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I get it all the time

I ran into the grocery store today for three teensy items. As I was rounding the corner of the produce section, headed for checkout, a man who couldn’t entirely speak English was grinning at me.

He uttered something I couldn’t make out, so I turned.

“You look like Amazon!” he said. And continued to grin. As if he were seriously expecting a response.

Whenever I’m hit with a comment like this I don’t know what to do.

I just shrugged and said, “Nope.” As in, No, I am not, in actuality, a product of the Amazon Basin. I am just a corn-fed American girl.

I so wanted to come back with, “You look like Shit Eater.”

But I continued on my way.

All the while he maintained his stupid grin, like my long, long body was the most hilarious thing he could ever hope to witness.

Glad I could make his day.

You're so fine you blow my mind

You are alternately cold and hard, then warm and supple.

The tanned, pretty girls dancing around you make you that much more desirable. With so many disciples, surely you are credible.

But you are illicit. First with one girl, then another. Sometimes you even lure men into your snare.

Your future is tenuous. People are wising up to your destructive ways.

Even your very cleanliness is questionable. Sometimes, when the room is bright enough, I witness signs of filth.

If I stay with you too long I will get burned.

P.S. I will quit you after this week, I swear, when I fling myself into the arms of my true, steadfast love, the Hawaiian sun.

P.P.S. I will wear sunscreen.

Wanna see the crap on top of my dresser?

What's strewn across the top of someone's dresser is an intimate statement about the person's inner workings. The smooth surface of a bureau, trumped only by the contents of our nightstands (a little too intimate even for me to divulge), is the tableau over which our most personal belongings find their resting places. It is close to where we sleep, nearby when we are snuggled under our blankets, when we are more ourselves than at any other time in our busy lives.

Or maybe that's just me trying to sound all Real Simpley.

This is my come-as-you-are dressertop. I nudged one little thing over to the side, so you could see it better, but otherwise performed no art direction trickery (as I was wont to do in my old job as an inflight magazine's graphic designer).

So. On the upper right corner is a photo of my great grandmother, Lillian, whom I never met. She died a few days after giving birth to her second child, of, and I quote, "blood poisoning". She's very pretty and looks so exactly like my mom that it gives me the shivers.

Over to the left is a Debbie Boone cassette I've had since I was in third grade. Yes, really. Why it's on my dresser thirty years after my big crush is an enigma, even to me. But, there it is.

See that little red, white and blue button? Yeah. On top of the pretty silver box (with absolutely nothing inside). That says Nixon Now! Nope, I am not a republican. Nor have I ever been a Nixon fan. I bought that button at an art fair's antiques booth when I was in high school. I thought it was retro rebellious. Over the years, I haven't been able to throw it away. Clearly it's sitting there, just waiting to be released into the wilds of a Seattle landfill. Someday, perhaps.

Then you'll note my cable collection. And my exquisite necklace caddy (some cheapo rack from Ikea) that I need to hang on the wall.

There it is. Thrilling, no?

What's on top of YOUR dresser?

Thanks, Apathy Lounge, for the inspiration.

No riches, no fame from Amazon

The bereavement: it's palpable.

I didn't make the Amazon Breakthrough Novel's Top 100. My Publisher's Weekly review was really nice and made me exceedingly happy. And, in the end, that's my prize, I guess. That and it was fun lurking through the ABNA forum and pretending I wasn't as obsessed as the frequent posters there.

Because in reality? I guess I was. The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was flip open my laptop to check the results. And, not finding The Goodness of Meredith Beam, I began a shuffle through the 5 stages of grief:

1. Denial--There has to be some mistake! I had no delusions of winning this thing, but I thought I had a good shot at the Top 100. I check the listing of the Top 100 again. And again. I refresh my inbox ten times and scour the forums for some mention of an error.

2. Anger--God! How hard do I have to work and how long do I have to wait and how many effing rejections do I have to accrue?

3. Bargaining--Let there have been a mistake. Let me receive a message saying, "Oops. The Goodness of Meredith Beam was inexplicably excluded from the Top 100 list. We've decided to change it to the Top 101." This and I will give up blog reading, Feist and licorice for the next 2 months (okay, the next 2 days).

4. Depression--I don't care. This contest sucks anyway. It is all about driving traffic to Amazon. Maybe I'm just meant to wallow in mediocrity for the rest of my life.

5. Acceptance--Okay. Whatever. I still have my PW review and enjoyed several searing adrenaline rushes throughout this process. I'm restructuring the whole manuscript anyway (based on constructive feedback from a handful of saintly literary agents) and will start submitting anew. Hopefully by this summer.

Emotionally, it was a busy morning.

Stage number 6? Consolation. I'm trying to decide between these:

The taller of the two bottles, of course.

Hold me.

Officially the dumbest beauty product on the market

Lash Jewels by Revlon.

I'm a sucker for new beauty products, especially if they're of the drug store variety and purchasing them doesn't require cashing in Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat's college 529s.

But this is just laaaaaame.

If you don't mind that your eyelashes look like they're dotted with globs of Superglue, then give it a try! Otherwise, be smart like I wasn't and steer clear of this product.

••••••

In unrelated news, Kitty Cat just shoved a Starbucks mint up her nose. She was whimpering because the volcanically strong wintergreen was starting to infuse her sinuses. I tried tweezers. I envisioned a trip to ER to extract said mint. I called Jay at work. Then I came up with the brilliant plan of asking her to blow her nose. Which did the trick.

I think next time she'll think twice before shoving pretty little white discs into her nostril. Or not.

More about the Ma'am thing

So, I know this topic is just cliched, old JUNK. But I'm still thinking about the Ma'am thing. I just can't imagine why anyone working in the service industry should call one single woman under, say, 87, Ma'am. Just go with Miss. Miss won't offend anyone. It will certainly compliment lots of women.

Now that I'm 38-about-to-turn-39, I get called Ma'am a lot. It doesn't piss me off to the point that I'm sputtering under my breath and settling curses on sales associates, but it does irk me. Not so much the part about being old, but that Ma'am is supposed to be a term of respect, but to me, I might as well be called an old lizard. We all think of ourselves as still youngish and hippish. Right? C'mon. Just a little.

I, having grown up in a resort town and having held many jobs as a cashier, clerk, hostess, etc., used to accost women with the dreaded appellation dozens of times a day. No supervisor ever pulled me aside and instructed me on when to employ "Ma'am". I learned it from listening to my more experienced cohorts.

All the Ma'am junkies need to be de-programmed. Perhaps an online course targeted at anyone who will be waiting on women? Perhaps you could just point them to this blog.

If you want a decent tip, if you want me not to glower at you as I hand you my money, angry spittle seeping from between my lips, call me Miss.

And the Tully's barista...

gets a 13 cent tip for calling me ma'am.

Nothing comes between me and my Calvins

I bought a pair of Calvin Klein jeans yesterday that reminded me so much of the pair I had in seventh grade. I almost wept with nostalgia as I was swiping my card.

You should've seen me trying to get this shot.

Burning up

As you may have seen in previous posts, my 20th high school reunion was a week-and-a-half ago. Long enough, I think, to have mentally processed most of it, reviewed that night's conversations, regrets and triumphs (though I don't know if I'd call drinking the perfect volume of Bell's Oberon to ignite my charms while staying just this side of nausea a triumph.).

So, it's 10 days behind me. Almost a fortnight. And still, I am having dreams about my stupid renunion every single night. These dreams are, of course, different from the real event and hazy and featuring a rotating cast of my classmates. But the one thing that stays the same is that I'm hot. Irresistible to every male I went to school with. And I know it. And it makes me very, very happy.

Last night I was sauntering around, flashing my bright white teeth and batting my bronzed lids while wearing my satiny, navy blue night shirt. It all seemed completely appropriate and, even, wise to have chosen that particular ensemble since it showed off my legs and highlighted my eyes.

My subsconscious is obviously trying to extinguish some small fires in there.