The Vomitorium Tour

I believe it goes without saying that there will be no Advice Smackdown today. I simply cannot deal with the thinking and the responsibility and the shampoo talk, and oh GOD, I smell shampoo now, and it's disgusting.

We are sort of emerging from Hell. We are sort of completely dehydrated and weak like weak baby kittens. The most grievious neglect of our son amounted to skipping his bath last night and dressing him in a red and GREY outfit today, instead of the requested red and WHITE for the Valentine's Day calendar photo bullshit at daycare, because RED and WHITE? That, by its very definition, would require TWO loads of laundry, and y'all can bite me.

I have not thrown up since Monday night. And in that timeframe I have managed to consume the following:

One banana
Two pieces of white bread
A half cup of rice
Two spoonfuls of vile, vile soup
17 Saltine crackers

So if anyone is looking to shed those last few pregnancy pounds, I highly recommend you go out and get yourself a raging case of staphylococcal food poisoning. You will lose 10 pounds, and also your dignity.

Anyway. I'm back at work today, if only to break the nasty habit of taking sick leave that I don't actually have.

CONFIDENTIAL TO MY COWORKERS: Is it really necessary to make popcorn in the microwave at 9:45 in the morning? Really? Especially when there may be someone creeping into the kitchen for a harmless, odorless cup of water? Someone who is just coming off of a 48-hour food poisoning bender? IS POPCORN FOR BREAKFAST REALLY THE LIFESTYLE CHOICE YOU WANT TO MAKE?

HERE. EAT A DAMN BANANA INSTEAD.

Anyway. I have nothing. It's actually National De-Lurking Week, and has been since Monday, but I've been hesitant to encourage people to overcome The Shy and say hello when all I've been talking about is vomit, and not the cute hopeful pregnancy vomit either.

So now I will change the subject. Behold my skills!

Have any of you have seen this show called "Starting Over?" I mean, people, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS SHOW?

It's a lame self-help book crossed with an even lamer reality show, dumped right in the middle of your craptacular daytime TV lineup.

I might be in love. Just don't tell my TiVo.

Women with easily captionable problems and goals (like "Christina," who wants to "Drop the Hustle") live together (UNDER ONE ROOF!) and meet with various Life Coaches who spout inane psychobababullshit to help them achieve those goals, and then the woman all paint self portraits and...look for gold coins and...build backbones out of spools of thread. Or something.

(Now, I am no expert on this show, which is apparently in its THIRD SEASON, like, where have I been, so please forgive me if I get all the facts violently wrong. I watched exactly 20 minutes of it in a low-blood-sugar haze, but I swear to God, there was a BACKBONE MADE OUT OF SPOOLS OF THREAD.)

Anyway, I got to watch Christina (Goal: Become a Woman of Honor: Drop the Hustle, Break Hidden Addictions, Define Values, Discover new Path) try to sell a crepe paper flower she made for $500, so she could get naked pictures of herself off the Internet. This was actually terribly sad, because somebody (and I'm looking at the show's producer here) needs to explain the Internet to that poor girl. Also the going rate for crepe paper.

Oh, and Jill (Goal: Come out of Hiding: Build Personality Profile, Eliminate Chaos, Vision Correction, Claim Personal Power, Lift off) has a problem with all the "grocery shopping drama" that the newest housemate is causing! DUN DUN DUN.

Y'all, it's more suspenseful than Survivor! More real than The Real World!

At one point, Jason called out from his sofa of misery, "What the HELL are you watching?"

And I had to honestly answer, "I don't know. I just don't know."

But I could not turn away, because there was a Life Exercise involving handbags, and if there is a way to achieve emotional health and maturity through the power of purses, you know I am all up in dat. Life Coach Woman asked Lisa (Goal: Grow Up: Reality Check, Define Adulthood, Cut the Apron Strings, Walk without Crutches, Soar) to choose a purse that "best represented her" from a selection.

So she did. She chose a fairly cute one. She said it was fun. She was then asked to say what she didn't like about the other purses. She did.

And then Life Coach Woman had her open the purses to look for gold coins. The purse she'd selected had one, and the other purses had more and more, with the bag Lisa dismissed as "boring" holding the most coins.

"SEE?" Life Coach Woman shrieked triumphantly. "There is hidden value in someone YOU would call boring!"

Lisa's face said exactly what I was shouting at the television. "What the FUCK?"

But Lisa just hilariously kind of hmmm'ed and ohhhh'ed like her mind was totally blown away by this unbelievable life revelation. You know, the revelation that...she should have lied and purposely chosen the ugly purse so she could collect more Gold Coins of Personal Development? That a personal affinity for suede fringe makes you a useless, judgemental whore? That...ugly purses are people too?

And then the mixed metaphors came out of my TV and ate my eyeballs. The end.

It's probably kind of lame that I ask y'all to de-lurk today for no reason, when you've already come out of the woodwork by the hundreds several times since the last De-Lurking Day. You celebrated my big news, held my hand through some scary news, cheered for more big news and patted my head after I got some more scary news and then we celebrated the biggest news of all, ever.

(And you also de-lurked in record numbers to save the Smackdown, which apparently is even MORE exciting than a stupid old baby.)

But you know, if you'd like to say hi, today is a fine day for saying hi.