By Misti
Date: 2003 Oct 11
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[[2003.10.11.05.01.3699]]

My Head Is Crammed

It is early Saturday morning and my head is crammed with cheap candy thoughts, a doomed pinata. Saturday mornings rocked when I was a kid. This was in the Seventies. Back when cartoons and even the commercials were cool as shit. "Fat Albert" and "Mr. Magoo" and "Plastic Man" and those Honey Comb cereal commercials.

My Saturday mornings no longer rock the schoolhouse. This Saturday morning I am digesting a bad banana and wondering if I should put time and effort into making a Chef Boyardee pizza. My husband's alarm just went off and I don't want to see him. I want to leave in my pajama pants and red sequined flip-flops before he sees me. He will be tired and frowning and will have bad breath.

I want to get in my car and drive until I am surrounded by hot air balloons shaped like moo cows and cartoon characters and cowboy boots. I want to take pictures and send them as postcards.

I am thinking bad thoughts. I am thinking about how I made my Barbie dolls interact with each other when I was a kid. Ken was always taking Barbie places in his shoebox car. Ken would do the splits for Barbie. He would do back-flips for Barbie. He would even stand on his hands for Barbie. Anything to make her laugh. Ken was crazy in love with Barbie because she had good hair and she was always smiling and there was never any lipstick on her white teeth. Sometimes I got so pissed at Barbie for being so beautiful that I gave her a punk rock haircut and dressed her in ridiculous tattered clothes. I would make Ken cheat on Barbie with the next-door neighbor who had short black hair and wore a pink mini-skirt and purple high heels and a see through yellow shirt.

I am thinking about Tony and Rene from "Days Of Our Lives." And Hope and Bo. Back in the day when the women had real curves and better dialogue. Back when Bo rescued Hope from her wedding with that ugly Larry dude. She was in her wedding gown with heaving breasts on the back of Bo's motorcyle. "Holding Out For A Hero" was playing. My heart pumped neon pink bubbles as I thought,"Oh, yeah. That is IT."

I am thinking about late night conversations with my little sister.
"What kind of guy do you think I'll wind up with?" I'd ask.
"He'll be an intellectual who plays the guitar. He'll look like John Lennon," she would reply.
I could see that. Even though I was always falling in love with guys who could barely spell their own name, let alone mine. I fell in love with men who jammed to Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer and fucked to Prince and Mariah Carey.

I am thinking about all the things my family tells me about myself.
"You will never find another man who loves you more."
"You're lucky you finally found someone. Treat him right."
"There aren't many men out there who will want to be with someone who is always depressed and can't hold down a job. Besides, ya'll have so much in common. Ya'll both love to read and write and spend money ya'll don't have at the dollar store."

I'm thinking about a weird reality show I watched a few hours ago. All these women who are trying to improve themselves live together in this big ass house. One of the girls was told to hang out in the guest bedroom alone for four hours with her thoughts and a journal because there was too much noise in her life. Another girl was given a makeover and had her picture taken to post at Yahoo with her personal ad. My favorite woman was the 62 year old who wanted to be a stand-up comic and bombed huge on the stage but handled herself with grace as she put down the mic. At the end of the show there was a url in case I would like to audition for the show. I drooled at the prospect but I was too tired to write the url down.