50 Shades of Shame

I just bought a bathing suit.

This might not seem like a big deal, but it is for me. My current suit– the faded, shapeless, stringy, ragged, dust cloth–has seen better days.

My suit. Incidentally the Shamwow™ spokesman has also seen better days.

In fact its best day was in the year 2000, when I first purchased it. Prior to that purchase, I wore my mother’s bathing suit from the 1980s. I’ve always considered myself somewhat a fashion icon.

I was hoping it would see me through another decade, but alas, that is not possible. My toddler son takes a weekly swimming class, and we are one swim class away from him completely dismantling the top of my swim garment. He is very fond of the clutch-grip-at-the-chest-and-the-yanking-down-to-expose-mom swim stroke. So my new suit is one of armor.

It could be. I wouldn’t know because I didn’t try it on and just purchased blindly from a Land’s End catalog. It should be arriving any day now. If it fits, it will be a miracle.

This incredibly fascinating anecdote is to showcase how much I procrastinate. I feel that once I do something, e.g., go through the humiliation of trying on a bathing suit and suppress the thoughts of others who tried it on before me, then that task has been completed for the remainder of my lifetime, and I can move on to the next horrendous venture.

I weeded that dirt patch I call a garden last year…why, for the love of mulch, must I do it again? I gave birth to the one kid…why, for the love of inappropriate conversations with total strangers, must I go through it again?

I have been keeping 50 Shades of Grey at bay for some time now.

It held as much appeal as a Spam® sundae.

This is also 50 shades of f***ed up.

I don’t want to read it. I really don’t.

But then I click on Renee of Life in the Boomer Lane. She has written about the book in a way that makes me want to read the book, which I think is the exact opposite of her intent.

But today I was like “Oh wow!” and my inner goddess did the salsa with the succubus that took over my soul. If you have read the books, this sentence would make sense. I have not read the books so I am very confused by what I just wrote.

Her first 50 Cents of Rap post appeared in March. I thought “Hmm, sounds awful. No way can I put myself through that. It took days to erase Twilight from my sparkly marbled brain.”

Co-workers and friends began reading it. I would overhear snippets of conversation about  it–“anal fisting. tee-hee!”–but I would tune it out for more important endeavors like fastening another bobby pin to my bathing suit strap.

Just recently Renee compared E.L. James’ prose with the Bible using lines like “My subconscious nods sagely.” And I’m like “Oh wow? What the fuck does that even mean?!?” and then my subconscious nodded sagely, and I was like “Okay! Beat me with a string of anal beads or whatever Christian does so erotically in the book. I need to buy this lump of crap!”

And so it happened.

And my 30 minutes is already up. It took me that long to make my delicious Spam® sundae.