Channeling Jerry Lewis

Last night The Son had a baseball game (which I now enjoy and yell things like "Nice cut!" and "Be a hitter!" and "Good eye!" like the other crazy mothers.  I'm sure they'll take me to the dugout soon and wipe the blood of a sacrificed umpire on my head and the conversion will be complete).  During the game, I had to hold napkins on my lap so I could occasionally blot my chin, which was dripping oily blister juice, and put them between my damp blistery chest and my t-shirt since I was sticking.  Really, I'm too damn sexy for my shirt.  So sexy it hurts.  Really.  It hurts.

Last night before I went to bed I covered myself in gauze strips and band-aids so as to not stick to clothing or sheets, but after a restless night of gauze slippage, I declared that a Total Fail.  This morning, Current Husband walked around the corner into the kitchen, jumped and yelled "AHH!" when he saw me standing in a black strapless bra and underwear, gauze strips hanging off of me, hair up in a pony tail, groggy-eyed and taking my first sip of coffee. 
ME:  "WHAT."
CH:  "Nothing, you just startled me."
ME:  "What startled you?  I'm always in here."
CH:  "Uh, the crusty gauze strips are a little scary.  Like Frankenstein."
ME:  "I can't HELP this, you know."
CH:  "It's time to see a doctor."

And so I finally bit the bullet and made an appointment at 11:30 a.m. today.  When checking in at the front desk, the receptionist took a good look at my huge is-it-nuclear-radiation-or-is-it-herpes rash and didn't really want to take my insurance card.  "OH, your copay is $45?  Keep it, I'll just mark it on the chart.  You can write your check here."  Because obviously she expected me to come out of the office in a HAZMAT suit and unable to write checks.

I went back to the exam room and they did the vitals, and then the PA came in.  She looked at my chin and very seriously went "Hmmm" and "wow".
PA:  "So this is the only place you have it?"
ME:  "Oh no, there's more."  (I open my shirt to reveal Alaska after a statewide forest fire)
PA:  (flinches and puts her hand over her mouth) "OH MY GOD, why did you wait so long to come in here!  Oh my God...where else?"
ME:  (lifting shirt up) "Well it's here on my stomach, and there are these strips down the sides of my abdomen, and I have it on both hips, those are starting to weep, and then I have new bumps on my arm and my thigh, and I'm concerned about these new bumps on my cheeks..."
PA:  (has backed away and is writing a prescription)  "You are going on some hardcore Prednisone.  And the next time you get even a small bump that looks like this, you are a High Reactor - you need to call us and we will get you on something immediately.  Do you understand?"
ME:  "Prednisone?  Will this make me blow up like Jerry Lewis?"
PA:  "It is a small price to pay to get rid of it."


And then the seriousness of the situation sinks in.  This woman is willing to let me look like Jerry Lewis to get rid of this stuff.  Holy crap, I could look like this:

I am now moving away from this:

And getting terrifyingly close to this:

Because my understanding is that Prednisone makes you blow up like someone is shooting air into you.  Hello, poolside!


The PA said, "Do you have anywhere you need to be this week?" and I said "No, this week is pretty slow."  She said, "Good.  I want you to wear a tube-top strapless flowy dress, with no bra or underwear.  You need to let these sores dry up and heal without friction on them."  Then she added, "Oh, and with the Prednisone?  You'll need to EAT.  And I'm not talking about a Diet Coke and a bag of crackers.  I mean actually EAT something."

Okay, now tell me the BAD news.  Because you are one People magazine and a Project Runway marathon away from making me the happiest girl alive.

Here is what I was wearing the day I got into the chipmunk-clearing sumac:

I am sure that I whacked the mutant poisonous evil sumac, smacked at a bug on my chin, then used my right hand to adjust my left bra strap and then pull up my shorts, thus giving me blistering creepiness on my chin, left chestal region, and right hip, and then the oils just started spreading from there.  Here is my post-trauma outfit:

That's right.  It's Julie Ho, Don's wife.  

I just need a scotch on the rocks, rollers in my hair, and a ciggie in my fingers and the look will be complete.  And?  I'm not wearing any underwear.  And let me just tell you that this picture doesn't even do the patches justice.  There is a huge red ring around each of these darker red areas, and they are scabbilicious.  And they seep oil constantly, which is why I have my hair in a ponytail, because my hair keeps getting caught in it.  My God, I'm gorgeous.  And the farmer's tan from gardening?  Even better.  Producers of Real Housewives of Iowa?  I'm waiting by the phone for my call.


In the interim, I'm too sexy.  Too sexy for my shirt.  I hope our dinner guests Friday night have strong stomachs and enjoy eating with Jabba the Hutt, because I may just be in my Princess Leia bikini to serve.  

Well played, chipmunks.  Well played.  You little bastards.

WTF Kate Gosselin!? Resolution #5

Okay, that's IT!!!

I've had it with the Gosselins. I never watched the show, but my kids did. (By the way, we allowed the kids free reign with the TV before our 'let's not have cable anymore' moment last fall, and instead of trying to find The Simpsons or MTV or porn, my kids would stay up until the wee hours on weekend nights watching The Food Network and Jon and Kate plus 8. Weird, huh?)

I get People magazine. There, I said it. I have a subscription so I don't have to stick it under the other groceries in the check out lane. Instead, I have it delivered to my home in a brown paper wrapping. But at least I don't get US or InTouch, because I have standards when it comes to my celebrity gossip. So every Friday, I let George the Superpet/dog/horse lay inside the front door so he can go completely batshit crazy when the mail carrier comes to the door, thus announcing that my People magazine has arrived and making the mail carrier wet herself. Sometimes the worst thing that happens in my week is that People doesn't arrive until Saturday, which means it is a particularly good issue and someone at the post office decided to read it before sending it out.

ANYWHO, my People magazine arrived on Friday, and Kate Friggin' Gosselin is on the cover, AGAIN!!! What was the breaking news story with Kate and her batch of adorable spawn and her lowlife-mid-life-crisis-American-Beauty husband? She got HAIR EXTENSIONS.

Yes, you read that right. Hair. Extensions.

And not just any hair extensions. Let me share the wealth of information about said extensions, because at $100+ per year for a subscription to this magazine, you're damn skippy I'm going to read every word. Kate Gosselin had celebrity hairstylist Ted Gibson (known for tending to the tresses of Angelina Jolie and Anne Hathaway!) work her 'do, and he said that after they finished giggling for 15 minutes about whether or not to cut her bangs, he did her color and extensions at what would normally come to a $7000 bill in his salon.

Not a typo. Seven Thousand Dollars. For extensions. Which I am sure Kate got gratis, because that's how she rolls, and Ted got about $20K in free publicity. Jon Gosselin has yet to weigh in on Kate's new look, but his on again/off again psycho love, Hailey Glassman, said she just adores Kate's new 'do, saying "she's like fine wine, better over time." To which she I believe she added, "And I'm like a fresh can of Bud with the date on the can, which is what her ex-husband is into drinking right now. Not old. Young and fresh, like me! With real long hair and actually 22 instead of trying to look like it!" Hailey's dad, by the way, is the plastic surgeon who gave Kate her free tummy tuck, so they met long before Hailey started bedding her husband. But Hailey apparently hit her expiration date because Jon has now dumped her and moved on to a much older, more mature 25-year-old who is also assuredly into Ed Hardy.

It's enough to make you beg for cold decaf coffee, lunch with the Pussycat Dolls, a full-on Brazilian, a subscription to Cat Fancy, ANYTHING, just to make it stop. Which I am actually considering doing to my People magazine subscription. It's sad when People makes you feel like maybe you are above that kind of "news". Because I am really not that far above it. I just want grainy pics of The Edge and Gavin Rossdale (which thank God there were some) and to look at dresses and houses I cannot afford, and see reviews on books I will never write. Is that so wrong?

It also makes me think about people who have eight children. There are the McCaughey's in Iowa, who had the McCaughey Septuplets plus one girl who became an insta-nanny to her siblings twelve years ago. The Gosselins, who were able to turn their six children plus two into a media empire. And who can forget Octo-Mom, who clearly has an Angelina Jolie fixation and eight babies plus six previous babies? Did none of these people watch Eight is Enough? Because Dick Van Patten would have sat their asses down and said, "Listen, don't do it, or you'll end up married to Betty Buckley and be responsible for the careers of Grant Goodeve and the Karate Kid and Buddy on Charles in Charge. They'll have delusions of grandeur. Stick with two kids and business degrees."

Don't get me wrong. I know people with very large, loving families (One of them has ten kids!) who can actually care for those children. I know people who are actively trying to have a baby who have struggled with infertility. I have friends who have darling babies solely because of in vitro. I'm not in any way against in vitro, or other methods of having children, and I know I have been incredibly blessed with my three awesome ninja kids. But the people I know who rely on science are responsible about it, and have doctors who are responsible about it with them.

It has to be tempting to have eight kids and have someone buy a house and a large van and nannies and tummy tucks and extensions and all the free Ed Hardy clothing and accessories one can grab. It can perhaps make one forget about all of the food and diapers and bathing and personal attention all of those babies will need. Who needs hugs when you have a production crew to get your fruit snacks? All one needs is a doctor willing to load you up with fertilized eggs and a production deal with a cable network and bam! Just add water and you have a Chia-Celebrity!

But as tempting as it would be, I'm not going to calve eight babies. That is SO First Decade.

RESOLUTION #5: Give birth to nine children.

My three children are now old enough to care for babies while I flit around the country doing interviews and getting my hair done. I would explain to them that we HAVE to do this to take care of our family, and that it will be good experience for them, with the added bonus of getting to be on the TV and in the tabloids and having no private time, ever. Maybe they can grow up to get their own reality show! We can call my show "The Wife Without a Life: A Dozen in the House Until I'm Nearly Sixty," subtitled, "Now, Where's My Free Shit?"

And then Kate Gosselin? You can get YOUR People magazine in the mail and see my face on the cover with my new free $5000 lip wax, and say "Not The Wife again! That's IT! I'm canceling my subscription!" Because that is the REAL reason I'm birthin' those babies. Vengeance will be mine, along with an upper lip as smooth as nine babies' bottoms.