Seven things you don't know about me (a few a which you might wish you didn't)

I hate having my face touched--by anyone. It creeps me out to no end. A back-o-the neck grab while I'm making out is fine and dandy. Just don't touch my face. I don't even like it when my children touch my face (mostly because I know where their hands have been).

I love makeup. I love what it can do (and have learned over the years what it can't do). I have a "set" way I like to wear my makeup, but I change it up depending on my outfit and/or my mood. I'm sure no one notices, but I do and mine is the only opinion that matters in this arena.

I can't go underwater without plugging my nose. I have an unwavering aversion to even trying it. My mother told me that when I was an infant I could swim like a fish. I have no idea where or when I lost that ability.

I love being alone. I don't get a whole lot of time by myself, but when I do I cherish it. An afternoon alone without an agenda is the best gift anyone could give me.

I try to avoid crying in front of people at all costs. I don't know why. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've shed tears (during my adult life) in front of anyone else. I'm not a robot. I do cry. I just don't like company when I do.

The first time I had sex was so awful and disappointing that I didn't do it again for another three years. Then I made up for lost time.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I read somewhere that some women poop while pushing the baby out. I told Jim about it and we laughed and laughed. He said that if I pooped, he was going to start dancing around the room singing, "YOU POOPED! YOU POOPED!". We laughed some more.

I did end up pooping on the delivery table. He did not sing.

Regret meme

Katie tagged me with this one: You’ve just learned that tomorrow you will die at sunrise. Tell me the five things you regret and the five things you don’t.

The Don't Regrets:

1. I don't regret starting a blog. Though I was hesitant at first (who the fuck am I that anyone else wants to read about my take on stuff?), I'm glad I hopped on the bandwagon. It wasn't until I re-found Grant Miller digging around on the internets that I seriously considered it (read: you can blame him for this amalgam of whoosit).

I've since (both virtually and actually) met some new friends through it, and not one restraining order has since been filed. In two days, it will have been one full year since I started Better Living Through Bacon. And it's been delicious.

2. I don't regret having children. In my younger years, I honestly didn't think I would. I didn't think I had it in me to take on the responsibility and set aside my own selfish tendencies.

It's not perfect, and sometimes (all the time) I question my capabilities. Having children has tested my sanity in ways I never thought possible. If they weren't so damn cute, I'd have sold them to the gypsies years ago.

With the difficult however comes the amazing. The adoration that oozes from them all over my husband and I is payment enough for every sleepless night, every splatter of poop, and every puddle of puke (of course, they aren't teenagers yet).

Knowing that I have two mini-humans counting on me to keep my shit together gives me reason enough to try and be a better person.

3. I don't regret quitting my job as a hairstylist almost three years ago. I miss doing hair sometimes, but I don't miss hauling my kids around to get to work for a paycheck that was barely covering expenses incurred from working. How sad that it sometimes cost me money to go to work?

4. I don't regret being slutty in college. I would never buy a pair of shoes without trying them on first no matter how gorgeous or cheap they were. Some people learn by seeing or being shown. I learned by trying every pair of shoes in the shoe store.

Sure, I got my heart broken more times than I'd like to admit and maybe I should have listened to that inner voice a little more often. In the long run however, I can't say that I regret any of it (OK, maybe a couple of them).

5. I don't regret going on crazy pills. This is a recent development here in the land of salty meat, and not something I ever planned on talking about here, but there you have it.

I spent way too long ignoring the unignorable. I had myself convinced that everyone felt the way I did. They just didn't talk about it. I was wrong.

My only regret is that I didn't deal with it sooner.

The Do Regrets:

1. I regret never living alone. I went from living at home to the dorms to having roommates to getting married. I never got to enjoy the kind of freedom one has knowing a space is all one's own. I missed my opportunity to do it when I could, and until my kids move out and my husband decides to get a trophy wife, I'm SOL.

2. I regret not finishing college. I could always go back, but time and money don't grow on trees. It's always in the back of my mind though. Someday.

3. I regret not cutting poisonous people out of my life sooner. Whether it was a bitchy friend who never had anything positive to say or a loser boyfriend who couldn't tell the truth to save his life, I regret not having the balls to tell them where to go. I always seemed to fall into that trap of not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings even when the situation made me miserable. I know better now.

4. I regret not standing up for myself when I should have. I spent way too much time in my young adulthood not asking for what I wanted and/or needed. As hard and tough as I thought I was back then, that girl in her twenties would cower in front of the woman I have turned out to be.

5. I regret not owning my actions earlier in life. I also spent the better part of my 20's spending too much time blaming others for my own mistakes. With age has come the realization that I am responsible for my own choices and the fallout--and that that's not a bad thing. This to me is what led me to come to grips with my Atheism (after a whole life of being raised in a religious household).

I hope to look back on this post after a long while and not have anything to add to the bottom part of the list, but without regret what would spur us on to try new things and learn from our inevitable mistakes?

Un-regretfully yours,

The Bacon Lady

I found it charming.

One summer back in college I had a boyfriend who was sweet and funny and a little bit crazy. It was fun.

I had met him years before we actually dated when I was sleeping with one of his roommates. Who would have thought, years later, we would end up together for a while?

One night while Summer Boyfriend and I were hanging out, he told me that his bedroom was directly above his old roommate's, and he used to be able to hear us having sex through the floor.

And he would masturbate while he listened in.

Be warned

I'm on this kick lately.

I'm hunting down old boyfriends, friends and "special friends". Not for anything clandestine, mind you. I just have this burning curiosity to know where they are and what they are up to. Oh, and we have a discussion going on a parenting message board I belong to. We're dishin' proper yo.

I thought I found the boy I lost my virginity to, on Myspace. It looked a lot like him and his profile came up when I searched him name, but it wasn't him. This led to seeking out others who spent some time on my "dance card".

It's been interesting.

Anyone share my obsessive "need to know"?

Regarding Dave Brown

After some of the comments on the last entry, I feel I should elaborate on the story a bit.

The garage sale was coming to a close. The people I was having the sale with and I were closing everything down and packing up the unsold stuff to donate. We were tired and hot and a little cranky.

A guy on a motorcycle pulled up as we were just about done. He sat there, helmet on, in front of my house for a few moments.

At first, I thought he was trying to figure out if we were done with the sale or not. But he just sat there, staring. I started to get creeped out, and wondered if I was going to have to pull out the bitch stick when he took off his helmet and started up the driveway.

"Hi there. I used to live here," he said as he extended a hand.

Giddy, I asked him what his name was. When he said "Dave", I immediately let out a laugh, "I found your little note, Mr. Dave Brown."

He looked shocked for a split second, but then said he didn't remember what it said.

I told him, and he laughed but it was a weird, nervous laugh (for the record, he is still married to the same woman he was married to when he put up those cabinets).

I think it was then that he realized that we had taken down some of his handy work.

"So, how ya' likin' the intercom system?"

"Uh...we took it out. It didn't work."

"Oh. What about the security system?"

"Ditto."

At this point, I thought he might cry. I offered that the gazebo thing he built in the backyard was still intact and was one of the main reasons we fell in love with the house. This seemed to satisfy him, and he asked to see it.

With some trepidation, I took him into the backyard. My friends were still there at this point and I can scream pretty loud, so I wasn't too worried.

I took him through the garage because I really didn't want him blubbering all over the guts of his former kitchen.

He stood on the back deck for a moment, not speaking. I didn't like it, so I started blathering on about how much we love hanging out back here, how nice it is, blah blah blah.

He just got all wistful about the tree swing. I started to feel bad for the guy, but then he started in on the intercom system again.

I changed the subject by telling him he needed to go into our shop and talk to my husband about the sprinkler system we apparently have. I told him the people that we bought the house from didn't know how to use it either. This frustrated Dave.

He said something else about something, and I again redirected the conversation to his talking to my husband at his work.

"Oh, when you walk in," I told Dave as I was pushing him back into the garage, "Walk in and say 'Yep, I remember when gas was a a buck O nine a gallon! Those were the days!' It would be HILARIOUS!"

Sadly, I think I was alone on that one.

Is it any wonder why I'm so obsessed?

I've decided that I finally feel like an successful adult. Why? Because I now have a "beer fridge" in the garage.

I remember growing up, going to my friends' houses (which was jealousy inducing in the first place as we always lived in tiny apartments), and seeing a second refrigerator in the garage.

"My GOD!" I thought to myself, "It's not enough that these people don't have to share a bedroom with their brother, and now THIS?!" The humanity.

It all seemed so decadent, like the time I found out my friend's Mom had a phone in her car. A PHONE...in her CAR. The year was 1984 (I was 10 years old for those playing at home). We wouldn't get a cordless phone at my house for another 3 years, and here was this woman, able to yak it up while driving around. I was amazed.

Dishwashers were another obsession of mine. Every time I went over to a new friend's house to play, I would find myself wandering into the kitchen to check for one. To me, having a dishwasher was a sign of prosperity.

At my house, we had a small black and white TV that my Dad threatened to throw away at least once a week, much to my brother and I's deafening disapproval.

At my friends' houses, they had giant color televisions in several rooms of the house including, something quite foreign to me, the "den". I never understood why people needed a whole room to sit and watch TV (wasn't that what the living room was for?), but I wanted one just the same.

Then there was cable. My parents finally relented just last year and got themselves signed up for cable television. Only after they spent some time at my house and saw that there was more to it than boobs and crap. My Dad is now a Discovery channel junkie and my Mom can watch Columbo at just about any hour of the day.

I don't fault my parents for the way they raised me. It wasn't like they didn't want to enjoy the conveniences of life. We just couldn't afford it. I certainly appreciate what I have now more than I think I would had I grown up with privilege.

It's funny now the way my Mom showers my girls with more clothes and gifts than is humanly necessary. At first I thought she was just excited to have grandchildren (and that is part of it), but it finally dawned on me that she is trying to make up for what she couldn't give my brother and I.

I've tried to reason with her. My kids don't need all this stuff. No one does.

While it's great that I almost never have to buy clothes for my girls, I still get an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach when she brings over a pile of new outfits or toys. I don't want her to feel like she has anything to prove. She and my Dad made do with what they had, and did it very well in my opinion.

The fact that I can get excited about having a "beer fridge" is proof of that.

Three

Happy Birthday Little Bean.

The one I really really don't want my Mom to read

Not that I want her reading any of them, but this one in particular might send her over the edge.

Katie Schwartz (who, if you don't know by now, ya' really should. She's, as she might put it, "tits to the Nth degree") tagged me.

"For this meme, I'm going to ask you to answer three (hopefully not dumb) questions: What is the dumbest question you ever been asked? Why was it it dumb? And, even though it won't help, because answering a dumb question never does, what's the answer? (Or, as I like to think of them: The Big Dumb Question, The Big Dumb Reason, and The Big Dumb Answer.)"

My sophomore year of college, I was at a party minding my own business when I suddenly found myself in the bathroom making out with some guy I just met. What? It happens. Visitor Guy was in town visiting a friend (who also happened to be a friend of mine).

After the party, we went back to Mutual Friend's (known from here on out as MF) house to continue the party.

This lead to that which lead to another few things and...well, you get the picture. Suddenly, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I look up and it's MF. I should state at this point of the story, Visitor Guy and I had commandeered MF's bed. Being Visitor Guy, he obviously didn't have any other place to go to, and I didn't want him hanging around my house.

So, I feel this tap on my shoulder and I look up and MF is standing there, looking nervous.

"Can I join you?" He asks.

"Uh, what?"

"Can I...ya know...join you?"

For the record, I did not laugh in his face. In fact I was uncharacteristically gentle in my response. Maybe it was the Xanax I had taken a hour before. Who's to know?

I calmly told him no, and kicked him out of his own bedroom to "hang out" with his out of town guest.

Yesterday I changed the course of history

At my house, smoking is relegated outside to the back porch.

Mornings, I sit out here with my coffee, cigarettes and laptop and ease into my day. I live such a charmed life, yes?

A few days ago I snuck out for a quick smoke break to find a butterfly frantically flapping its wings against the window, trying to find its way out. It was freaky, and this thing did not want to give up.

Two days later, the thing was still aflappin' at the window pane. "A" for effort, man.

It had been at it for so long, its wings were starting to fray, but it was hellbent on breaching the unbreachable.

I couldn't take it anymore. I set aside my disdain for touching any type of insect and carefully grabbed one of its flappers and threw it out the door.

What's that saying about a butterfly flapping its wings in China...