saint-louise's Diaryland Diary
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shocking confessions! Toothbrushing secrets! OH's hidden identity: revealed!
I have a confession to make: I tend to wander around when I brush my teeth.
My mother would be horrified if she knew. In fact, if I were to say such a thing in front of Taylor, she would probably clamp her hands over her innocent granddaughter�s ears and give me that look of half-lamentation, half-hopeless disapproval that she has raised to a level of tree-flattening impact. I suppose that would translate to a terror alert of amber. Or scarlet. Uhmm�maroon. You know what I�m saying. Momela just looks at you like that and you start duct taping everything in sight.
And Mom does not approve of the toothbrush meander. There were five children in my family, including me (since all good families of our particular faith had a minimum requirement of four offspring - when we traveled around Europe and the Middle East together, people regularly mistook us for an entire tour group), and I suppose that the bathroom would probably look a little splattered and abused after all of us got done brushing for the night. So we were often gently reminded to �lean over the basin when you brush.� This was Mom�s way to avoid toothpaste splashing and those ever-so-annoying spit speckles on the mirrors. When I stayed overnight at friends� houses, I often wondered why they didn�t brush with their faces crammed into the sink like I did. You know, to prevent the radioactive toothbrushing spittle fallout. Good gosh, people! Were you raised by communists?
Well, I�d like to say I�m sorry to my mother, even though she doesn�t read this (despite my best efforts to coax her to use a computer, including a step-by-step instruction guide in excruciating detail just telling how to turn it on). In addition to all of the other major insights and awakenings I�ve had over the course of my adult years that have probably kept her awake at night, I have also discovered that I don�t need, and don�t want, to brush with my head in the sink anymore. I�m tired of hitting my head on the faucet. And � to be completely honest � I get fucking bored when I brush. If I didn�t allow myself to wander around the house, I would probably be so put off by the sheer monotony of the task that I might not brush at all.
Okay, yes�I know. Let�s not get into crazy talk here, Louise. But I don�t know how to express it other than that. I find oral hygiene that dull. I cry a little each time I floss. But I get through it, twice a day. Somehow.
I�d like to pause here and say to those of you who are surprised, disgusted, or perplexed by the fact that I think this long and hard about brushing and flossing, and that I can somehow develop difficulty with it because it�s boring, of all things: I�m not sure how long you�ve been reading this diary, so I�ll try to catch you up in 25 words or less. Ready?
I wallow in the most bizarre mixture of aversions and anxieties, so the rest of you don�t have to. It�s my gift to the world.
(You just counted how many words that was, didn�t you? Freak.)
Back to the toothbrushing:
So, yes, I wander as I brush. Into the living room, to see what�s on the TV. Into my bedroom, to pick something to wear for the day. Into the kitchen, to look out the window. And I think, too. It�s very productive thinking, like the kind people will often have while showering, or while they�re on the toilet, or as they�re waking up in the morning, or in the middle of the night when they can�t sleep. Epiphany thinking.
My epiphany during this morning�s toothbrush trek, just prior to psyching myself up for the floss, was this: When I started this diary five years ago, I gave everyone nicknames, cute little monikers to �protect their real-life identities.� As I�ve aged and become increasingly lazy, inattentive, and prone to making my fellow members of the PTA frown, I started to let names slip here and there. Soon, it just didn�t seem as critical to protect identities, except in the most extreme cases, because � as I have said on many an occasion � this is the Internet, and I have chosen to place my writing in its grubby little hands. If I had any delusions of privacy before, they were short-lived and na�ve, to say the least.
OH was the last person to receive an Internet nickname from me. I did that because we worked at the same company, and he was a little sensitive about advertising our relationship at first, so that was my half-assed show of respect toward his feelings. I think a full ass of respect is a little much to ask of me, eh?
Oh, come on. Please don�t think about it like that. For your own sake.
So�OH will henceforth be referred to by his real name: Thaddeus.
�.*mmph*�hee�
Okay, I guess that was less than half an ass of respect. Sorry.
His name is John. With an �h.� And goddamn it, I like it that way.
The only person whose real name will not be revealed is me. This is not because I feel I�m pulling one last trick over on you all. Or because I like to have a superspecial alter ego that I can say I�ve been �known by� for over X number of years and that�s because I�ve been blogging longer than you have, you loser, neenerneenerneener GOD WHAT A WANNABE.
The reason that I will never allow my real name to appear on this site is because�listen, kids, I get enough hits off of bizarre, sometimes disturbing search engine results. (What does that SAY about my content? No wonder Mom avoids the Internet. It�s because of degenerates like her own daughter.)
So, I don�t want to see what kind of results I�d get from searches that would include my given name. I don�t need to feel that kind of hostility right now.
Right? Right.
Toothbrushing fetishists: Go crazy with this one.
10:11 a.m. - 2005-03-11
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------