So it’s winter. And that means that the heat is on all the time. And that means that all that heat is forcing all the moisture in the air to, I don’t know, go to Bermuda or something. And not much moisture in the air makes my skin dry. And when my skin is dry, I ITCH. Now, I itch all the time anyway, and I’ve been known to pester James to scratch my back even in the summertime, but in the winter, well, he’s very put upon. The best utensil I ever owned was a bamboo backscratcher. It’s gone now, and boy do I bet James wishes it wasn’t.

I’m always continually slathering on lotion and moisturizer in the winter. I also slather it on my kids. Jocelyn hollers, “LOTION!” when she sees the baby lotion (best baby smell in the world) and comes running, even when she’s hiding behind the chair in her room trying to be invisible until I say, “Where’s JOCELYN?!” She comes running over and lifts up her shirt so she can slather it on her tummy, because really, what’s more fun than slathering goo on your tummy which is then magically absorbed? Actually, that sounds a little scary. If I were a kid, I would be worried about where EXACTLY all that lotion is going.

So. Lotion slathering. The problem with all the dry skin and the lotion slathering, is that there are spots on my body that I cannot reach. Like the very middle of my back. So now not only am I pestering James to scratch my back, and insisting on proper technique and the correct level of hard or soft scratchiness, and no digging, but not too light… Well, now I pester him to scratch my back, and then slather it with lotion. Seriously, you could pour an entire bottle on me and my skin would drink it up like a camel in the dessert. James of course RUNS to wash his hands, lest he have any girly lotiony smell on them. Well, not always, because he has this very strange dry skin right between his fingers that always crack, especially in winter, so sometimes he keeps the lotion on, especially since jergens isn’t that girly smelling.

So the other side effect to all this dry non-moist skin is static electricity. I come to work, and if my clothes are made of certain fabrics (you know, the staticy ones), they STICK to me and it drives me absolutely BATTY. The solution? MORE LOTION SLATHERING!

So I just went into the bathroom, surriptitiously carrying my bottle of Jergens* in with me**, and close myself up in a stall. I pee, while I am waiting for everyone else to leave. It’s usually pretty slow in the bathroom but apparently everyone’s bladders decided they were JUST TOO FULL right at THAT MOMENT and the ladies room had full occupancy in all the stalls. As people flush and adjust their clothing I squirt out a little lotion blob and rub it on an arm, or on a leg, but mostly, I’m just waiting til they clear out so I can pull my arms out of my shirt and slather as much on my back as I possibly can, hoping that if there’s enough lotion on the rest of my back, that little area in the middle where I can’t reach won’t be able to produce much static-i-ness. I feel much better now, but it sure is a pain, all this dryness.

DAMN YOU DRY WINTER AIR!!!

* As I was walking into the bathroom, a guy was walking toward me toward the bathroom also. The women’s and the men’s bathrooms are right next to each other, and he was headed for the men’s, of course. Anyway, he spotted the bottle of lotion in my hand and I couldn’t help feeling guilty, like, I was doing something wrong, carrying lotion into the bathroom. And if it had been reversed, and a GUY was carrying lotion into the bathroom, well. I’d raise my eyebrow. Wouldn’t you? You know you would, and then you’d give him an icy look, like, “I see that lotion, you WANKER.” So it’s good that I was holding the lotion, and not him.

** There is a little bottle of hand lotion already in the ladies room. It is from Mary Kay, and I have never touched it. However, sometimes when I enter, I can tell someone has applied some, because it reeks to high heaven. Why would someone make a lotion have such a strong smell??? It actually reminds me of my mother, because she has a VERY! STRONGLY! SCENTED! HAND LOTION! which she always happens to put on RIGHT before we get into the car, and then you’re stuck in the car with this reeking smell of lotion. It’s not necessarily a bad smell (my mom’s, or the mary kay stuff) it’s just the OVERPOWERING ASSAULT ON THE NASAL CAVITIES that is utterly unbearable, and there is NOTHING you can do to escape. The end.

There are other downsides to all the dryness. James shaved and was looking all sexy personified and I was having some nasty dirty little thoughts and gave him a “mmmhmmmm you know” kiss, but then when he ran his hand over my back, all of a sudden my BACK IS ITCHING LIKE A MOFO. All the horny sexy kissing feelings flee as I insist that he scratch every square inch of my back until it is red and raw and then lather me up like a lesbian mud wrestler. All that itchiness ruins sexy dirty thoughts. Scaliness and sexy just do not go together.

I have never once mentioned the having of the sex and even though the previous paragraph was far from it now I feel weird and must go.

amy runs her fingers through your hair and murmurs, “there there.”

So I ended my marathon of saved up Gilmore Girls the other day, and I have to say, that Alexis Bledel is just stunning, especially with the new ‘do. When she has her hair a certain way, she very reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn. James came into the room, and I had to comment.

me: “Isn’t she beautiful? She sure has grown up.
him: “I wouldn’t toss her out of bed.”
me: “ME NEITHER!”
him: I’M BLOGGING THIS!”

I never was one for school. I mean, I did well in high school, until I kind of figured that a B is nearly as good as an A and I wouldn’t have to work nearly as hard, and then in the classes I liked the A was easy. College was nice for a while, but I lost interest and quit after a couple of years to go be a web developer in Atlanta. James is working full time, and taking 3 classes a semester towards his Computer Science degree. Most of the time, I think of this in terms of how it affect ME! Because you know, I’m the center of the universe! Well, maybe not really, but I need to be sure to leave early enough to pick up both kids on Thursdays because James leaves at 3:30 to go to his two Thursday classes. Mondays he has one class in the evening, so I put both kids to bed myself, and he doesn’t get home until late, often after I’m in bed, if not asleep.

I seriously don’t think I could do what he does. I’m just not that dedicated. To some things, yes, I’m dedicated. I’m dedicated to watching Gilmore Girls, and when our Tivo was out the second week of the new season I made such a stink and woe-is-me faces, that James managed to hunt up a copy for me. I’m very dedicated to my woe-is-me face(s). I’m very dedicated to my sheets. I love nice clean sheets, and when I slip into fresh sheets at night I am just in heaven. When our cats manage to sleep on the sheets instead of on the bedspread, sometimes they track little microscopic pieces of litter in with them and then out comes my woe-is-me face again. James went to a local community college and got his associates degree before transferring to the university. I admire the ability to see what he wants for himself, and get to it. Too much of the time it’s easier to stay in your rut of day in day out and not bother to upset it, especially if it means others have to sacrifice for your sake. I find that my problem a lot. My excuses for not working out usually have to do with not wanting to stick James with the kids alone during that time, as well as wanting to see them myself. Making yourself a priority is always hard, but James saw the value in what he wanted and he’s going after it.

And now, he deals with full time work, part-time classes with which comes lack of sleep, homework EVERY NIGHT, when I know he’d rather be watching Gilmore Girls with ME. OK, maybe not Gilmore Girls, but I’m sure he’d much rather veg out watching tv and playing World of Warcraft.

So now, our life was inconvenienced, but eventually it turned into the new norm. Me picking up the kids when I needed to, us making sure our time together does count, staying up late to talk about what Ethan made at school, or how Jocelyn likes to hide behind the chair in her room, him going to work and then leaving for class EVERY WEEK even though if it were me, I’d leave work like I was GOING to go to class and then come home and watch Gilmore Girls or maybe sleep in the nice clean sheets, or just generally sluff off class because I would just be too tired/fed up/(enter reason here)… And if he keeps at it, it seems like it’s forever now, but he will get there, and have his bachelor’s degree and all the hard work will be worth it.

What I really don’t get, is how he does all this without making the woe-is-me face. Granted, his isn’t nearly as good as mine, but he never gives it a workout like I do. He is patient, hard-working, a good daddy, and a wonderful husband. Sometimes I can’t beleive that I was lucky enough to be attracted to him, and then lucky enough to marry him. Little did I know what a great deal I was getting. He even remembers to make the bed most of the time so he doesnt’ have to see the woe-is-me-there’s-bits-of-gross-litter-on-my-sheets face.

My husband amazes me.