By the time you read this, I’m probably on my way to BlissDom. Or possibly I’m already there, depending on what time you read this, though if you don’t read me as soon as you jump out of bed in the morning, I’m not sure I can understand how your mind works.

While there, I plan to have something called “fun”. Since I only get out once or twice a year, I sometimes forget what “fun” is, but I’m sure it will come back to me quickly. How could it not when I’m rooming with Jennifer, who i’ve only seen ONCE in the past year.  (god, the withdrawals!)

Also, I’ve been officially dubbed as one of “Megan’s people,” which I think includes VIP passes to her dressing room. Or maybe I’m supposed to iron her clothes. I need to clarify what being “Megan’s people” means before I get stuck doing something like Pedi-Egging her feet.

Even though good times are ahead, it never fails. Each time a pending trip gets closer, I find myself wishing I wasn’t going.

Why do I do that?

It doesn’t matter the destination. I could be headed to my own private tropical island with Daniel Craig as my love slave.  As the clock ticked down, I guarantee I would start coming up with reasons (none of which would have to do with me being a married woman) I wish I were staying home.

Some of my reasons for staying home this trip are as follows:

Mardi Gras starts this weekend. I’ll miss parades!

It’s my birthday Sunday. I’m going to spend 7 hrs of my birthday on I-65?

My poor boys. Their dad will have to get them dressed, which means they won’t see the proper side of color coordination until I get home.

The money I’ll spend on this trip could go towards finishing my kitchen redecoration. (Here’s a picture of the blue.)

I could buy my new window treatments, an accent table, add the shelving and decor that I want!

Because that’s a potential story I could tell my grandchildren one day.

Oh lord, honey-chil’, let me tell about this one wild time when I could have gone to Nashville and hung out with one of my BFFs and had a rip roaring good time, but instead, I stayed home and redecorated the kitchen! Your Granny? Could not be tamed in her day!

Um, yeah.

Surely I’m not the only person who does this, the cold travel feet thing? Even though I do get the cold feet, I usually end up doing it, just like on my wedding day. I’m going.  Or I’m gone. On my way!  And this time, I pack only my best underwear.

But that isn’t saying much.

Frankly, my “good” panties aren’t looking that good anymore. I guess I could do something really exciting on my trip and shop for new underwear. Except underwear shopping stresses me out. The shopping stress is right up there with swimsuits (#1) and jeans (#2). There’s an entire host of potential panty catastrophes involved when shopping for new skivvies.

Will they be ass-crawlers?

(I hate throwing away good money on underwear, especially in this economy, and it crawl up my ass. It’s not like you can return it.)

Will they fall below the fold? Like BlogHer ads, this is a no-no.  And by “fold,” I mean that forever post-pregnancy loose belly skin.

(Does anyone NOT have loose, flabby skin on their tummy after pregnancy? Speak up in comments if you do because I have some openings on my list of people I hate that need to be filled.)

String bikinis are made for 14-year-old boy bodies that don’t keep reproductive fat on their hips.  I won’t even look at granny panties because such abominations are against my religion, and I won’t approach the aisle of pre-packaged underwear either.

(Only men should buy their underwear in packages of three)

So if I tell the truth, I’m off to BlissDom and I packed my as-good-as-it-gets underwear. My spanxs are not included in the luggage. It’s hard to drink with everything squeezed in like that, and I do intend to drink until I can nod my head and say, “well fuck yeah, I’m domestically blissdicated, I mean blussfully dimedicated, err, blissfull…where the hell am I again?”

Besides, Wally said no one will care what underwear I pack, and he doesn’t either as long as a garter belt doesn’t make its way into my suitcase.  And that settles that.

So anyway, I just wrote a blog about my underwear.

Could my blog topics get anymore awesome?

And I talked about my underwear in conjunction with BlissDom. I’m sure Ali really appreciates it and is drooling like a rabid coyote to get me to sign as the official spokesperson for BlissDom ’10. I’m looking for the contract in my email any day now. In fact, I’m checking my email for it as we speak.

Hmm, that’s odd. I don’t see it yet. Well, while I wait, let’s sum up my various Blissdom promotions:

#1 I may smell like tuna and a gynecologist may be brought in to the conference to make sure I don’t have some funk on up in there.

#2 Now I’m talking about the underwear I’m taking.

After that recap, I’m sure you want to follow me on twitter and find out what I have to say about the event as it occurs.

You wouldn’t want to miss knowing that my underwear is up my ass, now would you?

My dear reader, I have some wonderful news for you.

I think I’ve made a new friend!

Since Jennifer moved, the fast and fun times have been fewer and farther between. Then my friend Christy moved away too, and that pretty much left me drinking margaritas and eating like a fucking asshole at Mexican restaurants by myself. And that’s no fun.

(Except I have a really cool boss/surrogate mother who takes me to drag shows and that is fun. She’s so cool she is taking her real daughter to Amsterdam for her 30th birthday and leaving me behind with kids who broke my fucking recliner and ruined my carpet this weekend.)

But lately, I’ve been helping Parker’s class room mom with the kindergarten holiday projects. (Halloween, Thanksgiving feast, upcoming Holiday program) This has required a handful of meet-ups and several phone calls between us two.

There we were at her house, making construction paper papooses for the Thanksgiving gig, and the chick offered me a beer while cracking one open for herself.

Oh yes! A friend who drinks!

I took that as my first sign.

We were chatting and somehow got onto the subject of going to the movies. I don’t know what on earth possessed me, but that’s when I confessed why I don’t care for the movie theater that much.

“Let me tell you, we love our large flat screen TV and blue-ray dvd player. I don’t even want to go to the movies much anymore (though I so totally will for James Bond because who can wait for the dvd and not see Daniel Craig’s big guns for six long months? Not me!) I have this thing with coke and popcorn. It’s a movie must-have for me, but the combination makes me fart and I spend the last 45 minutes of a movie squeezing my ass trying to hold it in.”

After those words came out of my mouth, all I heard was silence.

I thought, shit, shit, shit, not again! When will I learn to hide who I really am until I have bamboozled them into thinking I’m all cool and refined?!

Then I looked up from my papoose-making to see the silence was due to the fact she was laughing so hard she couldn’t breath.

That would be sign number two.

About 20 minutes later, not only were we finished stapling, punching and tying strings to the papooses, but Room Mom finished off her beer too. And that’s when she let out a ginormous, contest-winning burp. There was a three second pause before she realized what she had done and then she gasped and apologized for the 6.5 on the Richter scale burp.

“I can’t believe I just did that in front of you. Where are my manners?”

That’s sign three.

During one of our class project meet-ups, I confessed to the room mom that when I first met her (which actually happened a year ago since our kids went to the same preschool but were in different classes), that I wasn’t sure I liked her.

“You said ‘hi’ to me in a tone that suggested we already knew each other or something.”

I know, I can’t make sense of myself either, but it made sense to her.

“Yeah, I get that a lot. I actually put a lot of people off because of that.”

“Really? Well, I guess I’m open-minded enough to give you a chance because you’ve grown on me and I like you now!”

“Yeah, I’m like a fungus that way.”

So what do we have here: Beer, laughing at my fart stories, burps, and now witty humor. Score!

When I left, she mentioned getting together next week to finish the reindeer antlers and I distinctly remember hearing the word “wine.”

I believe I smell the bloom of a new friendship.

Consider this my special form of kudos to those who passed Prop 8 in California.

I heard it from her who heard it from him.

Join the party – Let Freedom RING.

By the way, I’ve been called a child on another blog for this picture.

My thoughts on that?

I see Paris, I see France. Sticks and stones. Rubber and glue.

Children have more wisdom than most adults, especially the straight & narrow asshat.

I’m proud to play headless Barbies with my gay friends, nanny nanny boo boo.

Well people, I made it through my first day without Jennifer in Alabama.

I still got out of bed, did the grocery shopping, cleaned the house…life seemed to be same.

Except I had to drink by myself.

And I didn’t laugh as much as the day before.

Sigh

I must go wallow in the stage of depression now.

But before I go, here’s a little something for Jennifer…

NO. THEY. DIDN’T.

Did they???

We plead the Fifth.

All we’ll say is there was a recent weekend that involved two empty bottles of wine, a cultural lesson in Muffuletta, a hoarse voice, and oddly sore muscles.

What happens in ‘Bama stays in ‘Bama.

But feel free to take a guess. Keep in mind our motto for our last hoo-rahs together…

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap!
-Cynthia Heimel

Did we act like gigantic idiots?

The world may never know…