Isolation Madness

by Tonia

Like everyone else right now, I’m living the Corona Life. But I live alone so it’s just me, myself and I. For short spurts, me, myself and I get along pretty well but, as an extrovert, this ongoing social distancing thing isn’t working too well for me.

Being ALONE so much, I’ve become poignantly aware that:

·      My tongue doesn’t know exactly where to rest inside my mouth

·      I blink every 6 seconds  

·      My fingernail beds are lop-sided

·      Crossing my left leg over my right leg isn’t as comfortable as crossing my right leg over my left

·      One nostril is different from the other

I’m also noticing some technical difficulties with my brain. Not having ANYONE to talk to, I’ve begun obsessing about every little twitch, itch, bump, spot, ache, pang, cramp, irritation, and tingle (and, hey, I’m 65 so I get a LOT of these). Yep. Pretty convinced I’ve developed several frightening and repulsive diseases in the last two weeks.

I felt a tickle in my throat the other day so I spent hours swallowing every three seconds to see if it really did hurt because, you know, that’s how the dreaded virus starts! Then I worried that all that saliva in my stomach was going to cause stomach cancer.

Later I felt a heaviness in my chest. OMG! Heart attacks run in my family! I immediately ran around the house leaving post-it notes on all my crap and shit for after my death.

All of this would be great fun in a doctor-patient role-play fantasy where I get to be the patient, but I’M IN ISOLATION!!! So I don’t have anyone to play doctor! Maybe I could pretend that my grocery delivery guy is making a <ahem> medical house call…..

But I digress. Back to my social distancing-induced hypochondria. Even my poor dog isn’t immune from my disease delusions. We were cuddling in bed (don’t judge) and his stomach starting growling. My mind immediately jumped to how he caught stomach cancer from me after my overzealous saliva episode. I then had a weepy talk with him about how much he has meant to me.

This is just not going well. My brain:

Hypochondriac Me: This is bad.

Reasonable Me: You’re fine.

Hypochondriac Me: But I have all these symptoms.

Reasonable Me: You’re fine. It’s all in your head.

Hypochondriac Me: I’d better google this.

Reasonable Me: DO NOT google! Get off Web MD. GET OFF! For the love of all that is good and decent, back away from the computer! Don’t do it!

Hypochondriac Me: I’m gonna’ die….

A very old recommendation for the treatment of hypochondria (from the 1600s – yes, I’ve been doing my research) is: Do not be solitary or idle. So basically, I’m fucked.

For your girlfriends get-together while we’re all in quarantine, get on ZOOM so you can chat and go HERE to play Cards Against Humanity online. 

And stay well!

Grading Hell

by Tonia

I’m a teacher – a college professor, to be exact. And this last semester I took on a record number of courses because of a colleague’s illness (when did I start being so damn nice??? Grrrrr…..). All was fine until the end of the semester when I entered ….. <insert menacing music> ….. the Five Circles of Grading Hell.

In the First Circle of Grading Hell, I was greeted by an old enemy, Procrastination. With over 150 papers and exams shadowing me like a stalker, all I could do was log on to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Words with Friends and watch Netflix. I even answered 2 year old emails in my inbox. My house was never cleaner, my tax receipts never so organized and my eyebrows never so meticulously plucked.   

In the Second Circle of Grading Hell, I was met by the twins, Drudgery and Tedium. I corrected the same mistakes over and over and over….and over again, until I wanted to tear my eyes out and hang them like giant dice from my car’s rearview mirror. Here, at the edge of the abyss, I could feel my brain atrophying. If only I could be a bit snarky on a paper or two – THAT would entertain me – but nooooo, I think there’s a policy against irritable snarcasm.

In the Third Circle of Grading Hell, I was overpowered by Drowsiness (can one “catch” narcolepsy?). Words spiraled around in my head, disassociated from their sentences, hanging somewhere between caffeine-addled consciousness and sedation – THIS is academia’s replacement for Ambien. Got insomnia? Grade! They say that 3 am is the hour of writers, painters, poets and other creative people. Uh.....did you notice that teachers/graders didn’t make the list?

In the Fourth Circle of Grading Hell, I was engulfed by Disheveledness. Bloodshot eyes, greasy, matted hair stuck to my scalp, and a 3-day old, coffee-stained shirt - I made zombies look like Ms. Universe contestants. Colleagues who saw me would simply say, “Grading, huh?” There’s just not enough make-up to cover up this kind of ugly.

In the Fifth (and FINAL) Circle of Hell I was strangled by Self-doubt. As I read final exam essays I swung wildly between, “OMG, these exams are awful. I’m a terrible teacher. The students got nothing from me. I suck” and “OMG, these final exam essays are fabulous. I’ve made this far too easy. I’m a terrible teacher. I guess I REALLY suck."

And just when I thought I had made it through Grading Hell, there was yet a new degree of agony waiting for me …… a faculty meeting.

For your next girlfriends’ party be sure to make this fabulous Lemon Meringue Pie Martini. I give it an A.

LEMON MERINGUE PIE MARTINI

1 ounce vodka

2 ounces Triple Sec

3 ounces half-n-half

1 ounce powdered yellow lemonade 
Extra yellow lemonade powder to rim the glass

Whipped cream and lemon slice to garnish

Rim the glass with powdered yellow lemonade. Shake up the first 3 ingredients in a shaker. Pour into glass and top with whipped cream and a lemon slice.

My Spanish Dildo

By Tonia

“It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, ‘As pretty as an airport.’” - Douglas Adams

I recently went to Spain and Morocco with my Boy Toy  (OK, he’s only 5 months younger than me, but we like to call him that). We had a great time sight-seeing while gluttonizing on tapas, paella, Iberian ham, grilled sardines and gazpacho - and drinking more Sangria than our combined weights. 

There were, of course, a few hick-ups along the way. International travel is never without them. For example, there were unmanned highway toll booths every friggin’ 10 miles with more slits, buttons and levers than an Apollo control panel.  Two advanced-degreed brains working together couldn’t figure them out.  Other drivers had to stop and get out of their cars to assist us. 

And the ferry that I was SURE only took 30 minutes to get to Tangier took 90 minutes – mostly because we were off-course from our intended destination. We ended up at a Moroccan industrial port that looked like a thriller movie scene where creepy things happen. Boy Toy casually remarked we would probably end up kidnapped, stripped naked, chained and beaten (and not in a good way) on a cold cement floor in a Turkish prison. I reminded him we were in MOROCCO – not Turkey. And, fortunately, after one shuttle, one hike to the highway and 2 taxi rides, we made it to our hotel with our clothes on and no bruises or chains (we saved that for later).

But we really did have a wonderful time. One of our favorite destinations was the Love Stop Sex Shop – not really listed in Rick Steve’s travel guide, but definitely worth visiting. Unlike the seedy, dark places I.…ahem….have accidentally fallen upon, this place was well-lit, well-staffed and tastefully decorated. Ya gotta' love an elegant, sophisticated store in debauchery – kinda’ like an Apple Store of sex shops - a Sex Fifth Avenue. Of course, I wanted a souvenir! Tired of using my electric toothbrush as a vibrator, I decided something new and exotic was in order. And I discovered The Delight. Not only did it vibrate, it SUCKED.  I couldn’t pay for my shiny new Spanish dildo fast enough. After all, it certainly doesn’t suck to get sucked.

But all good things must come to an end and the time to fly home arrived. Looking forward to a good groping (pat down) from a handsome Spanish airport security guard, I instead found my carry-on bag getting all of the attention. After its ride through x-ray, the guard angrily pulled me and my bag aside and dug through its contents like a Gestapo on a 1944 train. He threw out some argon oil and kept excavating until he discovered….you guessed it….The Delight. Waving it high in the air like a sword in battle and shrieking Spanish accusations at me, it seemed he thought it was some kind of taser…..or weapon of mass destruction.

To avoid getting arrested and going to that Turkish prison Boy Toy warned me about I needed to explain myself. I didn’t know how to say “dildo” in Spanish and I was pretty sure it wasn’t in mini Spanish-English dictionary. Under other circumstances, I would have used charades and gestures to communicate, but I was afraid this kind of charade/gesture might be interpreted as a feminist-foreign-fuck you. I thought, “I’m fucked. And, worse yet, this thing is never gonna’ fuck me.”

While all this was going on in my head, a female security guard approached Dickomero (I’m pretty sure that’s Spanish for “male security guy”) and muttered something to him out of the side of her mouth and, though I can only imagine what she said, she had a knowing look on her face and a little twinkle in her eye. He slowly lowered The Delight and gently put it back in my bag. I think he may have even zipped it for me. And, like that, we were on our way back home – The Delight, the Boy Toy and me. But, somewhere in Spain that night, I bet there was a wife getting a LOT of questions…..

If you can't get to Spain this year, at least enjoy some Sangria with your girlfriends. It’s a fabulous beverage for your next girlfriends’ get-together. Maybe after a few glasses you'll want to practice flamengo! Here’s the recipe we love. Cheers!!

INGREDIENTS:

1 750 ml of red wine

1 lemon, sliced

2 oranges, sliced

1 apple, sliced

1 squirt Stevia

1/4 cup brandy

1/4 cup lemon cello

2 cups ginger ale, club soda or sparkling water

DIRECTIONS:

Pour the wine into a pitcher and toss in the fruit wedges (leaving out seeds if possible) along with the Stevia, brandy and lemon cello. Stir and chill overnight; add ginger ale, club soda or sparkling water just before serving. Poor over ice into glasses. Don't worry if some of the fruit drops into the glasses. 

Plunged into Plucking

By Tonia

"No, no, not by the hair on my chinny chin chin." – the three little pigs

At 62, my bad hair days no longer have anything to do with my hairdo. That happened in the ‘80s …. every …. single …. day. No, my bad hair days are when the multiple hairs on my chin have grown over night like they were fertilized and I don’t have tweezers. That is my new bad hair day. So while the hair on my head is thinning, my eyebrows are thinning and, hell, even my pubic hairs are thinning, I’m growing chin hairs! Mother Nature and Father Time are fucking with me – and not in a kinky, fun way. I’m starting to remind myself of a 14 year old boy sprouting his first beard. New dating rule: No dating anyone with less chin hair than me.

I mean, just as my eyesight is going, I have single, dark hairs emerging all over my chin that I can’t see. Is this some kind of cruel joke? How am I supposed to fix this??

So I’ve purchased a 1000x magnifying mirror for my Search and Destroy missions. And I carry tweezers with me everywhere. Tweezers are no longer just for the bathroom any more. I have them in my purse, in my desk drawer at work, in the glove compartment of my car and even outside with the gardening tools. The second I feel one of those tiny little stiff hairs trying to poke itself out of my skin, I rip it out. But sometimes the hair isn't long enough to pluck, so I just have to sit and rub it, trying to get it ready to pluck (Hopefully, I just look like I’m rubbing my chin in deep contemplation).

Sometimes I’m driving along in my car and I see one that I’ve missed. Then I start to panic. How many people have seen it? Did they simply think it was a stray hair from my make-up brush? Did my make-up camouflage it enough? WHY DIDN’T SOMEONE TELL ME???

I’ve thought about shaving them but, if I shave my chin like I shave my legs, I’ll end up bleeding like I’ve amputated something. And those tiny pieces of toilet paper stuck to the bleeding spots don’t always match my eye shadow.

I’ve also considered the over-the-counter creams. They dissolve hair but they don’t always work on coarse hair and, if you leave it on too long, it can dissolve your skin. Great. Melting skin. Just blend it in with the wrinkles.

Then there’s waxing - hot sticky wax that rips hairs out by their roots leaving scarlet, angry skin behind. The trouble here (besides the angry skin) is that you have to let the hair grow out ¼ of an inch before you can remove it. Uh…..no.

I guess I may look into laser or electrolysis……..or just join the circus.

For your next girlfriends’ get together, consider checking out your area’s Groupons for spa deals! Smuggle in some white wine in your water bottles! And to those unruly chin hairs, I say, “Well, pluck it.”

Jacking with Packing

by Tonia

"Home may be where the heart is but don’t ask me which box it’s in.” – me

I’m relocating to Santa Fe in a few weeks. Moving was such great idea ….. until I started packing. Holy Hoarder! For every one box I pack, 3 more boxes worth of crap appear. My moving date is approaching faster than a speeding bullet and there’s no Superman here to save me from this cardboard crisis. I guess I’m going to have to quickly make a LOT of new friends before my moving date (preferably really buff ones from a gym). Then I can have a packing party. I'll serve alcohol but it will have to be BYC (Bring Your Own Cups) because I can’t find mine.

I tried to get rid of some of this crap at a Yard Sale a few weeks ago but every time a friend dropped by to see how I was doing, I had to grab an item she had given me and hide it. I ended up with a huge pile of gifted crap in my shed. People can be so touchy, ya know?

A few years ago I had a house fire and lost most of my possessions. Frankly, that sounds pretty damn good about now. Maybe when I get just a little more tired of packing I’ll convince myself that I really don’t like the rest of my things and just leave them.

The other day I was packing up some of the crap and heard my cell phone ring from inside a box. It took me 30 minutes to figure out WHICH box because ….. of course ….. it quit ringing after a few seconds. And god only knows where I’ve packed the dog’s leash. I had to improvise with packing tape wrapped around his collar…..even made myself a cute little handle. 

I think I’m developing symptoms of Relocation Psychosis (RP – not RIP…..yet): auditory hallucinations of popping bubble wrap; nightmares of boxes climbing in the windows to entrap me; complete disorganization; difficulty staying on task. Is there medicine for this?

For your next girlfriends’ get-together……well, crap, I have no ideas. I’m too busy trying to stay away from the creepy boxes trying to get me........