This is where I tell you something gross about myself.  Why?  Because I can’t think of anything else to write about that I can write about and I was quite afraid I would forget the password for my blog if I didn’t write something soon.

Also?  I like to listen to myself talk.  Or type as the case may be.

So what is this horror of horrors?  This gross thing I’m going to tell you about the dainty delicate Cami Kaos?  It’s my finger, folks.  My finger, the index finger belonging to my left hand to be precise, is very special.  You see nearly two years ago I was cleaning the bathroom floor – down on my hands and knees – scrubbing around the side of the toilet back where I couldn’t see when I felt a sharp pinch and a great deal of pressure.  As I withdrew my hand to look at it I noted drops of crimson on my crisp white and black bathroom floor and then watched as blood beaded up and then ran.

Yes.  Ran…

Down my finger and my hand getting everywhere.  Yuck.  Double yuck.  I don’t like the site of blood.

You see some time back a frame had fallen off the wall and the glass shattered.  I’d thought I’d gotten every tiny piece but clearly some remained.  On the floor.  Wedged beneath and behind the toilet.  Until I decided to scrub the floor and it was firmly embedded in my finger.

Once I got it all rinsed off I carefully removed a large splinter, more of a shard really, from my finger and then washed the wound carefully, put bacitracin on it, and wrapped it tight to slow the bleeding.  Because it was.  Bleeding.  It hurt a ridiculous amount and it wasn’t until it started to heal a bit that I realized it wasn’t just cut.  It was bruised.  And it wasn’t just bruised.  There was still glass in my damn finger.

So for 20ish months I’ve been favoring that poor little finger.  I even learned to type with 9 fingers for a while to avoid the bizarre numb touch of the tip of my index finger.

Then yesterday as I scratched my cheek I felt a strange something drag across it.  I pulled my finger away to peer at it and noticed what looked like a bit of dead flaky skin.  But upon closer consideration I realized there was something working its way from the inside out.

Nearly two years later and a tiny chunk was being forced to the surface and it was no big deal to gently pull it out.  It makes me wonder how long it will take for the little chunk that’s still left inside to get the hell out.

Human bodies are weird.

Year and years and years ago, back in the day when I was young (but old enough to drink) I was dating a man who wanted to watch Titanic with me.  The movie.  I don’t know if he really liked the movie or if he thought it was a good movie to watch on the couch with the girl he was dating.

Truth is, it doesn’t matter.

He put the movie on.  I fell asleep.  I wasn’t tired. I was just too bored to be awake.

But in the movie there was dancing, sexy time,  people died, and the ship sank.

Right?  Right.

So don’t tell me I need to see it in 3-D.

Okay?  Okay.

My thumb is sore.

While I find it important that you note this, it probably isn’t the reason for what happened last night.  I could use it as an excuse though.  Maybe I should use it as an excuse.  My poor sad hurt thumb.  Come to think of it, it probably IS the reason for what happened.  Hell.  No probably to it.  My damn sore thumb must have caused this whole unfortunate event…

What event?  Oh.  Yeah.

*scuffs shoe against the ground*

Yeah, that.

*lowers head bashfully*

I went bowling last night.  You know, bowling.  With the big heavy round balls and the rented shoes and the wooden lanes and those white pins you’re supposed to knock over.  Bowling.  Like on the wii but the ball is way heavier than the controller.

Yeah.  Bowling.

It was fun, and I totally want to do it again soon.  It had been years after all since I last bowled.  And a bowling alley holds some sort of nostalgic charm.  And there’s always that guy in the lane next to you that sucks too and even though he doesn’t know you he smiles at you a lot and always wants to high-five you.  Because he’s really nice.  Or because he’s been drinking.  Whichever.

But the thing is I hadn’t clipped my nails.  Which I wear kind of long.  Just because they tend to grow and naturally shape themselves rather nicely.  And I’m a girly girl at time.  What with the purses and high heels and makeup.

So my long thumbnail wasn’t comfortable in the bowling ball hole.  And my thumb started to get sore half-way through our first game.  And then at some point I swung my arm to throw the ball.

Down the lane.

Toward the pins.  Those white pins I mentioned?  The ones you’re supposed to knock over?  But instead of rolling down the lane like it was supposed to and knocking those over.  Or even rolling into the gutter so everyone around gave me the little sad face they make for losers, it went behind me.

Behind me.  Toward the seats.  You know, like on the wii…

So I guess that shit wasn’t made up.

As I sat in the waiting room of one of my kid’s classes I was basking in the relative quiet and using the opportunity to get some emails sent out for work in the midst of what is an incredibly busy week.  I glanced up to see what was happening on the other side of the observation window and looked back down at my computer screen to finish the task at hand when I heard a little voice next to me provide her doting grandmother with an incredibly inaccurate piece of information.

A very specific piece of information.

About a specific little girl in the class.

Nothing mean at all.  Nothing hurtful.  Nothing that had any impact on my life at all.

She was just wrong.  Plain old wrong.

And I didn’t turn to her.  I didn’t stick out my tongue.  And I didn’t say…

“Nuh-uh, she’s not!”

I sent another email instead.

See?  Grown up.  Ish.

Internets, meet Fish.

Fish, meet the internets.

No, that’s not his name.  No, I don’t know what his name is.  He hasn’t told us.  Yet.

He’s still acclimating.  To the water.  To his tank.  And to us.

It would seem, in that, Fish and I have a lot in common.

It’s a sad fact of human nature that when we are in our most intimate moments we make faces that… well, that defy description.  We may also sweat, moan, sigh, grunt, scream, squeal, squeak, and there are other things too.  Things I won’t even get into.  The fact is sex would be gross and comical if we didn’t like it so much.

Actually, it gross and comical even when we like it so much.

And sex isn’t the only activity in which we engage that makes us look and sound ridiculous.  Watch the face of any athlete pushing herself to go further, faster, harder.  That’s not a pretty face.  The face made when someone sucks on an especially tart lemon?  Or takes a shot of cheap tequila? The yelp of pain a human voice can let out upon a tiny injury like a paper-cut or stubbed pinkie-toe. Or the wail of agony a man may let out when his favorite team loses some very important game.

All of these are downright pleasant, I fear, when compared with the face I make as I sing along half under my breath while playing Just Dance…  There’s a reason I don’t sing and dance in public.

A few weeks ago I made a somewhat severe dietary change.  There were reasons for it. Many many reasons.  Health.  Energy.  Vanity.  Age.  The fact that half my fucking clothes don’t fit.

I’ve been dragging for ages.  Not sleeping.  No energy.  Grumpy.  Yes, you heard me.  I’ve been grumpy.

So I needed a change, and to do that I needed a strict set of guidelines, otherwise… well let’s face it, even if we tell ourselves it’s an every once in a while treat, if you buy that bag of cheese puffs and that 12-pack of coke… they’re going to get consumed.  As is the bread.  Bagels.  Pizza.  Hash-browns.  Casserole.  Tacos…

I could have gone crazy and cut every bad thing in my diet out.  I could chew on twigs and berries morning, noon, and night and call it good  Except that wouldn’t be good, people.

That wouldn’t be good at all.

Food is this huge part of human condition.  We eat to stay alive.  We eat to be comforted.  We eat to be social.  We eat to indulge.  We eat food because it tastes awesome.  But sometimes the comforting, social, indulgent, awesome aspects of food get in the way of staying alive, or at least our health.  Both physical and mental.

And it was with all that in mind, and the hope that I could fit back into my favorite jeans, that I decided to change the way I eat.

Again.

And instead of eating only twigs and berries I thought I would go with something a little more sustainable, something my doctor had encouraged me to try years ago when  a blood sugar test that came back too high (it turned out to be a blip).  Cut out all those yummy, delicious, amazingly pointless processed carbs and sugars.

Try it for a few months. I told myself.  What can it hurt? I asked myself.  After a week something wonderful happened.  It kind of snuck up on me.  No I’m not talking about a mom pal asking me if I’d lost weight because she thought my ass looked great…

I’m talking about sleep.  Sleeping.  Snoozing.  Resting.  Dreaming.  And waking up refreshed with enough energy to make it through my crazy day without a nap.  Without yawning every few minutes.  Without being grumpy and hostile and so tired I just wanted to fall apart.

I never expected changing my diet to help me sleep.  So what, I told myself, it could be anything.  And then yesterday while hanging out with my brother I decided I needed ice cream.  Chocolate ice cream to be exact.  And there we were next the the Ben & Jerry’s and I found myself sucking down a glorious super duper chocolatey milk shake.  Oh. My. Fuck.  It was good.  For a few minutes.  While I was eating it.

And then I was hyper.  And then I was grumpy.  And then I wasn’t hungry for my delicious dinner.  And then I was tired, but I still had stuff to do.  And then when I finally got in bed to lay down I couldn’t fall asleep.  For the first time in weeks.  So I just lay there with my mind turning over and over again and again being awake for far too long.  And when I finally did fall asleep?  I woke up a couple of hours later.  And a couple of hours after that.  And after that it was just time to drag my groggy ass out of bed.

So… lesson learned?  Maybe.  I’m not entirely sure it was that milk shake… but given how much I’ve enjoyed my couple of weeks of blissful, productive, amazing sleep… I don’t think I’m willing to risk it at the moment.

So the diet change continues, just don’t mess with my booze…

Today was a should have day.  A would have day.  When I drifted off to sleep last night there were two sets of plans in my head.  My mind turned them each over and over reviewing and revising what needed to occur for both Plan A and Plan B until the possibilities for both had been exhausted.

I’m like that.  I like to have a plan.  It gives me a road map for my day.  Isn’t it funny though that I can’t really read a map to save my life?

Anyway, the should have.  The would have.

It should have been a snow day.  In Portland the lightest dusting of snow tends to shut down the entire city.  You’d think we’d never seen the fluffy frozen wet stuff in our life the way the news channels and the social networks get all a buzz with talk of snowpocalypse and snowmageddon.  The city shuts down.  The buses and trains get fucked up.  School is cancelled.

So when my alarm went off this morning and I learned that school had, in fact, not been cancelled or even delayed, that the city was proceeding as normal (Keep Portland Weird!  It’s as normal as we get), and that the buses were running on normal routes I scratched my head.  I crawled out of bed and made breakfast and lunch while glancing out the window at the clear brightening sky.  And that, my gentle readers, is when the snow began to fall.  I felt grownup and slightly mid-western as I walked my kid to school in the gently falling snow.  My Favorite Things played over and over in my head and as I started back home I was quietly singing along when a snowflake landed on my lashes.  And I smiled.  Nothing was sticking on the ground but there on my lashes a snowflake stayed.  Snow should have meant Plan B.  It should have thrown my day into utter chaos, instead, the snow rested gently on my lashes and clung to my hat and coat while slush sloughed around my boots and I went about Plan A… just a little more slowly.

I had the day I should have had, not the day I would have.  And it was happy.  And, you know, stuff.

No, Cami, you’re not dying.  Nor do you have some strange illness.  You simply ate a lot of beets.  Stop freaking out every time you pee.

(this, my friends, is what passes for blog fodder around here)

When I was younger I thought I’d be living the life of the Jetson family by now.  I pictured living in my high (high high high) rise condo with flying cars and a robot maid to do my dishes, laundry and clean the floors.  Yeah, even then I knew I’d hate cleaning floors.  As a child growing up in a time when books, movies and even cartoons had a heavy sci-fi leaning I thought I was prepared for the future culture, but that wasn’t so.

My contemporaries and I were prepared for flying cars, teleportation, instant meals, robots, replicants, virtual reality and snazzy jumpsuits.  And while Star Trek may have touched on the moral gray area of the holodeck I don’t seem to recall my sci-fi upbringing touching on the etiquette and moral implications of instant mass communication.  There was no “How to behave on social networks” manual being passed around.  It seemed to sneak into our culture and then explode. Like any community, sites have laws, rules or codes of conduct.  But those are legal issues.  Technical issues.  There are trolls and hostile users and spammers.  But those are not the etiquette issues of which I’m writing.

I’m thinking of people finding out a loved one is dead because someone posted it on facebook.  Mothers learning they’ll become grandmothers because someone blogged about it.  Kids finding out their parent is in the hospital because a family member tweeted it in passing.  In this age of instant communication do we need a manners lesson?  How would I feel if I learned something life altering about my daughter, father, mother, sibling or loved one because of a status update?

Like shit.

Yet I see it over and over again.  My family is just as guilty as any other and I’ve seen hurt feelings running rampant.  And with good reason, people behave thoughtlessly and someone is bound to be wounded.

Is this an issue of navigating the future world we live in or just a matter of common decency?  While having a thick skin isn’t such a bad idea, I think it’s important that we find a way to navigate the world keeping others in mind and find a way to teach future generations to do the same.

Or we can all become part machine.   You know, whichever.