Moves in Curves

Backstage at Shimmy for a Cause in North Carolina!

Loverly tells us about the Aboriginal Diabetes Initiative.

The Crystal Cage is no match for MamaBirdie.

Nefertitties goes to Williamsburg!

Witch balls are on LadyHawk’s mind.

Kozmique gets a sign and its not going to be pretty.

Spring Break lands Melia smack dab in… Jersey. Oy.

Have you ever lied? Nefertitties knows someone who knows someone who is a big. fat liar face.

Loverly joins the Digit@l Pros(e) bandwagon this week and runs into a little problem.

Durrah presents her ATS video of the month.

The many faces of MamaBirdie.

Melia talks dildos. Its her thing.

Kozmique brings us An Alien Love Story.

ATS represent! Durrah tells us what to buy and where to buy it.

HippyMom says you are your own soul mate. You complete… you. Dig it?

Ladyhawk manifests her latest huaca.

A different kind of shimmy hits Kozmique.

Melia takes a break from Debauchery week to snuggle with her Blankee!

Moving forward is MamaBirdie’s next step. Get it?

Nefertitties is the luckiest beach around, tetanus and all.

The Bean is a budding evil mastermind. Really.

My mother used to tell me now and then (usually with an incredulous face and a “Can you believe this shit?” tone of voice) about a woman who’d gone to our church who had never let her husband see her without makeup. Now, as strange as that may sound to those of us who keep our husband’s expectations low (“Honey! You washed the dishes AND did laundry?! It’s okay that you didn’t make dinner/get dressed/clean anything else/the children are feral, I’m impressed.”), this woman had quite literally never gone bare-faced in front of her husband. She got up every morning before he was awake, showered and did her hair and makeup, put on a lovely nightgown, then GOT BACK IN BED and pretended to sleep until he woke up, so she would look movie-fresh and beautiful. Then at night, she feigned sleep and waited for him to fall asleep, then got OUT of bed, and washed off all her makeup. This was in the late 80s. Not 1952, as you might guess.

So I was thinking about this insanity this morning while showering, and either this woman’s husband was oblivious to the point of either legal blindness or coma, or he knew damn well what she was doing and accepted/encouraged The Crazy. Cause that is the textbook definition of The Crazy. What the hell crack was this woman on? What kind of psychosis does that to a woman? Really really. Nuts.

I don’t wear makeup most of the time. When I do, it tends to be a bit of brow powder, mascara, maybe some eyeliner. Occasionally I wear lipstick. It’s not that I don’t know how to apply makeup. I’ve been belly-dancing professionally for over 10 years. I know makeup. I just save the full face o’slap for the stage. Onstage, you’re likely to find me with 25 different products on, and maybe 5 shades of eyeshadow, too. I go crazy. Art magazine/stage production crazy. But everyday? Nope.

The Husband has never shown any indication of giving a crap whether or not I wear makeup. In fact, he often fails to notice altogether that I have it on when I do wear it. Men are not terribly observant creatures by nature. They don’t take hints, don’t notice changes unless they’re jumping up and down in front of them, and don’t see minor details. I can’t help thinking what a huge waste of time and effort all The Crazy was for that woman. If a man can’t see you without your makeup on, or looking like ass cause you just ran 5 miles/weeded the garden/gave birth, and still love you, why the hell are you keeping his ass around? And he had to know. Or was criminally stupid. And if he knew what she was doing, she wasn’t fooling anyone but herself. And that just makes the whole thing tragically sad.

We live very close to the beach, so hitting the sand for a few hours just to enjoy a warm day is pretty easy to do anytime. Today was in the mid-70s, so we headed out to the oceanfront. Now, I knew the ocean would still be freezing, and the beach breeze would make it actually in the 60s, so I threw some extra sweatpants in the car just in case and didn’t put the boys in their swimsuits.

First we hit 18th Street. This is the beach we go to most often, because there’s a small stretch of free parking that you can catch if you’re a local and know where it is, and you get there early/late enough to get a spot either before the crowd or after people have started leaving. Of course, it’s still March, so the meters aren’t working yet (you only have to pay meter parking between April 1 and October 31), so we were able to park a block closer. Anyway. We go down to the beach and hit the sand. The boys dig a bit, C dips his toes in the water, and then (maybe fifteen minutes later) D tells me he has to pee. URGENTLY. He never tells me until it’s an emergency. So we headed up to the Dairy Queen at 17th, which has public restrooms, and just as I reached the end of the sand and the beginning of the boardwalk, I felt a sharp pain in my foot.

Ouch, damn, stepped on something. D was still dancing around going “I have to pee-pee, Mama!” at the top of his lungs, so I didn’t stop to inspect my foot and followed them to the bathroom. Once he was in doing his business, I took a moment to check my foot. My flip-flops had been feeling quite slippery for having been thrown on over sandy feet, and sure enough, there was blood everywhere. Great. I rinsed off a bit in the sink and the cut looked to be a jagged two inches long in a U shape. WTF. I told the boys we were going to the car for the first aid kit and they argued with me as we walked. They wanted to go back and play in the sand. I finally said, quite annoyed, that my foot was bleeding and I had to fix it up before we could go back to the beach. Then there was five minutes of “Which foot, Mama? I want to see. Where’s the blood, Mama?” as we walked back to the car, and then while I got out the first aid kit, D asked me worriedly, “Are you going to die, Mama?”

Once I cleaned it up better with an alcohol wipe, the cut was (to my relief) actually only about a quarter of an inch long. It didn’t even hurt by then. So I’m fine, really. Slapped a band-aid on it and we headed to 89th Street, which is always cleaner, after a quick lunch stop.

The boys SWORE they were just going to dip their toes in the water at 89th Street. Yeah. Uh-huh. Within two minutes they were both soaked head to toe, chasing each other around in the water while their lips slowly turned blue. The Atlantic is COLD at this time of year. D informed me he was “enjoying the nice water”. I let them play for about half an hour, until pneumonia seemed imminent, then made them return to the car with me. They were quite annoyed that I had not packed a spare pair of underpants, pants, and shirts for each of them. Ha. We were SUPPOSED to just go play in the sand and enjoy the sunshine. All I had was a pair of sweatpants and their light fleece jackets. Luck of the draw gave C the sweatpants, and D returned home in just a jacket, with a blanket draped over his lap. He didn’t seem bothered by this, and played naked at home for a good twenty minutes before I convinced him to put some pants on.

Now they’re outside playing with Assy Neighbor kids from next door (all my neighbors have nicknames, in case you didn’t know – Paving Man lives on one side of me, and Assy Neighbor on the other, then there’s Super-Religious Neighbors across the street, Crazy Dog Poop Lady a few doors down, Wisconsin Man on the corner… You get the idea), and I’m ready for a nap. But my foot isn’t bleeding. Hopefully I don’t have tetanus, since I have no idea what I stepped on. From the shape of the cut, and given that it was 18th Street, probably glass from a beer bottle.

Some pics before they got completely soaked: