I May Be Clinically Insane

As I began to regale the just-arrived-home Baron with the tales of my day (hey - he asked), there occurred a weird phenomenon.

You know the one. Where you're having a conversation with someone while simultaneously having an internal conversation with yourself about said conversation. But your mouth is on about a 3.2 second delay. And the alarms start to go off like a McGruber bomb-dismantling.

To Baron: "...Blah, blah, blah, and then she called me to arrange for me to take her shopping..."

* BEEP * BEEP * BEEP * BEEP *

To self: "Do you really want to keep going into this? Because the more details you're spewing out, the more you're sounding like some lunatic whose been left by herself for a week with no one to talk to except the dog...(which is, in fact, completely accurate)"

Other self: "Oh, shut up. He wants to know. He'll see the humor in it all."

Still other self: "...Or will he? Are you sure he won't be fighting the urge to roll his eyes AND do any one of his many versions of the 'I Told You So' dance?"

To all selves: "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!!!!"

Screw it. I told him everything.

I think I was secretly hoping that my brain convolutions would either:
a) tire him out,
b) mildly amuse him,
c) make him feel all protective (because his wife is clinically insane and needs sheltering from the cruel world), or
d) all of the above.

Here's what happened.

One of my dearest friends has a daughter that is 'graduating' from Junior High to Senior High School. There's the ceremony, and also a dinner/dance.

The dress has been bought, but I offered to take the beautiful young graduate shoe shopping. There is nothing like bonding with your crazy auntie over some seriously funky shoes. My friend loved the idea, offered it up to Young Countess Sadie, who then texted me to arrange for a time.

We agreed on Saturday afternoon, and that was that.

I must admit that things like are kind of like performance art for me. The daughter is expecting me to be some force-of-nature whack-a-doodle with just enough of a foothold in reality to drive a car , know my way around a shoe store, and pay for lunch.

I do not disappoint.

It took me quite some time to find just the right outfit - I had to look sassy, and the footwear had to be nothing short of inspirational. I had to have street cred. You know, so when I tried to sell a savvy 13 year old on something non-lucite and marginally age-appropriate, she would truly believe that I knew of what I spoke, unequivocally.

Yeah, about that.

Most of my 'inspirational' footwear is good only in about 10 minute increments: from the parking lot to the restaurant, from the table to the washroom and back, to the front door at the end of the evening as the Baron fetches the car.

My sassy footwear is anything but practical. I'm sure that when I'm a wildly famous essayist/talk show hostess, I'll be able to match complete comfort with style; for now, this combo comes at a steep price.

For now, style and comfort are only vaguely related. Sassy shoes currently work as long as there is neither blood shed nor non-sassy wincing.

After trying on nearly every pair of shoes in my wardrobe, I settled on a yummy pair; summery, happy colors, jute-coveredwedge heel, surprisingly comfortable. I could possibly roam the mall in these.

Only one problem - they were peep-toe and I did not have painted toes. We all know that a naked toe peeping through a peep-toe is not worth even a first glance.

Well, hell. I'd have to quickly paint my nails.

I was actually going to be on time for a change. Hair - done. Clothes to compliment sassy shoes - selected. Cloven hooves - painted.

And then it all fell apart, as I went to put the hoof paint away and proceeded to spill the bottle ALL over - the floor, the edge of the tub, the bathmat. What a f&$@%$# mess.

And then it got all over my hands as I tried to wipe it up. And when I used the nail polish remover, I started dripping on my just-lacquered toes. And when I went to correct that, I smudged them into a fantastic state of disrepair and got more polish on my hands trying to clean THAT up. How g.d. inspirational am I?

The best laid plans, people.

As it turned out, young girlfriend fell ill sometime during the morning and had to cancel while I was still busy making my magic.

My black, crazy magic.

Maybe it's better this way.