outtabodymommy

  I’ve been going to the bird refuge since I got my first drivers license. “Where are you really going?” my dad would ask, “Why would you want to go out there?”

  My kids have been going with me since they were eggs, they wanted to go with me on Thursday night.  “No.”  I told them.  “But why?” and “Oh Please!”  They begged.  I drove away with out them.

I ditched them because Thursday night was the last night of VBS and I have had a pretty kid intensive week. I was in charge of the games, I introduced them to diet coke and mentos! “Deb-wuh?” One sweet little girl said to me as I was driving her home, “Yow games wuh bowing, next yeah maybe you should get a diffwent job.”

I told Martin I was going before I left him in charge of the children, I gave him the chance to go with me, “Hey! I’m going to the refuge for about an hour.” I stated. “Where are you really going?” he asked. “Why would you want to go out there?”

    I took the kiddo’s shopping for summer clothing yesterday (a very optimistic move, considering there was snow on the ground this morning).  At one point of our trip I grabbed my son by the arm and sternly said, “If you don’t straighten up you can walk your little ass right out to the car and sit there for the rest of the afternoon.”  (The problem was his desire to blow 60% of his budget on a pair of label shoes, 30% of his budget on a checkered tie and the final 10% on an etch-a-sketch.) 

     After reprimanding my child with cuss words, I straightened up and looked down the aisle towards a happy-shoe shopping family and I noticed sky blue eyes gazing at me.  I recognized the eyes and the man who owns them: seventeen years ago the man used to call me and we would talk for hours.  This was back in the day when phones were still attached to the wall and so I would stretch the cord down the hallway so that I could sit on the floor in the bathroom; feet against the tub and back against the door I would listen to that man talk, and every evening he would say to me, “You have a 1-900 number voice.”

       At the ripe old age of 20, I knew exactly what a 1-900 number voice sounded like because when I was in the 8th grade a called a 1-900 number many dozens of times. 

     I got the 1-900 number from a girl at school who said, “Call this number!  They tell really weird jokes and it’s free!”

      The first time I called, I called from the phone in the school hallway (the one that was for emergency reason’s only–the one that got removed from the hallway the following month–possibly because of the phone bill that contained many dozens of 1-900 calls.)  The call was answered by a recording of a moaning lady who said things like, “You make me so hot, put your long hard cock into mouth.”  I had to call dozens of times because there were a variety of different recordings and I felt I was getting a valuable education in all of the names one could call private parts and the seemingly endless variety of ways those parts could be mixed together.

       Naturally, I shared the 1-900 number with my friends, my brother and his friends, people who set next to me in class and some of my cousins.  I told some of those people, “Go ahead–use our phone!  It’s free!”

         Of course it was not free.

       On the day that my mother got the phone bill with the many dozens of 1-900 calls (1.99 per minute), I was home from school with tonsillitis.  It was the best day of my sickness–I was sick enough to stay home and lay on the couch where my mother could walk by and feel my feverish forehead and offer me beverages and soup.  One of my aunts had come over and I pretended to be dozing so that I could stay in the living room and listen to their adult conversations.  She felt my feverish forehead and said something like, “oh, poor thing”.  Shortly after the rub from my aunt, my mother opened the phone bill.

       When she mentioned the 1-900 bills I was suddenly very sick. The first thing she did was call the phone company to deny the bill and that is when my mother found out what happens on a 1-900 call.  When she hung up, she and my aunt discussed my derelict brother and the best way to punish him for being a dirty bird who pays money for obscene phone calls.  I was still feigning sleep and contemplating my option of allowing my brother to take the fall for my perversion.  I considered the fact that he would turn on me like a viper and bust me.  I planned my innocent face as I claimed he was lying.  Then I considered the punishment he would get for more than $100 worth of nasty telephone calls.  Then I considered the punishment he would dole out to me if I lied my way free.

       I started crying.

      “Mama?”  I whispered around my giant swollen tonsils.

        “Yes Dear?”  she replied.

       “It was me that made the calls–And David too!!–But mostly me.”  Then I cried some more.  I did get in mucho trouble, but the worst of it was that everyone knew I was a dirty bird who was willing to pay money to hear nasty talk. 

        Yesterday, when I made eye contact with the sky blue eyes and the man who owns them, I reflected upon the fact that I used to spend many hours talking to him on the phone when I was 20 years old.  I didn’t ever take him up on his offer for an ice fishing date, not because he was a dirty bird who knew what a 1-900 voice sounds like. 

      I never dated him because we once had a conversation in which he explained to me the proper way to vacuum a floor.  As he spoke of the joy of having all of his shag carpeting facing the same direction I knew that a relationship between the two of us was destined to end in failure. 

   The family and I spent the weekend at the cabin.  I will be making the video soon and you can experience the experience via the web.

     I believe this is going to be a good year for the cabin, primarily because my daughter is a legal babysitter and our cell phones work!  Consequently, I got to do a lot of cool things alone with Martin.  Things like going to the store and the dump.  On one of our lone journeys  I was sitting in the truck while he was filling up a gas tank and I took the opportunity to check out all of the other people wandering about.

     It is very easy to spot the people who come to the mountains from out of state.  The Utahan men always wear plaid shirts, the East Coaster wear shiny brand-new fly fishing gear from LL Bean and Cabela’s and the women from California wear yoga pants.  I was matching people to their vehicle and trying to see what they had purchased (east Coasters-booze–Utahans, marshmallows and chocolate) when I noticed a strange phenomena amongst the men.

       In front of the entrance door was a USA Today newspaper stand and EVERY man that walked into the building did a crotch shuffle at the stand. The East Coast fella’s stood in front of the machine and read the head-lines while the adjusted their ball sacks.  The local guys just grabbed hold of their front and gave a yank without the pretense of reading the head-lines and the Utah men did the pocket change shuffle.

      Makes me wonder if men always do a package adjust before walking into a building, or if it is a symptom of all the fresh air.

    Be honest:  when is the last time you felt confident in a bathing suit?  If you are a man the answer is probably, “I have never felt anything but confident.”  If you are a woman your answer is probably, “I haven’t felt confident in a bathing suit since I was six years old.”

     I haven’t ever met a woman who was completely satisfied with her bathing suited body.  Once upon a time I was an eighteen year old girl with a bikini and access to a swimming pool.  I wore the bikini every-time I had a day off, and every-time I wore it I asked my best friend, “Can you see the cellulite on my ass?”  (At eighteen I weighed 125–there was no cellulite.)

     Now that I am 37 I have decided to get over myself and just approach swimsuit season in the following way:  I will not wear one!  I will spend my summer in such a manner that wearing a swimsuit never becomes an issue.  If I should have to take my kids to the lake, I will set on the beach in shorts and a t-shirt and watch them frolic in the water.  If it becomes essential that they go to the swimming pool, I will have someone else take them.

      Earlier this year I was worried about swimsuit season.  I started doing sit-up and counting carbs.  I looked at slimming suits on-line and even purchased some cellulite cream with which I liberally doused my muffin-top and second butt (The second butt being the one that is growing under my first butt–the one that creates the impression that my ass hangs from the middle of my back to my thighs). 

     What I am saying is:  I made a mini-effort to be ready for swimsuit season.

     But no longer!  Did you know that sun is bad for your skin?  Have you heard that it is no longer in vogue to slip into a bikini and then smoother yourself in baby oil? 

    Yeah, I am a skin cancer savvy lass and because of this I will keep the middle section of my body covered in layers of clothing–you’re welcome!

     On day two of the agft, my troupe and I found a group of men with extra poles and we fished with them.  We had a most excellent time and told many jokes and did quite a bit of laughing.  I came late to one conversation, but the punch-line was: “Why don’t you be a man and go dig a fucking ditch?”  Apparently, that was the funniest thing ever, as the people present repeated the line for the rest of our afternoon together. 

     I was reminded of that today because I have been spending quite a bit of time digging–do you think this means I am a man?

     One of the things that I have noticed when I  have worked with Martin is that people assume that I work with Martin along stereotypical gender lines.  If, for example, we are talking to someone about insurance or finances, they address me.  They assume that I am Martin’s book keeper, and also that I make his appointments.  Nothing could be further from the truth–I can’t make an appointment with Martin, I would presume to be able to make an appointment for someone else.  And as far as the money thing goes, pssht.  I’m math dyslexic. 

      The most miserable job (for me) is the unrolling of pipe; apparently there is a method that makes it as easy as sipping margarita’s by the seashore, but I do not know this method.  I know the method wherein I shake and sweat and get little bruises all over my arms and legs.  I bring this up because of another little gender-line bias. 

      If Martin and I arrive at a job and the male homeowner is home, he usually offers to hold the pipe for me.  Because I am a feminist, I always hand them the pipe.   (My brand of feminism believes that if my gender offers me an easy out, I would be a fool not to take it.) 

        This makes me wonder about you and your thoughts about the gender card–should we play it or not?

     And (Paul, Dan) how do you feel when a woman whips out her gender card?

Last year my sister moved a huge tupperwear container of her clothing into my house.  It stayed in the guest bedroom for several months, and then I got sick of looking at them and I sent them to the basement.  When they reached the storage room they were promptly savaged by twelve year old girls looking for cute women’s clothing, And find it they did!

The container exploded in Kate’s room and my sisters dresses and shorts and sexy underwear draped over everything. I told Kate to clean her room, and now all of that clothing is in my laundry pile.

As soon as clothing hits my laundry pile it becomes mine.  I have invested my valuable time, and so the clothing belongs to me. I’ve thrown away handfuls of underwear (and I have said to my daughter—“This is your AUNT’S negligee, do you know why she was wearing it? Ew! EW! EW EW EW!!!”)

I have also folded some of the items and put them into my closet: it’s perfect timing because it appears we got her summer container of clothing, and I was in the market for new summer clothing. It is also garage sale season—and that means that I have a nice little assortment of hand-me down clothingI have been wearing other people’s clothing my entire life—we have a huge extended family and some of my older cousins gave me the clothes they didn’t want (As a bonus, one of my cousins was a fashion queen—getting her old clothing was better than Christmas morning.)

For as long as I have been dressing myself, I have owned someone else’s dress, and it doesn’t fit properly—and that is exactly why I love it. During the 90’s I had a dress that was six sizes to large and ugly as sin. It was one of those coverall type dresses and it was made of checkered cotton. I loved that dress and wore it often, it had every color of paint that I had ever been close to on it. My mother once called me from her work to let me know that she had a found a man for me to date. She was calling to tell me to come meet him, before she hung up the phone she said, “And Deborah, you better not wear that hideous dress!”

I currently have a closet full of dresses that do not fit me. I call them my FLDS dresses. They are all long, they hang to my ankles. They have modest necklines and they are so large that they hide the fact that I am a girl. When I wear these dresses I generally have my hair wrapped into a bun. My mother and I were talking about my dress and she suggested I should fold my arms over my chest and just answer all questions with the phrase, “I just want my children back.”

The reason for the ugly dresses is this: I have spent my afternoons bringing my green thumb to other people’s homes. I like spreading grass seed, it makes me feel a sense of accomplishment to drive by and see the lawns that I have planted The problem with this job is that it is very dirty, I come home every night covered in dirt that has stuck to my sunscreen. I suppose the dirt tan acts as it’s own sunblock, but it isn’t very comfortable. When I get home from a day of working, I don’t feel very much like a girl.

My first order of business upon arriving at home is washing off the dirt and the sweat so that I can feel like a girl again. When I get out of the bath tub I smear on girl smelling lotions and take care of other hygiene types of things. If I have nowhere else to go for the evening a slap on an FLDS dress because I want all of the parts of me that have been covered in sweat and dirt to have a well deserved breeze. 

When I am wearing one of my giant dresses I often think about other women in big dresses and I wonder—do you think they are wearing foundational undergarments?

    The best thing about not being in school is all of the unprotected sleep I have been having.  The alarm clock has not awakened me in more than a week, and I anticipate three more months of the same shameful behavior. 

    While I have been sleeping with reckless abandon, I have been spending my waking hours ever diligent about sun screen and big floppy hats.  Sometime between being a spry young woman with a few freckles and a decent tan and NOW, the decent tan became obsolete–but the freckles?  Hoo boy!  I have them by the bushel full.  The freckles aren’t so bad (some people think freckles are cute) the big problem is that the skin on my face tends to tan at different levels.

     For example:  on the right side of my mouth I tan well, on the left side of my mouth there will be no tanning.  This creates the illusion that I have put my cover-up on in the dark and forgot half of my face  In addition, on my right cheek there is a whole string of freckles that run from my eye to my chin.  When I say “freckles” I want you to know I really mean “big giant age spots or maybe moles”.  It sort of looks like a string of tears or maybe  those prison tats of tears that people get when they have murdered a person.  (If it were a prison tat, it would signify that I was a serial killer who took out at least six people.) 

     Another interesting thing about the tanning of my face is that the area along my jawline between my ears and string of freckles (or age spots or moles) does not tan.  At all.  Period.  Once again, this creates the illusion that I have had a make-up malfunction and I do not know that when you apply cover-up you are supposed to pay special attention to the jawline so that you don’t look like you have applied a mask.

      To counter-act all of the shit the sun has been flipping at me, I wear sunscreen, the big floppy hat and a giant pair of sunglasses.  Yeah, I am showing my age, especially since I think the big floppy hat  hides the fact that I have 1/4 inch of gray roots poking out.

       Because it is summer time that means I have my summer time job going.  I have been digging holes and burying pipes and on really good days, I get to seed lawns or apply fertilizer.  All of these jobs make the dust fly and because of my liberal use of sunscreen, the dust sticks to me.  So!  In addition to the face that is being taken over by funny brown spots and discoloration, I have long legs covered in dirt and middle aged arms with borky elbows and creases of dirt everywhere I bend. 

     It probably sounds as though I am being down on my funky colored self.  Like maybe I am mourning the fact that I spend to much time outside getting dirty and speckled and I am no longer the delicate picture of tan loveliness that I was when I was young.

    But nope!

    I am quite fond of the time I get to spend creating pretty yards for strangers.  It’s sublime to be outside in the fresh air and the sunshine, it’s cool as shit not to be in school thinking about things the institution has told me to think about.  I like working my body rather than my brain. 

     The best thing about being a big dirty girl working with the boys is that after I hit the bathtub and smooth creams and sweet smelling lotion all over my freckled self, I can slip between the sheets for all the unprotected sleep my little heart can handle.   

  Did I tell you I got an A on my final photo project?  Of course I did, I am telling everyone.

    Anyway.

    My project was titled “The Main Man” and Martin is in every picture.  The catch is that there is an action figure in each picture also–so which is the main man? 

     When I finished mounting all of the photos on white mat board I brought them home and spread them out across the bedroom wall.  I told Martin to behold my masterpiece.  He said, “Why’d ya show so much of my skin?” 

     I can’t remember what answer I gave him but the truth is:  I showed so much of his skin because I am ever so fond of his skin.  It’s soft and warm and fawn colored, it stretches over big muscles and it smells like fresh air when I press my cheek against  it. 

  Without further ado–here is my Main Man project:

  (shavin’)

  (fishin’ regs)

  (wrappin’–this one shows motion!)

(Cuttin’. This one is huge because I like it an extra lot and because I don’t know the code to make it smaller.)

(wasn’t me!)

 (sleepin’)

    There are only two things I like better than Martin in black and white.  One of them is Martin in color:

    The other is Martin in real life, and oh shit!  Look at the time…it is almost 10:00.  Hm, I think I better go tuck the main man in.

    A couple days ago, Jake came home from Uncle Roy’s house with a harmonica.  He got the harmonica from my cousin Dan, and I wondered about how he had squeezed the musical instrument out of my cousin.  (Two years ago Jake squeezed a skate board out of Dan by stating, “When yer eight, ya gotta skate”.)  I talked to my cousin and his wife and it seems the shake down went a little something like this:

    Jake saw the harmonica in a box at Roy’s house, he ascertained that it belonged to Dan and then he said to Martin:

     If  I work for you for ten days, can I have a hundred dollars?  If I had a hundred dollars, I would buy a harmonica.  It’s all I ever wanted in the whole wide world.”

    Dan crumbled underneath the little boy reasoning.

      When I saw Jake with the harmonica, I asked him what he was going to play:

“The blues” Jake replied.

 ”I think you have to experience the blues before you can play the blues.”  I informed my boy.

“Oh, I know the blues…I know the blues.”  He said, and then he told me a story that caused me to believe that he does, indeed, understand the blues.