A photo, so you can imagine what I looked like while I spewed accidental vulgarness from my trap.

The first question I’ll be answering is about my most embarrassing moment. I don’t think I’ve ever written this down on my blob, but if I have then I apologize for repeating.

In case I am somehow managing to come across as an extremely dignified and lady-like human being (which I highly doubt) I’m here to tell you that I’m one of the clumsiest people I’ve ever met. I’m clumsy in manymanymanymany ways, but especially vocally. This gets me into all kinds of funny situations. Sometimes they are only funny later on.

This one wasn’t funny until later on….much later on. Like, two or three months ago.

Picture this: I’m 23, and pregnant. At church. Always the best/worst place to embarrass yourself. I’m chatting with this girl whom I don’t know very well. She asks me if I’m having any baby showers, and I tell her I’m not sure and that a few friends had mentioned it. She said “You HAVE to have a baby shower. It’s the best part! The presents, the food, the decorations…..” and I sat there nodding and smiling and then I said..

Yeah, all the baby p*rn.

She said “OH MY GOSH!!! WHAT?!?!?!”

I almost screamed when I realized what I said. Then I tried to explain myself.

My explanation: “Did I say baby p*rn? It’s not the kind you might be thinking of…it’s like this, my sister is engaged and she seems to have stacks of bridal magazines everywhere and clippings of gowns and flowers taped up all over the place and my family and I you see we tease her that it is her wedding p*rn. So when we were just talking a minute ago about all the presents and everything I kind of thought that this was my version of wedding p*rn, but it’s just with like a baby instead, you know what I meant, right? Right? You get it right?.”

Even with my best explanation, I realized that those are two words that should never ever ever be used together. It was my first and only time making that mistake, if you don’t count all the times I’ve said them together when telling the story.

Anyway, poor girl. She handled it really well considering the shock on her face was so obvious it could have been identified as a feature. Eyes, chin, nostrils, shock, cheekbones, forehead.

And that is my most embarrassing moment.

Pretty bad, right?

Please feel free to share yours!

I met Jen sort of through haircutting and through my blob. She came into the salon a few years ago for a haircut after reading my blob and we were friendly right away, but it was another six months of haircuts before we started hanging out. I would get so excited when she would come in and we would chat and chat and chat. Then one day she came in and told me her boyfriend was making a movie and he needed extras. I offered hoping to get famous, and was an extra and she was too and we extra’d until 4am. We were delirious and giggly and annoying the crap out of everyone while we danced tiredly around like hoodlums. Before long we realized we both lived in the same neighborhood and that we both loved sandwiches and also are vegetarians. Also we both love clogs. Jen and her boyfriend live in my building now and we joke sometimes that she was really just a stalker all along and has succeeded in moving two floors down from me. If she weren’t smaller than me I might be a little worried, haha. But really if anything I probably stalk her the most. We are going to be friends forever, I just know it. I know she feels that way too because sometimes I put a cup up to her wall to listen to her conversations and once I heard her telling someone the same thing.

It’s funny, I actually met Amanda Blair like I did Jen. She was a little different because we emailed for a long time before we actually met. But she came in for a haircut and we started hanging out a few months later. She hasn’t been in the city for too long (almost 2 years) and is up for anything at any time. She is one of my most energetic and adventurous friends. Also, we get on these giggle rants sometimes where one of us will say something funny/stupid and we spend the rest of our lives trying to make it more funny and more stupid. I love this Amanda Blair.

I met Sarah when we were both assistants at a big salon in Midtown. She was the first person I met on my first day. We found out we lived a few blocks away from each other, and would ride to work together every morning. When I got married, I moved into her building where I still live. She moved out 3 years ago and lives in Brooklyn with her husband. She was my first real friend in the city, which I can’t believe because she is such a “friend catch”. I can go to Sarah for anything and she always, always knows what to say…whether it be comfort, advice, encouragement, anything. She is so small and still has more moxie than anyone I’ve ever met, but she is also somehow sweet as pudding.

I’m lucky to have incredible friends. I have a huge group of wonderful friends that I met through church, some from work, clients, blogging, friends of friends..etc. New York is a huge-small place and I’m always finding I’m connected with my friends in a lot of ways. It’s funny, I have a real life friend forever (wink!) who has been reading my blob for a long time. We realized we had tons of friends in common and that I take classes sometimes at her gym (she’s a fitness instructor), and she knows a bunch of girls who come to my salon. We are friends and text every week!

Q: What are some silly things you do with your friends?

One of my friends and I have ‘Old lady’ nicknames for each other. It’s a jumpstart on our quirky friendship that is bound to get quirkier with age. I’m “Bun” or “Bunny” and She is “Doll” or “Dolly”. We also have diagnosed ourselves and many other people (jokingly) with personality disorders. We concluded that we were both “Histrionics” and so we call each other Hist and Histy.

One of my friends and I sing a song when we see a certain type of dog. Not a specific breed, but just any dog that is ultra fluffy. You know, fluff city! When their fur almost looks like feathers as they trot around happily? Anyway, when we are together and we see a dog like this, we call it a “Muppet Dog” since it reminds us of a fuzzy muppet, and we sing a song that goes “Muppet Doggg-Muppetdog, Muppet Doggg-Muppetdog” and we just sing that over and over again. It’s kind of a race of who can start singing it first when we see a dog. It’s like our version of “slug bug!”. Muppet Dog is pretty silly in my opinion. Also, do I like Muppets? Yes! I grew up watching the Muppets! I’ve seen all the movies except for the Treasure Island one. I think my favorite is the Great Muppet Caper.

Another friend and I make Zombie faces together. And monster noises. It seems really natural and normal when we do it together, but writing it out actually makes me realize that it’s a little batty of us. One time we got sore throats because we talked like monsters nonstop for a whole weekend.

Yay for my NYC friends! Happy.

I love her.

Say, she’s turning 5 in one week.

Anyway, here are some blurry and crappy, but sweet and happy photos of our awake-over. She made me a Mother’s Day card at school.

I love her. I also love that she is still little enough to cradle like a baby. I don’t think she’ll ever be too big to snuggle.

Oh, and a few from Mother’s day.

Happy mother’s day to my own mom and to all the moms out there!

. . . .

I would also like to talk briefly about my post last week. I felt terrible that it might have hurt the feelings of people who have been loving and supportive and wonderful to me and my family. I’m so sorry and my intention was to never make it seem like you’re not welcome here, or that you’re super weird, or that I don’t appreciate you. I do, so very much. My speech came from a place of hurt after finding out that according to the internet, my D defines me (it has been searched with my name more than anything else….my work, my piper, my writing, my personality, my anything). I imagined clients or future employers searching my name and seeing that. It hurts and I felt betrayed and used and that I’m just some juicy drama to the blog friends I thought I had. On top of that, some terrible things were written to me by a few readers. I didn’t reply personally, but instead wanted to make clear by writing that post that I’m not “holding out to gain readers”. I’m happy to have people reading, but I’m not obsessed with growing this blog and I’m certainly not interested in attracting people who just want drama.

Thank you so much for all the sweet comments. I really do love this blog and the wonderful people it’s connected me to.

Hugs and Kisses.

Dance in the Dark-Lady Gaga (sometimes I think I should call this ‘dance in the subway’)
Gimme all your luvin’-Madonna
Party Rock Anthem-LMFAO
We Are Young-Fun
Til The World Ends-Britney Spears
Disparate Youth-Santigold
Comeback Kid-Sleigh Bells
Marathon-Tennis
Whip My Hair-Willow
Moi Je Joue-Brigitte Bardot
Dancing Queen-Abba
Spectrum-Florence and the Machine

These are the songs that give me energy and pump me up to deal with life! I have all sorts of random playlists. I also have a mad one!

Happy weekend and happy Mother’s day.

(ps, do you say mother? mom? or mama? i call mine “mom” when I’m talking about her, but I call her “mama” when I’m with her.)

2. I’m not trying to grow this blob. I wasn’t ever really trying to. I did a few guest posts/interviews a few years ago, but my blog was teensey before that and it never occurred to me that people would come over. I don’t do those anymore because I wasn’t and am still not trying to grow this blob. I don’t have a twitter or facebook for it, and my instagram is set up for hdof. I don’t have business cards, I don’t go to conferences and I don’t tell people about it. It is just here. Read it if you like.

3. You should not read Reagan’s Blob Hooray if you hate me. Think about it, it’s weird. And the biggest way to waste time in the entire history of everything. There is one blog author I really don’t like much and after meeting her a few times in person I realized I double dislike her, so I stopped reading her blog about a year ago. I’ve gone back about twice when I’ve had time to mess around on the computer. Both times it made me feel dirty and awful for wasting the five minutes reading about someone I dislike on purpose. I can’t imagine doing that regularly. It’s healthiest to just stop reading. Also to replace that time-suck with a hobby. I know this is forward but it really is a waste of time and if you are feeling like this might be you let me suggest: hiking, knitting, candle-making, pottery classes, poetry writing, cello lessons, origami, cooking classes, book club…etc. All healthy and worthwhile hobbies.

4. PiperJane doesn’t know how to type. Sorry if you are only reading to keep up with her. I will write about her when I feel like writing about her and never ever ever to please any strangers out in the world. I’m sorry, I know this is blunt, but I don’t care if you like my blob. Stop trying to bully me.

5. I have a life away from the blob. I love you guys, but I spend very little time thinking about this blob. At night or in the morning when I’m fiddling around I write posts. They generally come quite naturally and I don’t spend much time doing this. HDOF yes, but BLOB no. Very little of my life is on this thing in all respects. Parenting, work, friends, family, routine, personality, beliefs, interests, etc.

6. The D is none of your business. OMGosh, stop googling it. Please remember that this is my real life your curiosity is messing with. I understand that I have a public blog and in a sense that means I’m “asking for it”, but I’m still incredibly disappointed and grossed out by what people are doing to my name. I’m a human, a real live human. I’m not writing about the D because: it’s none of anyone’s business, I don’t write to please the public, I don’t care if I have high traffic, it’s personal, it involves multiple people and not just me, and most importantly once again, it’s none of anyone’s business. I will never write about it. Ever. So if you are here hoping to find out what happened, you are never going to get it. Ever. Like, ever. I’m not with-holding a story to keep my readers interested until it’s time to reveal what happened. I will never reveal what happened. Again, because I don’t care if you know or not, no matter how bad you want to know or how many times you search for answers in the search bar. It is not going to make me write about it.

It’s funny, after I posted a photo of a dead baby rat last summer (which was one of the most immature things I’ve ever done and I’m not sorry), people felt it necessary to tell me they were really angry and weren’t going to read anymore, also that they didn’t like my blob, and they were done with me and they weren’t coming to my birthday party. I would read those emails and comments and be like “am I supposed to try and stop you?”. I’ve always written this blob for fun. Sure I have ads, but they reached out to me, it’s no extra effort and especially at this time the extra income is nice. I just don’t understand how people get so up in arms over blogs. Do blogs actually matter in real life?

Guys, it’s weird. Super weird.

PS for those of you who don’t take this blob too seriously and look at it as the fun, silly random blob that it’s supposed to be…Thank You!

I thought maybe I could reach out to y’all for ideas on posts. Sort of like when I did formspring, but this time less forspringy. I was thinking you could leave a comment with a question for me that might make a good future post!

I’m thinking more along the lines of care-free type stuff, like what has been my favorite age with Piperjane, or what is my favorite place I vacationed, or what is my favorite place to buy bras.

Fun, frivolous stuff. I’m afraid I’m just not in the mood for deep.

And, just to be clear, I will not be answering any questions about anything that starts with an J, S or D. Hope you understand!

(photo of me and Jen last night. I went “out”!)

I’ve been lumping this whole thing into clusters of weeks. The first three weeks were when I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. Then there was 3 weeks of nonstop energy, motivation and projects. Now I seem to be in a two week period of going to work, home and to piper’s. Nowhere else. Ever. I’ve lost a lot of the motivation I had a few weeks ago and have a lot of projects currently half finished. I’m watching movies and having friends over and ordering in. I’m wearing yoga pants and singing along to spotify and sweeping the dead leaves off the kitchen floor of the plant that I’ve never been able to remember to water. I’m calling my sisters and texting my friends and coloring in a Japanese coloring book. I’m making big plans for hdof but not posting on it. I’m watching Big Love, Weeds and Strictly Ballroom Netflix. I’m dancing around in my undies and doing lunges down the hall. I’m getting used to living alone and enjoying it. More on that to come.

Reading the above paragraph might sound like this is a sad post, but it’s not sad to me at all. I’m not forcing myself to be a certain way. I’m not forcing myself to go out when I want to stay in. I’m not forcing myself to work when I’d rather do it tomorrow. I’m enjoying this freedom to manage my time how I want, and answer to myself and no one else. I’m reminded every day that this is good.

I wonder what the next cluster of weeks will be like.

I got a very touching email recently from a sweet mother who had a question for me about my moles. This woman’s daughter has become self conscious of her skin because she has moles on her face and is being teased for them at school.  In hopes of understanding and helping her daughter, she asked me how I feel about my many moles and if I was ever teased. Here is what I have to say.

For starters, I don’t remember being teased at a young age for my moles and I think there are two reasons for this. One, I was homeschooled until 8th grade and may have just not been in an environment where that kind of teasing took place. I mean, I’m the 5th out of 6 children and there was definitely teasing going on at home, but I think family teasing is different than friend/classmate teasing because you aren’t as worried about fitting in. And two, I grew up with very nice girlfriends. My friends in Tennessee were and are the most supportive and loving friends in the world and I’m still friends with all of them. They are just good girls…not jealous and not competitive. I was/am very lucky.

However, in the middle of 8th grade, I moved to a small town in southern Utah. I’m not trying to generalize the state of Utah..or even the town, but I had a very rough first few years there. I found that I was suddenly, for the first time in my entire life, surrounded by gossiping and teasing. Most of the girls I knew teased and talked bad about each other and I found myself becoming insecure. I wasn’t ever the prettiest girl in Tennessee (I developed very late which was a big deal in those years) but I never felt bad about it and wasn’t striving to change it. But in Utah, I quickly became really worried about the way I dressed, wearing make up and I started begging my mom for highlights and fake nails. It all started because I didn’t want people to have a reason to tease me. I even remember being teased because I didn’t pluck my eyebrows, when I had never even heard of that before.  If you’ve seen the movie “Mean Girls” it’s a lot like that. You go Glen Coco.

Anyway, yes, I was teased badly for my moles, by both boys and girls. It really hurt my feelings. There was an Austin Powers movie with a character that has a huge mole on his face. It’s kind of a well known scene. Anyway, I watched that movie with a bunch of friends and everyone turned to me during that scene. I felt so uncomfortable and self-conscious. After that, people would quote that scene to me once in a while, it always made me feel bad. I remember another time at a party. I thought I was having a really deep conversation with a good friend of the guy I was dating. He interrupted me to say “Holy **** you are moley”. I still can’t believe how rude that was. I wouldn’t have ever dreamed of saying, “holy crap you’re short for a guy.”

Another one…One of the little girls I nannied asked me why I had “brown cuts” all over my body. That was actually kind of funny.

What I wished I’d known during those years, is that they don’t last forever, or even very long. Those years don’t matter to me at all anymore. If/when someone teased me like that now, I think I’d just feel sorry for them. When you’re young and you get teased, you think it’s because there is something wrong with you. But when you grow up, you realize it is and always was the person teasing others who has something wrong with them. In my experience, this is 100% true. The teasers are the ones who were insecure, and unfortunately they probably still are. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to be the one who was teased instead of the one who did the teasing. I’m not saying I’m anywhere near perfect, and wish I would have had more courage to speak up for myself and others who were teased. I usually just sat there nervously laughing so no one would see how much it really hurt my feelings. I wish I wouldn’t have ever let it get to me, but it always did. On the bright side, I dare someone to do it now.

 I think my skin was always my biggest insecurity and even though it doesn’t bother me as much, it still probably is. I do sometimes wish for flawless skin because on top of my moles, I also have a lot of scars. One on my face from a past abusive relationship, a c-section and two skin cancer surgeries just to name a few of the big ones. I grew to love these scars for being my signs of strength and survival and one day I realized that without my moles I wouldn’t look like myself.  The two on my cheek are some of my most recognizable features, and I actually think they are adorable. I feel like they make me unique and give me character. I hate to think of having had them removed at a young age. They are a part of me just like my hazely-green eyes and my cheesy smile. Like my skin cancer scar, I don’t try to pretend they aren’t there. Maybe the prettiest woman in Hollywood doesn’t have moles on her face or a huge scar on her chest, but by not covering them up I’m hopefully showing that I have more to me, and can have confidence anyway. Because I do.

My parents told me I was beautiful, but they focused more on the importance of me being smart, hard working and good to others. Oh yeah, and funny. I know it probably hurts more than anything to see your children be teased, but it wont last forever. Get them through it by making sure they know how great you think they are, and by making sure the place they come home to is full of joy and love. Real self worth and a stable home are everything.

I wish I had better (or any) advice to go along with my story, but unfortunately the teasing and hurt feelings are a terribly unfair part of life. The good news is that the recipients of teasing grow metaphorical hair on their chests and become awesome people. I can’t say the same for the bullies.

Kisses to little J. Cheek to cheek and mole to mole.

It’s a dancy, upbeat, bouncy song and it has never failed to lift my mood. It’s funny because I don’t know any other music by the guys who sing it, and I don’t even know where I first heard this song. I don’t really listen to the radio, so I’m guessing it was just fate.

Anyway, the song is electronic-y and synthetic-y and has most of the other qualities that I don’t look for in a song. In fact, I feel like the musical instrument in the chorus part is probably a laser beam. But for whatever reason,  it’s my jam.

True stories:
Just nearing 7 weeks ago I was having the worst week of my life. A friend of mine who was checking in on me by the hour asked me to stop by a bday party with her and I agreed in hopes of testing out my skills of “faking ok”. I was friendly and danced, but I was really miserable. Then party rock anthem came on and I didn’t have to fake it anymore. I danced so hard that my shoe broke.

Two weeks ago I was listening to my Happy Girl playlist (which wouldn’t be a happy playlist without that song on it) and I started dancing while getting ready for work. When the song was over, I decided ‘why not bring that one back?’. So I did. I danced so hard I completely lost track of time and was late for work.

here is the song.

(I just watched it and smiled SO BIG the whole time!)

Do you have your own shoe breaking/makes you late for work song?

If I’m being totally honest, there is one word that comes to mind when I think of this blog and it’s…

…awkward.

Meaning, I don’t know how to move forward with it. I try to think of posts to write (which I’ve never really had to do) and they wont come to me. I’ve sat down in front of it blinking my eyes and twiddling my finger several times and nothing comes to me.

Then I eat ice cream for dinner and watch netflix!

also someone tampered with my comment settings and it’s driving me batty.