Wheatzie

My little sister weighs about 50 pounds soaking wet, after 17 trips through the Golden Corral buffet. I'm closer to 200 after more than 20 years of 5:30 AM boot camp classes and a daily diet high in kale chips and water. We took a hundred pictures on her birthday.  I looked good in ALL of them...except for one. Which was of course the only picture she wanted to post--the ONE PICTURE where I looked as fat as I actually am. I was angry, so I ruined all of them for the rest of the day by posing like this.  (You'd have thought they'd maybe stop asking me to be in them, but some people never learn...) Happy birthday, brat.

I once had a boyfriend who told me I sounded just like this singer when I sang. Soon after, he dumped me when he found out I was dating someone else simultaneously. (I think in some circles they call that “cheating” but whatever.) Honestly, the fact that I even had  a boyfriend—much less two at the same time—was quite a feat considering I went through an awkward phase that started at birth and didn’t end until age 22, when I moved in with a girly roommate who introduced me to makeup and boxed hair dye.   Anyway, I just think that when he found out about the other guy, my boyfriend should’ve given me a congratulatory high-five instead of dumping me—or at least felt special that he wasn’t the only one in the lonely hearts club of men who found me attractive at that point in my life. In the meantime, the other guy got sick of being the mistress and waiting for me to break up with my boyfriend.   So he broke up with me too.   Like, the same week. All of these tho...

My family has always had a thing for goofy nicknames.  Which is good, I guess, seeing as how my parents gave us some pretty unimaginative first names. I can picture the scene now:   My mom in the late 1970’s, heavily pregnant belly protruding as she sat on the scratchy brown couch (complete with a crocheted orange, green, and yellow afghan thrown over the back of it), tapping ciggie ashes onto the shag carpeting while risking a quick backward glance over her shoulder at my dad so as not to miss a second of her soap opera: “What are they calling little girls these days?” And so that’s how I became Lisa Anne —the most popular name for girls in 1977. (As the saying goes now: Tell me you’re a 43-year-old woman without telling me you’re a 43-year-old woman.) I complained to her about it once when I was a kid, but, ever the narcissist, she mistook my gripes as praise. “Oh, you’re welcome,” she said benevolently. “Welcome?” “Yeah.   All the other little girls—like th...

My younger son, Rex, earned his orange belt in taekwondo the other day.  I texted my sisters a video of the ceremony because I’ve quit all social media since obviously I’m better than everyone else. On our sister text thread (which we rarely get into fights on—strangely, since the older sis and I can’t be around each other in real life for more than 3 hours before all Hades breaks loose), I squealed over my son and his accomplishment, and then I added, “When you watch the video, in the first few seconds you can see me in the mirror in the front of the room.   I’m on the left and I look all skinny and tan!” My older sister Vickie texted back, “Of course—still has to be something about you in there.” Uh...YEAH , I replied. I mean, how long has she known me?   She’s two years older, so at least since birth, right? I make things all about me.   It’s just what I do. One time at a party, a friend was trying to show me pictures of some people on her phone.   ...