My First Troll or Dragon Tales Still Sucks
When I first started reviewing 50 Shades of Awful and Twidud, I figured I’d get some angry fan spittle all over my blog. Even when I had only a handful of viewers, it wouldn’t have surprised me. There are some fans so dedicated they will seek out anybody, no matter how small, in order to protect their sacred cow (moooo). And yet – I never heard a peep. In fact, one person who was a fan of Shades still thought I was funny and reblogged my post. Go figure.
Then it happened. A troll. A real, live troll! On my blog! It was a wondrous day, you guyz. I had to read the comment a few times to make sure it was real. It was so much better than the spammers (this blog to read is educational to be coming back soon.) You’ll never guess what post irritated the reader. Not 50 Shades, not Twilight, not my occasional political ramblings, not the times I screwed up revered American holidays like Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving. Nope.
Welcome, troll!
It was Dragon Tales. It’s been a while since I’ve done a review of awful children’s T.V. I must get back to this, now that I’ve finished awful adult books. But the troll was angry! He or she told me “Dragon Tales is a good show! It’s for kids, not for 40-year-old fartheads like you!” Said troll had no blog, just an email address that went something like “dragontalesmaniacalfreakedoutfan.” Let me tell you, I was deeply saddened by this insult. For your information, troll, I am NOT forty, okay?
And that’s not all! There was another comment on another post, this one about how Clifford was either doin’ steroids or exposed to nuclear waste. It said, and I quote “Again, mean!” Mean? Me? I thought my blog was sweetness and light! Now I’m all disillusioned.
Sort of like when I saw this show the first time. Those are NOT dragons.
I thought this was the end of it, but I think this person has a whole fan club that is still tracking my blog. I keep getting hits because of it. Check out the most recent search words people used to find my blog. Just today: dragon tales (10), dragon tails (2), dragon tale (1), dragontales (1), and yesterday: dragon tales (11), dragon’s tale (3), dragon tale (1). And this has been going on for a while now. It might be my new top search word this year. It would help if this fan club could figure out how to spell Dragon Tales.
Far out, huh? This just goes to show you how bizarre the Internet can be. I suppose I should be thankful to these guys for giving my blog traffic. Therefore, I’ve decided to review it again. Here’s the original post for any of you who missed it. And a clip of the show, too. Guard your stomachs.
Upon reviewing the show again, dear troll, I have to say . . . it still sucks. Yeah. Pretty much. I mean, yes, it is for children and not adults. But adults are usually forced to watch this crap too. Unless they prefer to neglect their children like Max and Ruby’s parents. (Max and Ruby review coming up, Max and Ruby fans!) Besides, just because it’s for kids doesn’t mean it can’t have a little quality to it. For instance, I can watch Sesame Street without gagging as long as I turn it off before the Elmo comes on. But Dragon Tales makes the mistake of not only being annoying and stupid, but pretentious about it.
So sorry to spill your milk there (everyone makes mistakes, oh yes, they do) but I don’t like it. Sure the dragons teach the kids Spanish (Why are the dragons Spanish? Do they also have Russian dragons? Scottish ones?) but we already had Dora for that (Saltaaaaaaaaaa!) We didn’t need any more. I mean, Dora was shrieky and irritating, but at least she didn’t whine nearly as much as these so-called dragons. So, yeah, review stands. On the suck-o-meter, we have a ten. But please – do come back. I’ll leave the rug cleaner out for you.
Love and kisses,
Alice
An idea was born
A bunch of nutters are writing a story together, one sentence at a time. It is bound to be more interesting and cohesive than 50 Shades. If you want to join in with us, visit the Other Alice. 😀
So I sent a suggestion to Combat Babe when she had some writer blockage going on, and now, I’m stealing the idea back. I cannot help it, it has been brewing in my chaotic mind and I need to unleash it.
It’s going to be a story, and YOU are going to help me write it. To participate, I need email addresses. I’m going to start the story, and then pick an email address and send the sentence to you. Then you’ll reply back with your next sentence for the story. Then I’ll take your sentence and send it to the next person in the list, and so on and so on.
For this to be as good as my silly mind has created it to be, I need your help. If you want to participate, please send me your email address to rabbitholesalice@gmail.com or leave it in the comments.
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Curious Alice Goes to Yoga Class
Last week I learned that there was a yoga studio in my home town. I was surprised, as generally the height of culture here in my small Texas town is going to a gun show. It had an interesting name, though. They called it “Christian Yoga”.
Alice was curious.
It cost ten bucks, so I figured at the very least I’d get an amusing anecdote for my blog out of it. I admit a bit of trepidation. I mean, why “Christian” Yoga? As opposed to what? Islamic Yoga? Jewish Yoga? Scientologist Yoga? I mean, I’m fairly certain Yoga is not relegated to any one religion. My best guess is that they were trying to assure Christians that they wouldn’t be converted to some weird foreign and possibly Satanic religion while contorting into various positions. That’s just silly. I mean, why would you think Yoga would do something bizarre like that?
Oh. Right. Okay, so I went in expecting just about anything. Would there be creepy dead Jesus crosses on the wall? Because regular crosses are not so bad, but when he’s hanging off them like that, it kind of weirds me out. There were no crosses. No big posters with sappy biblical sayings. Okay. I relax a little. There’s a nice lady teacher, and she’s cool with me being a little late despite speeding all the way there with my hands clenched on the steering wheel. Yeah, I know the irony there.
There were only four other students, and most of them looked older than I did. Score. I figure I can do as well as they can. Or better. I have at least tried out a few videos. There’s a wall of mirrors on the opposite wall, like in a dance class. It’s convenient in that we can see ourselves as we pose. It’s also horrific. I make sure to move into the center of one mirror, as otherwise I look twice as big as I am. That’s not relaxing.
We start out lying on our mats. I brought my extra cushy one. It’s way cushier than the mats of the other students. Poor saps. While we’re lying there with our eyes closed, the teacher reads a one sentence verse from the Bible. “Thou must not poke thy neighbor’s eye out” or something like that. But that’s it. Then we’re ready to begin with sun salutations. She adds a few different words to it, like when we open our arms we are opening “to grace”. Just in case we thought we were worshipping the sun. We’re just saluting it, so it’s cool.
As it turns out, cushy mat might not have been the best idea. While it helps my knees on the lunges, my feet keep sinking into it and slipping around. I am a drunk Warrior One and Two. But I don’t fall down. I wobble. Like a Weeble. A Weeble doing Yoga. Tree pose is even worse. In Tree pose, you stand on one leg with the other leg bent with your foot on your thigh. I think it’s a lot more like a Flamingo than a tree, but maybe there weren’t very many Flamingos in ancient India. After my tree nearly falls over, I decide to move off the mat and near the wall. Much better.
Just like in school plays, I fail at being a tree.
There’s a lot of movement here. This pose, then this pose, and then this pose, and back to this pose. She has to move my leg around a few times. I have forgotten left from right and where my knees are. But she moves a few other people too, so it’s not just me. I can probably still get my A out of this. Wait. No grades. Stop it, Alice. A competition, Yoga is not. Says Yoga. Yoda. Crap. She’s moving again, keep up!
Yoga is just full of these awkward poses. One is Downward Dog. If you think like a ten-year-old, as I do, that name probably makes you snort. Until you try it. Basically you get on all fours and stick your butt way in the air. Very dignified like. I’m not sure if I’m doing it right or not. Is there a proper way to point your butt? Are the others pointing their butts properly? In my position, I can’t see if I’m still the best.
Does my butt look big in this pose?
Not that this is a competition. After a while, I start sweating. And we’re not even doing hot Yoga. People think Yoga is wimpy exercise. These people have not tried it. Just try doing the “Triangle” for instance. Your legs are wide apart and you are leaning over with one arm up in the air. Holding these poses is tough. I just hope to God there isn’t a pose called the Hexagon coming up.
But so far, I’m doing pretty well. At least I think I am, until I look over and realize the teacher and the rest of the class are doing the pose exactly opposite of the way I’m doing the pose. Suddenly I’m that one little ballerina that’s off doing her own thing while the other ballerinas are all lined up like tiny dolls. I guess it could be worse. At least I didn’t lift my skirt over my head like my Thing One did at her first dance recital. She did have the excuse of being four-years-old, though.
I Yoga by the beat of my own drummer. Or something.
At long last, we’re allowed to go back to our mats, vertebrae by vertebrae. As in, don’t flop your butt down on the mat. I’m not sure if I hit each vertebrae in my spine. Is that points off? There are no points, Alice. The teacher walks around and hands us blankets and bolsters. This is the easy part here. Corpse pose. That’s a really spooky name for a pose. Like we’re dead. I prefer to call it collapsing from exhaustion pose.
Yet this easy pose is really not all that easy. My back hurts. She offers me a chair to prop my legs in. Better, except I don’t think I’d fit in a coffin very well that way. I try to relax, but like in Kindergarten when they told us to nap and we didn’t want to nap (why???), I find myself having a difficult time relaxing. Breathe in, breathe out. It is nice lying there in the dark, eyes closed. You can even get a bean bag to put over your eyes to block out the light. No word on whether we get to do bean bag tosses later.
Too soon, nap time’s over and we have to get up. We sit together and have tea. Yes, Alice has a tea party after Yoga. Naturally. Will I go back? I think so. I like Yoga, even with the wobbling and the wtf poses. And the STUFF. I mentioned stuff before, right? I’ll tell you more about Yoga merchandizing next time.
Check out these other cool Yoga posts from my peeps in da bloggerhood:
Miss Four Eyes – The People You Meet at Yoga
Rarasaur – Blogging is Like Yoga
Carrie Rubin – Yoga Yoda Helps Me Find My Ergonomic Zen
This Post For Rent
For some time now, Monday has been my day to write reviews of the Books That Shall Not Be Named. While that series was excruciating, I never really had to think. I just read stupid crap and vomited on the page pretty much. But now I’m supposed to think of stuff. Or stuph, if you read twindaddy, and you should because that guy can think up posts like crazy. Also he’s a storm trooper, and they’re cool.
I’ve got Wednesday covered. Hump day is all about – get your mind out of the gutter – it’s all about exercise. Of various forms. Snort. Yoga is my current obsession and you’ll see more of that when we get to the hump. Day. The hump day. Crap.
I’ve had thoughts. Since Speaker 7 has the dating shows covered (read her reviews of the Bachelor, Bachelor Pad, Splash, Pad of Bachelors Splash, Stupid Barbies in Tiny Boxes, etc.) I thought I’d try to conquer reviewing shows on TLC. This station is chock full of total crap that just begs to be made fun of, or beaten with a bat. One of my favorite shows lately is My Strange Addiction. If you haven’t seen this show before, you really must check it out. There are people with some fabulous new diets out there. They eat toilet paper, deodorant, dryer sheets, tire pieces, cat hair (I’m not kidding about any of these) and much, much more!
Hmm, does this deodorant have antioxidants?
But TLC was not satisfied with merely showing strange addictions. They decided make a totally new and original show called My Secret Obsession, which is about people collecting stupid things like Barbies and pigs. I haven’t seen them eat the stuff yet, but it’s still early in the show. Besides these interesting habits, they talk about women who produce babies like gumball machines, women who didn’t realize they contained gumballs, women popping one or more gumballs out in detail, and women who spend more time shopping for wedding dresses than most people spend on house shopping. Truly, this is the Learning Channel.
TLC isn’t the only station I’m fascinated with, for there is also Lifetime. They bill Lifetime as the network for women, probably because most of the shows are about women killing men, or men beating the crap out of women, and you know we gals just eat that kind of shit up! Often these shows are based on true stories of stupidity, crime, abuse, and general insanity. True = Educational.
I feel so empowered.
And I’m sure there are more terrible books out there. Sure I could read actual good books, and I do from time to time, but where’s the fun in that? I’m waiting for the next E.L. James now. While I wait, I could come up with a parody. I’ve had one simmering in my mind a while. No real details yet, but I do have the main characters. Richard (Dick) Peen and Bambi Vagina. I’m thinking of setting it in China, since I know almost nothing about this country. What do you think?
Yes, I know I’m crazy, but that’s what I’ve got so far. So . . . what do you think? Let me know in the comments or shoot me an email (my addy is on my All About Alice Page). I’m off to have a deodorant snack.
Yoga WTF?
I’ve researched a lot of different workout programs. That’s what I do. Obsessively research. Everything. It’s a handy disorder for library work, but not much else. Last time I let you know that I’d narrowed it down to Yoga. Then I figured something out. There are eleventy-billion versions of Yoga.
The first time I experienced something like this was when I started learning about penguins. Thing Two has been crazy about those wacky birds since she was two years old. There are like 17 different species of penguin. Of penguin. I mean, seriously? Yes. They range in size from about a foot to four feet (the well known emperor penguin). I bet you didn’t think you’d get penguin facts in a yoga post. That’s just the kind of extra oomph I offer you in my blog.
These Emperors are pretty bad-ass, penguin wise.
Anyway, so I’ve checked out lots of yoga books and videos. And I’ve bought some too. Also yoga accessories. You can buy lots of yoga crap as it turns out. I’m all into that. If you’re going to go into something, go all the way I say. That’s why I paid money for a cushy yoga mat and two foam blocks. For my HEALTH people. There are tons of other products I can waste my money on invest in if I choose. More on that in a later post.
First I have to tell you about the different kinds of Yoga. According to the women’s health site there’s Anusura, Ashtanga, Bikram, Hatha, Lyengar, Kundalini, Restorative, Power, Furby, Tatooine, Hokey Pokey, and more! I might have made the last three types up. Bikram is yoga that you do in a room turned up to 150 degrees. That way your body becomes like Plastic Man’s and you can do all sorts of poses. Also you can see all sorts of colors as you dehydrate out all your brain cells.
I’m thinking that’s not my type. I don’t like sweating. Power Yoga was also quickly eliminated. Power Yoga is basically the Western way of screwing up an Eastern tradition. Someone said, hey, let’s take the worst parts of Yoga, stretching people’s bodies to the limit, rip out all the relaxing, spiritual parts, add in a lot of aerobic crap and market it to Type A Americans. That’s why Jillian Michaels has a Yoga video. Jillian. She is not what I associate with inner peace. More like extreme horror.
Get thee behind me!!!
Hatha seems to be the most common type, at least in my area. It’s fairly basic. There’s stretching and meditation, but no chanting and chakra stuff. That works for me. I also like Restorative yoga, which is great for stress relief. You lay on pillows and breathe. I’m all for laying on pillows and breathing. In fact, I rather consider myself an expert at that. I might open a studio soon.
I did learn about one other type of Yoga in detail. I got a book from the library on Kandalini Yoga. It was a nice, pleasant book with soft, relaxing colors. Sure she mentioned lining up your chakras and chanting om and stuff, but eh, no matter. It looked okay. So when I saw a video of this type of Yoga at the library, I thought why not?
Oh, my peeps, there were so, so, so, SO MANY reasons why not.
First off, I should have taken a clue from just looking at the cover of the video. It was called “Fat Free Yoga” which is a rather odd title. Are they saying no fat people should do this? Or that they have somehow removed the fat out of the yoga routine? Is this a diet Yoga video?
The girl on the cover looked like a recent graduate of a hippie concentration camp. As you can see in the picture, she sits in front of a purple swirling rainbow vortex of some sort. The cover mentions something about a Matrix menu. Trust me, the Matrix is not just in the video menu.
Far out, eh?
I took it home and popped it in the machine. The Things decided to help me review this video. Pretty soon they are going to run from the room as soon as I turn on the television. In the beginning, we zoom into a white room with a woman sitting on a shaggy, round pink bath rug type thing centered in the middle of flower petals. Normally you hear gentle, non-distracting music in the background, but here we’ve got some Indian tune. I actually like Indian music, usually, but somehow this theme makes me think of those old 60s videos with people smoking pot and yammering about the universe.
She says nothing in the video, but there is a disembodied voice that speaks to you, and it’s not at all creepy. It’s also, interestingly, a male voice, which gives you the vibe of some guy peeking in her window and reporting his observations. A guy who first smoked a little crack.
Our bony little Yogi is wearing dog eared ponytails that I normally don’t see on people over twelve, and a little spandex outfit that’s way too small for her. Maybe she borrowed the outfit and the ponytail holders from her little sister. She also made the mistake of tanning herself a Cheeto orange and not investing in a bra. Let’s just say it was clearly a little cool in the room.
She starts out cross legged, looking somewhat normal. This is the last time she does this. Soon she opens her mouth and starts chanting oma lama ding dong or something to that effect, punctuated by Lamaze style huffing and puffing. I half expected her to give birth to a pea sized baby. At one point, she began panting like a dog. The Things crowded in closer. “I’m scared, Mommy,” reported Thing Two.
WTF????
But this was only the beginning. After the breathing, chanting stuff, she starts to shake her head back and forth. And not gently either, we’re talking whiplash inducing whipping of the head, back and forth, until you half expect the head to go flying off her neck. Soon you start hoping this happens. After the head shaking, she goes back to the huffy breathing and chanting. Then just when she’s calmed down, she hops up and starts swinging around some more. I sat, fascinated. I’d never seen anything so incredibly bizarre before.
It’s really indescribable, which is why I encourage you to check it out. I included a clip here from youtube, but it doesn’t even scratch the surface of the insanity. Suffice it to say, if that’s Kandalini Yoga, I think I’m sticking to the basics. More on my adventures in Yogaland later. Now I leave you with the spookiest Yoga chick on the planet. Enjoy.
50 Shades of Mmmbop
Last week I finished covering the last 50 Shades book. After each of the preceding books, I published a reflection on the book. Usually this consisted of a rant, followed by another rant, followed by still more ranting. I figured I’d do the same thing one last time. Except when I try to think of that series, I mean anything in any of those books, all I come up with is . . . um. Uhmm. Mmm. Mmmmmbop, Mmm bop, ba duba dop, ba du bop, ba duba dop, ba du bop, ba duba dop, Ba du.
I bet you thought you’d forgotten that song, right? But it popped into my head the other day and it still hasn’t left. You know what’s really, really bad though? I like that song. It’s a dopey, pointless, nonsensical, bubble-gum pop sung by prepubescent little brats, but gosh darn it’s freaking catchy. And it has now filled that void in my head left by 50 Shades. I have to say . . . I like Hanson much, much better than Christian, Ana, E.L. James, Puff the Magic Dragon, and all the other characters in that series.
So since the song is now in my brain, I figured I might as well buy the stupid song and play it for my kids. Because I’m going to be forced to listen to teeny bopper stuff anyway, so it might as well be my teeny bopper stuff. That’s all I’m saying. And when I got home the other day we played the song and the Things and I danced like Peanuts characters while holding hands, boing, boing, boing and it was fun. They like the song too, and now it’s in their brains, and they will probably spread it to their friends. There might be a Hanson revival. I don’t care. It still beats that Wrong Direction group that’s big right now.
Oh, and since I didn’t know any of the lyrics to that song except “Mmmbop” which is what I sing throughout the entire song, even when they are supposedly singing other words, I looked them up on Google. I found them on www.elyrics.net. You’re welcome. As it turns out, the lyrics really do reflect on 50 Shades of Grey. Here’s a sample:
In an mmm bop they’re gone.
In an mmm bop they’re not there.
In an mmm bop they’re gone.
In an mmm bop they’re not there.
Until you lose your hair. But you don’t care.
That’s so true, Hanson. So true. And just because I love you guys, I included a link to the video for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy. And Mmmbop.
A Baby Story: Part Two
For Part One of A Baby Story, see here. Now for the conclusion – I promise!
One thing was missing with this whole birth thing. The labor part. They had a solution for that. They were going to give me Pitocin to start labor since baby broke my water and apparently decided to go back to sleep. But then no one came for an hour, because someone had an emergency C-section. By the time they got back, labor had started on its own. There was some pain now, but a solution. Demerol. Oh, Demerol, my good friend, how do I love thee? My husband flipped channels and settled on Nascar. I watched the cars go round and round the track. Wheeee! I was seriously high. God, I miss Demerol. That would have been cool to have the entire pregnancy.
Me on Demerol.
They put a baby monitor around my belly, but it didn’t work, because my baby was like, pfft, you ain’t measuring me, just like you couldn’t tell for certain what sex I was. Suckers. So I got an internal monitor, which is just as much fun as it sounds. I went to sleep for a few hours. Things were mellow. The nurses said I probably wouldn’t deliver until like late that night, cause first babies, right? My in-laws walked in and I was like, “hellllooooo” and then realized that I felt all this pressure which made the nurse freak out a bit and get the doctor. Hey, wow, turned out I was having the baby that afternoon, not that evening. I think now she overheard them and decided to once more screw with their minds.
I got an epidural and then came the fun pushing stuff that they always make you watch on TLC but which I won’t force you to endure here. One nurse did inform me I would have hemorrhoids which I was totes worried about while pushing out a freaking baby. But then she came, and the doctor said it was a girl, and my father and husband cried while my mother and I did the “yes” sign because while we said we only wanted healthy, hells yeah we wanted a girl. Thing One, my millennial baby, had arrived.
She was supposed to be tiny, like five pounds because she was early. She was 6 and a half pounds. We have enormous babies in our family. I was a nine pounder. Not surprising I was also the last baby. Anyway, everything checked out great with her, except a bit of jaundice, something about not keeping herself warm enough, and oh yeah, she didn’t cry. At all. The doctors kept poking at her but she was like, what? They took her to the nursery, and I saw this part on film. They bathed her and combed her hair and she looked mildly annoyed but still didn’t cry. When they put her back in the bassinet she was just lying there, waving her arms and legs, studying the dust motes. A doctor said he was tempted to put a chemistry book in there with her, since she was so serious.
What? I’m chillin’.
Thing One continued to sleep through the day and part of the night (except the part where we usually go into a deep sleep) for about a month. I think she was trying to get in what she missed in the womb. It was great, though, because she totally became my doll. I dressed her in her new clothes, sat her in the bouncy seat, took pictures, dressed her in different clothes, etc. There was a lot of pink. My husband said it was like someone threw up pepto bismal all over the closet. I liked pink though, so I thought it was great. My friend and I dragged her everywhere with us. To the movies (snore), to the mall (snore), to get professional pictures made (snore and drool).
Then my friend had to go back home. And I was alone. With baby. And holy crap, she woke up, and woke up in a big way. And things have never been the same since. She continued, as she grew, to not do what the baby books said she was supposed to do when she was supposed to do it. She scoffed at the growth charts – who needed to be on those? Petite was totally in. And why crawl or walk when someone got you crap when you needed it? She did all these things eventually, just not “on time”. She did hum “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star” to herself as an infant, as she lay in her crib perfectly content, still staring at the dust motes. That wasn’t in the baby books. So I tossed them. I loved my Thing One just like she was. And I thought, wow, she’s such a good baby mostly, sitting there calmly playing with toys, and so quiet and sweet, wow, this parenting thing is not that hard. What is wrong with some people? And then karma did raise its ugly head, and I got pregnant with Thing Two. But that’s another baby story.
A Baby Story: Part One
Before I begin, I want to give out a PSA to all you soon to be first time parents out there. You’ve just had the stick turn blue (or pink or say pregnant for the colorblind and/or exceptionally stupid) and you’ve got plans for just how the pregnancy is going to go. You will have a blissful nine months of looking like that serene lady in the rocking chair on the cover of What To Expect When You’re Expecting. Then when it comes time for baby to make his debut (by now you will know the sex and have its name printed out on the nursery wall and shower invites and everything else you can think of) you will not go to a sterile hospital with modern medical equipment. No, no, you will lie in a field of wildflowers and pleasantly give birth with Yoga breaths as a deer nestles your nose.
It’s not like this. Sorry.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but whatever your plans are, drop them immediately. More than likely, they aren’t going to happen. As soon as you are “with child” you are “without plans”. Nothing will go the way you think because now there is someone else on board. The baby will do whatever the hell it wants no matter what you want because babies are devious little creatures.
Mine certainly were. Thing One made me sick as a dog. Where did that expression come from? Are dogs prone to serious illness? Anyway, I was sick for a solid four months. This did not help with my depression, surprisingly. I lost ten pounds. People were jealous that I was not showing yet. I was jealous that they weren’t puking their guts up. Still, I taught English classes to bored freshmen – or rather handed them notes and laid my head on the desk. Also I continued to attend my own graduate courses, although with even less enthusiasm than before, which was rather impressive.
Like this pumpkin, basically.
Once I got past the so-called “morning sickness”, I was much better. I got an excuse to buy new clothes, even if they were maternity clothes. My fellow teaching assistant informed me that I could not have a baby because I was too cynical and I hated children. Pfft. I was fine. Well, until I started getting dizzy spells and eating ice like mad. Turned out I was anemic – the first true carnivore ever to be diagnosed with this. I got to take iron horse pills and that cleared up. My husband and I went to Lamaze classes where I was to learn how to breathe a certain way that would keep me from having pain while shoving a big old baby out of a rather small opening. All of us women looked at the picture of the cervix dialating to ten centimeters and decided we wanted off the ride.
People will tell you pregnancy is a magical experience. Do not believe these people. Pregnancy is freaking weird. You’re basically harboring a parasite. Once it gets a little bigger you will start to feel its movements and it’s all cute at first oooh a little tap. Then the kid really gets into it, and you can see your skin contort back and forth and suddenly you are in Aliens. Your boobs and stomach expand to places you never thought they would go. You will probably put lotion on thinking you will prevent stretch marks. You are stupid. You may also go into changing rooms with three way mirrors. You will feel and look like Elsie the cow.
Moo . . . this is you.
I had a birth plan. Drugs. I’m not a big fan of pain, and somehow, I just kind of figured childbirth would involve some of that. And while I realize this is controversial, I can’t see the baby minding them much either. Childbirth has to freak them the hell out. They need some mellow. I continued taking the classes where they taught us how to recognize labor pains. Then one night, almost a month before I was due, I went to the restroom at about 2 AM. And I was peeing, but not. WTF. I informed my husband that I was leaking. We’d just fixed the toilet, so he was like, “Meh, it’s okay.” I made him get up. We both tried to figure out what to do as liquid continued to spill out of me. Duh. “Do we like, call a doctor or something?”, we dumbed.
We did and he told us to go to the hospital. I sat on a towel in the car. Poor towel. When we got there, they had me lay on a cart and wheeled me to my room that way, which was kind of scary, like I was in an episode of E.R. only no George Clooney. After a while, my doctor decided to wake up and head over. He said we were having a baby. I was not ready for this. I had one more Lamaze class to learn how to breathe and all that shit. We’d just put a car seat in the car the night before. We were totally unprepared, cause you know, crap, we still had a month, right? We called my parents who also thought this timing sucked. But Thing One thought the timing was a-okay. Like I said – babies do whatever the hell they want.
See the stunning conclusion (like, do you think I’ll have a baby or an emu or what?) tomorrow . . .
The Final Chapter and . . . WTF????
Last chapter! Last chapter! Wow, that’s a long freaking chapter. I’ll just skim by and . . . okay Chapter 25 ends and then there’s . . . . still 36 pages. What the hell? Okay, yes, I could have read ahead but there’s only so much you can stomach at a time. Now that I think of it, Speaker 7 said something about this . . . bloop, blop, bleep, I think it was. There is an Epilogue. Okay. Then when you get to the end of that there is . . . still 24 pages. I have entered a wormhole from which there is no escape, peeps. The last 24 pages are from Christian’s point of view.
This is the swirling vortex James has sucked us into.
Wait just a fucking second. Okay, so it wasn’t bad enough that she copied Stephenie Meyer’s idiot Twilight series, she has actually had the gall to copy her stupid idea to retell the entire story again from Edward’s point of view. In case you didn’t know, Meyer tried this trick and duh-er let someone leak the first few chapters onto the Internet, threw a pouty fit about it, and decided she was not finishing it so there. Thank God for whoever leaked that book. But anyway, James – James copied that too, yet they are seriously saying this is an original work and I just . . . I just . . . bloop, blop, bleep.
Okay. I said I’d finish this and damn it, James is not going to beat me. Wrong choice of words. Christian tells his child abuse bedtime story to Ana, and still, still says it was all great because Mrs. Robinson gave him focus. I don’t . . . how . . . how does she manage to be so offensive on so many levels about so many things at one time?
Moving on. There’s a lot of blah, blah about how he saw Mrs. Robinson and she made a pass and he had a fucking epiphany and I don’t care. Christian is scared he’ll be a shitty father. I’m certain he’ll be a shitty father. The next morning Ana dresses all smutty so that maybe Edward, uh, Christian will have sex with her. And they get all touchy feely right in front of poor Mrs. Jones. Run, Mrs. Jones, run!
If Christian starts sparkling, all bets are off. I’m trashing this book.
Christian says Ros is back from Taiwan and wait a second, I’m certain he said she was fired a few chapters ago. Nevermind, not going back to look. They go see the new house. Blah blah. They go have a picnic. Blah. Christian gets a call on the Elmo phone and finds out, oh noos, it was Mrs. Robinson’s ex that posted bail for Jack Hyde! Who gives a shit? Not me! He totally ruins the guy’s life (his face is in a hard line as he does this, btw), then it’s back to snuggie time with Ana. Soon they’re banging each other again in the meadow and her panties “disintegrate” (where do you get this underwear?) and pages go by, by, by. They talk about “demon seed” and in the same breath about how Ana really, really misses how Christian used to whack her around in the playroom.
Next, we’re back at the house, and Ana gets the urge to email Christian.
Last time, kitty, we swear. RIP.
She does the whole submissive pose, and oh hooray, we are right back to the beginning again. My head hits the desk. End Chapter. Begin Epilogue. Crap in a hat.
OMG, James actually skips a few years. Ana is preggers again and . . . Christian is . . . just . . . this is at the top of the New York Times list. Bestseller. Sigh. Christian is whapping his heavily pregnant wife with a flogger and she’s going wild. You know – I get that some people like the pain thing. I don’t understand it, but whatever. But, um, she’s pregnant. I’m thinking flogging is probably not a good idea for fetuses. Just me, of course, what the hell do I know?
WTF???
It gets worse. I’m starting to doubt the idea that there could be a loving force of good in this universe. After they’re done with the “kinky fuckery” Christian asks how his fetus daughter is and Ana says, dear God, she says “She likes sex already.”
Alice right about now.
Flashback over, we are back to Ana lying in the grass and Demon Child, who she names Teddy because she hates him, is being all cute and crap. Blah blah. And then . . . oh geez, why, why???? Okay. Teddy gets popsickle on his fingers so Ana puts his fingers in her mouth and sucks on them. Just wait. Then Christian puts his son’s fingers in his mouth and sucks on them too and just what the fuck is wrong with James? Seriously. There is something seriously wrong here. Please say she doesn’t have children.
I will never be able to eat one of these again.
One more flashback to Ana giving birth with an emergency C-section blah blah and finally Christian sets up a train set for Demon Child and THE END. Except NOT. There are still pages with words on them. First up, it’s Christian’s first Christmas with the Greys, told from the point of view of a four-year-old. It’s as fascinating as it sounds. Then we get two chapters of the first book from Christian’s point of view. Just what I always wanted, to see into the mind of a total creeper. I try to play along, keep reading, and then I get to the part where he has his people pull up a full background check on Ana and I just . . . I’m DONE. DONE, do you hear me? DONE! I skip to the end, and there’s a little note from James.
“That’s all. For now.” Good grief. She even ends it with a threat. But at least it ENDS. I’m going to have a drink. Or ten. Thank you for staying with me through this, however many of you actually made it. You guys are the best, and all get As. Meanwhile, I’m fucking retiring.
WOOOOOOOOOOOT!
Boo!
This morning I was getting ready, sitting on the edge of my bed, minding my own business when my darling eight-year-old, Thing Two, who had been lying in wait under my covers, decided to leap out and yell “Boo!”
As a parent in this situation do you:
A) Smack the daylights out of your child with the hardest pillow you can find.
B) Yell at your child stuff like “Do you want to kill me?” and “I brought you into this world, now you’re going out.” etc.
C) Scream from fright because you are jumpy anyway and this didn’t freaking help, then turn around to do both A and B and see that cute smile on said child’s face. The same cuteness that has kept mothers from every species from eating their young. And you just sigh instead. And then, ten minutes later, your older child asks if you’re okay, cause you screamed ya know. Ten minutes ago.
So how was your morning?
Yes I screamed louder than this little brat.
aliceatwonderland 