b is for victory ...

a few years ago i learned the low, low going rate on my dignity: $50 in gift certificates to the third rock -- a heavy metal themed bar in superior, wisconsin.

it was approximately a wednesday. i don't remember the year or even the season. daisy and i skulked in the back door of the bar and were greeted by a local radio personality holding a clipboard. we had just begun to adjust to the culture and climate, smell, moral and societal norms when he propositioned us:

"you two wanna be in the wet t'shirt contest?" he asked. the chipper caricature of a voice that sells thinly veiled sexual innuendo between songs on top 40 radio (by day) and is a regular at frankie's, where he and presumably his dad, bastardize the lyrics of barenaked ladies' songs to include barenaked lyrics (by night). i assume that i hate him.

he didn't appear to be wearing a neck brace. surely he had noticed the concave nature of my chest. the matching gopher holes where most women stow their womanhood. the smooth white cleavage-less clavical pallet -- which acted like a slip 'n' slide when i tried to hide lipstick, matchbooks with phone numbers down the front of my shirt. a failed homage to every woman in every burt reynolds film ever made.

"absolutely not," i said.
"nah," daisy said.

we sat at the back bar and ordered drinks. the voice had procured a microphone, into which he was pleading with the scant female population to enter the contest. but it was, what? approximately a wednesday? 9ish p.m.? the day-drinkers plotting the multitude of ways to soil oneself in the backseat of a cab; the night drinkers erroneously imagining they would coast through 2 a.m. exemplifying moderation and decorum.

"free drink if you enter," he told us.
"who else is signed up," daisy asked.
"no one," he answered. flashed the blank sheet of paper at us.
"absolutely not," i said.
"um ... no?" daisy responded.

"are you sure you don't want to?" daisy asked me when he was gone.
"i absolutely do not want to," i told her.

***

i'm standing in the women's bathroom at the third rock holding a t'shirt, decorated with a gaudy flourecent silk screen radio station logo. we've been given scissors and instructions to "sex up" the garment. just three of us have entered. and i'm pretty sure that if you combined all of my drunks together into one night and stirred it with ruffies, i still wouldn't be drunk enough to be comfortable about this.

daisy enlarges the collar of the shirt, cuts the glorified hanes in half. yanks the sleeves off at the seams.

to daisy's right is a thicker woman, all reebox and bangs. definitely a d-cup swimming in gin. she rips into her shirt like she is making a snowflake then slips into the doily.

"i just got out of rehab," she tells us.
she doesn't look threatened by us. the meager competition. probably because one of her boobs is the size of all four of our's.
"meth," she says. "not alcohol."

me? i'm staring dumbly at my t'shirt. still fully intact. i'm less crafty than i am sexy and sexy is definitely not in the top 40 of words used to describe me. as luck would have it, my fairy godmother comes teetering into the room on a pair of long, long legs. she sees my predicament and takes the shirt and scissors from me. she carves a modest v-neck into the front and chops a larger v from the back of the shirt. she ties the contraption just beneath my bustline and blouses it. tugs a bit at the collar. surveys. looks pleased.

"what the? how ever?" i say. i'm viewing my angles in the mirror.
"i'm a stripper," she tells me. "at the lamplighter."
in that moment i know that we will be friends for life. and by "life" i mean until we accidentally make eye contact someday in the sober light of day.

she wishes me luck.

***

and it's go-time, the voice tells us. we file from the staging area and onto the stage. like sheep, but some of us more sheepishly than others. the word "cattle" comes to mind. and my flight instinct is its own heartbeat. or perhaps that bleating is merely the bass from warrant's "cherry pie" -- our walk-up song.

there is a kiddie pool at center stage. a chair positioned in the middle. pitchers of water off to the side. fewer than 20 gawkers waiting for the show.

we are supposed to be dancing. the meth addict is giggling and jiggling and gyrating and it is the awkward dance routine you would maybe perform if asked to seduce your fifth grade math teacher. she does it with abandon. daisy, never really inhibited on a dance floor, has her arms in the air and is doing a modest -- comparatively classy -- movement. me? i'm standing there like a big dumb ape trying to look more bored and less humiliated.

maybe, just maybe, i think to myself, i've taken things a bit too far this time.

the meth addict hops onto the chair. two waitresses douse her with water. she shimmies and jimmies and whips her hair. daisy takes center stage. keeps it clean. me? i stand on the chair like a big dumb ape, silently ruing the fact that now the ass of my jeans are wet and so are my shoes. i have very little going for me. very. little.

another song begins. maybe its whitesnake or david lee roth. the voice tells us to dance and my competition dances. me? i just stand there like a big dumb ape.

"dance," daisy hisses.
"absolutely not," i say.

because here is the vile truth: the third-place prize is a 20 dollar gift certificate. by default, i at least get that and that makes approximately 10 gin and tonics and the knowledge that i did not shake it in public.

***

it must have been rigged. votes were tallied by the gawkers' decible level of appreciation. and when it was the meth addict's turn to emit applause, she lifted her shirt and shook leaving nothing to the imagination, but plenty for nightmares.

the crowd loved it.

but somehow i won the grand prize: 50 dollars in gift certificates to third rock. currency that is not acceptible outside the building, but a form of money nonetheless. and the best part, dear readers, is that i did not once bounce, caress or expose myself.

between us, daisy and i left with 75 dollars of future drinks, two slutty t'shirts, and a promise to tell no one NO ONE what we had done. the catholic school girl contest had been one thing, but this ...?

***

unfortunately, by the time daisy and i felt comfortable enough to return to third rock our certificates had expired. and i'd officially retired.

argentina makes the best snowboarders ? ...

man. nothing sucks the life blood out of a blog post like having the most promising rookie on your amateur snow sports team break his wrist in two places.

wednesday night we went snowboarding at the local red headed step son ski hill. duluth city council has banished the eyesore to somewhere near carlton so that the rest of us uppity locals don't have to accidentally rest our eyes on the mangled ediface.

but the price was right: rental and lift tickets carried a tab less numbing than the vat of ben-gay i planned to wrythe naked in the next day.

before futbol's ulna became a science project in a wing at st. luke's, the event dripped with fodder.

you could push your own wheelchair up the bunny hill. the beginner hill, however, had a steep drop off and the snow build up seemed to push my snowboard right to the ledge. one slip and i'd be making out with an entire forest at 72 miles per hour with a three foot waxed piece of plexiglass strapped to my feet before cracking my skull on the welcome sign at blackbear casino.

i love snowboarding. i'm not good at it. i tend to snowplow past the daunting grades and then whoosh around like a drunk sasha cohen near the bottom. it took me about four times before i reconnected with what i was doing, and by then i was so filled with love for the sport -- all the speed and grind and the 10 minute ride to the top of the hill ... ugh. i love snowboarding. but i'm not good at it.

jcrew was spared a concussion because she wisely opted for the retro stylings of a scrunchie. when she whapped her head into the concrete snow, the puffy hair decoration suffered the brunt of the impact. she layed in the snow -- a little discombobulated -- doing her best impersonation of a dead gerbil. her fingers seemed frozen in a claw position and she had fewer verbal skills than a 50 year old russian boxer at his retirement party.

"what if you wake up and you're retarded?" we asked her.
"or you have tourettes?" we prodded.

meanwhile, my roommate kept talking about his "edges." as in "i just gotta catch my edges. i think i'm really figuring out how to use my edges. wow, you really seem to have mastered your edges." clearly he'd googled a snowboarding dictionary, but hadn't gotten past the E's.

futbol had, by far, the best grasp of the sport. by the time jcrew and my roommate had traded in their boards for skis, he had the sport mastered. who knew that the best boarder would be the one from argentina? he had just given me a little direction at the top of the hill. his grin shimmering like an olympic medal. i had just whined "but i'm scared" and off he went into the dark night. when i got to the bottom, he was making a beeline for the ski patrol hut.

we didn't know the severity of the fall. so after a few more runs, we went to the anchor for dinner. my olive burger was the best olive burger i've ever eaten. the three short mugs of leinie's big butt were the best three short mugs of leinie's big butt ever. every song on the juke box was perfect. we had the best seats in the bar, a little alcove by the door.

i caught a tiny buzz. fresh air had dulled my tolerance. i wandered around the liquor store in wet pants trying to convince someone -- anyone -- to touch my cold ass.

then i passed out at midnight about 20 minutes into the godfather II. full, sore, happy.

around 3 a.m. i heard jcrew and futbol talking to my roommate. the funny little anecdote about his fall, the references to the ski patrol just being a bundled up version of baywatch characters, had turned grim.

days later, i've finally decided to write the post. you have to be careful about making other people a topic on your own website. shuffle board is one thing. a trip through a medical journal is another.

maybe it was the pain pills talking, but he seems in good spirits, although the entire right side of his body has been mummified. jcrew broached the topic this morning over at www.janalynn24.blogspot.com, so now i guess it is fair game. granted, she has more rights to the story since i think i heard her scribbling "sponge bath" on her mental to-do list.

"i think it would have only been in bad taste if my hand had fallen off," futbol said.

i sprinted upstairs to my apartment -- trying not to jostle my sore limbs -- and began writing:
"man. nothing sucks the life blood out of a blog post like ..."

no more nanas ...

i returned to the world a mere shell of my former being. literally. i lost six pounds after lying in bed for four days straight. it may be the way i turned sudafed, water, oatmeal and oranges into my own perverted food pyramid. or the feverish night terrors that had me tossing and turning and heaving and gasping in ways that jane fonda wishes she had invented, wrapped in leg warmers, recorded, packaged and sold. or maybe those gooey phlegm balls i hacked into my kitchen drain weigh more than i imagined.

all i know is that today i stepped on the scale and i was in a whole new genre of numbers. a happier genre. a friendlier genre. a place of whimsy and sexy jeans. a place where people finally notice me for something important -- my ass -- instead of the things i say or do or drink. i like me here. i'm much more marketable.

four days sick in bed equals two months on a treadmill. i like that math. now lets go lick some kleenixes from the dumpster behind st. luke's hospital.

so i had a bit of spring in my step as i showered and later pranced to my room to put on a pair of pants that were iffy two weeks ago.

then -- cue the sound of a needle scratching a record -- the mirror defogged in front of me.

i lost six pounds. in my boobs.

the poor little twins look emaciated. anemic and anorexic. like the braille translation of a pretty short book.

my ta-tas went toodles; my airbags deflated; i sunk my battleships; my knockers were KO'd. titties turned itty-titty teeny; the jugs are empty; the gazoongas are gaz-gone-ga; my cans, cannot; my "yeah-baby's" are merely "eh-maybe's?" my mammaries are a memory; the hooters went ka-poot. the b-52s have been shot down; the alps are easier to climb; the guns got no ammo; my headlamps burnt out.

the fun bags? not so fun anymore. i'm a little melon-choly.

jcrew and the birthday drizzle ...

what we have here is a fun little setup: drinks downstairs; smoking lounge upstairs. perfect party scenerio now that futbol has moved into the duplex.last night we celebrated jcrew's 26th birthday -- round one -- with champaign and drinking games. the birthday girl seemed determined to not have a good time. she stared off into space and spent time using a power drill to create holes in stryophome between turns of ``circle of death'' a card game that dictates how much a person drinks.

we decided to go to the twins bar -- a rough fourth street hole that specializes in burnt drinks, cleavage tattoos and chlymedia. i was craving the baby-aspirin flavor of a manderine seven, and instead got a glass of orange-flavored gasoline. on the rocks. on the other hand, the twins bar has ms. pacman and for that i'd ingest a bit of gasoline and tempt the venerial disease gods.

jcrew was whomping us in a game of darts when her focus shifted from pleasantly buzzed to positively shitfaced. she stood at the line in front of the dartboard screaming: ``i'm kicking your asses and i'm shitfaced!'' then whipped the pointy death darts at the board. after my roommate won, she softened: wandering around in circles trying to kiss all of us. she came in for a lip landing and i veered and gave her the cheek. she fell for it six to ten times.sensing the amount of girl-love coursing through the crew's veins, i gently suggested that we should go to fuzzy's -- a skanky strip club on first street.``eff yeah!'' she said. ``i totally want big boobs in my face.''

we got to the strip club and it was pretty dead. i don't remember even seeing a dancer, until i realized jcrew had disappeared. she does this. a drunk wander. she'll be gone for fifteen minutes and come back with three new friends -- trying to carry the free drinks she has earned with her girlish squeal. last night she waved from a front-row seat next to the stage. dollar bills in hand.

``come sit by me!'' she said.
i went and sat by the stage and set a dollar in front of me.``you can just have the dollar,'' i told the bcups that were swinging in front of me like a national geographic special. the next thing i knew, the girl had grabbed me behind the neck and pressed her sweaty chest into my face -- shaking and jiggling. it is the first time in my lifesomeone's cleavage sweat has been wiped on my forehead.

i liked my life better before this happened.

but she wasn't done. she cozied up to my neck like i we were fogging up the windows in the backseat of a wood-panel station wagon. and then she bit me before riding her own sweat trail back to the stage.``i think she gave me a hickey,'' i told jcrew, rubbing my neck. i didn't really want a hickey. i didn't want her to wring out her pores on my face either. i just gave her a dollar. not ten.

my roommate bought jcrew a lapdance, and she disappeared with a half-naked woman who was playing the role of half-naked librarian. jcrew was gone for awhile. when she came out from behind the VIP area she had a ghostly expression that totally nullfied her naturally tan complexion.

she streaked past our table and directly into the ladies room. i went in after her to make sure she didn't hit her head when she passed out. i found her wretching and cursing. she came out of the stall, pointed at her left breast and said ``i just threw up on my boob.''

the next day, i wrapped myself in a blanket and went out into the living room to sit with her and talk about her birthday night. she stood up suddenly and headed to my bathroom.``i have to go make my ass baby,'' she said. then stopped. she looked at the floor, weighing the contents of her intestines. ``or it might just be more of a drizzle.'' oh we laughed.