I am plagued by business reply by mail cards. Do people actually mail those things in? In all my life I’ve never returned one of those cards. Nor do I know anyone who has. At least, I don’t think I do, some of you will doubtless prove me wrong in the comments box. Instead of mailing them in I pick them up off of the floor, off of the coffee table, the porch, the kitchen counter and the desk. I snatch them away from the shredding claws of curious cats and pull them out of the bathroom magazine bin. And I throw them away.

Which brings me to a tangent. Bathroom magazine bins. Do these ever strike you as odd. I mean just about everyone I know has some form of reading material or other on public display in their bathroom. It’s like we’re all saying, “hey, welcome to our bathroom. Why not poop while you’re in here.” Or else it’s like a billboard announcing, “Hey! Last night I spent a half-hour in here catching up on National Geographic.”

And it’s not like I make a big secret of my prudishness concerning all things having to do with the colon. I have issues. Pooping is your business, not mine. I’ll talk about poop, but the act itself must never be done within earshot of anyone else and I’d love it if the rest of the world was as uptight about this as I am. It would spare me minutes of agony in public restrooms listening while other people’s bowels GO INSANE. If I am forced to go myself in a public restroom as the result of poor planning or an ill conceived lunch, I will find the most secluded, off the path restroom in the building and freeze like a statue if anyone walks in on me. It’s all true. I wouldn’t overshare something this odd if it weren’t true.

All of this to say that the implication of displaying magazines in my own bathroom catches me off guard from time to time and makes me want to chuck the whole basket into the trash and play dumb when Tanya wonders what’s happened to it: “Magazines? Bathroom? I have no idea. Did we have magazines in the bathroom?” I know, I know, there is an entire book for kids called, Everybody Poops but that shit wasn’t written yet when I was a kid and I don’t think it would have helped.

So after puzzling over business reply by mail cards yesterday as I was picking them up all over the freaking house I started wondering who actually sends these things in. I’m sure some marketing wonk somewhere has a pile of statistics on the effectiveness of these cards but I refuse to believe in them. We all know how completely f-ed up most statistics are. I wish there was a National Do Not Send Me Business Reply By Mail Cards” list that I could sign up for.

Past to Present

My mother asked for a current picture of me to put up against these old skinny pictures and so, I shall post one. However, I want to also go ahead and post the dreaded “Before” picture as well, so here we go:

My first progress photos. Be afraid. Be very afraid.