~Beauty is a Short Lived Tyranny - ONE BAD MOM BLOGS - ONE BAD MOM BLOG

~Beauty is a Short Lived Tyranny - ONE BAD MOM BLOGS - ONE BAD MOM BLOG

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In social settings I feel naked like a hairless dog. I know people who, in order to appear important, refer to their CO2 spewing jet boats, their 3 year old daughter’s Chinese lessons, or their $200 bikini wax and I am repulsed by their boastfulness. Yet I can match their delusional grandiosity. I’ll say the dumbest things to look good. “Oh my gosh my Whole Foods stock just jumped up 10 percent.” That way people will know that I am financially savvy, I am socially responsible, and therefore I am special. It is so dumb.
I told a lady on the train once that my new Toyota Avalon had reclining leather back seats. How I wheeled a conversation around to my backseat escapes me now. Trading in my Avalon for my small, geeky, eco-friendly Prius hampered my ability to brag. I still do brag of course, but in an eco way which doesn’t feel as impressive because lots of people could care less if I’m heroically saving the planet by driving a car that gets good gas mileage and has near zero emissions. And anyway, my Prius isn’t impressive because I’ve trashed it. I spilled nail glue on the center divider so there are big holes in the fabric, and I drive like shit and backed into Luke’s truck twice. I hit a pole, a curb, a tree and a small child so there are dings, nicks and hanging pieces all over the car. Losing my child support and house during the housing crisis has helped curb my bragging enthusiasm; you’d be surprised what financial destitution can do for your arrogance.
When Gore Vidal says, “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.” I understand. And when someone is talking about their own success, I immediately start thinking of a matching or better story, and if I can’t think of one, I get bored of the person and think of negative things about them like their nose hairs or forehead wrinkles. I start picturing little tiny organisms climbing down the crevices of the wrinkle in microscopic hiking boots and carrying walking sticks; and I wonder what the little guys might do if I ran my fingernail down the wrinkle until I remember the microscopic men are in my imagination and the person might think I was weird if I scratched their forehead while they were explaining their portfolio to me.
Occasionally when I am in a social situation, I drop into a stupor. Luke and I went to Randy’s barbeque. Randy is Luke’s annoying friend that I described in “New Boyfriend and Drunken Stupors” on right. I sat on the couch and blended in with the brown flowers on white background. I don't even like sitting on flowery couches, and I hate being ignored, but if you are just sitting there all quiet and boring, nobody wants to get near you in case it rubs off. I tried jumping in at the wrong time in a conversation and interrupted stupidly, and then the conversation stopped and people looked at me quietly. Awkward.
I have taken Biscuit to Dog Park. Biscuit is Krista and Brook's little black dog. She looks like a black Welsh Corgi/Mutt mix. She is cute and smiles big, but who cares because she is an obnoxious manic freak. When other dogs happily lope up to sniff her cute little butthole, she tucks tail, snaps, barks and spazzes out. She is scared so she becomes aggressive and turns a simple social matter into a terrible fight. What a dumb-dumb. Or she will jump on the bench next to me and try to squeeze under my butt so I’ll sit on her and keep her invisible. But sometimes I cannot attain even her social level. At least her butt is interesting enough to sniff. I sit quietly on the dirty couch at Luke's friends and wait for Luke to sit by me so I can feel less lost. It doesn’t help that Luke’s friends are half my age. They are always partying and happy and I am always snappy and freaked out, tail tucked and trying to squeeze under Luke’s butt.
When we first arrived at Randy’s apartment it was great, only Randy and another friend were there and things were mellow.
My mission at Randy's was to meet Randy's new wife. Randy met her on a Friday, went to Las Vegas the next day Saturday, and married her on Sunday. They weren’t even drunk. The newlyweds came home and renewed their vows before Randy's parents. Randy's mom was crying. Dan, Randy’s dad was in his boxers holding a beer and blubbering inane sentiments.
Randy's wife's name is Lori, she is 22 or 23. She is skinny, 5’5” and maybe 100 lbs. She has a dark tan, pretty brown eyes, a gorgeous smile, and absolutely no chin.
Luke had told me, "She looks like a pretty girl's ugly sister. She could be cute if she had a boob job, a chin, and a personality."

We were supposed to swim at Randy's apartment community pool, but were not allowed by management because we, meaning; Randy, Luke, a mob of drunken and immature twenty-five year olds and I, were too loud. Lori wore her bikini top even though we couldn't swim. She had a long torso and very low shorts, and her tummy looked like a teenagers, so I threw hot wax on her and burned her perfect skin. She sat on every guy's lap and flirted with everyone but Luke because I was shooting hot daggers at her with my squinted eyes whenever she got near him. It was nauseating. She had little tattoos of suns and moons on her belly and lower back. I prayed the tattoo sun would set on her dumb vagina and melt the red polyester to her privates and give her genital warts. She was hanging on Tina (one of the girls there) in a sexual manner; in a lesbian way. Young girls these days all act like lesbians so they can get attention. I wonder what real lesbians think of these lesbian charlatans. I for one would be pissed. Lori was loud and stupid. Oh well it won’t be long before she realizes what the rest of we middled age women have discovered: “Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.” Socrates
She was terribly bruised and hung-over from the night before of drinking and falling down. Since Lori and Randy had been married one full week, Lori said she quit her job to become a Housewife.
"All I do is clean up after Randy and I am positively sick of it," she whined.
How could she be positively sick of anything she'd done for seven days. Terrorists have survived seven days of water-boarding without getting positively sick of it. I’ve tolerated seven days of a yeast infection without getting positively sick of it.
Randy described what would be many men's description of marriage: "Last night she wouldn't go to sleep. She wouldn't stop cuddling. I wanted to push her off the bed. I am never alone."
When Randy told Luke and me that, Lori was busy giving Randy’s best friend a lap dance, rubbing her stupid ugly crotch all over his leg. Lori’s latex bikini, the red eyesore, will not leave my thoughts, and any shred of tolerance for her is completely lost from my memory.
Luke and his friends were placing bets on the length of the marriage. Most said two weeks. Luke said six weeks. They all put $5.00 in the plastic, red Budweiser, Dale Earnhardt Jr. ice chest and were waiting. Unfortunately, Don't Peter stole the money so then it wasn’t as fun.
Randy falls so hard for girls. A while back he was madly in love with a girl named Mary who worked at a topless bar and had two sons who were raised by her mother and sister. When she dumped Randy, he was heartbroken. He incredibly cried in front of Luke which seems unthinkable because Luke can’t tolerate emotions at all much less Man Emotions. Luke probably sat stone-faced while Randy wailed, "My heart is broken Luke. It is completely broken. Did you hear me Luke? Luke, I say I'm heart-broken, downright heartbroken, hello hello. Are you listening?"
At the barbeque, we watched a pathetic Jackass type movie of Randy's friends fighting at bars, throwing up in every conceivable setting, riding motorcycles indoors: fast and in circles, throwing TVs at one another and knocking people out cold. There was an entire twenty minutes dedicated to boys throwing up. Randy's dad was in that part of the movie, on all fours in the sand barfing black slick fluid from his deep bowels. Randy stuck his finger in it and said, "Hmmm about a quart low."
After we left the barbeque, Luke heard that Nick, Luke’s fetus-looking friend, and Randy began rough housing and ran into a table and broke some dishes. Lori yelled at Nick and told him to fucking knock it off. Nick was wasted, of course, and said, "Fuck you bitch." She said fuck you back and words were exchanged. Nick, beautifully, shoved her face and pushed her down onto the brown and white couch that I had earlier been blending into. Randy jumped on Nick and a fight ensued.

Hanging out with these guys makes me appreciate my old age. Becoming middle-aged is not all bad. There are perks with maturity: people treat you with respect, and you demand respect by your presence; you and your friends don't throw kegs in pools or push friends off of stairwell balconies, you haven't fought since High School; you go to piano bars and listen to jazz and drink wine together.
What would it be like if when Luke went out with the boys, it didn't mean to a crazy bar where twenty-two year old, hot girls hang on cute boys. What would it be like to have a boyfriend who didn't know anyone who took pills or smoked pot. There are benefits to youth; energy for one. But the young spend their energy on the dumbest things. I’ll keep my exhaustion if it means keeping my entertainment systems from being thrown around. Quiet evenings with friends on warm nights on balconies that overlook something besides weedy car parts in the backyard is what I long for sometimes. I dream of a time where the only twenty-two year old girl my man knows is his daughter. It will be decades before I can say that.
I was sitting pouting quietly about these things when Luke leaned over and said, "You are beautiful. I can't wait to call you my wife."
And I swear he meant it. Talk about mental. But no wonder I tolerate all of his friend’s crap; there aren’t many men in the world as sweet and genuine as Luke. If he wants to marry me even though I imagine his friends' wives decomposing in small containers, or buy over-priced eco-friendly designer goods just to impress others, then who am I to pick his friends apart? But maybe next time there is a party, I’ll not go and instead buy a new Hybrid Lexus and go to the organic coffee shop to get a book on investing in a new Botox alternative so I can brag about it.

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."
Shakespeare