Tag: Asheville

TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF ALREADY!!!!!!!

Over lunch with some anonymous awesome divas today, a conversation came up about body image.  I have a friend who will not be seen in a swimsuit at the beach or the pool, ever.  The conversation went even further into strange territory when it was stated that the preference was to even stay partially dressed (long tshirt, whatever) whilst in, ahem, intimate moments. 

This is not a gender specific issue, body image, so I wanted to get out here on my blog and talk to everyone about it.  Put on your freakin’ swimsuit and enjoy the ocean!  There will always be someone thinner than you, there will always be someone heavier than you, who the hell cares, go have fun!  And as for those intimate moments, ummm, you’ve gotten far enough with someone that clothing is optional and probably just in the way, so just remove it all!

I don’t care if I wear a swimsuit at the beach, geez.  The only peril to that is blinding innocent bystanders when the sunlight reflects off my whiter than white skin.  If I waited until I had some “perfect” body, whatever that is, I’d never freakin’ get to go swimming!  I don’t want to miss out on a thing, and why would you?  In fact, I have more than one swimsuit in case one’s wet and I wanna go swim again!  Why would you want to skip the trip to the lake or the pool party and miss out on fun with friends and family?  They really don’t give a snot what you look like in your swimwear, I promise; they just wanna goof off and spend time with you.  I can’t imagine missing out on playing “mermaid” with Minime in the pool or not wave jumping out in the ocean with because I was self-conscious about my butt in a swimsuit.

As for your special getting freaky moments, strip!  In a fit of far TMI, I will tell you that I HATEHATEHATE to get cold, so in the summer with the A/C blowing, I like a little coverup if it’s time to get down, but if we can get it warm in here, it’s a free for all of paleness and tangled limbs.  Why? Because this is it, folks, this is all there is.  Today is all we have, right this minute, so you gotta accept who you are inside and out today.  Sure, you can wish your abs were less sticky outy, but today, they are what they are…do some crunches and get your freak on!  I hate to think that people are skipping intimacy with their loves because they feel funny about whether their boobs are too small or their ass is too big or their stomach is too round or their elbows are too pointy or I don’t even know what else.  We’re all human, we come in different shapes and shades and sizes, and who you are today, right this second, is completely strip-worthy to the one you love that loves you, too.

It’s not a beauty pageant, it’s real life.  I work with a guy who has such a way with the ladies, but on the surface, he’s just an average fellow—no movie star looks, no bling. There’s never a shortage of women in his life.  It’s not about his looks or his physique, though, it’s about confidence in himself.  He believes he’s a hottie from Hottieville, he projects this with ease and grace, and thus he is.  Believe, people, believe! I know I can’t make you see what you don’t want to see in yourselves, but dang!  This life we get is too short to be thinking you’re anything less than Da Bomb!

Take your clothes off already…in broad daylight, even! (disclaimer: please strip only in the privacy of your own home and not, say, at Waffle House or the office)  All you have is today…enjoy the hell out of it!

Gawd almighty, bring me a bottle o’ wine

I passed my first big exam today, hell yeah.  So bring me a bottle o’ wine, send flowers, because I worked f-ing hard and I deserve all that and more and you’ve been super lax on celebrating me as you should.

Appreciate the pep talks and encouragement so much.  You know how I am…I never assume that I’m gonna pass, but I never assume I’m gonna fail either…so I get all nervous and uncertain and, well, in between.   Even when I passed (90%!), I still had a hard time getting my head around it…I told someone I thought I was dreaming the whole damn thing and was gonna be sorely disappointed when the alarm clock’s ring ripped the illusion to bits.  But I really passed on the first try!

Next big exam has to be completed by mid-October but I’m not cracking a book today.  I’m goofing off around my blog and running a hot bubble bath and doing nothing.  Tomorrow I move right on to the next class, but today, yeah, I’ve earned the right to be a little lazy.

stp, a few pix from Charlotte show

so much fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I have a ton of photos, but a lot of them are kinda blurry because I was bouncing around like I do.  My bro took some pix, too…

 

Scott Weiland during opening song Big Empty:

Scott, STP

 

Me and my baby bro—baby bro’s first ever photo appearance in the Kat Box; I’m the cute one:

me and my bro

 

STP, all but the drummer

STP in Charlotte

 

I was close enough to Scott Weiland to carry him off and make him a housepet, but I unselfishly left him onstage to share with all…

scott white shirt

 

and moi, a little tired after midnight, in a rare kat box appearance of my own, because i rock hardcore…

moi

 

it’s sunday & that means STP!

Stone Temple Pilots in Charlotte tonight!! Thank you Scott Weiland for not being in rehab or jail today!!

I’m psyched.  I’m driving baby bro down, and our seats are EXCELLENTLY excellent pre-sale seats.

It’s not time to go yet, but I’m kinda getting things organized.  It’s funny how differently I prepare to go see a show as compared to the olden days.  For example, I’ll go ahead and get some clothes out for work in the morning since I’ll be getting in kinda late tonight…back in the day, I would’ve instead been formulating reasons to call in sick tomorrow.  I would’ve selected my sturdiest badass footwear based on anticipated moshpit time, and now, I’m picking something that’s comfy to stand in for hours.  Of course, big venues like the one today won’t allow moshpits; they’ll throw you out because of the liability…oh but back in my youth, no one cared if we landed face first on the concrete or fell over chairs or whatever.

I’m excited!  When I bought the tickets, summer hadn’t even really kicked in yet, and the concert seemed a million years away, but it’s today!  I haven’t seen STP in about twelve years.  Last show I saw was when I was living in Virginia–wow, that was a long time ago, because I went with Minime’s dad, Mr. Kat 1.0, as one of the last things we ever did as a married couple.  Yeah, that’s been a lifetime ago…

I will not be wearing an STP shirt to the concert.  Scootster and I were discussing the dorkiness of wearing the band’s shirt to their show…it’s kind of a DUH! thing to do, because you’re obviously a fan or you wouldn’t be there in the first place.  Wearing their shirt is just overkill, trying too hard.  I do like concert shirts, though, but why the hell are they so damn pricey?  I’m not paying $40 for a tshirt, hell no…especially when I can get it off eBay for less some other day.

Happy Sunday, all!

Your Nose

I can’t believe you had a nose job.  Do you know what a regular person could do with that kind of money?  Good gawd, I could go on a week’s vacation, pay off a credit card, get a massage and throw one hell of a party, and I’d still have money to spare for what you’ve spent on something that didn’t freakin’ need fixing!

I was looking at our high school yearbook photos just last week at Scootster’s house when I was drinking all his beers…you were cute then, dorky cute, hadn’t quite grown into your calm, confident sense of self yet.  And as an adult, 4 out of 4 people that I surveyed told me they thought your nose was just fine and that you were a good lookin’ guy.

Ah, but now it’s your old nose.  Your old nose was fine.  We must talk about it in the past tense.  Your old nose.  Now you have a nice new nose.  I wonder if I’d still recognize you…I’ve known you since we were Minime’s age, I wonder if my brain can wrap itself around the idea of your new feature–I have the photo you took of yourself on the plane last year, such a good photo, but would I know you today?

It’s just weird for me to think about.  I like to see the familiar angles of my friends’ faces as the years pass.  I take comfort in that familiarity.  And you chose to change that, your choice of course, your call to make and really not my business, but it’s so strange to me, hard for me to understand it.  I don’t choose my friends because of their appearances or their checkbooks or the cars they drive, so in that light, you are my friend no matter how old or new your nose…I send my love, I wish you a speedy recovery and when all’s well, I want to see.  I hope the change brings you confidence and peace.

Bacon

When you’re as important (and moody) as I am, it’s terrific to know that all I have to do is wish for things and there are people who want to make my dreams come true.

Why, just yesterday, I gently kindly wistfully wished aloud for some bacon for a late breakfast.  Or maybe I said I’m starving, why the hell hasn’t anyone around here brought me any freakin’ bacon yet?  I tend to believe I was delicate and sweet in my humble wish…and before I knew it, there was warm crispy bacon being delivered to my office.  I’ll point out that I don’t work in food service and there was no bacon in the building at the time of my request, I just wanted it and someone made it happen for me; this bacon was a special delivery.

If my being in print in Mountain Xpress and being on television this week wasn’t proof enough that the world revolves around me, the bacon, that’s all the proof I need.

Sleep

Last night, I slept ten hours.  Ten solid hours.  Must not have moved much, woke up with pillow imprints on the side of my face and a pain in my neck.  But, man, that kind of sleep is just freakin’ delicious when you sleep intermittently like I do. 

Generally, I can fall asleep pretty easily, but I can’t stay asleep.  I feel blessed if I get two to four hours of sleep without waking; this week, I was sleeping in 45 minute intervals, waking up, flipping the pillow over, adjusting the blankets, watching the clock, dozing for another 45 minutes or so.  I usually stay in the bed until sleep returns, because if I get up, I’ll end up watching a movie or folding laundry or repairing drywall and that’s just ridiculous.  Sometimes I do send emails if I’ve been staring into the dark for a long time, but I try to at least do that from my crackberry while still in the cozy bed.

Last night, I went to bed after I tucked the three tweenagers into their nest, and I didn’t wake up, not once, until I heard the girls giggling over cartoons in broad daylight.  Awesome!  I was so kind and sweet this morning; all I was lacking was some bluebirds to twitter around me as I made breakfast for the wild girls.  My day got off to a grand start.  And then……….someone said oh when I sleep like that, then I don’t sleep well for days.

THANKS FOR THE JINX! Who’s up now wide awake goofing off on the computer when she should be sleeping in preparation for the AM roadtrip?!?  Sigh.  I am at least going to turn off this high-tech contraption and hang out with my pillows and blankets in hopes that a wave of sleep might crash over me sometime soon.  G’nite, all, g’nite.

I forgot that song!

I like to listen to the music channels on Charter cable while I clean house.  This morning, I heard a song that I’d sort of forgotten, Epic by Faith No More…which is a really cool song!  But even better, it helped me remember Falling to Pieces also by Faith No More which I like even more than Epic and I’d forgotten all about.  Thanks to Napster for the instant gratification–both tunes are on my mp3 player now.

I love that, though, when you hear a song and you immediately remember every single word and it takes you back to some cool memories.  Epic takes me back to this assembly in high school in the auditorium.  I was a junior or a senior, and they’d brought in this band to play the cool songs of the moment while wearing the cool rock star attire of the moment, and between songs, they would tell us not to do drugs, commit suicide, get pregnant or drop out of high school.  I was still tripping from the night before and their anti-drug message made me laugh out loud just a little too much.  Maybe I was paranoid, but the mop-topped lead singer seemed to really focus in on me (why the hell were we in the front row of a student assembly? we were never in the front row for anything) so I rallied my freak troops to bang heads to Epic and make it look like we were just loving the hell out of that assembly.  It seems I even got an autographed photo of the motivational band for my efforts and enthusiastic (tripping my ass off) participation.  WTF?!  Anyway, that’s what Epic brought back for me…

Falling to Pieces reminds me of nearly wrecking my red Rabbit GTI (love quick little red cars, ya’ll) on a curvy country road near Tryon.  I must’ve been rocking out to that tune when I was driving waaaaay too fast (me, drive fast? crazy, I know) after taking my friend home late one night.  I remember the moon seemed so huge in the sky that night, the windows were down and the music was blasting.  Going over a bridge, my car hit loose gravel and spun completely around twice…I nearly pissed my pants, but whaddya know, I didn’t hit anything, and when the car stopped, I was on the right side of the road headed the right direction.  Thanks to my guardian angel for that, and I rocked my ass on home.

fresh breath crisis?

I was at Sam’s filling up the KatMobile for a road trip.  The guy on the other side of the pump was going through his Jeep at breakneck speed, looking for something, looking, looking…I heard a cuss word or two as he kept searching.

Finally, I hear a cleared throat and a “Hi, excuse me, do you have any gum?”

“Gum?” I ask, obviously perplexed, raising an eyebrow at Jeep Guy.  I’ve been approached for money, food and lots of other entertaining things while pumping gas, but this was a first.  “Is it a gum emergency?”

“Yes, it is,” he replied. “Is this your first time in a gum emergency?”

I said it was, and grabbed the minty fresh gum from the cup holder in my car.  I extended the whole pack, thinking he might need the whole thing to MacGyver together some sort of world-saving device, but no, he just took one piece and thanked me profusely before zooming away in his Jeep.

So now I’m left to wonder what sort of fresh breath crisis lends itself to asking a stranger at a gas pump for gum?  Hot date? Job interview?  Sipping vodka on your lunch break?  Sneaking out and eating a double Whopper then going home to your vegan wife who thinks you’re vegan, too?  I’m so curious!  At any rate, whoever you are, Jeep Guy, I hope all was well once your gum emergency was thwarted.