boom, splat, spray

so i thought i'd try and lighten things up a bit this week. i guess i'm trying to get back to what i think i do best... embarrassing myself. thanks to last weeks post, i feel like you guys have a pretty good insight into my soul and innermost being.

this week...

welcome to my bowels.

your welcome.

now, you may just want to stop reading if you are easily offended by words such as hemorrhoid, diarrhea, fissure, IBS, constipation, or assquake...

cuz this juicy (no pun intended) post has it all.

if you know me at all, you know i got issues downstairs. i'll spare you the gritty details, but the long and the short of it is ever since three rabid badgers came tearing out of my area, things have never really been the same.

there are times, like a lot of you when things are easy peazy downstairs. no need for sitz bath's or miralax, or copious amounts of tums. you might call them good days... for me they are the glory days. however, more than ever, those glory days have become more and more rare as my body has been in full rebellion... making me a slave to the porcelain throne.

we've all had our times, you know the ones... on an airplane, in your wetsuit, or stuck in traffic. its like all of the sudden it literally feels like gremlins are multiplying in your stomach and you seize up knowing that something similar to that green slime on nickelodeon is about to come shrieking out of your booty. your hands start sweating, your armpits are instantly wet... your mouth is dry, dizziness starts to overcome you. you feel a craving for relief like no heroin addict ever knew. you need to get your badonkadonk on the toilet ASAP.

a friend of mine told me the story of her boss who was on a quick commuter flight with no bathroom to a business meeting. the trots came like the rushing wind and he had no choice but to literally diarrhea his pants. did i mention it was a day trip? no change of clothes handy... just your prospective clients waiting for you at the airport. cuz nothing says, 'i got my sh*t together' like my khaki's are full of green apple nasties!

as much as i'd like to claim that one as my own, mines not nearly as glamorous. it began with your basic day trip to santa barbara. it was me, b, lils and oz. i was about 6 months pregnant with tali. me and b were talking casually when all of the sudden the whistle belly thumps began, my stomach started churning, and i knew that i had exactly 47 seconds till colon blow. there was no time for finding a starbucks bathroom, or even a dingy hole in the wall gas station... we're talking straight pull this mother over and get me to the side of the road. NOW. fortunately for all of us, we were in that dead area between santa maria and orcutt. so b maneuvered to an exit, where i literally opened the car door and copped a squat with only the car door as my shield. no time to find bushes, or wrap a towel around me. full blown highway 101 dooce. b starts cracking up, the kids are asking incessantly if i'm okay, but for me, i honestly never felt so happy. relief in its purest form. i grabbed a kirkland wipe, dug a little hole for the wipe and hopped back in the van with a smile on my face. it wasn't till we had turned around and were heading back to the freeway that i saw some sort of 'work crew' basically just south of where i took care of biz... for a second i was mortified. then i just laughed realizing these guys prolly hadn't seen a naked booty in years, and i knew i'd never see them again... so in a lot of ways, it really was a win - win.

so after that full disclosure and waaaay more detail than you could've wanted, please, do tell...

"where's the worst place you've had to relieve yourself?"

oh, and don't try and cop out with some measly pee in the alley story. i want the pee out your a** story!

why i love jesus. really.

blogs can be a funny thing.

sometimes i need to be reminded of why i started one in the first place.

i really, really love to write.

i also really love to make people laugh.

and also, i just really love people.

ever since i can remember my dream job has been to be a writer for SNL. sitting around a room, one upping each other, creating genius material, eating junky snacks and being around people that are way funnier than me. but for now, 30 rockefellar plaza will have to wait, cuz i'm to busy preparing homemade organic baby food for my 6 month old and homeschooling my older kids.

(for those readers who don't know me that well, nothing about that previous sentence is true).

which leads me to this latest rant.

those readers.

i might be talking about you. here's the thing. i like to think i have a pretty good idea who reads my blog. my family, most of my close friends, some acquaintances, and the odd internet blog stalker. just kidding. about the stalker part. not really, cuz how else would you find this? in any event, every once in awhile i'll run into someone i haven't seen in awhile, or get an email from someone i don't really know telling me how much they enjoy my stories and horrible grammar. i recognize that a big part of having a blog is opening yourself up to not just those closest to you, but to people you don't even know. so, for those of you that are new to my blog, here's a bit about the biggest part of me. and if you have been reading for awhile and didn't know this... i guess its a good reminder for the both of us.

i am a christian. not like someone who goes to church cuz its good for me, or talks loosely about faith and love, but a christian... like the real deal. you might even use the words born again... shriek!!!

i became a christian when i was 21 years old. without telling you the whole story, it was something that when i found it, i realized i had been looking for it my entire life. i knew christians in high school, but was pretty sure they weren't for me. i spent the first part of my college years reading self-help books, pondering buddhism, researching deepak chopra, re-visiting a course in miracles, but nothing ever seemed to stick. i'm not tryin to hate, it just wasn't for me. the way i became a christian wasn't by yet another book, it wasn't by some life crisis or painful event. it was simply by seeing another person's life and realizing she had something i wanted, and it wasn't tattoos. everything about her life screamed jesus, but her approach was so not abrasive. honestly, she just loved me, and listened to me and then one day invited me to church.

after i made the plunge and started to really take a look at my life, i realized in order to get my shiz together i needed to start looking at my influences. i begin to break away from those closest to me-- friends i had known my entire life. i often joke that to my high school friends me becoming a christian was more scandalous than me starting to smoke crack. the gossip about my new found faith was that juicy.

i'm not saying i didn't give them reasons to talk, for with all new things comes a certain zealousness. for me, that included moving to the UK to be a missionary (loosely termed) my first year of marriage. i wasn't trying to push my old friends away, or rid myself of everything i once held dear, it simply became a time that took extremes to rid extremes (in my case certain self-destructive behaviours).

without sounding to 'christianese' i really had a lot of shit sin in my life and was feeling super helpless to overcome it. the things i was involved in may seem harmless to most, but the reality was, i was experiencing a lot of guilt and shame. and to complicate things further, those around me were living the same way, so i felt suffocated and often justified in my behaviours. the long and the short of it was i was not happy. i had more pain and sadness in my life from my lifestyle than i wanted. sounds cheesy, but i really said to myself 'there must be more to life than this.'

as i mentioned before, when i experienced God for the first time, i knew it was exactly what i had been looking for my entire life. some may say its what we were created for, others not so much. i can only speak for myself, but i felt such an intimacy with God that i really, honestly just wanted to get to know him more. i spent a lot of time with like minded people, read my bible, went to church, etc. it was really an amazing time in my life, a time where i felt like i was really able to build a solid foundation in God that would sustain me for most of my life.

then i got married, had a few kids, and even though i felt like things were cool with me and j-town, i knew i was not living the intimacy i once relished in. i felt satisfied by the love from my husband and kids and the simple joys in life. there have been surges over the years to try and get back to that place, and try as i might, i just can't. that time in my life was filled with lots of time... and little responsibility.

though my 'faith' looks different than it did 10 years ago, i have NEVER doubted how real God is in my life, and in those around me. i've seen Him in the tears streaming down my husband's face as he lifted my veil, i heard Him when my firstborn came screeching out, and i've even felt Him as i sat with my best friend and cried tears for the loss of her mom. the thing is, God feels just as real and relevant to me today as he did so many years back, it just may look a little different.

though some parts of me waiver in the 'christian rules' sense of the word... i mean i voted no on prop 8, i've been known to drop the f-bomb on this blog, bitch is one of my most favorite words, i love me a few good vodka tonic with lime, and i like to get dirty with a little T.I., but the truth is i really, really love God... and i don't want anyone to think differently.

today as i sang in church one of my favorite songs, 'into marvelous light i'm running, out of darkness out of shame, by the cross you are the truth you are the way,' i was reminded again how real God is, and how it really truly is because of HIM that i really love my life.
i feel a freedom these days like i've never known, not to sin recklessly, but to love. to love the way jesus did. when you read the bible its crazy how often jesus did exactly the opposite of fox news what the religious right of the time thought he should. he really loved everyone, in every circumstance. at the end of my life do i want to look back and say, 'well, i followed all the rules and worked hard to never blow it' or do i want to look back and say, 'yeah, i really blew it. a lot. but i loved hard and played hard. and life was good, and God, you were why.'

hugs not fists

hey y'all, just a quick exhortation (big word huh?) to let you know how encouraged i am by all your comments. nice to know you all are really like me, as in you like to talk about yourself.... i know i'm asking you too, but you get the gist. with that said, i want to tell you a little story about a time when someone didn't like me so much....

picture it, laguna junior high 1992. me awkwardly skinny, just pushing 90 lbs. thanks to my last post you have a pretty good mental image of what kind of clothes to expect me in, its a wonder that a boy would even have been interested in me. yet, enter jared bonkowski. jared was one of those fringe types, definitely not a 'soc' but not a nerd, quite possibly in a band (not the school one). with his ponytail and camel light's stolen from his mom, he had a lot to offer for junior high. so we held hands a couple of times, passed a few notes and possibly kissed once or twice behind the portable math buildings. then one monday i came to school and saw none other than my bf holding hands with the dreaded helena quintanar. now, if the name doesn't give it away, i don't know what else will. the whole quintanar family was a force to be reckoned with, with 2 older brothers in and out of juvie, helena was following in their footsteps. she was pretty much the only girl at laguna that had ever been in a fight. i later found out that she had ties to BWA and would talk about getting 'jumped in.' she was one scary tween to say the least. so naturally, when i saw jared with her i knew our time was over and not one bit of me wanted to fight in any way shape or form for him. in fact, i was hoping that she never even knew he had liked me.

fast froward to thursday night. my friend and i decided to head down to farmers market. the last 4 days had been status quo, no rumblings of anything to do with helena or jared and like i said, that was fine by me. so there we are out in front of the cigar shop, probably trying to find a way to buy some nasty cherry tobacco to smoke out of my friends dads cigar pipe... when up walk four of helena's closest cholas. when i saw them approach, my heart started pounding. i knew they were there for me.

as casually as can be, one stepped forward and said, 'hey holly, hey just so you know... helena's looking for you.'

i froze, speechless as they left laughing.

'oh shit!' i said as i turned to my friend. 'what am i going to do?!"

she, like the good friend she was, said- 'lets just keep walking, your going to have to face her sooner or later, you might as well do it when there are lots of people around.'

so off we went, heading up higuera, it wasn't two minutes later that i saw her.

she had on white jeans and red top with her huge raiders bomber over it. her hair was tied back with a black bandanna. her lips were bright red, contrasting her big silver hoop earrings.

as soon as i saw her, i seriously thought i was going to throw up. i have never been as scared as i was right then.

she looked up and saw me. i froze right there in the middle of higuera. she kept walking toward me with a smirk on her face. she got 2 feet in front of me and said with all the authority in the world, 'hey, i been looking for you.'

looking back there's a million things i could have said... in fact i've often rehearsed the scene... i could've been snotty, confident, apologetic or i like to imagine myself just hitting her in the face (just kidding, not really).

but instead, it turns out i did the exact right thing.

i started to cry. real tears.

she looked at me confused, then her face change. it became soft and sweet. she reached out to hug me, and said, 'hey, its okay. its fine. i wasn't gonna hurt you.' and there i was letting the scariest vata in SLO county hold me in the middle of farmers market.

and that's the story of the biggest, baddest, scariest fight i have ever been.

and so with that long, detailed introduction, i wanna know this tuesday...

'have you ever been in a physical fight?'

what not to wear

i guess it all began a few weeks back when i went to grab a jacket out of my closet. as i was heading out the door i realized i had grabbed a blue abercrombie and fitch sweatshirt. on my 15 min drive to the kids preschool i kept looking over at the sweatshirt. thoughts like, 'you're 30, can you really still wear that?' or 'do i look like one of those mom/ladies that is trying to hard to look young?' you know the ones- they wear a lot of animal print and camo? man, i'm getting old. i would never have thought this one little sweatshirt would have sent me into such a tailspin.

i know this may come as a shock to most of you, but i've never been on the cutting edge of fashion. when all my friends were rocking their wet seal body suits, i opted for my cats the musical sweatshirt, cuz nothing says cool in jr high like andrew lloyd weber. now don't get me wrong, i desperately wanted to snap on my unitard and show off my mosquito bites to all those jr high boys, yet apparently genetics god had a different plan.

after my friends convinced me that broadway musical attire was getting me nowhere, i tried to start paying more attention to what those around me were wearing. but since my mom didn't care at all what i wore, and i just didn't have the boobs body to wear what my friends were, i spent most of high school in argile sweaters, baggy jeans and old thrift store t-shirts with logos like, 'i got crabs in morro bay, ca.' don't be jealous....

it probably wasn't till college and my early twenties that i finally began to come into my own. i realized the body god had given me wasn't nearly as dreadful as i had once perceived and that most of the fashion industry really did make clothes that would fit me. i discovered aber and got in touch with my inner teeny bop that missed the window on those clothes so many years ago, then SLO got a gap, and things were looking up.

before i knew it i was 25 and my first child was born. a year and a half later another. it seemed like overnight i found myself more excited to see what was new at baby gap than on a store wide sale at banana. and then seriously, one day i woke up and i was 30.

who knew that harmless little blue aber sweatshirt would make me so crazy. i began to question everything i was wearing. it didn't help that i had a bacherollete party coming up. suddenly i was a mess thinking how i could razzle and dazzle the regulars at native (slo's hottest nightclub hee hee) yet also present myself as a classy mother of 3. as i perused my closet by the dim light of a wall nightlight (because the baby was sleeping in our room) i realized that i had very few dresses that were going to work. don't even get me started on shoes...

anyway as i tiptoed into the bathroom to put on some makeup (practically in the dark) and definitely totally silent (no kesha to get me pumped up) cuz i didn't want to wake the kids sleeping in the next room, i finally realized, i am old. getting ready in the dark, in silence, and by yourself at the time i usually go to bed, officially equals you are now 30. the real kicker was hitting the dance floor and realizing that the only new dance moves i had from the last decade were ones i picked up from watching ellen.

yet sunday when i woke up to a nursing baby and a naked 32 3 year old in my bed, i realized i'm not that old, i'm just a mom. i just need to figure out how to start dressing like one. i wish i could tell you i suddenly had an epiphany or a knock at the door from clinton and stacy... but unfortunately i still don't really know what it all means, cuz monday when my mom and i left for farmers market she grabbed a sweatshirt. it wasn't till we were on the grass hanging with the other moms that i realized low and behold, she was ROCKING the blue aber sweatshirt.

so i guess from all of this, the only thing i've really learned is for me, aber is definitely out, for my mom, maybe not so much. oh, and bodysuits, i'm about to show all you middle school hussies how a lactating mother of three's still got it.