The Daver: “Baby, what’s wrong? You haven’t asked me all night how I rate your awesomeness level.”

Aunt Becky (despondently): “I’m just feeling…so…sad.”

The Daver: “Aw, why?”

Aunt Becky (listlessly draws in circles on table in front of her): “Well, I’m pretty sure that none of my television husbands even know I exist. I pine for Dr. House night after night, and still, he’s never even once responded to my advances.”

The Daver: “It’s just because he doesn’t know you.”

Aunt Becky: “And Dexter, DEXTER, Dave. I never thought I’d say that I wish I had a friend who was a serial killer, but I do. I want to have a friend who is a serial killer. Like Dexter! (pounds table) I want Dexter to be my friend!”

The Daver: “Baby, if he knew you, he’d want to be your friend.”

Aunt Becky (looks up at him hopefully): “You really think so?”

The Daver: “Of course. Who WOULDN’T want to be friends with a creepy internet person who blogs about her television husbands?”

Aunt Becky: “When you put it like that, I mean, of COURSE he’d be my friend! I’m a shoo-in for his BEST friend. And then, I just know he’d want to marry me. It’s a very logical step.”

The Daver: “Clearly.”

Aunt Becky: “I think I need to expand my cadre of boyfriends to include some new genres. I’m thinking I need a rock-star boyfriend now.”

The Daver (has left the conversation and is busily typing on his Blackberry)

Aunt Becky: “I follow some on Twitter. Ice-T and David Cook. Those are my next boyfriends…(trails off)

Aunt Becky: “Look out, gentlemen, I have you in my sights. I’ll be the cheese to your macaroni. The Fun to your Fetti.”

The Daver: “Wait, I though it was just David Cook’s Fanclub that followed you on Twitter.”

Aunt Becky: “Semantics, Daver. Who gives a shit? Either way, he is my new boyfriend. *pumps fists* All that remains is me telling him that we are now officially dating. Also, did you know that David Cook was my best friend growing up? TRUE STORY. We shared the sandbox for years.”

The Daver: “And to think, you could have had fame and fortune…”

Aunt Becky: “Yeah, well, Twitter and I are getting the DISCO band back together just as soon as I get my vocoder. Then I, too, will be famous for being in our ALL GIRLS disco band.”

The Daver: “You go ahead with your dreams, baby. Don’t let anyone get in your way.”

Aunt Becky: “Are you…are you ROLLING YOUR EYES at me?”

The Daver: “I would never mock something you were so serious about. Your unrequited love for people who you don’t know that you’re going to go off and marry is one of those things I couldn’t DARE mock you for.”

The Daver: “Much.”

Pashmina lived down the hall from me and was one of the original merry pranksters (although we never called ourselves that). While SHE was blessed with a fucking awesome roommate, my own roommate, It Means Butterfly was about as passive-aggressive as they come. So rather than deal with her bullshit, I escaped to Pashmina’s room whenever possible.

Mostly to steal her booze and smoke, but you know.

Along with Pashmina, the Merry Pranksters included James, who was an RA on another floor. On James’ floor, he had a kid who had a brother who was a bouncer at a club. That kid, in exchange for…something, gave Pashmina and I fake ID’s.

I think we were supposed to give him money, but I never did because that’s the way I rolled.

The bar down the street was a college bar and pretty much so long as you showed them AN ID, they didn’t so much care if your picture showed that it you were actually Sasquatch.

But we were 19, and the ID I took showed a girl who was 30. On my best days, even now, I don’t look 30. She was also 5 foot 10 inches tall, and I’m, well, not. I’m 5’5″ and really, even in heels, I’m not like a commanding presence.

Her name was Arhontia, and she was very, very Greek. But Greek, is another one of those Middle Eastern ethnicities I can typically pass for, if you think about it really hard. But we decided that the best way to get me to pass for a 30 year old tall Greek lady was to pile on the makeup.

James immediately volunteered. So I let a not-out-of-the-closet-at-the-time-guy at my face with a makeup kit not designed for my face for my first ever trip to a bar. I sat there as the make-up was piled on. And on. And on. And on. And on.

I couldn’t see my face, but being the kind of person who wore makeup approximately 4 times a year, I began to panic slightly. But James seemed pretty happy to be working on my face, so I said nothing. Not that I could have, considering he was piling SOMETHING on my lips.

After about 30 minutes, he pronounced me done. My face felt sort of waxy and strange, but I went with it as I made my way over to the mirror to check it out.

What I found staring back at me was Aunt Becky, The Drag Queen.

Sort of like this:

Except that’s a Halloween costume. No, really, that’s me getting ready for Halloween.

Anyway. I looked exactly like a fucking drag queen. Heavy eyeliner, flourishy blush, thick, pancake foundation and lipstick that made me look like I’d just made out with a bowl of cherries. It was bad. Funny, but bad.

He scampered off before I could complain, luckily.

Because I found out later that the reason that I looked like a drag queen is because he’d had plenty of experience making up men to look like women. Several male members of his immediate family, in fact, had used his services to make them look like women over the years.

Which would be why I looked as though I’d walked off the set To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Aunt Becky.

Needless to say, it worked.

Now I need to strong arm Pashmina into telling the bar stories. They were awesome.

—————–

And? Today was the day for interviews!

I am here at my friend Miss Spoken’s bloggity-blog.

and here! at my home-slice Chris’s blog (Great Moment’s in Christory)(*giggles*).

Both blogs are full of The Awesome and warrant a read. And not just because I am ON THEM AS WE SPEAK, although that makes them DOUBLY awesome, I admit.

I stole a lot of your material from your blog. Now I have herpes. What happened?

P.S. I am a virgin. So is my 16-yr old daughter.

You know what confuses me most? I am a virgin too. I was explaining this to my doctor when I got pregnant with Amelia and she rolled her eyes at me! I thought that was very nervy of her because it’s very obvious that I am a pure, pure girl.

And I also have The Herpes. Well, okay, I don’t, but I was trying to make you feel better about yourself and your diseased crotch.

But perhaps stealing my very important and obviously awesome (and by awesome I mean I should probably not quit my day job)(wait, I don’t have a day job) content is a bad thing. Because stealing content is what gave you herpes. Maybe you should give me tens of thousands of dollars as an apology so that your crotch goes back to normal. Then your herpes will go away.

P.S. Give me money.

Do you let your kids watch cartoons? How do they feel about the new computer generated graphics vs. the old hand drawn cartoons? Personally, I can’t stand the new Disney characters that are CG, even if they are slightly 3-dimensional. I was just wondering how an actual child felt about them.

I am going to guess that my family is not going to give you the normal spectrum of answers because my kids are full of weirdness and quirks. Which, I mean, with me as their mother, you can’t really blame them for.

Ben, the 8 year old, will succumb to peer pressure of the kids in his age bracket and watch a CG movie if they’re watching it. Otherwise, getting him to watch a movie is kind of like getting him to get a root canal. Actually, he’d probably prefer the root canal.

But, like I said, if his friends are doing it, he’ll do it. Likewise, if his 2 year old BROTHER is doing it, he’ll do it too.

Alex is 2. 2 year old’s that come forcibly ejected from my nether bits tend to be as stubborn as the day is long (whatEVER that means). Roughly translated, if I put his dinner on the wrong plate, he won’t eat it. So there’s a couple of videos he’ll watch, and that’s it. (I’m betting some of you are frantically reaching for your birth control pills right now)

Some of them ARE CG, though, but not to the exclusion of others.

And Mimi? I think she’s too busy beating on her brothers to notice.

What, praytell, does the tooth fairy bring to your house? How does she do the exchange without waking the kid? And why does that wiggly tooth make me want to throw up?

Thank the sweet merciful Lord in heaven that Ben sleeps like a stone. My other two, not so much, so when they start losing their wee teeth, I’m going to have to come up with some better solution than clomping in there half-asleep because I’d woken up from a dead sleep, panicked because I’d forgotten to leave a couple of bucks for my kid.

Now, Ben isn’t greedy and could give a shit what the Tooth Fairy brings to him, so I keep it at a couple of bucks. I could probably give him a shiny quarter, if it weren’t for his freakish memory. He’s the kid who is all “remember when we ate the red potatoes on the day that the snow piled exactly 4.3 inches high?”

And I’m like, “uh, and how is it that you can’t remember to wash your hands after you use the fucking bathroom?”

But this is neither here nor there (autistic people have amazing recall, something I could stand to borrow right about now).

So, HEED MY WARNING: once you give a dollar amount, you will be stuck with that amount, amazing memory regardless. Start SMALL, my friend.

And I get heebie jeebies with eyeball stuff, not so much with the teeth. *shudders*

Hey Aunt Becky,

My friend of eleven years has recently cut off contact with me. She’s blocked me on all social media sites (facebook, AIM, stopped following my blog, etc.). I’m not quite sure what prompted this. She was my best friend in high-school and a good portion of college, and then she started dating this guy.

You had to know a boy was involved, right? Well, he’s a scumbag. He’s not quite right in the head, and he has no respect for her or her friends. I told her when she started dating him that I didn’t like him and that I thought he was bad for her. She later found a few suspect text messages on his cell phone (to another woman…and they were of the ‘if you were here I’d so totally be making the sex with you’ variety), and they broke up…for a week and a half. She took him back, and they’ve been together ever since. She’s convinced that he’s going to propose to her soon. Urg.

And so that was that.

Since that point, we’ve been drifting apart. Almost to the point where we would only speak to each other about once a month. But, I figured that it was because we are both busy – I’m constantly job hunting, and balancing a full-time job with volunteering; she just started a new job, and she just moved. And then the blocking occurred.

So I’m just kind of left in limbo. I know that we’ve been distanced for a while, and I can accept that that might be why she’s cut off contact. But I feel as if I’ve done something (when I haven’t). What’s worse is that one of our mutual friends has also blocked me – I’m scared that all of our mutual friends will follow suit. I shot her an e-mail asking her what was up, but she hasn’t responded.

Help?

-Nyx, aka Confused and Less Two Friends

Oh Nyx, I’m so sorry. What your friend did was a shitty, low-ball thing to do and no matter what perceived wrong you did to her, that’s a really immature way for her to handle it. As adults, we should behave, well, like we’re adults and not like we’re 12 again, and you did the mature thing by trying to figure out what was going on.

What you have to do now is to accept that whatever happened is done and that it’s not your fault. Even if it is, you’re not the one who handled it like a jackass, the both of them are. The mature thing to do isn’t to hide behind not returning emails, it’s to respond, face up to problems, and then move on.

I’ve had this happen with two of my former best friends before (one was supposed to stand up in my wedding as my maid of honor and just stopped returning my calls. I’ve not heard from her again) and it sucks. You’ll probably never know what you did “wrong,” and whether it was “wrong” is a matter of personal opinion.

What I’ve tried to do (especially since one of them stalks my blog) is accept that you won’t ever know what exactly you did, and that anyone who so blatantly disregards you and your feelings isn’t really worthy of your time or energy. It’s sad and it’s hard and I’m sorry.

In this case, don’t beat yourself up too much, okay?

xoxo,

AB

——————

As always, please fill in where I left off in the comments, yo.

OH!

BlogHer ’10 is coming to NYC this summer and some of the Mouthy Housewives and me!! have put together a proposal for a room, called Dear Abby 2.0: Giving Advice in the Blogosphere. We will tell you everything you need to know about creating a successful internet advice site, all while eating bon bons and swilling vodka. It’ll be a lot of laughs, and a fun discussion for sure.

Please help us bring this session to BlogHer! Whether you plan to be there or not, you can vote by going here, logging on to BlogHer and then clicking “I would attend this session” (it’s just above the title: Dear Abby 2.0). After you click it it will miraculously say, “I would not attend this session.” This means that your vote for the session has been successfully registered. Thank you!

My typical emotional continuum ranges something like this:

I need a damn nap <-> Where is my Britney CD? <-> I can haz cheeseburger?

The elements change places somewhat, but really, I have the emotional range of a turnip and the depth of a small puddle of mud. I’ve always considered this to be something of a bragging point.

When I stuck my toe into the waters of mental health this summer before realizing that my mental health benefit blows ass, I made mention of this to my therapist, and rather than giving me a nice purple lollipop, he seemed alarmed.

Apparently, requiring a stunt double to cry isn’t a good thing.

Anyway, the one thing I learned in my appointment is that I needed to start at square one and relearn all about emotions. Nothing makes you feel more like Gimpy the Clown than realizing that you don’t know anything about actual emotions.

Perhaps I should go back to preschool and relearn colors too (because I’m colorblind too).

(shut up)

(no, really, shut up)

Part of Bringing Aunt Becky Back is trying to figure out who I am now.

My life took a different path when I inadvertently got knocked up with my firstborn at age 20. While my friends (and ex-boyfriend, his father insert other term here) were out crawling bars, I was dealing with colic, late night feeds, and a special needs child.

I scrapped my life’s plans to go to nursing school, which I hated. I graduated with high honors anyway. Got married, and domesticated, even though I’d never wanted that either. Stayed at home where I’d always wanted to be the one who did something else with her life.

I’ve never, ever done the things I wanted to do because it never made sense. I’m not sad about it, and I’m not sorry about it.

These are all facts, pure and simple. Dave knows them, I know them, everyone knows them.

But I’ve also never given myself the chance to feel anything about it. There are people in the world with no feet, after all, so how could I feel sad that I ended up where I put myself?

I should have given myself the opportunity to grieve the dreams that I gave up to do something else. Even if other people would kill to be where I am, I am not other people.

I can feel a change coming down the line. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that nothing is permanent except for change, and what I’m going through right now is growing pains. Something big is on the horizon. I can feel it.

Or maybe it’s just a cheeseburger and a nap.

Oh. And I want that purple lollipop now.

I know I’ve told you about the nasty note that I got when I was in 3rd grade. It was from my friend Becky, and while she wasn’t actually mad at me, it was kind of mean. I may never remember my phone number properly (also: bite me Topamax), but I can tell you that her note read:

Dear Becky,

I like you a little bit, but it grows smaller every day.

Love,

Becky

That she signed it “Love, Becky” proved that she didn’t really mean it and we were friends again within a couple of weeks, because that’s life when you’re 8.

Throughout the years there have been plenty of people who didn’t like me, and mostly, it hasn’t bothered me. I took great pride when I found “BECKY SHERRICK IS A BITCH” written on a desk in high school, because who wouldn’t? I mean, I consider that sort of high praise, which is probably what the writer intended, since it was written on the desk I always sat in.

Occasionally, my ass will chafe when I’m accused of something I didn’t do or someone will blatantly say something they don’t think I’ll see (note to Twitter: @-ing me means I see it). But if you don’t like me, well, that’s well within your right. I don’t have to like you either.

But I’m 29, not 8, and having people be MEAN to me isn’t something that ruins my day.

Turns out that my kid, my sweet autistic 8 year old, the kid who was born without a mean bone in his body, is being bullied again. And that, well, that chaps my balls and makes my blood boil.

Perhaps, I wasn’t suited to be the one to have the conversation with my son.

Aunt Becky: “So what’s this punk doing to you?”

Ben: “He’s trying to upset me. He’s mean to me.”

Aunt Becky (rifles through empty brain cavity trying to match this with a solution): “Okay, so here’s the thing with bullies: you have to figure out what they’re trying to do, okay?”

Ben: “…..”

Aunt Becky: “You know, if they’re trying to make you cry, or make you feel bad, or make you mad or whatever. Right? Because he’s trying to get a reaction out of you.”

Ben: “OKAY! I get it!”

Aunt Becky (thanks God for having an older brother and therefore frame of reference): “Once you figure out the reaction, DON’T GIVE IN TO IT. Don’t bother getting upset. That doesn’t do any good. Being mad? What good does that do? Nothing. Crying? Solves nothing.”

Ben: “Okay, so the first step is to figure out what they’re trying to do.”

Aunt Becky: “Yes. Then, don’t do it.”

Ben: “Okay.”

Aunt Becky: “Then? You get even.”

Ben: “….”

Aunt Becky: “Not like, being mean BACK, but by telling the teacher or telling your mom, or telling the playground monitor, or telling an adult. You can’t let him get away with it! You have to stand up for yourself, Ben. You HAVE to.”

Ben: “Step one, figure out what he’s trying to do, step two, don’t do it, step three, get even. By telling an adult!”

Aunt Becky: “Yes.”

Ben: “I got it!”

Ben scampers off to play with his siblings.

(Later)

Aunt Becky: “So I told Ben how to deal with his bully.”

The Daver: “Oh yeah?”

Aunt Becky: “That bullshit our parents always spouted about ‘walking away’ was such crap. I mean, it never helped us learn anything about handling conflict. Kids can be such assholes.”

The Daver: “No shit.”

Aunt Becky: “So I taught him ‘don’t get mad, get even!'”

The Daver: “WHAT?”

Aunt Becky: “Well, yeah.”

The Daver: “Becky, you didn’t.”

Aunt Becky: “Not like with a machine gun. More like as a catch phrase. ‘Don’t get mad, get even by telling the teacher.’ You know Ben, he won’t tell the teacher anything.”

The Daver: *phew*

Aunt Becky: “Besides, he can remember phrases like that.”

The Daver: “Good call.”

I also put a call in to his teacher and am waiting on a call back. You know, this is the kind of stuff I always want to tell the new parents I see worrying over the car seats in the baby aisle at Target. Like, ‘ENJOY THIS!’ because it gets so much harder.

Colic was bad, but this, this hurts your soul and there isn’t jack you can really do to make it better. There’s no zantac for the heartbreak.

So Bully-Kid, wherever you are, you’d better lay the fuck off my kid. Because I don’t care what weakness you smell in him, he’s a thousand times stronger than you’ll ever be.

So back off.

One of the big things I was going to do this year, besides my normal To Do list which consists of “Survive,” was to start to pull myself out from behind the diaper pail and figure out who the hell I was now. Thanks to various circumstances, I’ve been kind of trapped in the house for one reason or another for the past three years.

While I haven’t reached Howard Hughes levels of creepiness by keeping my urine in jars, or growing out my finger nails to freakish lengths, it’s not been easy for me. I wasn’t cut out for this stay-at-home life style, and if I could figure out what it IS that I was good at besides, you know, being independently wealthy and shopping all the time, I’d do it.

Luckily, thanks to a stroke of mad genius and a couple of things that couldn’t have possibly been coincidence, I found something that I could do. I started to write, thanks to The Daver, who insisted that I start telling stories to people besides him. Probably because he wanted me to stop pulling him out of meetings to tell him about purchasing castles* in the area.

Then, I was contacted by Mr. Toy With Me out of the clear blue sky, who asked me if I’d like to come write for his site. Which, I mean, a sex column? Kind of the job I was born to do. I’m crass and gross and I always take stuff to 11.

I realized that while I waited for my book stuff to happen, I could do something else besides write on my blog. The Internet is ripe for the writing, I determined, with fist pumped to the sky, 2010 would be The Year Of My Empire.

And? It’s been a good year so far. I’ve managed to not only get out of the house, but I’ve gotten away from my children for two whole nights in another state. The downside is that now I want to permanently live in another state where it’s not always Ass Hot or Ass Cold.

Ah, California, all that I can’t leave behind.

I’ve also managed to get my hairs cut and a super-villain streak dyed into it. Which means that I’m also looking for a litter of puppies to make into a coat, but you know, that’s probably just fumes talking here. For me, this is huge.

Because I tend to put off being good to myself until I FEEL better about myself. It’s dumb because it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. I’m still carrying some baby weight, so I should punish myself for some reason, even though that’s not quite fair. I’m not exactly rolling in free time, and really, my sanity has been more important than my waistline.

Speaking of waistlines, I’ve been adjusting that, too. At least, I think I have. I threw out my scale, because after years of being on WW, I got tired of having my week dictated by a half a pound variance. But, I’ve been on the Spark People and using that. It’s free and it’s awesome because you can use your MEASUREMENTS rather than your LBS.

And? I dropped one pants size already and am about to drop another (thank you, Topamax, for making me never want to eat again).

Probably the weirdest thing that I’ve done this year is to become a business owner, which makes me feel like I should invest in some power suits and some accordion folders for all the important documents that I barely have. Also, I should boss my cats around more since my kids just look at me like I’m stupid.

Yesterday, though, Stage Two, wherein I get shaded! Tattoo You! Or Me!

Here is Stage 1 (the BEFORE picture):

Here is after:

And another angle:

And lastly, this is what I call a Twitter Bait and Switch. What I tweeted was “Naked Lady Boobie Pictures.” The link gave you this picture.

And that, my friends, is not naked. I am barely a lady (unless you are being sarcastic). Also, I am not annoyed at all. I am bemused by my tattoo-ness.

But I am freshly inked and very, very happy. Also, very, very sore. I will get the color finished in 2 months or so and then? I want the OTHER side done. With…something.

So how are YOU doing on getting YOUR groove back, my gnomies?

*Yes, there are castles out here. No, I don’t live in one. But I am 100% sure I’d be cooler if I did.

One of the ways that my friend KC suggested that I think of Amelia’s encephalocele was that her brain was just so full of awesomeness that it just..exploded out the back. Obviously one skull cavity wasn’t enough to contain all that awesomesauce. She might have been onto something there, because the kid is wicked-smart.

Or, at the very least, she’s my last hope. The shining light of intelligence and common sense in my house. The last bastion of all that might be right in my house.

My eldest, Ben, has never had a whole lot of common sense. He’s the kid that would probably Superman jump off my two-story house with a sheet tied around his neck if he had any more imagination. Thank the powers that be that he was born with as much imagination as I was.

I mean, I’m the person who WANTED to have an imaginary friend but couldn’t even do that. I didn’t have enough imagination to have an imaginary friend. YEAH. Obviously my kid.

Alex, though, I thought might whip him into shape, since he has Ben doing his bidding. Alex, even at 2.5, is an evil mastermind of a child, so I figured that he’d be the brains while Ben was the brawn.

Turns out Alex is mini-Chris Farley. He’s the kid who throws himself into walls on PURPOSE only to bounce off, hop back up and yell “I’M OKAY!!” When Dave’s says he’s my clone, I’m not entirely sure he’s being flattering.

My faith in Alex steering Ben into perhaps having an evil empire where they, oh, I don’t know, maybe made me boat-loads of cash while being evil somehow screeched to an audible halt the other day.

Mimi and I were playing trains in one room, and I watched as my son’s came in and mysteriously grabbed a couple of blankets and ran back out. I waited a couple of minutes and then yelled, “what are you doing?”

“Alex set up a slide!!” Ben happily replied to me.

Shockingly this did not make me feel any better.

Mimi and I followed them out to the other room where, in fact, Alex had set up a slide and we watched as the two lug-nuts we love so dearly slid off the back of the arm of the couch onto the floor below.

Onto their heads.

My son’s were sliding from the couch onto their heads.

Happily.

No one was crying or complaining that it hurt; no. They were just using their thick skulls and faces to wipe the floor with. I swear I have never been so flabbergasted. Let’s be clear, my own IQ might rival that of peat moss, but I have never had the idea to use my face as the landing spot for falling from heights.

As soon as I recovered from my shock, I stopped them.

Then I informed my daughter that without her, her brothers might be lost forever, a couple of goons stuck picking their noses and jumping off things in the misguided idea that they can fly for the rest of their lives.

Let’s hope that she uses her power for GOOD and not evil.

——————-

Sunday was the anniversary of Mimi’s discharge from the NICU. It was still a turbulent couple of weeks before we knew anything about anything, so it wasn’t like it was the anniversary of things being all right again. I mean, if your kid is sprung from the NICU, you’re pretty much grabbing her and getting the hell out of there.

I’m having a hard time talking about all of the chaos surrounding her first weeks of life, but I’m not having a hard time expressing my gratitude. With all of your help and support, I was able to turn what was a horrible, devastating time in my life into something else.

A couple of months ago, you helped vote for me in a contest with a cash prize. I promised I would donate that to the March of Dimes. Because the one bright spot in the whole fucked up situation was knowing that Mimi and I could help other people and other babies.

We are.

I officially became a March of Dimes Mom.

And I donated my winnings to the March of Dimes. I’d show you a receipt, but I figured you could just see that $250 was added to Team Mimi’s March of Dimes widget.

So thank you. All of you.

Mimi says, “Upon further inspection, cupcakes are deemed satisfactory.”

(why yes, yes, that is frosting in her eyebrows)

And for my work with March of Dimes, I was awarded this nifty button from Give it Forward, which is a sweet ass medical fund-raising blog. So thanks, guys! I’m all a-flutter!

I’ve just found your site, and you’ve probably answered this question a million times before, but here goes. Why do you call yourself Aunt Becky?

See, now that’s an awesome question, actually. I’ve dedicated an entire post to it right here.

Dear Aunt Becky,

I was just wondering where you draw the line between blogger Aunt Becky, and Becky in real life.

Let’s say you get introduced to someone, and they are a big fan of your blog (because obviously). Would you be wierded out if they asked (in a sincere, fanlike way) if Dave had gotten his penis ring yet, or if you were feeling better about the attractiveness of your “cooter”?

Do you refer to your children as crotch parasites at playdates :)? Or do you just pray that the “pretty vagina question” will not come up at the next PTA meeting lol?

What is Aunt Becky like when she is away from the shield of the screen?

Love,
Too Chicken To Blog

Dear Too Chicken,

The Daver here. Becky tried to answer your question but despite the fact that she talks about her life online every day ( 904 posts in the ol’ archive at last count. Nine. Hundred. Four. ), she has a terrible time answering questions about herself.

Which, in a strange way, should give you some idea as to the answer: she’s not that much different in real life. I don’t see her ever refer to people who read her blog as ‘fans’. They’re her people, her gnomies, her Internets; so if someone asked her about my penis ring, she’d probably tell you the truth: no, not yet.

I think the only time she’d be weirded out by someone is if they took it to another level, like showing up at our house unannounced wearing leather assless chaps and dancing around our yard chanting “Aunt Becky Is My HERO!” If if were *announced*, of course, that may be a different matter. MAYBE.

I’ve heard the phrases “crotch fruit” and “beef curtains” on more than one playdate, but she probably wouldn’t use those terms if she didn’t know you were down with it. Like, around my parents? She doesn’t even flip me the bird too often, and she limits her use of terms of endearment like ‘assbag’, ‘old balls’, and ‘shithead’, keeping it to ‘pooface’ and the ever-popular ‘dear’.

In real life, she’s a little less patient, a little more sarcastic ( some kinds of sarcasm just don’t translate well to blogs ), every bit as smart, and just as hilarious. I married her for good reason, y’know.

–The Daver

I would like to add to The Daver’s wonderful guest blog that I am also stunningly gorgeous.

who sang the song “the hardest part of love is letting go?

So, I have never heard of this song, but apparently it’s sung by Stephanie J. Block and from a play “Children of Eden.”

Because I do not know it, I am forced to believe it’s probably not as awesome as some other songs. So I’d recommend things like Dolly Parton’s “Little Sparrow,” anything by ABBA, and the entire Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik album. Or really, anything by Queen.

Dear Aunt Becky

Where did I leave my keys?

Probably the best thing about being married is that Dave always knows where his keys are. I do not. I mean, I KIND OF know where mine are, but not really. Dave cannot imagine a life where people do not know where his keys are at any given moment in time.

By this statement, you’d think that of the two of us, Dave would be the organized one, all of his I’s dotted and t’s crossed, but no. HOLY SHIT no. I can’t find my wallet 98% of the time, yet I am the one who knows where everything else in the house is and what it does and what it should be doing tomorrow.

Everything except for my wallet, keys and phone.

I think your keys are behind the toilet right now. Or maybe on a plane to China. Or in the toy bin. Or up the street having dinner with a French prostitute.

But you should ask The Daver. He’d know better.

—————–

In the event that you are going to Blogher and would be interested in heckling me from the audience of an! official! panel, go here and tell them that you’d want to throw things at me. They’re just seeing if there’s any interest in the topic, so it’s not like all ‘get your rotted fruit ready’ yet.

And Bloggies close today.

When I was a preteen, I was convinced that my parents were inhumanely inhumane because they were so cheap that they wouldn’t spring the extra two bucks a month for call waiting. For someone who lived with the phone glued to the side of her head, this was a BIG DEAL INDEED. What if I missed a Very Important Phone Call? I mean, someone could have seen someone pass a note in class and if I missed it, I might diiiieeeeee!

Oh, like you weren’t dramatic as a thirteen year old.

It wasn’t until later that I wore them down and they got cable TV, either, so I was stuck watching the crappy network channels. Oddly, I became sort of enthralled by infomercials. They were like their own little comedy goldmine all rolled up into a neat 30 minute package.

The announcers–pre-Billy Mays, whom, you should know, I mourned heavily–bounded from one side of the room to the other, all convinced of the merit of a product that even I knew was probably bullshitty garbage. And yet! And how! But wait! There’s more!

When I decided that 2010 was the year that I needed to bring Aunt Becky back from under the pile of dirty diapers and Lego bits, one of the first things that I did was to get a piece of exercise equipment. I love the gym like it was my job, but getting to the gym is about as easy as teaching my cat to use the microwave, so I figured I should bring the gym here.

But! Wait! There’s more!

I was going to LEARN from the mistakes of my friends! And my parents! I wasn’t going to drop thousands of dollars on a nice piece of equipment that would sit there, gathering dust and laundry.

I’d remembered seeing a small, fold up elliptical machine at The Sharper Image a couple of years ago for a couple hundred bucks. Which? If you’re going to buy something that’s not going to be used very often, why not go cheap and portable?

Well, turns out Sharper Image doesn’t make it any longer.

An Amazon search brought me to something even cheaper. I didn’t recognize the name, but I didn’t give a shit. For $80 plus free shipping (order now and you’ll get bonus good reviews!!) it doesn’t exactly have to scream out “I LOVE YOU AUNT BECKY!”

Universally, I got this response when I told people what TYPE of elliptical I got, “Bwahahahaha!” Exercise equipment does many things to me, but it doesn’t normally make me LAUGH, so I had to investigate.

Turns out that I bought a piece of exercise equipment from this douche:

This would be Mr. Tony Little. He sells The Gazelle. And he’s a DILL-BAG!

The unfortunate side-effect is that now I will be unable to stop thinking of Tony Little as I exercise now. He’ll be right beside me, his stupid flouncy pony tail flopping up and down while he yells, “Show me those big old pecs!”

Or maybe he’ll motivate me by telling me that the Gazelle can help me by healing my mind, body and spirit. He and his big, freaky, shiny arms. I don’t WANT my mind, body and spirit healed, Tony! I WANT TO FIT INTO MY SIZE SIX JEANS! I could give a shit about my spirit!

I don’t need to share my exercise room with a dude who looks better suited to be making 80’s era porn. Because that makes me want to shower in bleach, not work my ass harder.

I knew I should have stuck with Jillian Michaels and her 30 Day Shred.

————

Bloggies? Me? WTF?

Dear Amelia,

The first thing that I thought when I saw you in the spotlight that had been aimed at my vagina was “holy shit, I gave birth to a statue!” But you have to remember that I was in extreme pain and had just found out that there was potentially something wrong with you.

And, well, you were covered in white goo.

My second thought was, “holy shit, that baby is PISSED the fuck OFF!” It sounds indelicate, saying that about a brand new baby, but I assure you, my girl, you have the lung capacity and vocal control of someone who is going to either be an Olympic swimmer (providing you’re not physically gimpy like me) or an opera singer (providing your not singerly gimpy like me).

It was a good thing they’d put us in the back corner of the L and D unit, or you’d have probably scared all of those women OUT of labor. THAT is how loud you were. Which, had I been forcibly ejected from my comfy home, I’d have been mad too.

Your temper is legendary in our house, but so is your sweetness. While both of your brothers had first years on the planet that made my hair go grey and my hand trembly, you were sweetness and love. And thunder of doom.

I think that combination will serve you well, actually. It’s always served me well.

I know as a mother, I’m supposed to be terrified of having a daughter. My own mother and I have a relationship that can at best be described as “complicated,” but with you, well, it’s just not. It will be maybe when you’re a surly teenager, but now it’s not.

I’ve never stopped proud when I say “I have a daughter” because to me, I always figured I would have a mess of sons. To me, having a daughter was the holy grail. The pink light in a sea of sausages. I am so privileged, so unbelievably honored to have you as my own, that I can’t imagine a day that I wouldn’t gnaw off my arm to give it to you.

(I’d do the same, of course, for your brothers)

The ways that you’ve changed me over the past year, I can’t even begin to put into words. If I could go back to those weeks when you were a wee embryo and have your neural tube fuse properly, I don’t think I would. Because through you, I’ve become a better person.

The world is a good place, Amelia, and you don’t know it, but you have made yourself quite a lot of friends already. People in all kinds of places have been praying for you since you were a wee thing and they’ve been watching you grow, cheering you on as you reach each milestone, and celebrating each victory.

You are so, so blessed.

As you grow, there are going to be times and places where people tell you that you can’t do something. Now, I’m not talking about spray painting your room silver or something stupid (the FUMES! GAH!), I’m talking about your dreams, your hopes, your aspirations.

Listen to me, my girl: DON’T LISTEN TO THEM.

Absorb every single bit of negativity into your soul and let it strengthen you. Let it fortify your resolve to do it. Let it feed you. Only you know what you need to do. Only you know the path you must take. And you do anything in your power to get there. Stop at nothing.

Live a life of no regrets, my love. Don’t say yes when you mean no. Say no when you mean no and don’t feel even slightly bad about it.

And remember that when you’ve taken over the world, call your mother. She loves you with all of her heart.

So today, my darling girl, on your first birthday, we shall eat pink cupcakes with hearts and pink sprinkles and we will play trucks and cars and trains because that is what you love.

Happy Birthday, big girl. I love you with all that I am.

I am so, so honored to be your mother.

Love,

Mamamamama