V is in so many ways a complete and utter mystery to me. I read blogs about other mother-daughter duos and their mani-pedi trips together, their tea parties, and their dance classes. Viva and I do none of that. She would never consent to have her fingernails painted. The second her fingers went in the bowl, she would scream “TOO HOT!” and that would be the end of it. If she’d even walk in the door.

While she does have a tea set, a very generous gift from a friend to whom I still owe a Thank You card, she has never pretended to have a tea party. She has brought the assortment of cups, spoons, and saucers into the tub to make and serve me Butt Soup.

Viva is tall for her four years. On her 4th birthday she measured 42.5 inches, which is the 94th percentile for height. Her height makes her seem like a much older child as she towers over all the other four year-olds and even half of the five year-olds. She started talking in complete sentences before her second birthday, mostly to criticize me.

I take her personality quirks as my karmic debt. I was an impossible child: negative, sullen, argumentative. I consciously chose to say, do, and feel the opposite of whatever I knew people wanted from me, creating the maximum amount of frustration and conflict, also known as attention.

During my childhood our family therapist (yes, I had THAT childhood) used to tell my mother I would go for attention any way I could get it, even yelling and screaming at me was preferable to her ignoring me.

I remember snarking in my head, “Well, that’s bullshit.” I hated it when my mother went into her shrieking rages. I have nightmares about it still, and I’m 41.

Hence, I do not yell at my children, much as I’d like to sometimes. Well, save for the occasional, “NO! GET OUT OF THE LITTERBOX!”

I read an abundance of books, and was duly warned about “three,” while promised that four would be glorious. We began “four” on a Wednesday with her yearly check up visit. Isn’t it amazing how apprehensive we get, sitting there while the doctor examines our child in every sense of the word: listening, looking, asking questions. It’s the closest I get to a parenting exam.

When she handed my Viva pen and paper and directed, “Write your name and draw me a picture?” my chest clenched and I braced for the “I don’t WANT to!” Fortunately for me, V wanted to show off for the doctor. She immediately gripped the pen in her fist like a dagger and scribbled something resembling her name, accompanied by a portrait of my MIL’s dog or a spider in a top hat.

V did her spastic silly dance for the doctor as she tried to look into ears, nose, mouth, and eyes. She opened her paper gown, bent over and commanded, “Look at my butt!”

When V was an infant, I regularly posted on Facebook of my trepidation before I took her to get her chubby thighs stabbed with needles. She always quickly forgot all about it. I rationalized on the way home then poured a big glass of wine while reading reassuring posts from my FB friends who had been through the same ordeal.

But there’s always that one. You know who I mean. If you can’t think of anyone, it’s you. That person who always has to say something like, “It gets much worse. Wait until she can beg you, ‘No, Mommy! Please! No!’” Then she tells you a story of her friend/cousin/coworker/dog groomer whose son begged her not to get a vaccine and she didn’t listen so her son went immediate wolfboy on the spot, sprouted wings and flew out the window.

Two weeks later, V is still obsessed with no one touching her Band-Aids. The grubby Dora-themed adhesives are barely clinging by a few sticky strings, and she is not going to let it go. “Be careful!” she admonishes me. “Don’t touch my Band-Aid! If it falls off,” she warns, brown eyes wide and fearful, “my shots will hurt!” What is it with kids and their “ouchies”? She’s obsessed.

Viva would rather lick my shoulder and hear me shriek than give me a hug and a kiss. She doesn’t so much hug as consent to being hugged. Then out of nowhere she’ll grab me, look deep in my eyes and declare, “I love you, Mommy.”

Her hair is wild and curly, unruly and gorgeous. She makes the same “picture face” in every photograph, and I treasure the few candids where someone caught a genuine smile. I rarely remember to take pictures, but luckily Viva’s grandma, grandpa, and auntie aren’t as negligent.

For her fourth birthday, I had a party at the indoor playground. Twelve families RSVPd the night before, so there wasn’t enough food, but the kids had the run of the place and they were fine. As 25 children and 35 adults sang “Happy Birthday” to my four year-old daughter, I caught myself getting emotional. Being a mother is, to paraphrase Jerry McGuire, an up at dawn, pride swallowing siege that leaves me physically and mentally empty at the end of most days.

In the spirit of refueling, Odie and I went to the Saints’ house for a pool party/barbecue Sunday. We showed up without the girls for once and actually enjoyed the adults. Two weeks ago I gleefully announced on Facebook to my best girlfriends that we’d get a baby sitter for the event.

At first, Odie was like, “Let’s bring them for the first hour then drop them at your folks’ since it’s so close–” and I was all “Bitch, I will cut you.”

I’ve become convinced that the only way to really enjoy this motherhood thing is to get a break from it, and “going to work” doesn’t fucking count. This post is supposed to be one of those “love letters to my daughter” posts that Dooce has made a fortune off of and Kelle Hampton “totally rocks out,” but it isn’t my style. Snarkers and White Knighters all speculate about how this generation of kids growing up under the spotlight of their mommies’ mommyblogs will turn out. How they will feel when they read our depictions of them. I have a feeling I know how it will affect Viva.

When we returned to my parents’ house to fetch the girls, Pringles was running around in a diaper because her version of potty training readiness is feeling the urge to poop and taking all of her clothes off. I found Viva chasing after the cat as he tried desperately to hide. “Hi, sweetheart! I missed you. Did you miss me?”

Viva fixed me with her bright-eyed, full-lipped Odie smile, “Nope!”

That’s my girl.

It falls into the category of “I’m just sayin’.”

Oh, I’m not telling you that you are an untalented hack. I’m just sayin’. Now, if I were just saying, well, that would be a whole ‘nother Oprah. I’m just sayin’. See what I did there?

“Mrs. Odie, you look really tired today. I’m just being honest.” Yeah? Well, you look stupid as ever. Just sayin’.

“Mrs. Odie, I think that you give Fs to students you don’t like. I’m just being honest.” Let’s just pretend for a moment that this isn’t a completely absurd accusation, as my gradebook is available on-line to all my students, and while “Assignments”, “Assessments” and “Participation” are all categories, “Likeability” most assuredly is not.

Can you imagine if we gave As to the students we adore and Fs to the students we hate? I can think of one in particular who would not be at Harvard right now.

Just sayin’.

I cannot conceive of a world wherein I, at age 15, would walk up to an adult and malign her character to her face. Fourteen years in the business and I’m already at the “in my day…” stage. Good grief.

But sometimes I wonder where the “self-esteem movement” has gotten us. “Bullying” is all anyone talks about anymore. Used to be, I couldn’t go buy my groceries without solicitors asking me to donate to the homeless. Now, it’s anti-bullying campaigns. I’m so tired of being asked to stop bullying, I drive by three different grocery stores to avoid twenty-somethings with pamphlets blocking the entrance.

No one talks about teachers being bullied. It happens every day to varying degrees. They go on-line and write vicious, untrue things about us. A parent whose child is about to be in my class is likely to Google me. That’s the biggest reason I write under a pseudonym, but I don’t teach under one.

My husband came home all riled up about a viral video the students love where “one of them” tells off “one of us.” They applaud the little shit while we identify with the adult. If I so much as took a photograph of a student vandalizing school property, or recorded him cussing me out, I’d be fired.

It’s probably always been this way. I’ve just reached a certain age where I’m so far away from 15, I don’t remember what it feels like. Adults have forever been horrified by the way youth challenges our way of being in the world. It’s just that in the fifties, when kids were standing up to adults and demanding that they stop being racist cockbags, it seemed more like a movement. I’m not “the Man.” I just want you to know the difference between a gerund and a participle. Now, it just seems like the purpose of standing up to grown-ups is to get a video on You Tube and to be an asshole.

I’m just being honest.

I worried obsessively that Odie’s friends were going to take one look at me and think, “Whoa, the years have not been kind to her!”

Lately, I am at home in my own skin. Not so much my loose, saggy neck skin that belongs on a 70 year-old version of me, but the rest of it. That is not to say I am happy being 40 pounds overweight. I’m just comfortable. I have things in perspective.

When I was 25, I took a steak knife to my right thigh and sliced seven parallel gashes into it because I hated my thighs. I still don’t like the way they look, but I dislike pain even more. And Gwyneth Paltrow even more than THAT. If she’s the most beautiful woman in the world, then I’m doing okay.

Every vacation I have ever taken was preceded by weeks of me planning to lose “x” number of pounds by “y” date. Unlike most people, I love algebra, but these equations never worked out. I was going to be a size 4 on my 1997 trip to Paris. Mais, non! I could barely snap my pants when I got on l’avion. In 2002, I accompanied a boyfriend to a wedding in Hawaii. Good thing I purchased a back-up dress, because my slimming plans went down in Flaming Hot Cheetos.

There are so many more trips, each one a collage of memories of self-denial, self-rebellion, and self-loathing. The only reason I actually got into my wedding dress is because when I brought it home from David’s Bridal (well aren’t I fancy?), I put it on and the zipper went up about 3/4 of the way. With one month remaining before my wedding, I had no choice. Unlike the Hawaii wedding, I couldn’t dash into a store at the last minute and buy a different dress.

We planned the camping trip six months ago, so I figured I could easily take off sixty pounds in that time. At the end of each month, when I saw how ineffective my Ben and Jerry’s Red Velvet Cake ice cream diet was, I shrugged and decided “next month”. You don’t need much algebra savvy to recognize that come March, a 60 pound weight loss by April 5 is incongruent with reality.

I only had one choice: Show up fat.

It turns out, no one was there to see me looking fantastic by the campfire. We shared meals, drank beers, chased kids, pretended we gave a shit about every single lady bug the girls caught, and had a fantastic time!

We’re going to do it again next year.

I have about 10 months to lose 50 pounds. Wish me luck.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! (deep breath) AH hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! (wiping tears). It’s like they love me. First, Kelle Hampton names her son “D’OH!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6GuEswXOXo

Then someone comes up with the idea that “there is so much negativity” out “there” that we really need to tickle each other’s taints with some hollow words of praise.

Hampton writes she feels like she has to admit to imperfections in order to get the “thanks for keepin’ it real” comments from readers, a necessity to get acceptance from the masses. To admit to a messy house, rolls of loose skin under her size zero yoga pants, a cavernous post-birth vagina, kids wearing last season’s knitted sweaters to the beach would be to succumb to the “sad symphony” so many of us sing tunelessly. She too wishes that she could collapse into a pile of Zoloft and Cabernet like some other bloggers you may know. If only SHE had the luxury of melting down on Heidi.

But then she remembers that she isn’t some lame-ass, complaining mommy bitcher like ME, she’s The Dutchess of Enjoying the Small Things. And goddamnit, there will be JOY! She declines to apologize for being better than all of us! There will be no relatable story with a conflict and a point in order to make YOU feel better about YOUR shitty life!

I’m just one of those mean girls her commenters complain about. Me and all the other GOMI (http://getoffmyinternets.net) readers and commenters hiding behind our Lane Bryant mumus and our computers, dexterously filling the interwebz with negativity. If I could just get out from under my pile of cats and go for a jog, maybe I wouldn’t be so unhappy that I have to attempt to bring others down.

I think they’re probably referring to the people who write critical and/or nasty comments on KH’s blog or Instagram, which I don’t do. I talk behind people’s backs. That’s the #1 job requirement for Catty Bitch.

Is anyone else gobsmacked by the irony of a post promoting the sisterhood (excuse me, the “sistah” hood) of women followed by a few dozen comments about mean girls and how much they suck? Sure, the occasional person points out that a “mean girl” is just another human who is hurt/hurting/abused (or maybe just HILARIOUS), but mostly, whatever a “mean girl” is, she doesn’t get to be part of the “sistah-hood” of rah-rah-rah mani-pedi goodness.

As usual, she’s wrong. We don’t want to know that another woman has cellulite and a dirty house so we can relate. We want to know those things so we can win.

Part of the reason I hate all the “Let’s stick together AS WOMEN” bullshit is because we are genetically hard-wired to compete. Watch one of those corset-era dramas, and be reminded how dirty and underhanded the competition for a good husband was. Has it changed? The only thing that is different as far as I can see is now women have the option to work ourselves into an early grave trying to support our families while the men K-Fed or Eddie Cibrian around the pools.

Marriage was life and death. We are not that evolutionarily far away from a time where beating out other females for a good male provider and protector meant the difference between your babies living and dying. In my view, this also explains why one of the top 5 blog queries about KH is “Does Kelle Hampton’s husband work?” Women want to know if Brett lived up to the promise of that gigantic diamond engagement ring in the photographs. Did she land a big fish, or did she wind up with a K-Fed (which, according to Urbandictionary.com means a man who “[lives] off his famous, hugely monied wife to achieve even the tiniest status in life”). With regard to Poppa, one would need to look up “Michael Lohan” or “Joe Simpson” for a definition.

The Dooce Divorce disappoints me because it was so predictable. Heather was crazy for Jon when he was powerful in her eyes. I don’t remember the particulars, but maybe he was even in a BAND. Swoons, a rock star. Drool-worthy fantasy to many. I picture them like the Jennifer Garner/Jason Bateman coupling in “Juno.” Perhaps she started snarking that he didn’t “contribute” more as she went about her high-powered mogul life. He was a “The Guy” kind of guy. Do you know “The Guy” guy? He gets it done. He knows people. He can handle it. Just let him make a few calls. Next thing you know, he’s collecting unemployment after losing the job his dad had to lay someone off in order to give him (it’s worse if it’s HER dad). Considering that fierce, primal competition for husbands, hers starts to look like less of a prize and more like something you need to unload. I wanted the Dooces to defy the stereotype because I was charmed by their love story.

Feminist movement or not, women compete with each other through their husbands’ jobs. The doctor’s wife is still at the top of the hierarchy, except in Los Angeles where the Hollywood wife reigns over all with her frozen, surprised face.

The Bloggers Anonymous blog, the Dove Company, and Kelle Hampton all want us to stop tearing each other down and build each other up! Except the “mean girls.” Fuck them. They’re just jealous anyway. We should all stick  together! “We’re on the same team”. What could be less empowering than suggesting that all women are exactly the same because we all have ovaries? That we all have the same goals and should therefore cheer each other on. I will root for the ones I like and make fun of the ones I don’t. The idea that there is this group of “mean girls” out there just waiting to pounce on your daughters at school is just another example of how people take the shadow self, which we ALL have, disown it and make it something “out there” and “other.” As the reverend in “Footloose” said, “Satan’s not in these books. He’s in here,” (points to his chest), “In our hearts.” Not that I believe in Satan, but I do believe in John Lithgow.

The mean girl isn’t in these blogs. She’s IN HERE. She’s in our hearts. So let’s go sit in judgment on ourselves, describe ourselves to a forensic artist, and drink some wine. It’s a celebration, bitches. Enjoy yourselves.

I finally finished the invitations for Viva’s fourth birthday party today. It will be just our style: low maintenance. An indoor playground where the fun is built-in. No need to set up a craft table or party-themed food. The kids will run around the facility like a pack of rabid ferrets while we grown-ups make polite chit-chat and nibble on store-bought fare. My sister will bake cupcakes. The children will lick the frosting off and leave the remainder like so many discarded cupcake corpses.

My school year is winding down. Thirty more teaching days, but who’s counting? That number includes state testing and final exams, making the number of actual teaching days even fewer. This time next year, I’ll be sweating the remaining moments before the AP exam. AP English Language is the class I abandoned when I left to have babies. Next year I return to it, coming full circle. Today my principal informed me that my successor has made the term literal. Her AP scores are among the highest at the school. Knock me over with a feather. When she came to me, she was but the learner. Now she is the master.

I’m not so proud that I can’t be happy for her. Not super-duper happy, but her victory is our victory as a school, right? (Whore) It will be the second time I’ve taken over a successful AP program, and I have every intention of making it the second time I meet and exceed expectations.

I have a feeling expectations are low, coming from some people. Nothing like a little bit of “Oh, yeah? Well, fuck you!” to light a fire under my rapidly shrinking ass.

That’s right. The baby weight is finally melting off. All it took was cutting about 3,000 calories a day from my intake. Who knew?

I am a Diablo 8 widow. In spite of that, Odie and I took a date night on Saturday night, renewing our vows to love, honor, cherish, and take turns driving (side-eye, Reese Witherspoon).

Momentum. And a swift kick to the ass from Michael. That’ll keep me going. See you soon.

I plan lessons almost every day, but here is a lesson I need to learn. Nothing is more entertaining to children than an adult losing her shit. They live for it. They strive for it. They coordinate organized plans to inspire it.

When I got to work this morning, I set aside three folders of student essays I wanted to grade. This is the work that I love. The students have turned in a second draft which I will be evaluating for properly embedded quotations and correct citations. They were also to include a works cited page with at least two entries. When I teach writing, I feel “flow.”

There is a psychologist with an impossible to pronounce name (it’s Csikszentimihalyi. Told you.) who describes flow as  ”being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one…” My ego actually never falls away under any circumstances, but other than that, this perfectly describes me when I teach writing. Now that I’ve been at this for nearly thirteen years (Good God, Lemon), I don’t make the mistake of writing long detailed comments on students’ papers.

Now, some of you are thinking, “But I learned tons and tons from all of the comments my teachers wrote on my essays! I lived for those red-penned words of wit and wisdom!” That is because you are a writer and/or an English nerd, or a little apple-polishing teacher’s pet. We are a rare breed, my friends. 98% of students look at the grade and shove the paper in a backpack (if I’m lucky) or the trashcan.

If I could turn off my anger at the end of every day and sit down with my papers, my life would be better. Instead, I fall into a daily trap of parent phone calls, anecdotal notes in my teaching records, and angry emails to administrators, all focusing and refocusing on my failures to spin straw into gold.

Every time I’ve ever made a monumental change in my life, it started with “I cannot live like this anymore.” I leave work with my papers ungraded. I pick up my children from daycare feeling sad, worn-out, angry, frustrated, and self-pitying. I get home and don’t have the energy to do what I love: write, play with my kids, cook, interact with my husband.

I can’t live like this anymore. I won’t.

I know that it is possible to let this job destroy me, inspire me, or neither. I know that the power is mine. I just have to push the play button and live it. I choose to focus on what works for me and shrug off the rest of it. A workshop leader told me “Arguing with a teenager is like trying to nail Jell-o to a tree.” And I fucking hate Jell-o. There is NEVER room for Jell-o.

Odie and I took a walk in Malibu six years ago and admired a gorgeous mansion perched over the Pacific Ocean. “Must be nice,” I sighed enviously. Odie looked at it thoughtfully.

“I’ll bet you anything the person who lives in that house is on anti-depressants.”

There’s a Maslow’s hierarchy of teacher irritation. Once you get them to stop throwing feces at you and each other, you can start being irritated about how they talk over your lesson. Once you get them to shut up, it’s their glazed over fish eyes that get on your last nerve. And on and on it goes.

And so, I take a deep breath and return to the words of Red in “Shawshank Redemption” (although technically it was a poorly attributed quote of Andy’s). Get busy teaching, or get busy sending angry, pointless emails.

That’s goddamn right.

I just got back from a camping trip with a group of people who were all at my husband’s first wedding. 

I was evaluated by my principal for the first time since I’ve been a working mother.

We took the kids camping for the first time, including an eight-hour round trip drive.

I wanted to pop in and give you a teaser, but I can’t stay and write. This computer is about to become a kids’ toy, and I need to invest in my own “work” laptop (this work, not school work). I often have the time and inclination, not to mention the inspiration, to write, but I don’t have a working computer. I can’t publish or even write on my school computer. Odie’s computer is nearly always being used by him (Damn you, Diablo III!). Considering that my computer needs consist of blogging and creating documents, my laptop needs are small and cheap. And what’s another few hundred dollars of credit card debt at this point?

See you soon.

Hi, Rosie. The short answer to your question is yes.

Film studios spend millions of dollars on Awards Campaigns. They take out ads in magazines, newspapers, and on radio and television. They pay PR firms to promote the film via social media. The stars are contractually obligated to do press for the film, going on talk shows and landing in the gossip columns (that latter part is “unofficial” publicity, where the agents and managers do some nudge-nudge-wink-winking). A conversation might go something like this. “Remember when Britney Spears got photographed without underwear on? Wow, that must have been the number one story on every outlet for a week! Have a great workout, Anne!”

Have you seen the Netflix Original series “House of Cards”? In one episode, the puppet master, Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey), orchestrates it so a bunch of news commentators start wondering if the president will nominate So-and-So for Secretary of State because Underwood planted the story with a reporter he’s banging. Within hours, the reporters’ musings become so ubiquitous, the president actually has to consider the question he never even thought to ask until it was asked on TV.

So, when everyone from Letterman to Chelsea Handler starts asking Anne Hathaway, “What would it be like to win an Oscar?”, you already know what happens. Future actors are going to have to up their games, though. When Hathaway went on a diet of her own shorn hair and the open hostility of her new husband to method-act the shit out of “Les Mis,” everyone knew she was gunning for Oscar. She upped the ante for future Oscar grubbers. Jodie Foster wore a WIG for “The Accused”, and Nicole Kidman put on a prosthetic nose. Amateurs. The way this competition is going, future actors will have disfiguring plastic surgery to put themselves in the running for those gold (plated) statues.

Many believe that the negative publicity surrounding the torture depicted in “Zero Dark Thirty” cost Bigelow’s film the top nod, and made Jessica Chastain’s Oscar go to Jennifer Lawrence.

As for the latter, JLaw has this certain “I would totally have sex with an overweight fifty-seven year-old man if he made me laugh” thing going on that makes Academy Members vote for her. The studio knew what it was doing. Did you notice all the pre-Oscar TV ads for the film featured her instead of Bradley Cooper or DeNiro? Watching her on the red carpet, I see she has perfected that “contractual smoldering peek over her shoulder at Harvey Weinstein during the act” look. She’s a talented actress, and they were going to give her an Oscar no matter what, just like Julia Roberts (back in my day) was going to get one for the same reason. Jennifer Lawrence’s win mirrors Roberts’ in many ways. Julia played a sexy bad girl in “Mystic Pizza” and became famous for it. The second she was in a movie with Sally Field (“Steel Magnolias” 1989), the Academy knew it could nominate her for an Oscar. Brenda Fricker beat her that year, but the next year she was in the top spot for reminding old men that hookers LOVE sex with billionaires decades older than themselves. They all wheezed a collective sigh of relief when she finally did a film for which they could give her the damn Oscar.

I didn’t see “Silver Linings” but didn’t JLaw have a relationship with a man old enough to be her dad? Hmmmm. I’d say that if you’re a juicy young actress and you don’t want to shave your head, pluck out your eyebrows, or drink egg whites to put on 11 pounds of pure muscle, play a nymphomaniac in a semi-serious film where your character is tickling the nutsack of a much older man who in real life would never get a chick that hot. “And the award goes to…” could very well be in your future.

As to your question about leaking the results, I know that there are Vegas odds on the results. Gamblers place bets and money changes hands. I am sure the information is available ahead of time to the right person for the right price. Whether or not that actually transpires, I have no idea.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of “Ask Mrs. Odie” (and reading her wild speculations about shit)! Keep the questions coming!

A few hours after I left Toxic Best Friend and her pussy posse at the blackjack table, I checked my watch again. It had stopped.

It’s hard for those of you under 30 to believe that ten years ago, not only did we not text, we barely even used our cell phones. I had one that I mostly kept in my car for emergencies. I think I sent my first text message in 2007. It wasn’t bizarre, therefore, that I wore a watch to keep time and that I wasn’t reachable to TBF and The Posse.

When we finally crossed paths, TBF had a sour look on her leathery, tanned face. She had continued to lose money all night. TBF doesn’t lose. She WINS! That’s what she does! She wins!

I rest my case.

God, I love “The Devil’s Advocate” starring Keanu Reeves. If you also love that movie, you are my people.

Where was I?

Today, a former-student-turned-friend posted an article on Facebook called “The Strange Pleasure of Terrible Women” by Maya Gurantz. To underscore the title are photos of the Heathers from “Heathers.” It’s timing like this that reinforces my belief in the Collective Unconscious. Toxic Best Friend is a terrible woman and there was always a strange pleasure in her company. Her behavior is outrageous. She doesn’t believe the rules apply to her, and they usually don’t. When she doesn’t get her way, she throws tantrums worse than any three year-old. And people like me always orbit her, giving her someone to be horrible to.

The camel that broke her straw back was my comp card for the buffet. As I blubbered into my Cape Cod and lost at video poker, the bartender handed me a Kleenex, then gave me a coupon for two free breakfasts. I took Mona.

After pulling an all-nighter, Toxic Best Friend perked herself up with a Bloody Mary. I was “eating clean,” which meant no sugar, flour, fried food, or artificial sweeteners.

Except for cranberry juice mixed liberally with vodka.

Obviously.

When I got hungry, I had to eat. If I skipped meals, I set myself up for terrible decisions. The conversation went as follows.

“There you are. I didn’t even see you leave; what happened?” Toxic Best Friend demanded. “That was rude.”

I was a coward. I still am. To this day, I have never even talked to her about what happened in Vegas. I know when she’s mad at me and I just play dumb. If she doesn’t bring it up, I won’t. Our exchanges, however occasional, haven’t changed. It goes like this:

“It’s so good to hear from you! I miss you! My life is so amazing. I was nominated for Teacher of the Year again. My older child is good at everything. My younger one is a child model for The Gap. My romantic partner fulfills me in every way. I can’t believe how lucky I am. Yesterday, I shat a fifty-dollar bill. Does Odie ever accidentally call you by his ex-wife’s name during sex?”

Not exactly like that. But close enough.

“I can’t believe you two are making such a big deal about food,” TBF snarled at Mona and me. “It’s just FOOD.” She said it as though it left a greasy residue in her mouth. After being disappointed by her teacher’s assistant who didn’t make a big enough deal about her birthday, having me under-react to that abhorrent affront, losing money, then failing to be the center of attention in the casino, Toxic Best Friend pulled rank and demanded we drive home immediately.

“I have to eat, and I can’t eat fast food.” There would be no negotiating with me on this point. At that time, I had worked too hard in Overeaters Anonymous to give up the serenity. My sponsor had begged me not to go on this trip. She felt that Toxic Best Friend, Las Vegas, and a break in my routine were serious risks to my abstinence. I had two tickets to a free breakfast where I could get scrambled eggs, vegetables, fruit and coffee. I was not getting in a car for four hours with TBF on an empty stomach.

She stirred her Bloody Mary with the celery stick, then picked it up and chomped it between her perfectly straight white teeth. That was all the breakfast an anorexic needed. She let her hazel gaze sweep up and down my body.

“You and your fucking food,” she spat viciously. Then she laughed. “I can’t control my food! I’m an addict!” For some reason she lowered her voice an octave when mocking my personal, private struggle with compulsive eating. “If you’re not at the valet at 10:30, I’m leaving without you. Both of you.” She shot a murderous look at Mona, twirled on her Carrie Bradshaw shoes, and disappeared into a crowd of people. Every man she passed turned to look at her as she stormed away.

At 10:30, I met TBF and The Posse at the valet. They were all talking animatedly until I approached and their conversation died suddenly the way it does when people are gossiping about you.

“I’m done.” I said wearily.

“What do you mean?” she snapped.

“With you. I’m just done.”

Friends, sisters, my sponsor, and my therapist had told me for years that TBF needs me desperately. I never agreed. I always felt like her last priority. She barely noticed me. She treated me carelessly, hurting my feelings often. But in the split second after I told her I was leaving her, I saw in her face that they’d been right. For just a breath, her face betrayed the most horrible childlike fear, so raw and terrified I almost took it back. Instead, I turned on the heel of my sensible shoe, strode up to the doorman of the Bellagio and asked him to get me a cab. I tipped him twenty bucks.

“Take her right to the airport,” he told the cabbie. “Treat her straight. She’s had a rough time.”

Then I used some of my $800 winnings to buy a plane ticket home.

Picture “Stassi” from “Vanderpump Rules.” Now add about 50 IQ points and subtract any glimmer of self-awareness.

I enjoyed the flight more than the 24 hours I was about to spend at my destination. People on a Saturday morning commuter flight to Las Vegas in early spring are a happy group of people. And there were peanuts.

The plan was for me to fly in Saturday morning then get a ride back with TBF and Mona on Sunday, who used to be her roommate. I had heard endless shit-talking about Mona and was curious to meet this freak-of-nature who was so impossible to live with that TBF had moved out before the lease was up and left Mona with the rent. She HAD to, you see. Mona was CRAZY. Yet somehow, she was along for the birthday bash. The parallels to Vanderpump’s Stassi are striking. Nobody seems to like this woman, but they all cater to her because it’s easier than dealing with her wrathful vengeance if you don’t.

The Casino was full of Chinese men celebrating the New Year and the energy was contagious. I was about nine months “sober” in a 12-step food addiction program, so I was at my lowest adult weight. Twenty-nine years-old, feeling and looking terrific, I took a shuttle from the airport to The Bellagio. I’d booked a room at a cheap casino off the strip, but had to pay homage to Her Birthday-ness before checking into my smokey coffin with a window that opened an inch.

Toxic Best Friend was sitting on the king-sized bed in her suite. The friends sharing her room were in various stages of putting on full faces of make-up and flat-ironing their hair extentions. I felt self-consciously dumpy in my jeans and ubiquitous black t-shirt. Her Majesty was sitting cross-legged, talking on her bejeweled pink Blackberry, scowling and arguing.

“All I know is the world fucking ENDS when it’s your birthday,” she told the caller.

I tried to make small talk with the people I was already acquainted with in the room and be introduced to the ones I wasn’t, but my co-dependence was laser-focused on Toxic Best Friend being disappointed by someone. The other women were not meeting mine or each other’s eyes.

A counselor at TBF’s high school once told me that they couldn’t enforce the dress code at the school because of the way TBF dressed: sparkly, rhinestone bra straps showing, cleavage bared, taught, tanned belly exposed, jeans so tight you could bounce a quarter off her ass. She had on a tube top and a denim skirt so short I could see the crotch of her panties when she sat. She wore a gold chain around her midriff. She had a full face of make-up, including false eye-lashes, her hair wrapped in a towel turban-style.

It was the same skirt that had once inspired a drunken bar patron to get down on his knees in front of her bar stool, and hold two flaming cigarette lighters up to her ass. That kind of thing happened at least twice every time we went out.

“When I get back from Vegas, we are fucking done. You are dead to me. I hope that someday you realize how amazing I was to you and how you FUCKED ME OVER!” with that, she beeped her sparkly phone off, tossed it into the lush nest of bedcovers and gave me an ironic smile. “Welcome!”

“Happy birthday,” I said cautiously, giving her a one-armed hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Who were you talking to?”

“One of my T.A.s,” she curled her lips in disgust, “One of my FORMER T.A.s.”

Here, I made my first of several blunders.

“That was a STUDENT of yours?” I was aghast. She looked at me squarely, and something in her face closed off.

“Last month, for his birthday, I spent five HUNDRED dollars renting out a private room at his favorite restaurant. You know what he got me?”

Blunder number two. Are you ready? Here it comes.

“Why on earth would you spend $500 on a student’s birthday party?” I think I heard the other women in the room cringe. It was like the scene in “The Color Purple” when Rae Dawn Chong is all, “Harpo, who dis woman?” then calls Oprah a heifer and all the musicians start packing up their instruments and taking off, because they know a bitch is about to go crazy.

Toxic Best Friend was genuinely hurt by the slight of this boy, so I made to comfort her. I chomped down just a bit more on the foot I’d already stuffed into my maw.

“Teenagers are so self-centered and immature. You can’t take the thoughtlessness of a teenager personally.”

TBF fixed me with a classic TBF look. It’s a tight-mouthed, no-teeth smile with dead eyes. “That’s no excuse.”

Despite a nice sushi dinner at a restaurant so expensive I should have been allowed to live there for the rest of the month, things went downhill from there. It was my first time gambling in Las Vegas, and that beginner’s luck thing is no shit. We situated ourselves at a craps table and when my turn came, my dice were on fire. I didn’t know the rules of the game, but I could roll dice. Everytime I rolled, the Chinese men roared with excitement and the croupier pushed stack after stack of chips to them. A huge crowd gathered. I was the center of attention. Men I’d never met started putting ten dollar chips on MY “Pass Line.” I won $800 during that turn and some of the other gamblers won thousands.

TBF won too, of course. Everyone at the table did. But it was her birthday, and me being the star of the show was not what she’d had in mind for her Vegas celebration.

My heart pounded. My cheeks were red with booze, excitement, and self-consciousness. When my streak ended, the table went cold and everyone gradually wandered away. Our group ended up at a Blackjack table. This was a completely different experience. I couldn’t add in my head fast enough. I didn’t know how to bet, when to hit, or when to stay. I didn’t signal correctly for any of those things. The dealer seemed irritated by me, which Toxic Best Friend liked. I have a nervous tic where I twiddle my lower lip. A person is not allowed to have her hand on or near her face while playing Blackjack. I do it completely unconsciously, so the dealer kept correcting me and correcting me and correcting me. I got more flustered each time. As exciting and validating as the craps table had been was how stressful and demoralizing this Blackjack table was.

TBF, on the other hand, was in her element. Perched on the tall stool, sipping her vodka drink, white crotch of her panties peeking out between skinny, tanned, crossed legs, she owned the table and knew it.

She was losing, however, and it was bothering her.

I don’t know if it was the stress, sensory overload, or I was too hungry. What I do know is that when TBF barked at me, “If you can’t fucking handle this game, then you shouldn’t fucking BE here,” I fell apart. Sniffling and blinking back tears of humiliation, I stuffed my chips into my purse and walked away from the table. I found a seat at a bar where you could play video poker and get free booze, ordered a vodka cranberry and cried my eyes out. No one even looks twice at a woman sobbing over her cocktail in Vegas.

I looked at my watch. It was just a bit after 11 p.m.

To be continued…