A house divided against itself cannot stand

About two weeks ago, DB's daughter said, "mkromd, be alert - the world needs more lerts." And I laughed. In fact, I laughed all afternoon. I thought it was funny and clever and quick-witted. Then, later that day, I listened to National Public Radio (NPR) and heard about the Arizona Congresswoman and several others who were shot at a rally, and I sat in my car... in a parking lot… in shock... and I wept. Several people were killed, including a child, and many more were seriously wounded.

How have we come to this? How have we come to a place where, regardless of the motive, this could happen?

Now, please understand something. I don't pretend to be wise or eloquent, and I don't pretend to have answers. In fact, often times I simply accept the fact that when 'two roads diverge in a yellow wood,' I will take the one destined to get hit by a mudslide. But I'm heartsick. To my core, I am heartsick, and I cannot remain silent about what has happened: that for all of the problems in this world that require us to work together as a species… problems like global warming, hunger, poverty and war… we have chosen to be polarized. Problems that (to loosely quote Kennedy) ‘were created by men and must be solved by men’ which cannot be discussed let alone resolved because we cannot agree to civilly disagree.

Again, how have we come to this?

I wish I knew. With all my soul and every fiber of my being, I wish that I could scream loud enough or cry hard enough that someone, somewhere would stand up and make it stop. That said, it’s happening. This insanity has finally gone too far and people from every background and belief system are now standing together and saying, “ENOUGH! I will no longer tolerate or participate in your intolerance.” And I intend to lend my voice to theirs… because, at the end of the day, Margaret Mead really was right, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”

And things NEED to change.

So, with that – forgive me. I’m going to break my own rule for this blog and disregard the advice a dear friend’s husband once gave to me, “Never discuss politics or religion with a person unless you’ve slept together… and even then – only if they know your real name… and even then – only if they ask you for your opinion.”

Here it goes… I’m going to pull out my soapbox and preach.

Dictionary.com defines alert as, “fully aware and attentive; wide-awake; keen.” So, if that’s the case, what does it mean to a lert? Since Webster never took a stab at that, I will. To me, a lert is someone who is present and kind and patient. They agree that love is stronger than hatred and that to change the world for the better - we have to change ourselves for good. But most importantly, they don't just finish the rest of Kennedy’s aforementioned quote... they live it,” No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.” So, take DB’s beautiful daughter’s advice. Be a lert. The world needs more of them.

Talk to you next week, and I promise I won’t preach at you.

NOTE: This was written two weeks ago after U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot. I'm happy to say that she's recovering, but it was still a tragic waste of human lives.

We're watching you...

I have a confession to make. I'm addicted to analytics. It's sad (and slightly nerdy), but it's also very true. Seriously, as sick as this may sound, every day I wake up, have a cup of coffee, and log into mkromd to read and reply to your comments. Then I log into a back-end tool that allows me to see:
• What URLs are sending traffic to me (e.g. Facebook and Google).
• Which search terms people are using to find me (e.g. george carlin + my karma ran over my dogma).
• Where the people who read mkromd are geographically located (e.g. US, Canada, etc).

They're not person specific, I promise. It's way more generic and high-level than that. But it’s an addiction I’m forced to feed. At any rate, a couple weeks ago, during the Horray for Heifer drive, I reviewed my site stats and saw the funniest search string... EVER. How it brought them to mkromd, I have NO idea.

It said, "best nude babe touching boobs."

Now, for those of you who know me, and many of you do, I am by no means the best nude babe on the Internet. In fact, I’m only naked under my clothes, and as for the whole “touching boobs” thing… the only time I touch my boobs is to scoop them up and put them into a bra. Middle age is cruel. And… to prove my point, a while ago... before I went home to Appalachia for the holidays... I was standing in my bathroom… looking in the mirror… talking on the phone to my mom... and asking her how old she was when her face started sliding down her face.

She didn’t even have the decency to pause. She simply said, “About your age.”

After I thanked her for that touching mother-daughter bonding moment, I texted TB and said, “Let’s go drink like men then shop like women.” Now this is nothing new for us. There’s a restaurant near our mall that serves fabulous margaritas, so we went to dinner, had a few drinks, and walked over to Ann Taylor and Banana Republic.

The good news is that I found a GORGEOUS dress for a great price. The bad news is that it was a size two. TB, being the true best friend that she is… looked at me and said, “Are you too drunk to read the tag? It's a SIZE TWO.” After I reminded her that she was a bitch but I loved her anyway, I took it into the dressing room and proceeded to try it on. Around twenty minutes and a hundred expletives later, I got the damn thing on. It looked obscene... but I got it on. The problem is that I couldn’t get it off.

I had to ask TB to come into the dressing room and help me.

Do you know that she actually walked in… saw me… and walked out. She abandoned me. After a decade of codependent, dignity-compromising moments, she left me there to fend for myself. And worse than that, I could hear her laughing… from the FRONT OF THE STORE. Being the great best friend that I am, I called her cell phone and said, “Get your skinny ass back here and get me out of this dress, or I swear to God - I will wear it to the register and buy it, and you will have to walk back to your car with me looking like this.” Needless to say, she was back before I could hang up.

This is how you know you have the right best friend. Well, that and what happened next.

She literally stood on the dressing room bench, bent me over, and put her foot on my head to push me out of that fucking thing. I swear it was designed by Kafka. So there we were, trying to peel me out of this dress, when she said… “Sorry sweetie, you’re stuck. The good news is that it totally shows off your back-cleavage.” The saddest part of this WHOLE story is that she was right. I honestly looked like a human push-me, pull-me. It was so tight that, while I may have looked like a C cup in the front, I definitely looked like a D cup in the back. Anyway, I’m pleased to report that we were successful (eventually).

But I digress…

The point is this: Irony is as cruel as karma, and they often go hand-in-hand. Because - now, when some hormonal fifteen year old boy DOES Google "best nude babe touching boobs," he won't get pictures of a drunken twenty-one year old co-ed from "Girls Gone Wild." Instead, he will be directed to mkromd... a blog about mid-life crisis women gone crazy... which can ALSO be found by using the search string, "lesbians + shaved head." And these boys will have no one to blame but themselves if they're traumatized.

Talk to you next week.

Let’s Mambo

Three things…

• First of all, Happy New Year. I hope your holiday season was safe and warm.
• Secondly, thank you for donating your time and thoughts to mkromd. In return, I’m pleased to report that we have officially purchased honeybees for Heifer International.
• Thirdly, sorry for the belated post. I was visiting my family in Appalachia.

It was good to go home, but I'm glad to be back. And, I don't know what you were up to at midnight on the 31st, but after kissing DB goodnight and heading up to bed, I laid there thinking about what I did and didn’t accomplish in 2010 and making resolutions for what I intend to achieve in 2011.

Here’s what I didn’t do:

• I didn’t lose ten pounds. Instead, I found fifteen.
• I didn’t read “The Art of Happiness” by the Dalai Lama. Instead, I listened to it on CD… and I lied about it... to a Zen Buddhist Roshi.

No, it's true. I did. Last week, DB and I had lunch with a local Teacher who asked what I thought of the book, and instead of admitting that I cheated, I said, “To quote his Holiness, ‘‘The secret to happiness is honesty and kindness.” And, even though I added, “However, to also quote the great Groucho Marx, ‘If you can fake that, you've got it made,” I’m pretty sure I put another nail in my own karmic coffin. But really, let's be honest... if I get caught on that, it's like catching Al Capone on tax evasion. It's a karmic technicality.

At any rate, this year I vow to:

• Lose fifteen pounds.
• Not get a Chihuahua. Not get a Chihuahua. Not get a Chihuahua. Not get a Chihuahua.
• Post every week. I just don’t promise that it will be funny or relevant to anyone but me.
• Run twice a week, and not just to the vending machine for a Snickers.
• Not get a Chihuahua. Not get a Chihuahua. Not get a Chihuahua. Not get a Chihuahua.
• Keep my promise to DB and finish, Eckhart Tolle’s, “A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose.” In his defense, he gave it to me two years ago before we started dating. In my defense, I’ve tried to read it. It’s about learning to extinguish your ego, and the thing is… I like my ego. In fact, I like it so much that sometimes I take it to Ann Taylor for shoes or out to dinner and a movie.
• Not get a Chihuahua. Not get a Chihuahua. Not get a Chihuahua. Not get a Chihuahua.

Did I mention the Chihuahua? You see, my mom has one, and I never thought I would want or love an accessory dog, but I need this animal. He’s five pounds and has the soul of a Mastiff. His name is Cisco, and I cannot walk into a room without picking him up and bellowing out, “Let’s MAAAAMBO!” Then, I’m so shameless that I dance him around the house singing, “Cisco loves Mambo”… Yes, just like Perry Como. And regardless of the fact that my nieces and nephews love when I do it, my mom swears her dog hates it (even though his eyes say otherwise).

Anyway, that’s it for now. I have to get started on the rest of my New Year’s Resolutions. Talk to you next week.

*tap tap tap* Is this thing on?

Let's leave this until next week to get as much money for Heifer as possible. Talk to you next week. --

Just when I thought no one was paying attention because the Indonesian Blog, kewtawa lucu, is kicking my ass, someone sent me a note me about Nathan Bransford, who is raising money for a wonderful cause, Heifer International. Here’s the deal, if I link to his site and this cause, he will redirect people to my site to keep it going. So we should REALLY do this! For each comment that you post on mkromd, I will donate 25 cents on your behalf (up to $50 total).

Now, if you aren’t familiar with this organization, they use donations like this to purchase sustainable items for indigenous people around the world, many of whom I’ve personally offended at one point in time or another and need to apologize to en masse. Hopefully this will help me make amends (and improve my karma). And... for those of you who regularly read my blog, you know I need all the help I can get. You even already know that years ago, in college, when I studied in Sardinia, I was attacked by a passive-aggressive hair stylist who shaved my head. But, what you don't know is that, as tragic as that event may have been, it was far from the worst thing that's ever happened to me abroad.

That probably happened in India, after I graduated from college.

You see, every year my large co-dependent family vacations together in a place we've never been before. It's true, we pick some unfortunate destination and descend en-masse, and one year we decided to go to Asia. At any rate, there we were, visiting a mosque in India, when someone suggested that we see the, “lesser known Poor Man’s Taj Mahal.” If you've never heard of it, don't be alarmed. It’s more like a roadside attraction than it is a mosque, but the rules still apply: men can go inside, women cannot, and everyone has to take off their shoes regardless.

So there I was... walking around... outside... in India... without shoes on... when I stepped in bird poop.

If you know nothing about me, please know this - I’m a complete germ-a-phobe; however, luckily for me, there was a big pool of water right there. And, as a recently-graduated, culturally-sensitive Anthropologist, I hopped over to it and stuck my bird poop covered foot RIGHT in. No kidding, about twenty-five men immediately ripped their hands out of there the second I'd touched it. Being the polite idiot that I am, I was loudly apologizing/explaining and showing them my foot while saying, “Sorry – I stepped in crap and I need to get it off.”

Now, if you know anything about Islam, then you probably know the following:
1. That’s holy water and it’s used for men to clean themselves before they pray. Women don’t use it… EVER!
2. Never show a Muslim the bottom of your feet. It’s like giving them the finger.
3. Either one of these things is offensive.
4. Both of these things together can be life-threatening.

I now know that too…

That said, as I’m writing this, it dawns on me that the poop "incident" wasn't actually the worst one. The worst was definitely when I was living and working in London because of an international assignment. I tried to warn my boss this was a bad idea, but it wasn’t until I lost my knickers on High Street that he agreed.

However, before I can tell you that part of the story, I have to tell you this part first.

You see, one morning, I’d gotten up and headed into the office to prep for a big meeting with my manager and his peers, all of whom are men. However, because God hates me, I didn't get to work early at all. In fact, I got there late because of traffic on the M25. Already tardy and frustrated, I quickly grabbed my stuff from the car and accidentally slammed the door on myself - which naturally resulted in a MASSIVE tear in my nylons. As I looked at my watch, I realized that I could pull it off (no pun intended) and literally JAUNTED (in heels) to Woolworths on High Street for a new pair.

Though I was able to successfully repress most of what happened next, I still remember running into the store, grabbing a pair of pantyhose off the rack, looking at the back of the package, and realizing that this wasn’t going to end well for me. You see, the problem with buying clothes in England is that the height and weight charts are metric.

Do you know how many stones you weigh or how many meters tall you are? OMG… ME EITHER!

But I grabbed a pair anyway and hauled back to the office where I went into the bathroom, pulled off my nylons, pitched the torn ones into the garbage, and opened the new pack. Clearly God hates me, because when I opened them, they were thigh-highs… for an Amazon. I’m five foot two, and in NO parallel universe would those have worked - even if I'd had a garter-belt, which I didn't.

So there I was, eyeballing the torn ones in the trash and running the numbers in my head, when I realized that it would require a lifetime of therapy if I went dumpster diving for my own used clothes. Instead, I tried to make my B Plan work.

I literally PULLED MY NYLONS THROUGH THE TOP OF MY UNDERWEAR AND TIED THEM TOGETHER IN THE BACK.

After fifteen minutes of sheer hell (no pun intended), I walked over to my boss’s office, shut his door and said, “We have a problem.” It was (quite literally) five minutes before one of the biggest presentations of my life, so he was clearly upset by this declaration and asked why. That's when I stamped my right foot three times, and my thigh-high fell to the floor... engulfing my shoe. As we stood there, staring at each other, not sure what to say, the left thigh-high fell to the floor, too. And no, I hadn’t shaved. That’s when my boss said, “Take the damn things off and tell them you’re French. Let’s go.”

To think I was scared of what could happen on our last family vacation to Peru. No kidding, I was genuinely terrified that I’d hear a blow dart and wake up days later in some South American jungle hut without a kidney. Since that didn’t happen, I clearly still have amends to make before my karma can improve, so PLEASE help me out. Give to Heifer International. Or, post a comment and I will make a donation on your behalf (up to $50 total from mkromd).

Have a great holiday! Talk to you next week.

Money. Money. Money. It's a Rich Man's World.

Years ago, in college, I said that I wanted to fix the world. I had no idea that meant one damn thing in my house after another. As with all requests that I put out to the universe, perhaps I should have been more specific.

You see, I live in the Mid-West, and we - like so many other parts of the world - were hit with an Arctic blizzard that dumped over a foot of snow. Now, this is fine... if you're an Eskimo. It's NOT OK if you're a single woman who owns a home but doesn't own a snow blower to go with it. And you may say it's my fault that I wasn't prepared, but I would tell you that there's only so much money in the budget, and I needed those Burberry galoshes.

At any rate, the morning after the storm, instead of blowing the snow out of my driveway, I shoveled it... fashionably.

And for ten minutes, I didn't even mind. Then my neighbor came out of his garage, started his snow blower, waved at me, finished his driveway, waved at me again, then went back into his house. I swear, if I had been a man, I'd have pulled down my snow pants and pissed the word ASSHOLE into his yard. I would have. Instead, I just threw snowballs at his house and kicked snow into his driveway.

I honestly looked like a toddler with Tourette’s syndrome having a temper tantrum.

And... because I’m shallow – I was OK with that. In fact, I was OK until my garage door froze SHUT and then it froze OPEN. Seriously, how does that even happen? Then… as I stood there, eyes freezing shut from crying, shovel in hand, cursing, I realized two things:
1. I literally come from a broken home, which made me cry harder.
2. I have NEVER seen an igloo with a door, and clearly this is why.

So I went inside and sent the following e-mail to my boss, "Hey there, I'm stuck at home. My garage door was frozen shut (?), and now it is frozen open (?). I've called Sears to come fix it. Until then, I'm working from home. Call or e-mail me if you need me. Sorry!"

But this is what I wanted to send to her, "Good morning. I'm sure you already know this, but I'm not at work yet. I'm at home… being held hostage by a garage door that hates me almost as much as I hate it. The damn thing froze shut and then... it froze open. I’m sure had I watched the Weather Channel, this event wouldn’t have shocked me as much as a person who was tazered and never saw it coming, but I didn’t. Instead, I was watching Netflix, which I am tragically addicted to. You should also know that I have PHYSICALLY moved two feet of snow, offended small children in my neighborhood, and actually threw my shovel at the snowplow because he pushed a foot of snow BACK into my driveway once I was done. I’m not proud. So, to make myself feel better, I let the puppy mush into my neighbor’s yard and pee. Don’t worry – I covered it with snow. See you tomorrow."

And I'll talk to you next week!

These boots are made for walking...

Regardless of the fact that my sister and I are polar opposites (she’s perfect and I’m a train wreck), I love her to bits. We’re incredibly close, and the universe made no mistake by putting her first in our family’s birth order. She’s brutally honest, amazingly sweet, and is the one person who will always walk in when everyone else is walking out.

She’s also the reason I have an expensive love-affair with good footwear.

You see, when I was four, we went to see Cinderella at the theater, and when I begged to see it again and again and again – she indulged me. When I asked her if she saw it over and over because she was getting paid to babysit me or because she liked it as much as I did – she said, “Any woman who figures out that the right shoe can change your life, deserves to live happily ever after.” And that winter, she bought me my first pair of dress boots for Christmas. Please know this - I loved those boots more than a pimp loves money. I wore them all day, every day, regardless of the event or the season. I even wore them to bed. And when I finally outgrew them, I wept. I also refused to wear shoes for two days straight, until my mother said, "Clothes don't make the woman, but naked people don't get very far in life. Let's go shopping."

As fate would have it, that experience not only had a profound impact on my psyche, it prepared me for Aunt-hood… when my beautiful baby niece fell in love with the fairy wings from her Halloween costume. She wore them everywhere for everything. We all let it go, thinking she’d outgrow it, until her pre-school called and said, “It’s becoming an issue.”

That’s when we staged an intervention.

As my entire family sat around the dinner table, explaining to her why she couldn’t wear wings to school anymore, I shared that I had ‘literally’ walked a mile in similar shoes and could relate to her pediatric passion for fashion. And that’s when my adorable, waifish niece looked me dead in the eye and said, “I’ll give up the fairy wings, Auntie... but it’ll cost you.” So I picked her up, carried her to the car, buckled her into her car seat, took her to Bloomingdale's, and bought her a pair of boots.

I love my gene pool. Though it's shallow and could use some chlorine, it gives me hope for the future.

But I digress. This post isn't about my niece, it's about my sister. And years ago - when I graduated from college and needed clothes to interview in - I flew home to go shopping with her and my mother. So there we were… in Macy's… bickering over the difference between what’s fashionable and what’s trendy… when my mother handed a pink, cashmere sweater-set to me. Being the dutiful daughter that I am, I begrudgingly tried it on. When I walked out of the dressing room, my sister looked at me, then looked at our mother, then looked back at me and said, "If God doesn't destroy that outfit right now, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology. She looks like the tooth fairy on crack." And instead of defending me, my mother said, "I just thought it would look better on." … on fire, maybe.

Clearly, I'm not a sweater-set kind of girl. I'm the go-go boots kind. I guess I have been all my life. Just ask my sister. Talk to you next week.

No Rest for the Wicked

About six weeks ago, I got a text from TB, which said, “This is not a drill. Pack your bags. We’re going to Orlando for seventy-two hours to consume as much sunshine and tequila as possible… and not in that order.” When I texted back, “OK, but why Orlando?” she replied, “Because I just booked our Gaycation there.” Clearly, even though we're straight, we're not narrow.

That said, the next time I suggest a holiday surrounded by gorgeous men, I'll remember to be more specific.

At any rate, I realize that, if you don’t know me, you wouldn't believe how par for the course the following is: me… in Florida for a long weekend… with my best friend… and her husband… and some gay friends of ours… at Disney. DB couldn't go, so that left me sharing a room with TB and her husband, whom I also love to bits. When people saw us together and asked him if we were Mormon, he said, "No smart man can serve two masters." So he just let people think TB and I were lesbians instead. Thank God she's hot.

But I digress... The point is that we desperately needed a reality break, and where better than Walt Disney World to take one. Because, not only is it a small world after all, it's one of the only places left on this planet where no one thinks it's wrong to have Buzz and a Woody at the same time. However, since time stands still for no man, when you only have seventy-two hours in the Magic Kingdom, you have to plan the work and work the plan. Enter the Gay Agenda.

Now, for the record, let it be said there's definitely a Gay Agenda. It's just that the Religious Right has it all wrong. It doesn't include the global domination of heterosexuals. It includes Starbucks for breakfast, a nap after lunch, and a drinking binge through Epcot. So trust me when I say that they aren't coming for you or your children. I mean sure, they want to exercise their civil liberties like other citizens, but they also want your booze and your Prada. And, if we aren't going to give them gay marriage, that's the least we can do to help.

All jokes aside, on the flight home, as I was nursing my hangover and trying to keep down a breakfast of Gatorade and Tylenol, it dawned on me that maybe we'd make more political progress if our mantra was closer to Obama's, "Yes we can" instead of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's, "Oh no you din't." Who knows? What I do know is that I had a lovely weekend with Prince Charming, who just happens to be a Queen.

Talk to you next week.