Like Benjamin Button...in Reverse

I went to the dentist yesterday. Because my mouth is ridiculously messed up, I'm not a huge fan of the dentist. I do like my oral surgeon, but only because he gives me benzos surgery drugs. Unfortunately, I only get to see him when I need horrible old-people things done like molar implants (screws in your jaw anyone?) or gum grafts (let's slice off the roof of your mouth and stitch it to your gums shall we?). He stabs me with giant horse-needles and he doesn't laugh at my jokes, but he's a good surgeon. My perfect new gums are a true testament of his skills.

But, the real story is not a love letter to Dr. K. This story is about my visit to Sweetpea, the Dentist.

The dental hygienist cleaned my teeth, carrying on a conversation with me while she did. She always asks me the same things: Are you the one who does hair? No. How's work? Crap. and Do you floss? Crap. No. When she isn't chatting with me, I get the chance to eavesdrop on the conversations Sweetpea is having with the other patients.

This particular evening, one patient was talking about the love of my life, (sorry, Bear) National Public Radio. She said she liked it because they always broadcast different stories and facts that you couldn't hear anywhere else. I nodded to myself. She then brought up the story she'd recently heard about kidnapped Mexican babies. I started laughing. The hygienist pulled her hands out of my mouth to ask what was funny.

"Oh, my family makes fun of me because I like NPR. They call me 90-Years-Old. I heard the story she's talking about driving over here. It was interesting."

"Well," the hygienist said. "She's only about 60 if that makes you feel better."

"Not really."

"Maybe that can be your goal, Whitney. You should try to act younger."

Now, on top of giving up laziness and scrawniness, I should give up my NPR?

Maybe I am a 90 year old woman?







I might be alright with that. My almost 90 year old California gramma kicks ass.

Get up offa that thang

One time, I decided I wanted to exercise. I was going to run. No, I'm not joking. I really got it into my head (somehow) that running and I were going to be Best Friends. I'd be all Oh hey, let's hang out. and Running would say, Okay, sure. and I'd say, I really want to go buy a new book and read it while I eat a whole bunch of Peaches and Cream Oatmeal with vanilla ice cream on top and then maybe shopping for shoes and Running would glare at me and say, Fat chance sucker. Put on your pink tennis shoes.

Wait, what?! Okay, maybe I just needed more friends.

Anyways, because I hadn't run since the Ninth Grade Mile I was forced to run every Friday, I did what any novice runner would do: I Googled. Up came From Couch to 5K. I was so up for anything involving a couch, though Bed would have been a better choice, I clicked. I printed. I put on my damn pink tennis shoes. But, first I needed to make an Ipod play list. And hunt down some water bottles. And socks. And I probably ate some oatmeal with ice cream on top just for, you know, energy or whatever.

I took off down the street. Couch to 5K told me I should start out walking for five minutes then alternate jogging for 60 seconds with walking for 90 seconds for week one. Please. I eat a carton of ice cream faster than that. I skipped week one. I also skipped weeks two, three, four and five.

Jog for five minutes. Oh, heck yes. Five minutes is cake. That's like the time it takes me to shower. I took off jogging.

60 seconds. No problem. Haha! Obviously skipping week one was a good choice. Week one was for SUCKERS! 

Two minutes. This is tough. 

Two minutes and five seconds. Why is this happening to me?! Running, we're supposed to be friends. Why are you gossiping about me to all the cool girls? Why are you laughing at me??? Why do I feel like I WANT TO DIE!?!?!? THIS RELATIONSHIP IS OVER! !@)*(#*)$#&*!)*


And that's when I decided to do yoga.


-whitters

Attempted Murder 3: In Which the Baby is Safe

Because my siblings and I tried to kill each other in various ways on a daily basis, I now have a duty to record our attempted murders.

A few summers after my dad graduated from The Best Graduate School Ever, my parents remodeled the house my mom grew up in.  This house was a looker. Asbestos laden "popcorn" adorned the ceilings, waiting to kill some unsuspecting sucker. A large, life-sized painted Charlie Chaplin mournfully gazed down upon us from the walls of our playroom -- probably also waiting to kill some unsuspecting sucker. Brown painted panels, most definitely covered in lead, lurked about for my baby sister Maddie to gnaw on should they come loose from the wall and fall on her head as she crawled around the dinning room. It was truly a lovely home.

During this remodel, my mom needed to run a few errands (probably more black and white curtains) and packed up my brother and Maddie into our mini-van. Who knows where I was. Probably playing with my imaginary friends.

Now, this was no high-tech Honda  all the hip soccer moms are driving these days. No automatically starting engines and TVs and nonsense. No fancy keys or cool sunroof. This was a gold and white Mercury Villager. The greatest. We named it The Van.

Yeah, I know this isn't gold and white.

Forgetting something inside, my mom instructed Brock to Stay in the Van with the Baby. Got it? Stay in the Van with the baby.

The most reliable of babysitters.

 She was in the house a few minutes when Brock came running back inside. My mom was a little surprised to see him since she had instructed him to Stay in the Var with the Baby. She asked, "Brock! What are you doing!?"

Brock reassured her, "Don't worry Mom. I locked all the doors. The Baby is safe!"

Yes, Maddie was locked in. She, for one, would Stay in the Van. Looks like she had no other choice.

At least she was safe!











*For the record, my mom called the cops and they got the Baby out.
-whitters

Eyebrows are hard

My middle sister is a cosmetologist. She's good with hair. She always has been. Well, with the exception of one event:

Maddie was in fifth grade. Brocky Blue-Head and I cornered her.

"Hey, Maddie."

She was suspicious. As she should have been.

"Your eyebrows are looking a little hairy."

She stared at us.

"Yeah, they definitely are!" I piped up. "I think you might have a...uni-brow."

"Yeah, definitely!" Brock agreed.

"What's a uni-brow?" she asked.

"It's when your eyebrows grow over your nose and you have one. long. eyebrow."

After this brief torture, Brock and I laughed to ourselves and parted ways. There was no reason for our torture. We frequently came up with unique ways to inflict pain on our siblings, be it swirlys or holding the door open just long enough for the person walking through to be smashed like a small, stupid bug. Suckers.

The next day at the breakfast table, Maddie wandered in wearing a red and white stripped ski hat. The brim was pulled down low over her eyes. So low she could barely see her food. My mom became suspicious.

"Why are you wearing that hat?" she asked. Maddie, not one to be easily tricked (she thought!), replied that she just. really. liked. her. hat. My mom, also not easily tricked, pulled off the hat to reveal:

Maddie's half-shaved eyebrows.

Hearing that she had a horrible uni-brow, she ran into the bathroom and proceeded to shave her eyebrows. Holding the razor horizontally (that's hamburger-ly...), she manged to not only shave off her unsightly uni-brow, but also most of her (now missing) eyebrows. Instead of meeting in the middle like a giant roller coaster of hair, they now sadly attempted to gain momentum over the arch of her eyes...and failed. Crashed.

And burned.

The best-saddest part of all this:

It was school picture day.


-whitters

Brocky Blue Head

I am the oldest child. For awhile, I was an only child. Then this kid came along:

Notice the big, bald head.

This is my brother Brock.

I was not impressed.

For a year and a half, I had been the darling one. The adorable one. The one who screamed whenever I was put down. The one who talked at six months and yelled, "He's looking at me!!!" every time her dad glanced her way. The one who wouldn't eat unless she had something to distract her.

What was this thing?  This monster?

I did not like it. It cried, especially when I tried to put it in a headlock. Or bite it, which I frequently did. Gnawing on its little fingers, I quickly dropped them when my parents looked my way.

The face of an angel?

Plus, it was bald. I mean, really, really bald. Its little head wobbled all around, gleaming at me. It had hair once. When it was born, it had a full head of black hair. Then it all fell out.

I, ever the problem solver, decided that it may be ugly, it may cry and hog the attention, but it didn't need to be bald and frightening on top of everything else. Ugly as a baby bird at birth, I myself had only the thinnest of hair.

I had a plan.

My parents left me unsupervised. HaHA! Perfect. I sneaked into where it lay -- unsuspecting. Its little head bald as an egg. I took out my blue colored marker.

I approached, quietly. Sneakily. I uncapped the marker.

And colored all over its little head.

My parents suspected something. The jig was up.

Preemptively I screamed,

"LOOK! IT'S BROCKY-BLUE HEAD!!!!!" 

My parents were not amused. 

They took away my markers. 

And I my hair stopped growing until the age of four. 

Behold my bowl cut.

  -whitters

Busy Little Thing

I think giving up laziness for Lent is the best choice I've ever made (love you B!).

Not only do I work at my ever-increasingly-fantastic full time job -- that's sarcasm, folks-- I've also been lucky enough to pick up a writing project on the side for the (truly) fantastic site ReferAll.com. If you're a business owner (or lover!), this is the site for YOU. I finally feel like I'm actually putting my talents to use!

THANK GOODNESS!

-whitters

Helix

 This is my ear:

After much deliberation and research, I went to a piercing parlor, picked out a little gem and waited while several others also had tiny holes stabbed in their body. The girl next to me had a tiny fleck of silver above her lip, the girl across from me had a tiny nose ring. The man doing my piercing had a whole row of rings up and down his ear.

The actual piercing took about five minutes and didn't hurt at all. The first time I went to get anything pierced, I was eight. I sat on a tiny bench at the mall while the gun was prepared. Only, I missed the memo about the part involving a gun. I screamed. Covered my ears. Ran o-u-t. Nothing like that was getting close to my ears. I told this all to my piercer. He looked at me like I was a nut case. This time, he used a needle and I slowly breathed while he stabbed me and put the earring in.


And it didn't even hurt!

Much.




-whitters

Eight Moments in the Life of the Writer: Eight

So, I'm fairly good with words. You must agree if you're reading this. I like words. I like big words. Small words. New words. Nerdy words. One of my favorite books is the Phantom Tollbooth because of the proliferation of puns. (Apparently they are making it into a movie!!!)

JoHanna and I are in charge of writing a handbook for my work. The handbook is about kitchen remodeling. I have never remodeled anything nor do I know anything about it. But, here JoHanna and I are writing a handbook. It looks amazing, by the way, and is really good.  I'd use it. After many drafts, we present our book to our boss. He looks at it. Reads it. Practically points out each word with his finger the way a kindergartener does. He stops.

'I don't like this word."

"Which word?"

"Problematic."

"Uh, why?"

"It's a Big Word."

"Problematic? I use it all the time...it's not a hard word..."

"Oh. Sorry. We didn't all go to [Fancy Liberal Arts University in Southern California]."

Blank stare. More blank stare. Really blank stare. This is starting to get problematic.

"Well.  I've been speaking since I was six months old. I've been collecting words ever since. So..."

Laugh. Laugh. Laugh.

Apparently, problematic is now a Five Dollar Word.

pedantic, pretentious boor. 

Side note: An ex-boyfriend's sister-in-law majored in journalism. At her Thank You All for Coming wedding speech, she said she didn't want to write anything down because it would probably sound pretentious.

Hey, congratulations. Not being pretentious? Didn't happen.

Then, the entire family made fun of her behind her back. Which is malicious, spiteful, or overbearing.  See what I did there?

Yes, the lawn mower is a power tool

It snowed last week.  It's Utah, so you know, it does that a lot here.  But, my parents were out of town in Hawaii (lucky) and I was house-sitting.  By house-siting, I really mean babysitting.  But, when the charges are taller than you, bigger than you and meaner than you...it's a sad thing to admit.  I am the runt of the family.  This is important because it figures into the story later.  Remember, me=runt.

So.  It snowed.  It snowed a lot because Utah weather is a pain in the a and dumps the most snow between January and March.  Right when you're getting sick of crappy weather and snow and ice and freezing cold.  And boots and scarfs and mittens.  It's only cute in December.

The snow came down!  Maddie went out to shovel the driveway and I thought, "well, let's just use the snow blower.  It's like a lawn mower.  How hard can that be?"

Last time I used the lawn mower, I fell down the hill.  I'm not allowed to use the lawn mower.  I'm bad with power tools.  I decide to soldier on. I'm smart. I'm capable.  I can run the snow blower. As soon as I find it. I found it (Maddie found it) and figured out how to start it. Genius! Then I tried to make it go. Uphill. It did not want to go uphill. At all. It didn't want to go left and didn't want to go right. It didn't want to move. My feet, however, did. And so did my grey, thigh high boots. I am a classy lady.

This is how I snow blow.

Maddie tried to join me. We pushed. And slipped. And fell down the drive way. I yelled, 'This is why I'm going to live in a condo!!!!!!"

And my neighbor across the street came out on her porch, laughed at us, took a picture and went inside.

I hate this state.
Snow blowers can suck it, too.

I did not die

Don't worry everyone. I did not die.

My surgery went well.

I have amazing talents while totally high.

For example:

My dad apparently thinks I can function normally in my appointed position as Human Dictionary.

He took me to the doctor's office and started to type out an email. He asked me a grammar question right after I had taken oral sedatives.

I stared at him.

He then said, "Oh right. Why am I asking you?"

HOWEVER, my amazing mental capacity was proven later last week.

I couldn't remember my follow up appointment. So I called the doctor's office. They let me know the time and date.

I went to put it in my Blackberry.

Lo and behold: IT WAS ALREADY THERE.

The address, which I can't even remember sober, was there correctly along with the date, time and doctor's name. I typed it in while totally off my rocker.

Moral of the story:

DO MORE DRUGS. I function better that way.



I am joking. Obviously.

Eight Moments in the Life of the Writer: Number 6

By eleven, I was no longer hiding in the corner. I moved onto the glamorous world of broadcast journalism. Up in our tree house, I penned the talk of the town. Car crashes happened, babies were born, tornadoes zoomed through the city and ball games were won. Then, behind the official news desk of our trundle bed, my brother and I were live, my dad filming and our six year old sister forecasting the weather. She was at least as accurate as our local weatherman. I later related this tale to a boy in my Psych. class at BYU.

“And that,” I explained, “is why I want to be a journalist.”

He looked at me like I was, well, a girl who just told him her college education was based on a hide-a-bed, bad weather reports and fast-breaking news. We all can dream right? You’d think I would remember the Turkey Incident, but I didn’t. Sometimes people just don’t get it. Now, I tell myself, it’s important to tell the truth as a writer, but maybe not all of it at once.

Sabbath

Street Cred

I like to challenge myself. I challenge myself to Keep Sitting on My Bed Eating Sweet Potato Chips (accomplished), Stay in Bed and Be Late for Work Everyday (accomplished) and Eat A Lot of Junkfood. I rock at these challenges! Go me! BUT, maybe I'll try something a little more productive? For 30 days, I will try something new. And see if I succeed.

This 30 Day Challenge....keep reading...