Author Stalker - The Sequel

Those of you who have been reading A Day In The Wife for any amount of time know that I have been actively stalking Jen Lancaster, NY Times bestselling author (My Fair Lazy, still on sale, order now!).  Terms of the restraining order forbid me from going into great detail, but for those unfamiliar with my obsession, here is a quick refresher course:

 Me, bracing myself so as to not fall over on Jen.

Curse you, RL Restaurant bartenders.  Curse you.

She looks lovely, I look like Jeffrey Dahmer.

There are 13 blog posts with a Jen tag, but here are the two refresher courses revealing the embarrassing depths of my Jen addition:

"Jen Lancaster, I am your Stalker"

"I"m Addicted to Twitter and Jen Hates Me"

And the coup de grace, my unintentionally drunken meeting with Jen in May:

"Wasted Away Again in Author Stalkerville"

Fletch, I'm so sorry.  

But glad to see you are wearing a belt, Baldwin.

But I have some good news!  Jen's friends are TOTALLY available for stalking!  Stacey has been featured in Jen's books, and Jen dedicated "My Fair Lazy" to Stacey.  She sounds like a lot of fun, and I would absolutely buy her a very nice bottle of wine and some theater tickets if the opportunity presents itself when I get paroled from the whole "Meeting Jen in May Incident".  Hello, Stacey Ballis!  Welcome to the Author Stalker archives!

Meet Stacey.  

She's on the right with the fabulous necklace, 

which I will gladly take in lieu of a cease and desist order.

Stacey has written a number of books, including:

• Room For Improvement
• Sleeping Over
• Inappropriate Men
• Spinster Sisters

NONE of which I could get at Borders when I went there today, so I'm going back to Amazon.com to purchase.  I've linked the titles to their amazon pages.  But her big news is that she has a new book coming out next month, and it sounds fantastic!  

 "Good Enough To Eat" - go on, read the blurb.  

I've ordered it, and can't wait to read it!

SO.  Stacey made the mistake of opening up a contest to drive pre-sale orders of her book.  The contest is lunch with her and Jen.  Oh Holy Mother.  Are you kidding me?  I know some of you other Jen-lovers will want to do the contest, so here is the link to Stacey's blog so you can get the deets:  The Polymath Chronicles   The idea is that you try to get the most entries in the contest, and presumably someone will have their name drawn at the end.  Would I love to be that person?  You are damn skippy I would.  And here's the thing.  OF COURSE I love Jen.  OF COURSE I would love to have lunch with Jen.  But this Stacey is sort of intriguing, and I've met Jen.  I'm it for Stacey, and this new book looks terrific.  (And I am not to go within 100 yards of Jen, so that might complicate seating in the restaurant, but we can work around it I'm sure.)

I've made no secret that I'm hoping to get published someday, and the two of them would be so interesting to talk with about the publishing industry, book tours, and their writing process (here's mine - think about writing, get coffee, eat some cake, write a few sentences, think about ice cream, write a bit more, make dinner, chase children and give Current Husband menacing looks, have glass of wine, surf internet, blog, sigh, bed. The curtain has been lifted - Oz is a little man and The Wife is a procrastinator.)  More likely, we would talk about the completely amazing food we are eating, how delicious the wine tastes, how we hope there are cupcakes for dessert, and who will win on Project Runway.  TANGENT ALERT:  Did anyone else shift in their seats and have to look away when Nicholas cried last week?  He looked like a toddler whose playdate just ended - "I have to go home now!"  Oy.  And let me say for the record that I liked McKell.

Here is what I ask of you, gentle readers.  If you would like to win, by all means, enter!  If not, and you decide to pre-order Stacey's book, e-mail your order confirmation to me at adayinthewife@gmail.com and I can send it to Stacey and it will count toward my total.  Also, I will be posting links on Facebook, and if I get 20 people to "like" the post, it counts as an entry.  You know if I win, I will take loads of inappropriate photos, including my mug shot and food porn photos of what we ate, because we would be eating at The Lincoln Cafe in Mount Vernon, Iowa, TRULY THE BEST RESTAURANT IN THE WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY, I kid you not, and blog about the whole thing.  So go on, and pre-order her book!  At the very least, writer chicks need to stick together.

I've ordered three copies, and my one year blog anniversary is coming in September, so I will do a Happy Frackin' Bloggy Birthday to The Wife Giveaway next month, and a copy of Good Enough to Eat will be included.  Along with autographed photos of Todd the Squirrel and George the Superpet and a virtual plethora of other items.  Why?  Because I love you.  But for now, let's focus on my lunch with Stacey and Jen.

And?  If one of you wins, I would like the necklace Stacey is wearing in the picture above.  Thank you.

GEEKING OUT MOMENT - Shortly after I posted this, Stacey Ballis herself posted the first comment!  As they would say on Battlestar Galactica, Get the Frack Out!   Sigh.  I love the blogosphere.

It's Whoreticulture Friday! Issue 37

Whoreticulture: The industry and science of whores and whore-related topics. Whoreticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of OB-GYNery, Brazilian waxers and shavers, adultery, personal hygiene mavens and easy women. The word is composite, from two words, whore, from Greek meaning "harlot" or "dear", and the word "culture". Like NPR's Science Friday, Whoreticulture Friday exists to educate and spark discussion on the science of Whorology. Whoreticulture Friday is not for children. Or squeamish people. Or Mother-In-Laws. Or DAUGHTERS OF FRIENDS, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!  GO BACK TO FACEBOOK!  NOW!  I MEAN IT!  Or so help me God I will tell your mother.

Today's topic: MILFs

The other day, I checked my junk mail, and next to the usual items concerning the hundreds of medical transcriptionist jobs in my area, the low Viagra prices, and the strangers proposing lucrative business arrangements, was a new type of e-mail for me, and it immediately got my attention:

Subject: - sexually explicit -MILFs!

Single Mothers Looking To Date!

We wanted to let you know right away that there are thousands of MILFs in your city that are looking to meet new people for one night stands and threesomes. These MILFs are beautiful, fun, and extremely sexy!

PRESS HERE to see how beautiful these MILFs look: (MUST BE 18 and OLDER)

You can DATE these MILFs this week!!!

WHOA.  Thousands of MILF's, in MY city, and not only do they want one night stands AND threesomes, but they are extremely sexy and beautiful!!!  And fun!  How DOES my computer do it?  I was just thinking about how I would love nothing more than to spend an evening in a skanky-threesome-one-night-stand-sure-to-be-festering-wounds episode with other women who have used uteruses (uteri?) just like mine!  This was indeed my lucky day.  (You know what's sad?  There's a man who read that last sentence who just felt the stirrings of an erection.  You know it's true.)

What's that?  You don't know what a MILF is?  Let's check Urban Dictionary, the go-to source for Whoreticulture Friday (copied with typos intact, clearly written by a professor):

MILF: "Mother I'd Like (to) Fuck" :mothers, whether married, separated or divorced, that a male individual sees as physical attractive enough to want to have sexual intercourse with them. Just cuz their moms doesn't mean that they don't need a spark in their love life. If they've ever breastfed,they have really responsive nipples and a core of erectile tissue in their breasts. The ones in good shape have worked at regaining control over their vaginas (Kegel exercises).MILFs are usually real careful about birth control, they know accidents happen but they take responsible steps. They want to fuck with abandon, with no romantic complications for their under-19 family.

A MILF is any mother that is sexually desirable.

"A core of erectile tissues"? OR this one:

MILF: Some hot ass mom of a friend's that you wanna do so badly

When you're going out to basketball practice and you see ur best friend's mother bending over to pick some flowers and she's got a thong on Got MILF?

I personally heard about MILFs for the first time in the movie American Pie, when Stifler's Mom was putting the make on Finch.  Meet Jennifer Coolidge, America's MILF:

 "I got some scotch...aged 18 years, 

the way I like it."

However, I was familiar with the concept much earlier.  My high school posse of friends had reunited (and it felt so good) for a weekend about ten years ago (forgive me girls if that is wrong).  Nearly all of us had kids by then, we were probably around 30, and this was a rare night away from the families.  We went out for dinner, feeling spry, and a college-age guy waited on us.  We joked around with him for a while, getting a little tipsy, and then a LOT tipsy, and at one point we said something to him like, "We're moms on the loose!  If you're lucky we'll invite you back to our room!"  And he was visibly shocked and like, "Uh, no thanks."

And that just did it.

After a few moments of stunned silence, we lit into this poor guy.  I remember saying to him, "You go home to your little frat boy roommates and tell them that six EXPERIENCED women invited you back to their hotel room with them, and you refused!" and as he walked away I was saying something like, "We have over 75 years of sexual experience between us!  We can do things you haven't even HEARD of yet!"  

Did he need to know that experience included getting stuck between the bed and the wall, or having a puppy accidentally end up licking someone's balls, or not being able to get the handcuffs off?  No.  It needed to sound provocative, not disturbing.  (And by the way people, only ONE of those things happened to me.)  He was missing out!  On something we weren't even offering, really, but it stung to be shut down.  We were MILFs, for God's sake, before MILFs were even invented!  

So there I was.  Another classy situation, where a tipsy Julie berated a young man for not wanting to participate in an orgy with semi-drunk nursing mothers with attitudes.  I will defend my friends' honor.  The waiter came back, a little apologetic, probably because the tip had not been paid yet.  Were we mad?  No.  We're moms.  We were disappointed in him.  So we spanked him hard and then we put Baby in the corner and cuffed him to the Time Out chair.  Naughty monkey.

Happy Whoreticulture Friday, and have a great weekend!

Nobody Does It Better

No one can ever say I'm not a giver.

I've always been the court jester.  Unfortunately, it hasn't always been intentional.  But for all of my unpredictability in fashion, grooming, class, or manners, I've always been consistent in making those around me look better.  You're welcome, those around me.

In grade school, high school, and college, I could be counted upon to be the most obnoxious person in the room.  Sometimes it's charming.  It certainly got my friends married faster..."well, she does burp, but her friend Julie burps louder"...."she was drunk, but her friend Julie was drunker"..."she can pack away the food, but did you see her friend Julie?"  As I've said before, Current Husband and I were both on a mission to pick the most inappropriate person to marry, and by some strange blessing, we ended up actually being pretty good for each other.  (CH loves his women gassy, drunk and gluttonous, which has the little-known side effect of occasionally ending up in marriage and pregnancy.  In this case, in that order.)

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a history as a working girl, which mainly sounds like I spent my time drawing a paycheck with my breasts out.  You would think that kind of job description pays more, but in my world they call it "Marketing" or "Event Planning".  So far, I've managed to keep my breasts covered at the new job.  For now.  However, I've been reminded rather quickly what my typical working existence is like.

TWO NIGHTS BEFORE
I select my outfit.  Feel extraordinarily organized.  I go to bed.  At 1 a.m., feeling of euphoria goes away as I start getting abdominal cramps, which always mean I am having an allergic reaction to some as-yet-unidentified food or spice.  I take two Benadryl, because I know what is coming.  Unspeakable things happen in the next three hours, and I end up going to sleep at 4 a.m. sitting up on the couch, drenched in sweat and down 8 pounds.  Large black circles form under my eyes.

NIGHT BEFORE
Going to bed early because I only got about four hours of sleep previous night.  Look at outfit I selected and realize shirt has stain on front.  Nice catch, Julie!  Select another shirt.  Program coffee.  Get abdominal cramps again.  This is weird, usually the food allergy thing happens at 1 a.m. or so.  Oh no.  It can't be....it is.  My period.  Early.  Now I will be going to my first day of work on Day 2.  Thank you, Eve.  Hope the apple was delicious.

MONDAY MORNING
Wake up not feeling like I can wear white pants, swim or go horseback riding.  Fortunately, my job requires none of these things.  Shuffle into kitchen for strong, hot, delicious coffee, and WHAT THE HELL!?  The timer was set for p.m. and not a.m.  Turn coffee pot on to wait for 10 horrible minutes.  Have time to look in mirror and see acne outbreak from period.  Get dressed for work and leave five minutes later than I planned.  Get in car, and halfway to work look down to see dime-sized chocolate mark on front of pants.  Fortunately they are black, so I spit shine.  Walk into new job with stained pants, acne, huge raccoon rings under my eyes, and bleeding like a stuck pig.  Human Resources person is out sick, so I have no e-mail, phone, benefits, or instructions.  I get to inconvenience the first person I see, who is not expecting me but has to take me to my desk.  En route to my desk, I ask this person, "Where is the nearest bathroom and caffeine dispenser?"  I finally have vital information.

MONDAY NOON
No one has asked me to lunch.  CH offered to take me to lunch, but I thought I would be in HR, so I said no.  Since I didn't go to HR, I don't have an operating phone or e-mail, so I can't Phone a Friend.  I'm told to call someone about something, and I have to ask the person next to me how to use the phone.  I make the call.  I ask the question. 

ME:  "So can we count on you to donate again this year?"
HER:  "What are the dates?"
ME:  "Uh...um....I don't know.  I'll call the contact and get back to you."
HER:  "Why don't I look it up in the file and call you.  What's your number?"
ME:  "Uh...um...I don't know.  It's my first day here."
HER:  "Can I e-mail you?"
ME:  "Uh...um... I don't know.  Can I call you back?"

SUCCESS!  I have now made my predecessor look like an absolute genius!  She probably got a raise for no reason at that moment.  I decide I need a Diet Coke.  I ask my boss where to get them.  She says she will walk me down to the break room to show me where it is.  We are chatting amicably, and then I put my money in the machine.  I make my selection, but when I see that ice cold bottle of Diet Coke come down the chute, I can't hold back.  I reach for the little door and pull, as my boss says, "Oh, you don't want to..." and then I have jammed the machine.  My boss has to grab the door and rock it back and forth for a few minutes, fighting the vending machine for my Diet Coke.  I stand and look at her, shamed.  She wrenches the door open and hands me the bottle, thinking, "Who have I hired?  What have I DONE?" 

MONDAY, FOUR P.M.
I've made four trips to the bathroom with my purse, which means I should be presented with my new t-shirt that says, "HEY EVERYONE!  I'M HAVING MY PERIOD!"  My boss decides I should go downstairs and help another department get a marketing piece out that is past deadline.  I am taken to a room and put on a machine that folds letters.  The person who shows me how to run the machine is very nice, and she leaves me to do my task.  About 30 minutes later, I try to leave, but can't get the door to work.  Shortly, someone comes in and says, "It's a good thing I was here...you can't get back in the building from this room without a badge!"  Since I didn't go to HR, I didn't get a badge, so I couldn't enter my security building.

Let's recap:

• stained clothing
• meth addict eyes and acne
• bleeding
• doesn't know own phone number or e-mail address
• breaks vending machine
• locks self out of building

Nobody does it better.  It makes me feel sad for the rest.  Be thankful, co-workers.  You have no idea what I've just done for your bonus structure.

p.s. Happy Birthday Mom!

Workin' Hard for the Money

Hello, Gentle Readers.  The Wife has news.  I am going back into the rank and file of full-time employment tomorrow.  This means I will have to go back to regular showering, bedtimes before the a.m. hours, and regulation of swearing.  Holy crap, what have I done?

It's been eight years since I was actually employed by a company as a regular (or irregular, depending upon whom you ask) employee.  Here it is, the Progression of Julie's Career:

1. After college, I did marketing for a mall, which is the job I had when I married CH.  They loved getting my wedding gifts shipped to the mall office.  
2. Then I was a community events coordinator for a bank, where I had to nurse Oldest Daughter in the safe deposit box rooms during events.  
3. After that, I was a public relations manager for a children's home, where I spent one long hour of a hot air balloon festival trapped in an RV pumping breast milk while a coked-up dachshund dragged his nails down my legs.   
4. Then I was a columnist and writer for a terrific local newspaper (support your local newspapers!), where I had my kids play on the floor with computer parts while I trapped mice in the garbage can.
5. I decided to open my own retail store in a small town in Iowa, which was the best job EVER, despite the long hours, but unfortunately our society currently doesn't support local businesses and Target consistently ate shops like mine for breakfast.  My little shop actually did pretty well, but I sold it when CH got a job an hour away and we had to move.  Sniff.  I miss my store, and my customers rocked.  Best time ever, so much fun.
6. We moved to our current town, and I stayed home with the kidlets and did freelance writing.  Being home with the kiddies has been fun too, and don't doubt for a second that it's a lot of work, but now they are between the ages of 7 and 13, and it's time for Momma to get back on her professional game.  I still plan to do freelance writing because it's fun and I have some great clients, but I'm at an age where words like "Benefits" and "Regular Compensation" sound really sexy.

So I started looking around for a job.  I didn't want any job, I really wanted something I was going to enjoy, and I was very lucky to find something very close to my house, very flexible, and fun.  (Well, as fun as going in to work 40 hours a week can be after hanging out at home surfing the Internet braless drinking coffee and watching Sassy Gay Friend on Second City Network.)  Actually, I'm a little bit excited about it.  Now it's OKAY that I'm bi-polar!

The Wife, at home:

"Whoo-hooo!  I love my dog and PCP!  Kick ass!"

(PCP actually stands for Portland Cello Project, I swear.  

This group is uber-talented, so catch them if you can.  

Get your t-shirts in the SHOP section of their tres cool website HERE!)

Julie, at work:

"...and that is why we would like you to consider a 

$100K donation to our fine educational program."

Assuming my co-workers won't constantly interrupt me to ask for snacks or to see if they can play Club Penguin on my computer, the workplace will actually be a lovely grown-up place where people talk about current events and drink coffee and focus on whole sentences.  I will wear shoes that aren't flippy floppies.  I will be mature.  (Oh, let's not push it.)

What does this mean for the blog, you ask?  Nothing.  Because I can't write about work, and I can't stop exposing my family to ridicule for free in pursuit of my writing dreams, so I'll still be here, two to three times a week, boring my mother and the two other readers with too much information about my people.

So tomorrow - what do you think?  Leather pants and SpongeBob pasties, or the Fuck Tha Police vinyl wrap dress?  Yeah, that's what I thought too.  Happy Monday, have a great week!

It's Whoreticulture Friday! Issue 36

Whoreticulture: The industry and science of whores and whore-related topics. Whoreticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of OB-GYNery, Brazilian waxers and shavers, adultery, personal hygiene mavens and easy women. The word is composite, from two words, whore, from Greek meaning "harlot" or "dear", and the word "culture". Like NPR's Science Friday, Whoreticulture Friday exists to educate and spark discussion on the science of Whorology. Whoreticulture Friday is not for children. Or squeamish people. Or Mother-In-Laws.


Today's topic: You know you want it.
 So Current Husband and I have just come off of the parental equivalent of a weekend at Cabo San Lucas - the children were at Grandma's, and if you closed your eyes and sipped your margarita and stood in front of a fan with a CD of ocean music playing, then by all means, Voy a tener otro, Jose.

On Wednesday I was getting ready to leave to have coffee with a friend, and put on a sort of flowy white shirt that always looks like a terrific beachy summer top in the store, and looks suspiciously like a maternity top or the Krispy Kreme Fan Club tunic at home.  I walked into the dining room where CH was working, and said, "Does this top make me look pregnant?"

He finished typing his e-mail, surfed the Net for another moment, and then looked up.  He looked me up and down, raised his eyebrows, and said, "You look like you want me to bend you over."

Perdon?  This answer:
A)  Gets you out of answering the question.  If you tell me that the outfit I am wearing makes me look like I want nothing more than to be ravaged by you, it does not give the crucial information I need, such as:

•  "Is my muffin top spilling out anywhere?"
• "Are the edges of my underwear forming permanent creases in the butt of these pants?"
• "Is there an extra boob roll present?"

News Flash - I KNOW YOU WILL HAVE SEX WITH ME IF I LOOK FAT.  I also know you will have sex with me if I don't shave for months, get a hairy mole, or smell like garlic.  You won't like it, but you'll do it.

B)  It assumes I prefer to be bent over for ANYTHING, which honestly, I don't.  Hello, knees of an Octogenarian here!  Hips soon to follow!  The only thing I like to be bent over is a sushi bar, and that is only to reach for my second cup of sake.  However, I would like to see YOU bent over something - how about the garbage, or that pair of work shoes in the doorway everyone is tripping over?


C)  This is actually a soliciation for some spontaneous sex.  The chance of me actually putting down the keys and saying, "You're right.  Do me like a dog in heat" are incredibly slim, and yet, you are willing to take that chance, even if it might piss me off.  I appreciate your optimism, really I do.  Someday, when I put on those capri pants that are a little snug in the trunk and I say, "Are my granny pants totally showing through these?" and you say, "You know you want me to tap that," I am going to take the fifteen minutes to peel those pants back down like a banana over my Spanx and then remove said panties and then the kids will come around the corner and scream "WHY ARE YOU NAKED?!?!" and we'll be late for the school function, but we'll both know in our heart of hearts that it was going to be THE BEST SEX WE'VE NEVER HAD.


D)  Puts the ball in my court.  Because if I grimace, or complain, then you can be affronted.  "What?  Why is that bad?  Lots of women would LOVE it if their husbands said stuff like that to them!"  Um, honey, WHAT stuff?  You mean the part where after I ask if my stomach is visibly hanging below my hem you imply that I am begging you to bend me over and mate with me like lions on Animal Planet?  My bad.  You CLEARLY understand exactly what lots of women would love.

Now.  Does this shirt make me look pregnant?  Because there is a skinny vanilla latte and scone waiting for momma, and if you want me to play cheerleader to your quarterback later, I need you to reinforce my delusion that I am keeping my midlife weight gain from the world at large.  I need you to back me up, not bend me over.  Are we clear?  Excellent.  Now get your hand off my boob, I'm going to be late.

Happy Whoreticulture Friday, and have a great weekend!