Somethin' Is A Brewin'

Home with my older daughter today, who has strep throat. Again. This is the third time since November, and quite frankly, I'm over it. I've had enough of this shit, and I'm pretty damn sure my boss has had enough of it, too. Not only have I been out with my older daughter who has been sick at least four times (three with strep, once with the flu and once with some other mystery shit), but I've been out with my younger daughter and with me. Can I please just go to work and work a whole month without having to take time off for a doctor's appointment, dentist appointment, therapist's appointment, parent-teacher conference or to pick up from an after school program? Apparently not. This is what I get for being so smugly satisfied with myself the last couple of years for my kids not being sick all the time and for feeling superior in that Appalachian Aryan kind of way always bragging about how my kids just don't get sick that often.

After I got the kids to bed last night, I realized there were two episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County coming on, and even though I'd seen one of them before, I watched it again just to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I am addicted to the whole Real Housewives franchise, with the exception of Atlanta because they are just too damn ghetto, and Miami. I don't get the whole Little Havana thing. I'm still waiting for The Real Housewives of West Virginia. Attention Andy Cohen! America wants to see hillbilly gone upscale. If there is a man for this, I know you are. Come on, man! Give us something!

But that's not going to happen and I know it, you know it and Andy himself knows it. I don't even know why I like these shows, other than it's a glimpse into how a tiny sliver of America's bell curve lives, which is nothing at all like my life. I can't fathom Botox and boob jobs, and haven't driven a new car since 2003. When the car was new. I could use a little Botox and a boob lift, but that's not really a good way to spend the money I don't have. I'm also not a size -3 and I don't have blond hair. These women have more drama in their otherwise largely useless lives, and their careers either involve nothing or designing handbags. I suppose I watch these shows to be grateful for the relatively simple life that I have. Even when The Ex calls the insurance company to report that a bill arrived at his house for me and I don't live there any more, like he did with my almost estranged aunt (but then didn't bother to call me to tell me), I just have to roll with it. No agonizing over it with three of my best frenemies and some Cristal. I simply just made up for it when the dentist's office called my house for him this morning and I very politely told the receptionist that he didn't need their services anymore because all of his teeth had fallen out of his head. I've actually decided the next time someone calls me for him and then wants his contact information, I am very kindly going to tell them that he's listed on the Douchebag Network and let them figure it out from there

This whole Real Housewives, thing, though. This is not a slice of real America, and this is not a slice of what a real, honest-to-God American housewife looks like. This is America on Xanax, expensive hair coloring solutions, rejuvenation therapies or whatever that shit is, America with one nanny because they had to cut back from three nannies, America in an McMansion and a Bentley. Sorry, but a vast majority of us don't live like that, and honestly, I don't think I'd want to. There is an argument for living a more simplistic life when you just don't have any fucking money. I realized today that I need to buying my gas at Sheetz and my cigarettes at WaWa, not the other way around, and now that gas has gotten so high, I have an excuse for not buying anything for my children, other than the shit they need. And really, why the fuck aren't we tapping into the national reserves? I don't give a rat's ass about the caribou, because the caribou aren't going to put any gas in my car. I also don't really care about the permafrost. Let's just get the gas prices back down, please.

I mentioned months before that like everyone else, The Great American Novel is living in my head, but I can't do anything with it yet because I haven't lived enough of my life. But I'm toying with a serialized fiction kind of thing, maybe just put it on the blog once a week or something. I never fancied myself a fiction writer, but I suppose I can make up lies and put it on paper. Not to diss anyone who is a fiction writer, but that's kind of what it is. Creatively, of course. But this would be a huge departure from what I've got now, which is just autobiographical bitching and generalized snark. I mean, let's just call it what it is. But anyway, I'm thinking about the format, the content, how I would split it up, how I would title it on the blog, if it would be first person, second person, eighth person, whatever. I'm thinking about my favorite authors and what I don't like about their writing and what I do like. I'm thinking is this just for me to do for me or is this me to do for other people? Personally, I don't think writing to an audience works well, because you end up trying too hard for people who will just criticize.... So, maybe I'll come up with something and maybe I won't. Maybe this is the beginnings of something interesting or maybe this is me just being at home yet again, bored out of my mind with a sick child. Stay tuned.