Can someone PLEASE get this sticker off my ass?

Know what’s funnier than a dog chasing its tail?

A cat chasing its tail. Seriously. Cats are smart,¹ so it doesn’t happen that often. But my cat got a sticker stuck on her tail recently and spent a full half hour in a white-and-gray blur of fluffy frustration, chasing and chasing a petite piece of post-it that was making her unclean, dammit!²

So, today, as I look around my hovel, I have to wonder,⁴ is there someone out in the cosmos⁶ ROTFLHAO⁷ as I run around and around and around getting, well, nowhere? I mean, I’m smarter than a cat, right? Or, at least, a dog?

Maybe it was the frustration of two snow days in a row.⁸ There’s certainly a missing housework chromosome or six. But I swear I spent so much time taking a step and saying “I should do this now,” then turning around and saying “No, I should do that now,” then turning towards something else and saying, “No that is definitely the priority,” that I got precious few of the one million⁹ things that needed to get done this week, done. I literally¹⁰ found myself running around in circles. Chasing the post-it notes from my massive colour-coded to-do-list board that had somehow gotten stuck to my ass.¹¹ Ugh.¹²

So, do me a favour. Help me climb up the evolutionary scale a wee bit and, if you see a post-it note on my ass, just take it off, OK? Or clean my house. Or make my kid’s lunch. Or write my article. Or pay my bills. Or get my kid’s skates sharpened. Or pitch my story. Or shovel my driveway. Or finish my novel. Or attend my seminar. Or...

I think I’m gonna lose my kibble...

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1. My loyalty in the cat/dog dichotomy of life becomes blaringly obvious right—here.

2. I eventually stopped laughing long enough to take it off for her—I was worried her head would explode or she’d chuck her kibble.³

3. And, lest you think I am the kind sort, I later I tried to duplicate the scenario for others by sticking something on kitty’s tail. Didn’t work—I couldn’t find that one little inaccessible sweetspot of hilarity, and, as mentioned, cats are smart.

4. With apologies—I’m certainly not cool enough to channel Carrie Bradshaw, but sometimes I have to pay homage.⁵

5. Go ahead—you know you want to say it out loud... “Homage.”

6. A totally accidental homage to SATC. Mmmm, cosmos. Ohhh-maggge. Hom-idge.

7. Rolling on the floor laughing her ass off. Pre-empting Muzzah's inevitable question.

8. The fact that I invited four little girls (in addition to my one) into my house on the first snow day makes me seriously question my place on the mammal smartness hierarchy. A cat would NEVER do that. A dog definitely would, though.

9. Figures rounded to the nearest ten.

10. I am using this term correctly, my friends.

11. That was figurative. Well, the board is real. But, they were figuratively stuck to my—oh, I don’t need to explain this, do I?

12. Is the ridiculous number of notes making you feel like you’re reading in circles? Sorry—I just didn’t want to feel alone here between the pets.

Say “Squeeze!”

There are few things I dislike more than walking. One of those things happens to be Kegels. Oh dear God, how I loathe them.

The other day I decided to see if two wrongs could possibly make a right, and so I combined these least favourite things into one activity I coined “The Kegel Pole-ka™.” Surprisingly, it’s not nearly as fun as it sounds. (Trust me.)

The idea is that, as I walk, once I reach a telephone pole I squeeze my abs in and up and attempt¹ to do Kegels at the same time. (I am woman. I am nothin’ if not a multi-tasker.) At the next pole I relax and just walk.² Then I repeat till I want to chew out my own eyeballs for the sheer distraction of it.

So if you see me out walking at a seemingly normal pace but I’m grimacing like I’m in the homestretch of a marathon³, keep in mind that, though you can’t see it, I’m actually trying to pull my jitch⁴ up to my navel, and my navel up to my cleavage⁵.

All that squeezing has to be good for something, right?

I’ll keep you posted.

How about you—do you do Kegels faithfully? rarely? ever? Do you not feel the need or (as one character in a book so brilliantly witty is just HAS to be published some day says) can you pretty much drive a Mack truck through there? Do you hate Kegels as much as me?

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1. I say “attempt” because who the hell knows if they’re ever doing the dastardly things right anyway? The best description I ever read was in The Girlfriends’ Guide to Pregnancy, by Vicky Iovine: “The way you know if you are doing [Kegels] correctly is you begin to feel anxious and uncomfortable...it makes you feel slightly nervous inside. You can even feel lightheaded.” Enticing, no?

2. Note to self, there are no telephone poles on one side of Macara Street. Holy tight twazzer, Batman!

3. ...or like I discovered Nickelback on my MP3...

4. Props to Brenda D. for introducing me to the BEST. WORD. EVER.

5. A distance that is, of course, shrinking with every passing year. Eventually I’ll have to aim for my chin instead.