Every Saturday night, we’d go out to a nice dinner. There were four of us – the Fantastic Foursome – a group of giggly girls dealing with everything from single parenting to dating abusive assfucks, and there sat, week after week, a different restaurant each week. Sometimes, before we’d go out to eat, we’d watch episodes of Sex in the City, because, well, we were girls of a certain age.

I was the first to dissent. My new boyfriend, The Daver, lived in Chicago, and we, well, we were suburban girls. As much as I planned to bridge the gaps in geography, Daver and I were in the middle of that ever-so-sweet honeymoon stage of our relationship (well before the “I want to claw your eyes out with a hammer as you sleep” stage showed it’s pretty little head), so the very thought of NOT being with him was patently absurd.

I tried to make it back home for those dinners – the highlight of my stressful week – but eventually, the dinners sort of petered out. We’d bring Daver with us sometimes, but it wasn’t the same.

A little after that, Ashley – one of my best friends – met someone too, and for a spell, we’d double date. The only time, I should say, in my life that I’ve done so.

Shortly thereafter, a weekly dinner became a monthly dinner, and those became as unpredictable as my love/hate affair with Christina Aguilera.

Bored one night last January, I decided to, for old time’s sake (back when I had time), pop in my Sex in the City DVD’s. It was there, watching the impossibly irritating lives of those four women, when I realized how far I’d veered. I knew, of course, that having three children, migraines, and a wicked case of PTSD wasn’t exactly as glamorous a life as I’d once (semi) led. I sat there on the couch, mouth in the “catching flies” position, realizing how abjectly miserable I was. And how I needed to regain that part of myself buried under the mounds of bottles, nursing bras and impossibly tiny, yet adorable Playmobil pieces.

It was then when I launched the Bringing (Aunt) Becky Back Project. It was time to pull a Madonna and re-fucking-invent myself.

And I have. Started small. Even though I was still lugging around scads of baby pounds, I bought some clothes that made me feel good about myself. I bought pretty (read: sparkly) earrings and perfume that smelled like roses. I began to get regular pedicures, even though I’ve been certain that those women are talking about my gross feet. I took baths alone and tried to banish the guilt when I decided to dick around on the Internet rather than scrub my floor. Eventually, those pounds fell off and I burned my nursing bra.

I’ve managed to pull that girl back out of the shell she’d been living through a combination of being kinder to myself, scads of therapy, launching Band Back Together and Mushroom Printing, and picking up some freelancing gigs.

The girl who used to have carefree Saturday night dinners with her girlfriends may be long gone, but the person I’ve become knows that hanging out on the couch, wearing happy pants and a stained Purple Should Be A Flavor, Dammit t-shirt while watching reruns of Prison Break (read: documentaries about hot dogs), surrounded by love, well, everyone should be so lucky.

Because I am.

I sort of feel sorry for anyone stuck visiting me. Not because I’m not a gracious host (and I’m using “gracious” to mean yelling “get your own damn soda” while I lounge about on the couch) but because I’m a wicked bad tour guide. I’d rather tour the dumpster I used to get wasted behind than go and visit some of the more touristy bits of Chicago. Mostly because I find my dumpster more enthralling than the masses of people staring up at the Tall Buildings.

For a city who loves tourism as much as we do, we’re awfully rude about having them. I love nothing more than spoiling a nice snapshot by standing behind the lovely tourists and making inappropriate hand gestures while the shot is taken. I’d much prefer to take you to witness two mob bosses having a fist fight than I would ride the Ferris Wheel on Navy Pier. I’d rather take you to the dumpy pizza place, praying we don’t get diphtheria (AGAIN) while we nosh on the most delicious pizza ever created (even if it is a front for a drug cartel) than tour the Sears Tower**.

But my girl Crys is coming into town today. And while I’d like to be all, “Pranksters, come visit and we’ll go do awesome touristy things while I play World’s Best Tour Guide,” I know myself better than that. Because while she’s probably expecting to see Chicago’s Greatest Hits*, I’m planning to sit on the couch and make her fetch me Diet Coke.

In fact, I’m such a good friend that I’m praying she gets introduced to Chicago the way most of us do: fist-fight in the airport.

Because I never know I’m home until I deboard in Chicago, where everyone glowers glumly as they take off or put on clothes – depending on the season – threatening other passengers with their eyes to not fuck with them. I feel sort of sorry for my California-based friends who have no idea why everyone looks so pissed off until they step outside and realize it’s Balls Hot or Balls Cold.

It’s only then that I know I’m home sweet motherfucking home.

Welcome, Crys. Remember: don’t make eye contact.

*an oxymoron.

**It is not, never has been and never will be the “Willis Tower.”

————

PS. Am here at the Stir today. Also: here.

———–

Also: are you guys as lousy a tour guide as I am?

It’s time to talk tattoos, Pranksters!

In the eleventy-billion years I’ve been blogging, I don’t think I’ve ever taken a couple of days off. See, I’m too compulsive to do that. By noon, if I haven’t gotten something completely mediocre pecked out and posted here, I’m practically banging my head into the wall, yelling, “NOT WITHOUT MY BLOG.”

I took Monday and Tuesday off, not because I was frolicking around, doing awesome things with my Cabana Boy, Raphael, but because *flings hand against head dramatically* I was very close to death.

Well, no, I was probably not near death, but I wanted to be.

See, Pranksters, I had *cue Imperial Death March* The Stomach Flu.

I hate the stomach flu more than I hate cream-based condiments, smoove jazz and decaffeinated coffee (what’s the fucking point?).

I was the last one standing against it, too. Everyone else in my house had been felled by it and I was all LOOKIT ME, ALL EYE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING TIGER ON YOU, GASTROENTERITIS. IMMA MAKE YOU MY BITCH.

Three hours later, I was laying on the hideous tile in our upstairs bathroom, praying to the porcelain gods that they would spare me this agony and just let me die.

My cats, very helpfully, I should add in my most sarcastic tone, circled around me, trying to lick me back to health. Or, perhaps, decide where would be best to start gnawing on my corpse. I love my cats, but I don’t trust them not to chomp their way into my dead body to make a nice cozy home.

Monday morning found me in the ER for a couple of bags of fluids. I had dehydrated myself so thoroughly over the previous twelve hours that I couldn’t even produce tears. I hate going to the ER, but I was all, “I’M *wheeze* ALL *horks* EYE OF THE *splat* TIGER,” and then I passed out.

(I’m always pissed about going to the ER for things because, hell, I could give MYSELF a bag of Normal Saline or Ringers Lactate if I had the proper equipment.)

The following thirty-six hours were spent in a feverish haze, where I alternated between moaning on the couch and moaning in bed. The highlight? Drinking the most delicious blue-flavored slurpee in the world. Nothing, Pranksters, has ever tasted so good.

I also fulfilling one of my OCD dreams: I bought a carpet steamer. The excitement I feel over this is pathetic. I mean, who knows how to party, Pranksters? (answer: I do)

So this is Your Aunt Becky, telling you that I’m back. In black.

What did I miss while I was gone?

Before I get into the meat-n-butter of anything, I have to fling some confetti and bacon around. While the rest of the world was watching a very intoxicated James Franco (um, I’ll have what he’s having thankyouverymuch) on the Oscars last night, The 11th Annual Bloggie Winners were quietly announced.

Mommy Wants Vodka didn’t win. That? Was fine by me. Because Band Back Together did.

I’d started Mommy Wants Vodka in 2007 precisely because I’d so desperately craved the community I’d seen on other blogs and what I found was so much greater than I’d ever imagined. I’m the first person to mock blogging as narcissistic and self-absorbed but I’m also it’s number one fan. I’d totally wear a BLOGGING IS NUMBER ONE shirt while waving one of those NUMBER ONE fingers around in the air.

(mental note: pack NUMBER ONE finger for next conference)

Band Back Together represents all of the best bits of the blogging world: the community, the empathy, the story-telling, the feeling of same-ness, the support, the love and the compassion. A win for The Band is so much more important than anything else. Including bacon and sprinkles.

(I fully expect to be struck by a bolt of lightning from the bacon gods now)

So congrats and a big thank to everyone (and I do mean everyone. It’s not my site anymore. It belongs to The Band) who has worked to make the site what it is.

And watch out, World. The Band is just getting warmed up.

———-

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do next and I’ve realized that what I really need to do is to get some perspective. I need to blow the cobwebs and dust out of my brain and give my mind a chance to really wander.

It’s been so many years since I’ve really given myself a chance to do that. My choices have all been made with regard to the common good for so long that I don’t even know what I want anymore. I don’t even know how to begin to process what I want.

That means that I need to get out for a little bit. Live a little. Take a chance. Be brave; really brave. Do something different before I stagnate myself into actually believing that I do give a shit if my floors are clean enough to eat off of them.

I need to dust off my disco boots, fill my iPod until it’s bursting with new music, pack a bag and I need to go. I need to wander for awhile. Just me and the open road.

Someone mentioned in the comments that perhaps I wasn’t actually interested in self-publishing a book; that maybe I’d rather just take a “book tour” type of adventure, and I think that’s spot on. Shit, I’d love to write a book, but first, I’d rather know exactly what kind of book it is that I want to publish.

I need to go on an adventure, in search of My Happy. My Happy is out there somewhere, I know it. Perhaps it’s in a diner in New Mexico or a bar in Arizona or on a deserted street in Louisiana. I simply don’t know. But I intend to find out.

I’m tired of waking up and feeling bored by the drudgery of daily life. I’m tired of waiting for things to happen. I’m tired of praying that I’ll find my way; hoping that I’ll see a sign somewhere in the tea leaves. It’s time to make my OWN way.

It’s time find My Happy.

————–

I don’t have any timetable or route or any of those other “details” worked out yet. Hell, I still a laptop (and possibly a car) and a real, live companion to make this happen. In fact, I spent quite awhile convinced that Kansas City was actually a state (it is not a state)(nor is Las Vegas).

But I wanted to know where-ish you guys lived. Because if I’m taking a trip, it’s to visit with my Pranksters. You know how I’m always threatening to show up at your house drunk and warble “God Saves The Queen?” The time for that is soon.

The first step in Un-Slumping myself came from this comment:

Becky,

You were so kind when I posted a tweet about my mother’s cancer diagnosis shortly before Thanksgiving, I wanted to say thanks and share this with you.

Mom had a checkup yesterday after her first round of treatments. The checkup showed no cancer cells. YEAH MOM!

The shirts brought a smile to her face when there really wasn’t much to smile about. Today she broke it out and sent me this pic.

http://twitpic.com/431wrr

The smile is back; you helped with that.

Thanks again for your kind words and shirts!

So, YAY PRANKSTER’S MOM! Congrats!

Seriously, that made my heart smile. Thank you.

(Now I feel like I should post MORE pictures of you guys in your shirts. You got ‘em? Send ‘em to me. I’ve been meaning to start a page for you guys getting up to wacky adventures in your shirts. May as well be today, right? RIGHT)

(I give 10% of the profits of the shirts to a rotating charity. I’m thinking the American Cancer Society will be the next beneficiary. I have to pull a Nancy Drew to check their numbers.)

————–

So, the next thing on the Un-Slumping Agenda, was Self-Publishing. Now, if you don’t know, Pranksters, I am not actually a Literary Genius. I know, I know, you’d NEVER know it by my flagrant misuse of commas, the way I overuse the word “also” and how I occasionally invent words. Also: dangling participles.

You may be shocked and appalled to know that I did not major in literature. In fact, I did not take literary classes in college at all.

O!

No!

I was a Science-y Person who mocked Artsy People (I like my humble pie warm, with a side of shut your whore mouth ice cream, please) and their lax schedules, their twenty-page essays on “Bong versus Pipe, Which is the Better Pot Delivery Method?” and their Ultimate Frisbee Championship Tournaments.

That said, I had several friends (like my co-blogger from my first blog, Mushroom Printing, Pashmina) who were English Majors. She’d saunter in as I was frantically trying to cram the reaction of the enzyme 2′,3′-Cyclic-nucleotide 3′-phosphodiesterase into my oligodendrocytes and casually say something like, “Oh, HAI there. I’m going to the BAR. I just finished my homework – reading a three page essay on basket weaving – and it’s three dollar Long-Island night. Can I have three bucks and a pack of smokes?”

Eyes red with exhaustion and stress, I’d catalyze her reaction right out the door.

(snort)

(that was funny to about three of you)

ANYWAY.

So, it makes it that much more full of the ironic, if that’s the proper term (Alanis Morisette has TOTALLY fucked “ironic” for me. Is “rain on your wedding day” ironic or bad luck? I JUST DON’T KNOW) for me to be sitting here moaning about Being a Writer.

Pashmina is actually working in a hospital, having now completed her MFA in, you guessed it, WRITING. Also: my brother, who got his undergrad in creative writing/poetry – thus becoming the punchline to every familial joke for the past fifteen years – is now an engineer.

The moral of this tangent? DRINK MORE LONG ISLAND’S.

Also: LIFE IS UNEXPECTED.

Anyway, I think about self-publishing, and I cannot get over this story about self publishing, which was lovingly coaxed out of Pashmina, many years ago. The Story of Hester Lester, the Crazy Cat Lady Poet, the previous occupant of Pashmina’s apartment.

So, once I get over that, I will look into self-publishing. But please, tell me that image isn’t seared into YOUR brain as well, Pranksters. (also: I may do a video for you reading Hester’s poetry yet).

———–

Next on my Un-Slumping Tour of the Suburbs is this, an Interview I did with Modern Bird Studios. Interviews = full of the win. Especially when I am asked about my love of Rod “The Bod” Stewart and his wispy, angelic hairs.

———–

It was clear that I had not seen this picture when I was feeling Slumpy:

Because tell me that’s not the funniest thing you’ve ever seen.

———-

Lastly, this comment was full of the awesome. Actually, ALL of them were. But this one made me do a lot of the pondery-type of thinking that I normally avoid because it makes me feel like I need a Jauntier Thinking Cap.

AB, I know you have a far reach on your own accord. That goes without saying.

But I have to admit I have trouble actually identifying what, precisely, is your goal? If it’s to keep this blog up and running and stay on that path, then you’re doing just fine. If you want to make this into more of an enterprising effort, despite your volume of readers, you might want to consider attaching yourself to a larger program. Now, know that I recommend that without knowing what larger program you could attach to, I can make suggestions but I don’t really know what direction you want to get into, or if you’d be willing to make the compromises necessary to do so. And that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

If you’re thinking “book” and publishers aren’t responding during this recession/saturated market, have you looked into self-publishing? You have an established market here.

Let us know how we can help.

So, Prankster, I’m going to spend some time looking for a Jaunty Thinking Cap and trying to figure out what exactly my goals are. Clearly, they’ll have to pry my blogs out of my cold, dead hands, so I’m not giving those up. But I’d like to do something else, too. Something bigger. Traveling. Meeting you guys. Writing. Making a real name for myself. Doing something Epic.

But how? I don’t know. That’s what I need help figuring out.

If all goes well, and I don’t freeze to death like an overly-bedazzled, extra-large Popsicle, I’m planning to go downtown* for the Chicago Auto Show. You’re probably scratching your head, possibly throwing things around your living room a la Jerry Springer to express your outrage, because that simply does not sound like something Your Aunt Becky would like to do. And that is where you would be wrong.

I’ve been going to the Chicago Auto Show since I was a wee lass. It’s a Sherrick Family Tradition, begun many years before Your Aunt Becky descended upon this world, smoking cigars and barking out orders (that is how, Pranksters, my mother describes me). Somewhere, I have pictures of me as a baby – carefully held by one of the models that the car companies used to have by the cars – a muppet with curls toddling around in my fancy dresses, a preteen, a sullen teenager with my earphones on, glaring at the camera, and even pictures of me as an adult.

Between school and squalling babies, I’ve been a little busy and I haven’t managed to go in a couple of years.

When Toyota invited me to the first-ever social media preview of the Auto Show, I was gobsmacked.

You’re probably thinking, “oh, well, you’re a BLOBBER, people INVITE YOU TO THINGS,” and you’d be totally wrong. I’m the WRONG KIND of blobber, Pranksters. The only people who like me are the Car People because they don’t give a shit if I swear and that is fine by me.

That is also a conversation I’d love to have another day because I’m totally interested in what you have to say about it. ANYWAY.

So, I’m nervous.

I love cars. You know that. I’ve worked with Ford before for the What Women Want Series over the summer. Cars = rad. I’m not nervous or bored or apprehensive about going to spend the afternoon looking at them.

I’m picturing a claymation non-celebrity Death Match between:

Social Media (blobbers, The Twitterers, Facebook, Tumblr)

versus

Traditional Media (Newspapers, Magazines, Television)

There’s sort of a war going on between them. The rise of self-publishing platforms (WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Twitter) has really really REALLY hurt traditional print media (also: the recording industry). They haven’t been able to figure out a way to keep up with the times and stay relevant when people can pop onto Twitter and watch news as it unfolds. How can they compete with that?

Twitter, is free. Blogging, well, it’s (mostly) free**. Advertisers aren’t paying the big bucks to advertise and that’s where traditional print media makes their money.

(advertisers should really pull their heads out of their asses and realize that ALL of our blogs are, indeed, a good place to advertise.)

Traditional media is grappling with ways to offer something that’s different and more lucrative than social media. Traditional media has been reluctant to change. Traditional media has also considered social media it’s bumbling redneck cousin.

Traditional media has a point.

The crux of social media is also it’s beauty: it’s unfiltered.

There are rarely teams of editors fact-checking blogs and Twitter accounts for accuracy. For many things, that’s great: it gives you that extra emotional connection to the writer that may otherwise be missing. But it also allows speculation, rumors and outright lies to be spread without consequence. Sure, a “troll***” might come along and say, “hey, that’s not true, yo,” but one deletable voice in a sea of thousands?

Not that it doesn’t happen in traditional media too, but at least there, the fall from grace is much more pronounced. A blogger can just close up shop and eventually, we forget they existed. Or we don’t and they serve as a warning: “don’t pull a xxx.”

So that means that if I can shake this migraine (I have a double ear infection, adding insult to my toothless injury) I’m nervous of the reception I’ll get. Should I just show up wearing my Shut Your Whore Mouth shirt and a crummy old pair of boxers with a pork rib hanging out of my mouth?

Also: in Claymation Death Match, will they capture my Super-Villain hair properly?

So, what do you think about it all?

*downtown = Chicago.

**I pay a bit for hosting services and a couple of servers because I run Mommy Wants Vodka, Mushroom Printing, We Know Awesome and Band Back Together.

***there are many who consider people who disagree with them “trolls.” Generally, I do not.

—————-

Bloggies?

When I got this shirt, several things happened:

We had the “Storm of the Century” in Chicago.

I got nominated for a Bloggie*.

My sex appeal increased by 9 million.

Everyone I know* stopped wanting to hang out with me.

The last of which, I know, is only because they couldn’t bear to be in the company of such epic greatness without feeling sadly inferior. I mean, it’s a PURPLE UNICORN SHIRT. How can you not feel like you are somehow not good enough? Even I can’t tell where the shirt ends and the awesome begins!

So after I strapped on this beautiful purple unicorn shirt, I got an email from my friend Cecily asking if I wanted to talk to a psychic. I’m sure she sensed the shift in the Earth’s Gravitational Pull and knew I needed to hear what my destiny held. Of course I agreed. I’m a big fan of Miss Cleo and her infomercials.

I’d never talked to a psychic before so I was slightly nervous. What would this brilliant seer into my soul say?

Well, it turns out, Pranksters, this will BE MY YEAR. Without giving away too much (are psychic readings like birthday wishes?), I’m going to be a very busy girl. I’ll finally manage to sell my books. PUBLISHERS, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO CALL ME.

The psychic was eerily accurate about a bunch of details about my life and I don’t know if it’s the Epic Unicorn Shirt or what, but I’m feeling downright giddy about what the future holds and that’s not even because I drank five cups of coffee that I made with Redbull instead of water. Let’s get this book-selling-career-starting-unicorn-shirt-wearing-show-on-the-road!

Pranksters, we’ve got a world to take over and an internet to take back from Mark Zuckerberg and Jimmy Wales. I’m not going anywhere without you guys. And my purple unicorn shirt. Naturally.

P.S. Weather Channel, CALL ME. This is the worst map yet:

Ah, that’s better.

*You should, um, vote for me if you want, and, um, stuff. I’m up for Best Humor (I think they meant “funniest looking”) and Best Writing. And Band Back Together is up for Best Kept Secret.

**3 people

You’re annoyed.

You shift uncomfortably in the ottoman as you check the time on your iPhone and note that the doctor is now forty minutes late. You try not to think about all of the barf germs that you’re now merrily collecting on your favorite ugly pajama pants as your daughter, the one with curls like a halo begins to pull on her shirt, the one she insisted upon wearing, indicating that she, too, is highly annoyed and would like to take off this shirt and GO HOME, thankyouverymuch.

Your toddler son is engrossed in a game of Angry Birds on another iPhone but stops his game for a couple seconds to cough that worrisome I-smoke-three-packs-a-day cough that’s sent you all on a field trip to the doctor in the first place. You frown but quickly turn it into a smile. Even with this annoying bout of what you think is bronchitis, everything is just as it should be.

You are happy. Finally.

You think about the first time you were ever in this pediatrics office; nearly two years ago now. Your new infant daughter tightly clutched in your arms, the frightening MRI images of her precious head on the computer, the referrals to the new neurologist – one who will take your insurance – and you remember how you wept. In public. Again.

You remember those horrible, heartbreaking days well, although the colors are fading into the background, the sights and sounds and triggers all fading into a dusky shade of their former vividness.

You won’t forget. Ever. You know that on your deathbed, you will remember, as those are days you can’t forget, but now, they’re losing their power.

Life is moving forward.

You think of the year that seemed like it was never going to end. The year ends tomorrow.

All of those things you thought you’d never leave behind, all of those things have been put squarely to bed.

Those dragons have been slayed.

Certainly, there will be new dragons to battle, but for now, you stand with your daughter, the one with curls like a halo, proud and triumphant over the bodies of the fallen dragons.

A smile plays on your lips as you think of what’s to come. Of the people you’ll meet and the people you’ll learn to love. Of all of the things that you’ll do with the next 365 days. This year, you know there is hope because there is always hope.

The doctor finally comes in and greets you by saying, “I can hardly believe you’re the same people!”

And you smile and laugh, because you know just what she means.