Surprise

Every year Scott likes to "surprise" me by taking me to the lovely little coastal town of Astoria for my birthday. And because I'm in denial about how the passage of time works, I make every effort to forget about my birthday since I've been old enough to drive, vote, and drink for some time now and another birthday is really just about getting older. Which I refuse to do. Scott is smart and he knows this, so it truly is a surprise, each and every time. When you have kids and suddenly find yourself alone with your significant other, something magical happens. And by magical I mean you have absolutely no clue what to do because your life is usually being run by tiny dictators who don't let you call in on sick days, nor do they care if you accuse them of being narcissistic attention whores. They just nod in agreement. Every time we head to Astoria, winding down the two hour drive on Hwy 30, we start talking about all the great things we're going to do once we get there, including climbing the famous Astoria Column, a 125 foot monolith with a huge spiral staircase and a majestic hand painted frieze that circles the exterior. Over 400,000 people visit it every year to take in the sweeping views of Young's bay, the Coast Range and Columbia River, and farther out, the Pacific Ocean. You can't not visit the Column when you go to Astoria, it's almost a moral imperative. We've never even seen it.
Instead, we find ourselves easily amused by simply walking around, reading, and window shopping. Evenings are especially mellow, with our only obligation making sure we're fed and sufficiently plied with wine. And the funny thing is, by playing it this way we almost always find ourselves in situations we couldn't have planned better. One time we happened to book our stay during the Astoria Regatta Festival and arrived just in time for the big parade. The town was swollen with twice the amount of people, and most had staked out their festival seating the night before. We literally had no clue what was going on that weekend so asked a couple of locals where a good place to grab lunch and watch the parade might be.
"Well, you could try Fort George Brewery or The Wet Dog Café but you're not going to be able to get a seat. The parade is just about to start, but hey, good luck!" Encouraged by our lack of planning and consistent good luck we decided to try Fort George, and sure enough, we scored a seat outside right in front of the parade. A couple of sausages and beers later and we were off to the Regatta Queen's Coronation, a concert in the park or the Seaman's Memorial.
Which leads to later that evening when, having showered and spent the majority of our energy, we found ourselves lying on the bed in the quaint Franklin Station Bed and Breakfast "Tranquility Room" discussing the current state of the porn industry. As one does on vacation.
"Babe, what's with all the spitting and swearing?" I asked
"I don't know, it doesn't really seem to add anything to the storyline," Scott grabbed his phone and cued up a few examples.
"I know, right? I mean, I get that the delivery guys' "package" might not have been what she was expecting but she seems kind of into it. Why so angry?" I asked. "And what ever happened to pubic hair? Seriously, remember that huge bush on the woman in Life of Brian? Now a full frontal is like looking at Barbie porn. I'm not sure looking like a 12 year old is cool in this context. "
"Well, they must be on to something......I don't know, what do you think?" Scott is a man who asks for nothing and is grateful for everything, so when I hear things like, "what do you think?" I tend to translate it as "so you're sayin' there's a chance?" And because I love him, I'm usually pretty much up for whatever it is he might be hinting at.
Now, I'm not stranger to waxing, although I typically don't make a habit out of outsourcing it because I'm both handy and capable. I'm "handy-capable", if you will. The one exception was when I was hugely pregnant and about to go to a company sales meeting that involved a pool and a bathing suit. I'm the kind of girl who both loves clothes and would prefer to live without them. And when it's hot, I wear as little as possible. Pregnant or not, a one piece was not an option and tankinis were out of the question. Damn the haters, I would wear a bikini or nothing! The only problem was, I couldn't see past my belly so I had no idea what was happening down there, and being ungroomed held more dire consequences for me than being pregnant in a bikini. I decided to seek professional help and found myself asking a total stranger wielding a popsicle stick and wax heated to 140° F to deforest my nether regions. Since I was new to this game, I asked for a "Brazillian", thinking she'd take a bit off the sides, both top and undercarriage and that would be that. Having gone through 8 months of laying half naked on a table with someone inspecting your lady parts, I wasn't really that concerned about the appointment, until the esthetician poured the searing substance onto my labia, spread it like butter, and ripped off not only hair follicles but a layer of skin. Fun fact: when you're pregnant you're also more sensitive and the pain was far worse than I would have expected. What I didn't know was that a "Brazillian" entailed full removal instead a little tidying up, so imagine my surprise when I heard "Ok, we can give that area a break if you want. Go ahead and roll over, and get on your hands and knees."
What. The Actual. Fuck????
I'm cool with sporting a stark-naked mons veneris but waxing the naughty hole was nowhere in my little plan. Yet there I was, on my hands and knees with my huge belly nearly touching the table while the esthetician peeled apart my lower cheeks and started spreading warm wax all around. Ironically, that part was the least painful and I had to admit, in lieu of a bidet, it kind of made sense. I couldn't get through the rest though, and so when I got home all I could do was sit with an ice pack shoved in my underwear to help the swelling.
So while I fully intended to rise to the occasion for Scott, waxing was out of the question. And since we were on topic and needed more wine anyway, I suggested we pop over to Safeway and I would grab some Nair and give it a whirl.
"Honey, should I get sensitive or extra- strength?" I didn't want to go through all of this and up with a rash or a five o'clock shadow two days after removing my fur-kini.
"I don't know! I've never even been in this aisle!" Scott was no help at all. So I grabbed a bottle of pubic Agent Orange, went back to our little bed and breakfast and started slathering. Five minutes later I was smooth as a baby's butt, and just as hairless. Let's just say it was well received.
When we got back home I thought I might try and keep it up, being the good wife that I am. I still had a fairly full bottle of Nair, so when the dreaded stubble came back I once again defoliated.  Scott was at Home Depot so I thought this might be a nice surprise, but shortly after rinsing, I started to feel a stinging sensation, kind of like when you pour lemon juice over a cut. The stinging got worse, and was soon followed by swelling and what looked like red lines forming along the tender tissue of my underside. I could not, for the life of me, figure out what was going on until I grabbed the bottle, re-read the warning label and realized I have chemically burned my coochie. Apparently there needs to be a mandatory waiting period before you re-engage with a product designed to scorch the earth of your glorious valley of promise. I already knew to reach for the ice packs, but since this was a burn I thought maybe some calendula cream might help. But then I needed a way to keep the cream on my skin so I thought, "Hmm, maybe a band aid will work." I may not have thought that one through but the screaming red canvas of pain was hijacking my higher reasoning capabilities, so I reached into the closet to see what I could find. Did I mention we have two girls? One of them small enough to still enjoy cartoons and stuffed animals, and so when I reached into the closet what appeared in my hand was the one of the most ironic and hysterical bandages I could have found: a brightly colored pink and yellow Hello Kitty Band Aid. Which inspired the following text to Scott, completely out of context:
"OMG HONEY!! I just almost put a Hello Kitty Band-Aid on my labia!!"
Silence. But I heard him laughing all the way at Home Depot.

Because I love him.

Introduction- This Book is Not For You

I know what you’re thinking. Most authors actually want people to read their books. They spend a lot of time and money promoting them. They even go on book tours which makes it hard to hide the fact that they actually wrote a book.  With a career in sales, I spend the majority of my time convincing others they would be an idiot not to buy from me, so I get your confusion.

But a mostly true memoir requires a different sort of sale; the one where I give you the chance to opt out because you get a sense of what’s about to appear on the pages in front of you and it offends your sensibilities so much you’re either going to hemorrhage disgust or send me a very uncool email. Neither of which I want. So eyes wide open people, here’s where you decide.

This book is not for you if you have an issue with swearing. I try to be judicious and only swear as a means of punctuation, exasperation, or to make a point that just wouldn’t be complete without it, but sometimes I feel compelled to drop an f bomb, and often feel much better for it. If that offends you, walk away now.

If the language of hyperbole is confusing or disorienting, you might want to reconsider going any farther. And if you have an undying loyalty to the exact truth, consider yourself warned. That’s why it’s a mostly true memoir. Oprah would appreciate the distinction.

Writing about yourself is fairly daunting, especially when you vacillate between levity and accuracy. Because as much as I’m a fan of (funny) revisionist history, there are stories that deserve the honest light of day. And those are the hardest. Reframing one’s life story in way that’s both truthful and palatable is for sure one of the most daunting tasks I’ve ever signed up for, but here I am. Huge credit to Jenny Lawson, Allie Brosch, Amy Poehler, Caitlan Moran and all the other brave women who told their stories in ways that were both amusing and allowed them to stand in their own integrity. I am inspired.

Other landmines you might encounter: Deep discussions about my lady parts, scatological humor and a few painful inflection points that I just couldn’t make funny. I have done my best to broach these unfunny moments with as much grace and compassion for all those involved as I can, but be warned. It’s not pretty.

Still here? Awesome. Strap yourself in and enjoy the ride. 

Yoga Concerns Me

I have a love-hate relationship with yoga. I’m definitely on board with relaxing and getting more flexible, but there are certain.... how shall I say this… concerns I have. That are actually well grounded and I’ll tell you why. True story:

I’m in yoga class with my boss, of all people, who happened to be male. At this point in my life I’m in pretty decent shape, so I figure this is a great time to show off how talented and flexible I am, which I’m hoping he’ll see as a metaphor for why I should get a promotion. I work through most of the poses like a mad Yogi Ninja until we get to Malasana, a squatting pose, also known as “garland pose”. It looks like this:  

Apparently the purpose of this pose is to open up your hips, thighs, and groin but the “garland” part still confuses me since( there’s no strings of beads hanging off my body anywhere.) Now, if you’re a woman, you know damn well what can happen when you “relax” your groin: first a loud sucking sound happens, followed by a squelching sound similar to passing gas except THAT’S NOT WHERE IT’S COMING FROM. And in some yoga classes (Bikram, I'm looking at you...) this is not only acceptable but encouraged; however, this was NOT one of those classes. As soon as that squeaker escaped my lady hole, I immediately looked around in confusion and disgust, as if to say, "Who would do such a thing?!" Sadly, my boss was not fooled. And I'm pretty sure no one else was either.  And I'm not saying the two incidents are related, but I didn't get the promotion. 

Chapter One: That Awkward Moment Where I Exist

I was born a poor Cambodian boat child.
It was 1973, the Chinese Year of the Ox, and the nightly news was filled with stories that spoke to the shifting cultural and political landscape. The country wanted to know if their President was a crook, Soylent Green totally ruined euthanasia, and the United States officially ended bombing Cambodia after 12 years of combat in Southeast Asia. Waves of refugees flooded into the U.S., landing on our shores in rickety boats teeming with women and children. It was during one of those evening broadcasts that I first saw these "boat people" and I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. I was only four, and even though I didn't really understand what was happening, I knew there was something very unfair about it. My brother Lance, 15 months older, didn't seem to have much of a take on the situation, but somehow I knew something bad had happened to those kids. My mother and I sat together in front of the t.v. listening to the newscast, and I couldn't help asking,
"Why are all those people coming here? Where are they from?" My mother patiently answered my questions. Usually it was my dad whose eyes were glued to the news, especially since he'd fought in Vietnam and Korea and so had a wealth of information on the subject, but he'd been in the bathroom, leaving my mom on her own.
"There's too many kids and not enough mommies," I said, "Where are all the parents?" "Well, their parents may have died, or got lost, we just don't know, "my mom said, "so they'll have to find homes here and find families to adopt them."
I pondered that for a while, rolling it around in my four year old mind until finally I said, “I sure am glad I don't have to be adopted like those kids."
Silence.
And then, “Jack, could you come in here please?” I guess it was the perfect time for the big reveal, because as soon as my dad came into the room, my mom took a deep breath, looked at my brother and I, and stunned us with the news that we were, in fact, adopted. Just like those kids.
Mic.

Drop.

There's lots of ways people react to news like this. Some people are shocked and confused (yes), some think it's kind of cool and unique (also yes) and others just don't ever forgive the person who outed them. My brother fell into that last category, and I'm pretty sure he still holds a grudge. Because really, completely reversing your life story without any warning or consent really is kind of a dick move. 

I think I kind of blacked out after that but I do remember some shocking revelations. As it turned out, my brother and I actually came from two separate biological families. Soooo many questions around that one; did we count as real brother and sister? Could I just choose to remove myself from our familiar sphere any time he pissed me off? I was seriously starting to see an upside to this.

This also meant that I had free range to create my own revisionist history, complete with an origin story that reflected how truly Cambodian I was. Because, you know, I was adopted. Just like those kids. Never mind that my light brown hair and green eyes weren’t exactly exotic… those details were none of my business and had no place informing my understanding of how I came to be. In my four year old mind, I was born in the jungle, put on a boat, and sent into the arms of my adoptive parents. Full stop.

But then it got EVEN BETTER. I found out that I had actually lived in an orphanage!!! That just sounded glamorous, like Little Orphan Annie without the annoying musical theater or creepy billionaire sponsor.

My brother, however, was still not amused. It seemed to me that something fundamental in him changed that day. He had been a happy, easy going kid with no evidence of damage from the occasional febrile seizures experienced as a baby; but after receiving the news of his adoption a sort of internal deflation started, and kept going well into his teen years. He just seemed a little sadder, more disappointed, and possibly a little betrayed. He was, after all, only about 5 or 6 at the time.

I’m sure there was fallout from this revelation, there must have been. Although most of the fallout happened on the front end, before my parents were even married. My dad went into the Merchant Marines at 15, skipping high school with permission from his parents who really could have cared less. He’d been shipped around, from household to household by the time he was nine, finally being sent alone on a bus to live with his father in Kansas. Unfortunately, his mother, who lived in Missouri neglected to tell his father he was coming, and so upon arrival, my nine year old father walked aimlessly around the bus station until a police officer was able to sort out the situation.

My mother was born in San Francisco to a loving but alcoholic father and a (possibly) bi-polar Christian Scientist mother. To be clear, Christian Science is NOT to be confused with Scientology—this is probably the most commonly asked question I get whenever I broach the subject. It’s not far off, but it’s not the same. Mom grew up learning words like “corporeal”, mortal mind, and being told that "Matter, sin, and sickness are not real, but only illusions," Which translated into no doctors, dentists, or optometrists. As both my grandmother and her sister, my Great Aunt were deeply invested in Christian Science, they had a natural bias towards all things different. Like Catholics, or astrophysicists. So imagine, when my beautiful 19 year old mother hooked up with my 29 year old separated-but-not-divorced-with-three-kids father. All hell broke loose.

Which brings me back to the pre-fallout. Despite my grandmother’s best attempts at warding my father off, (“I hope you fall down an open manhole!” “I hope you go to Alaska and lose your snow shoes!” “I think you should take a long walk off a short pier”) my parents got married anyway. Which makes me kind of proud to know that their whole romance started off as a rebellion, because it made them more human. And oh, they were human alright! Both of them had a fondness for alcohol that if not staunched before us kids came along, would have landed both of them in jail or rehab. I bet we would have had a great time partying together.

And so when my parents brought me home to meet my grandparents for the first time, it was my grandfather who looked at me and said, “There’s our Kelley,” which was a reference to his mother's maiden name, and how I ended up with my name (1). And while there was no doubt that my grandma loved me, she developed a quirky little habit when I was around. We were a close family, with the good luck of having cousins, aunts and uncles nearby. My cousin Lori and I grew up almost like sisters, and spent a ton of time at grandma's house. My grandma had a way of introducing us to literally everyone she met; grocery clerk, bank teller, construction worker, homeless guy down by the lake... And every single time this is how it went: "This is my granddaughter Lori. And this is Kelley..... she's special. She's ADOPTED." Now, when I told my mother about this she was seriously pissed, and I was just kind of confused, because really, all I heard was "she's SPECIAL". HA! Suck it Lori! You're just a granddaughter but I'm special!!! That's the kind of happy obtuse world I inhabited. And it totally ruled. 

Adventures in SkyDiving

What is the hardest thing you have ever done?

(sooo many choices for me here)

Now, let’s see… for sure one of the hardest things I’ve ever done is jump out of a plane. And truly, I most likely would have chickened out had someone not been literally attached to my backside and thrown me out. Yes, I paid actual money for this experience.

For those of you who haven’t gone skydiving, let me just paint the picture for you. You arrive and go through a relatively fast training, where the instructions are basically like, “Free fall into the flight position”.  Personally, I thought there could have been a little more meat to the training, but apparently they’re “agile”. We all got leather helmets (I’m still not sure why) that looked like something a 1920’s fighter pilot would wear. Except I had no access to things that fire projectile rockets, so that kind of took the fun out of it. 

We all got jumpsuits. Mine was neon purple, and with the helmet made me look like Tinky Winky pretending to be an actual bullet. Once we reached our cruising altitude, a giant hole in the side of the plane magically appeared, and people starting jumping. I was the third to go, and for some reason the instructor strapped to my back decided I should sit on the edge of the opening with my body dangling outside of the plane.  This disturbed me greatly.

And even though I sometimes bend the rules,  I have a pretty strict policy about doing exactly what I’m told in most new learning situations. So instead of trying to grab onto the side of the plane I just kind of whimpered and peed a little bit, and the next thing I knew I was falling out of the sky with the intensity of a dateless cheerleader a week before prom. 
Which is pretty intense.

Should you choose to do this activity, please know that you will NOT be able to breathe normally. Or at all for about the first 10 seconds. After the hypoxia sets in though, it’s really pretty cool. You should totally do it. Did I sell it? 

Our Million Dollar Idea!

Actual text conversation with Scott tonight:

Me: OMG we don’t have any wine!! WTF??!!

Scott: What?.... How?...... why?.......how?????

That’s it, we need a vineyard.

Me: I KNOW RIGHT?!! I just hit my FB community to see if anyone would bring me a bottle. (I really did) And I’m tagging you.

Scott: Isn’t there some sort of vino take out place?

Me: Dude! That’s our million dollar idea!!

Scott: Right?! Dial-a-booze? Phone-a-bottle? Text-a-tankard?

Me: HAHAHAHHA! Select-a-sommelier?

Scott: Liquor is quicker… when you have it delivered? I’m not sure who we would hire as drivers though. Mormons?

Me: THIS BUSINESS PLAN BUILDS ITSELF!!

Clever conversations

I must say, I have few friends I enjoy as much as my clever, witty and uber intelligent friend Victoria. And it's not often that I actually have a chance to be clever and witty back-- at least witty enough to get an appreciative chuckle. So, imagine my delight at the response I received from the following email conversation:
 
Victoria:

.........Dreamt about you last night. Why were you flying to Antartica: please explain.


Me:


Antarctica, eh? Well, I wasn't going to reveal this quite yet but I actually have a secret seed storage attached to a network of

Tungsten-coated igloos in case the end times come. Each igloo is fully loaded with subterranean panic rooms and rice cookers. Because, you know, you could always cook a seed in a rice cooker. Also there's parrot bodyguards because, much like the MockingJay in the Hunger Games, parrots can say anything so intruders could be easily distracted whilst we flee to our respective panic rooms. But no cats, because cats typically don't care about my joy, and that is a very important component of survival.

 

I think the recent Blood Moon must have channeled my secret psychically to you, but only after I took multiple homeopathic remedies. They must have opened me up, psychically, that is.

 

Understand now?

 

Victoria:

 

HAHAHAHAHA! You are killing me! Tungsten…seed storage…parrots…cats/joy…….HOMEOPATHY!!