tables, her brownie troop meetings, the Mary Hopkins record she liked.

Susan was raised in a fend for yourself climate, things weren't all warm & cuddly like today. Teachers didn't fall over themselves to make sure kids were happy, Susan was scolded once for wearing a store bought Halloween costume to school instead of a home made one.

She remembers going to the beach with someone's mother and coming home fried to a crisp. How do you let a long white stringbean of a kid with orange hair get redder and redder without grabbing her to sit in the shade or slop on suntan lotion? There was plenty of suntan lotion in 1969 because Susan's mother used to bathe her in it. Well, Susan doesn't want to turn this into a grade school bitch fest although she's got more than enough material.

Susan had a previous flashback experience while she was sitting in the car listening to the radio. A song came on that reminded her in a very vivid way of the double married boyfriend period in her life. The feeling disappeared almost as soon as it came but Susan tried to hold on to it. She hoped to use the song to channel herself during that time and figure out why she found such an insane lifestyle attractive. She still doesn't know.

Susan worked up a total sweat trying to figure out how to add the little Bossy's (No) Book Tour square. She's draped across a chair fanning herself right now.

Susan is displaying an unusual amount of faith by thinking that she can even get out of the house to go socializing with a bunch of bloggers. And, it's quite possible that she'll have nothing clever to say when she gets there. Sure, her BLAHg's filled with plenty of nonsense if you like reading about meatball hysteria and mangled grammar and bags of Craisins. Susan hopes that you're thinking; but Susan, you're so fabulous and funny! While that's true, she'd like to hip you to her secret weapon; editing. Susan edits the living crap out of everything she writes because she's not this entertaining right out of the gate. Really.

What happens if she's in a bad mood on blogger night? Susan's got some effective tricks for bad moods, but bad moods are still organic & take on a life of their own. She never knows what she's up against until she's up against it.

Neither does Susan know anything technical about blogging. It's tough enough to weave her magic using words, she doesn't have the mental capacity to include pictures. Oy, pictures bring a whole other level of involvement that Susan doesn't have time for.

What if the other bloggers want to talk politics? Susan truly isn't interested in hearing anyone's political opinion, plus she gets Libya and Iran confused all the time although she knows where Yemen is thanks to a map from Doctors Without Borders.
Susan's tuckered out from all her negative projection.

The husband makes a pot of meatballs & sauce every other week. While they're still hot he runs half over to the neighbor's and comes back home to feed the other half to a table full of people. Leftovers are turned into lasagne.

The husband made Susan fall in love with his meatballs years ago. She and the meatballs were very happy until the husband had a little fling with a few of Carmine's meatballs and everything fell apart. Susan didn't understand the fuss, Carmine's meatballs were no big deal but the husband disagreed and set on a path to replicate them.
Susan was mad!
She yelled any time he made a stupid pot of sub-par meatballs. She refused to eat them.
She made mean comments about them.
She argued with everyone who said they liked them.
This went on for months until the husband finally said alright already! and agreed to make them only every third pot and to let Susan know well in advance.
Susan found this arrangement agreeable.

Now things are back to normal, the husband has given up his quest to make ordinary meatballs, Susan has simmered down and everything's good in the kitchen again.

Susan has been having trouble with her words lately.
Like, for the last thirteen and 11/12ths years.
She remembers the day she couldn't summon ceiling fan and found herself pointing upward demanding that someone turn on that thing that twirls around!

Sometimes she comes up with words which are similar in definition and other times it's words that sound similar. Sometimes all they share is the same first letter.
Susan finds it easier to start from scratch and describe the thing she is trying to remember rather than search her brain for the word. This doesn't happen just every once in a while, it happens every day. Every day a few words temporarily evaporate and leave Susan with an empty space where they used to be.

She's good with extrapolate and pontificate and obfuscate. She can play Bananagrams standing on her head.
She can read until the cows come home but she can't think of the word tomato.

For the better part of the last decade Susan and her little sister, their cousins and aunt have maintained a Superbowl ritual; they ignore it completely and go shopping at Macy's in Herald Square.
Macy*s is amazingly gigantic, totally immense.
Susan and her aunt used to work for unrelated agencies in the same building located down the block and became very well acquainted with which floor held what and where the sale racks were. That was a magical time for Susan who was fond of running over to pick up a pound of dark chocolate almond bark whenever she felt like it.
Whenever she felt like it!
Anyway. Last year Susan had to beg off because she was unemployed and didn't have the necessary money for train fare. That was sad because Susan didn't even have to shop to enjoy herself, she just looked forward to spending the day with her cousins. This year will be just as sad,
but it's not the lack of cash that's ruining her plans.
Her son's fourteenth birthday falls on that Sunday and there's no way she can use her hatred of all things football to get out of the house.
Susan hates the Super Boring Bowl like crazy. Last year she tried to read the newspapers through it but still managed to catch her family laughing like a bunch of a**holes at the grotesquely un-funny commercials.
For a few minutes she thought that the entire country had conspired to mess around with her because how could anybody think this sh*t is funny?
However, there was a little bright spot during halftime when she saw Bruce Springsteen teabag a cameraman.

For a half hour Susan was in a room with a television that was tuned to American Idol. This isn't something that's ever on in her house. Ever. She's familiar with the judging panel through cultural osmosis but she's never seen them in action. She will admit that she liked the juxtaposition of a cockney accent against the android perfection of Victoria Beckham. Or V.
Susan was struck by the the lack of depth in their commentary and their solicitous and superficial manner. The girls sort of nod their head to indicate that they're grooving along with the music.
And, where'd Ryan Seacrest come from anyway? It's as if he was left on our doorstep ten years ago and then mutated into the form we see today.
Alright, that's enough. Susan's done thinking about them.

Susan got the opportunity to see a Broadway play over the weekend, it was very bright and musical and Susan was all set to take a nap but the seats were too small.

Halfway through the first act a new character took the stage, he was very average in every way except for
his package which was unrestrained beneath woolen leggings. Susan's eyes did that cartoon thing where they pop out of their sockets and get really big like balloons then get sucked back in.

For the rest of the time the actor was onstage, which was most of the play, Susan could see nothing else but the dangly thang. The jiggly wiggly.

A chain reaction of thoughts started knocking each other over in Susan's head like; Was this on purpose? How could it not be? Did Gilbert & Sullivan endorse this unexpected twist? And, why wasn't anybody in charge of monitoring underpants?

The TWISTED Susan Family Annual Update

OMG, it felt like last year went by so fast when in reality it took an entire year to drag its sorry ass across the finish line.
Things started out with lots of excitement;
Susan was unemployed, her car got repossessed and the family lost their medical benefits. Wow!
But, laughter is the best medicine and, boy did they laugh. LOL!
Did they let any of this stop them from going on vacation? No they didn't. Twelve hours in the car got them a long weekend in North Carolina visiting the husband's daughters.
Susan knows that she's kind of making fun by insinuating that this may have been a less than glamorous trip.
She wants to say it loud & proud that she had a terrific time and hopes to be invited back again, although it would be nice to fly there.
Like all proud homeowners behind on their mortgage payments there were home improvement projects during the year. The husband hung some shelves and Susan bought new towels. They're looking forward to Phase II when they repaint a room.
Let's not forget about the kids, they had their own busy schedules of going to school followed by a summer of putting pizza rolls in the microwave and watching TV.
Susan served as juror number 6 during the home invasion trial of a drug dealer. She loved jury duty because it was like criminal justice theatre. Plus, she had nothing else to do and they paid her $40 a day.
There were blessings for the family too, and everyone knows just how much Susan adores the word blessings. She can't hear it enough.
Blessings.
In an economically desolate environment Susan got herself a new job. And eventually a new car payment. And payroll deducted medical benefits. And contributions to a 401(k). Then the IRS played a little trick on them, but it was all in good fun and everyone had a big laugh. LOL again!
There was a visit from Wild Bill which is always fun and frustrating and maybe a little chaotic. This trip he delivered his daughter safely back to her New York family.
To stay, hooray!
The year ended with a coupla things and blah, blah, blah.
The end.