Wetting Your Home Husks

Ingredients for this My Time: Old places, new feelings, old drinks, new hangovers.

Well, Honey, I finally made it. I'm back in the country called Midwest. And you know how I got here? I DROVE. With my feral manx beside me at every turn of Interstate 40, sleeping while I had to "keep myself awake"

I drove for two days, leaving Malibu-Lite, where I only had memories to, well, remember. Memories like my mother smoking a cigarette in front of a fire truck while only wearing underwear, as if the lights signalling danger were her personal disco balls. Memories like hiding hiding various kinds of wipes all over the house we shared as a family so that I could always feel safe. Memories like asking my mother at least 30 times to return the Gucci 1998 shoulder-padded shirt she "borrowed" from me. Memories like driving from LA until I hit my halfway point, my escape that I always seem to return to,

and then arriving to a place that strangely, beautifully felt like home in a way it never has for me before.

Ah, Missouri. My mini-mansion awaited me with open, creepy arms, and the local Taco Bell had almost gone out of business without my charity. One night to celebrate my return WITH EXTRA LETTUCE OKAY a knife fight started in the parking lot, but being the industrious, elegant woman that I am, I simply locked my 'Uar (that's my Jaguar) doors, closed the window that allowed for so much communication between me and the lovely man on the other side of the speaker, and folded my arms. I waited out the knife fight until I got my items.

that's right. It's about my Taco Bell

Look, Honey, sometimes a lady gets so excited that she needs to wake up with iceberg lettuce between her breasts as a reminder of her joy and her mistakes, which are often one and the same.

Now, more importantly that I'm home and feeling all these confusing home feelings, like, why is communication in the Midwestern country so confusing, I get to be home. That last sentence is called circular, Honey. And my birthday is coming up, which means either stab myself AGAIN instead of letting Dr. Rommelstein stab me with the botox needle, or: have an elegant affair for the community where we raise money for the most important local causes that effect women.

Ha ha I kid! You think that I'm one of those hateful, unintelligent rich persons who spends time talking about wombs and making opinions on what I think wombs should be able to do. But the truth is, Honey, when I think about a womb it is only my own.

Much like the drought during corn sex season that the Midwest is facing, my womb is all husk, and no place for anyone's opinion. The dessicated core of who I am, female, has been in a drought for some time, and when a woman faces such husky conditions, she can only work to lubricate her surrounding parts that she may walk in the water of life-bearer metaphysically. What doth female bear? Well, enough lubrication to assure others that she, of all people, certainly should not be a life-bearer.

So what should we do for my birthday? If the options are suicide or shoulder pads, you know it's a hard one for me to decide. If you haven't been here, Honey, you don't know the competition in the upper echelons of society to be constantly nice but not warm, talking but not communicative, friendly but not invasive. It's confusing, and after so many divorces your little Daggy can't just pile of the settlement money and make it communicate for her. So, what does she do? Well, she's frank. But the anxiety such forwardness promotes in me even in asking a lovely young person over to dinner. It's like with every turn if you are a bawdy YET TOTALLY CLASSILY RAD lady,

 you want to scream, "don't worry, I seriously mean to hang out and be buds and I'm totally not trying to sleep with you or make you uncomfortable by trying to hang out, I just like friends and you seem nice and if you think I'm a weirdo it's cool look I'm already over there bye." I mean, why can't we all just roll around on my recently cleaned carpet like tigers and stroke each other's hair and lick each other's paws? That's not inappropriate, right? That won't provoke anxiety, right? Ok ok ok, the truth is, Honey, I feel sometimes. It's confusing when my prescriptions run out and I'm home yet don't really know what it means to not have a home in this world yet, and I want affirmation that comes from human contact. Or animal contact. The truth is I just want to purrrr in sync with some others and roll around on the floor surrounded by a protective circle of selenite rocks and salt. I know as a rich woman that this is not too much to ask, so my goal is trying to be less nervous about things like desire, needs, and purring. I'm a dramatic woman who enjoys a good swoon now and again

and like Dr. Analyst tells me, if you are going to be a TRUTH BEARER,

 you have to have less nervousness about speaking the truths you truthilly speak. You have to toughen up if you're going to be so tough on yourself, and loosen up if you are going to be a lose whore. You know who you are.

Honey, a lady is always triumphant, thus will be my shoulders on the night Leo meets Virgo and I WET MY HUSKS.

With lubrication and (pretend) love,
your Daggy.


PS--god, the things I try to think about and the extent to which I avoid my charity work when I'm having one of "mommy's headaches."

You Know It's Been Awhile When...

Inspired by Joey Lawrence joining CHIPPENDALE'S, and can we PLEASE mention how smug he is acting in interviews about it? Dude, you're the "whoa" guy. That's your claim to fame. Deal with it.
Me on the other hand, Honey, I'm fam-us for my games. Emotional, sexual, card and dice, I'm always game. Ha ha see what I did? I used a word as a noun and as an adjective-like thing. That's an adjective, right? Or. Wait. That's another noun, a state of being. Ha ha who am I kidding? I HAVE NO state of being. I'm all adjectives without a noun to associate the characteristics with. Let's play a game.

First, let's prepare for the game. After days of not eating due to an illness caught in Mexico NO IT'S NOT HEP C I've been, as ladies like to say with their calories, "catching up." I have DIET cheese and crackers in front of me, a lazy too-rasiany tasting Italian red in my glass, and a stupid food show on the television that I am inhaling because it's like celery--negative calorie intake. Can you imagine that? Celery is like negative calories. It is truly God and God's other at the same time.

Now, here's a fun game. It's called Shame. I'll start.

You Know It's Been Awhile When...

you put on mascara before going to get a massage.

you have more than one kind of bubble bath in your bathing area.

a man as gay as a unicorn with a rainbow mane and a black leather studded saddle grabbing your breasts made you feel funny

you call your cat "my lover, my baby"

YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT BEING IN YOUR 30S WITH NO MONEY, NO PROSPECTS, SUPPORT BRAS, AND BACK ACHES

you are making a list about your lack


NOSE HAIR!!!!

you spread out on your bed and sigh every night

you hold your Mr. Knife tight under the pillow

you hold a selenite orb in your left hand and act as conduit

you are more magickal because of the last time you weren't in lack

you are watching television without worrying if YOUR SMART LOVER IS JUDGING YOU because, well, you don't have one

you found a line on your face that you think looks cool

you don't care as much what you look like anymore

you worry about dying, sure, but you aren't worried about forcing it

eh, you're fine, so have another drink, because NO ONE IS JUDGING YOUR LACK OF MODERATION, and deal with this, you fucking freak who's having a good time with your games

Letting Yourself Go: True/False for Adult Women

Ingredients for this My Time: your 20s, your...later years...and everyone else's 20s.

You know, recently the Angelina Jolie Leg Controversy has got me thinking. What must it be like to have an adult life and legs of a baby praying mantis. She's beautiful, of course, but still, not a muscle on her. Also, it got me thinking about wanting to wear a short skirt, of course, and show off my own ham hocks to the Jolie insect legs. Then I thought, how many  times we women proclaim, Oh Legs! Everyone's genetics are different (of course) and we all have our genetic challenges. Yet, it occurred to me that as me and my girlfriends get older, for the most part, we care less about our genetic challenges. Being in alimony case after alimony case can really make one gain perpective: it's about the money, not the body. When you have the money, you can always wear the Valentino bikini, no matter what. And if I had a mess of kids whose names I can't remember, I would pop my leg non-stop

you own that shit hard. it's yours, it's insured.

Oh Honey, you know I won't judge you. Take comfort in the fact that I simply don't have it in me to care about you enough to judge you. I'm full with other things. So if you want to put on the bikini from when you were 18 and had abs, do it. Your tits may have dropped several inches, your ass might have dimples that a healthy baby couldn't match, and you might be living purely on maniacal hope at this point, but whatever. You know what, I've been there. In many ways, after my most recent divorce--no no, the fucking classy man, not Rodrigo

I'm there. Oh, Rodrigo, that Latin beast who was always like, Dagmar, you're so rich, why don't you donate to these starving villages in Guatemala and I was like, Rodrigo, everyone's starving for something, baby, which is why you're here and why when you're not here, something else is.

Honey, let me be open with you. If I tell you some of the scandaliso! things I've done, you'll surely feel better about how disgusting you are. Right now in the cultural mecca I'm living in, Missouri, there's a fabulous annual charity event called True/False happening. A part of this event is to watch things called "documentaries" or "nonfiction films" and sit in the dark. Lonely, isn't it? Well, your little Dag' decided to make the most of darkness. What did I do, you ask? Well, honey, I pulled out a mini-skirt that I hadn't worn even in my first marriage it is so old. I crossed my legs this way and that, cross, uncross, pop left, pop right, leg leg leg! I was on fucking fire. In the dark. Of course I had on my turquoise, selenite, shells, and mother of pearl. I was fucking shiny and one fire in the fucking dark.

But, Honey, you know what? Darkness usually doesn't last forever. So I emerged into the light. There was a mirror. What did I see? Under-eye bags, cellulite, and dimpled knees. And still, I had a ball to attend, sure to be filled with beauties of all shades (but generally one size and age-range). What could an elegant woman do? Now listen to me, Honey, because this is important. So, what could an elegant woman do?         

   Fucking suck it up and pop it out

That's right, Lovers, sometimes you have to be an adult. And sometimes being an adult is drinking beer LITE and looking at all the beauties around you in their 20s, nay with even one marriage or a spoken need or an reverent orgasm under their belt, and remember, you had those abs when you were "modeling." Your tits used to look toward God. Your skin was smooth and supple. Your hair was a lioness's mane. You posed by a lone sandal and still, and still, you looked "amazing."

ok, maybe you never didn't have cellulite...but your face was less fat

And now, sure, you don't look as amazing. You have lines, indents, those "yoga poses" you used to get into don't quite work because you can't twist that way when you have a roll (or two) around your mid-section. Your hair has faded. Years of mourning, love, loss, hope, and effort you have embodied.
You feel like, like,

You in your long sweater. Your baggy skirt. Swilling beer because that'll help your stomach's Ab Situation, won't it? Well, honey, I'm here to tell you. Last night for this True/False thing that's really quite amazing, I felt amazing in my mini-skirt. Even if I didn't look it. I was an adult, I sucked it up, and I popped by amazonian thighs to the left to the right pop pop boom bitches out of my way, I don't have to show my ID at the bar, pop left pop right go outside in the wind pop pop. Sure, I saw a recent FunMistake who was speaking to young, beautiful women, but then I remembered, what did I tell him in the bedroom?

I may have wanted to snort some of his skin cells to see if they'd regenerate my own, but I certainly didn't want him to talk to me. Who did I want to talk to about sex and philosophy? My girlfriends. So we hoisted on our elastic pants, got a bucket of margaritas, and quesobrated.

queso plus celebration= quesobration

We ate the shit out of some cheese dip.  In sunglasses and trench coats of course, because we are old enough to have shame, after all. I JOGGED AND DID YOGA BEFORE, OK? But you know what I never consumed when I was younger? Queso. Rarely an alcoholic bev. Sugar. Oil of any kind. Fats. And with my abs and hot body, you know what I never had? An acknowledgment that my young, healthy, awesome body was even awesome. Insecurity plagued me. I could have ONE MORE AB I thought. Thank god I got over that. I may have missed out on another hubby while I was shoveling the delicious beige dip in my face, but let me tell you, Honey, you see those indents in your thighs more than any man will because he doesn't look close enough. He's too busy thinking about all the important, existential things he has to do in his Man Forest. Unless he's gay, of course. Then he'll judge you to the floor but get queso with you afterward because he was most likely a fat girl on the inside when he was a child (holla, my gay hubby, JRT!).

As a famous burlesque dancer I know says, "I'm going to swing these tassels until my tits hit the floor." God bless that woman. And god bless being an adult. I still have those abs, they're just hidden under...other stuff. And one thing I have now that I never had then is the ability to not be scared of who I am, who I'm becoming, what I need, and what I want. Right now, between husbands, Honey, I'm trying to take myself lightly and my path seriously. And god bless the women who have joined me in adulthood who do the same.

we see your punches, Life, and we punch back. Coordinated, too.

These big round shoulders are going out again tonight, and they won't be alone.

Happy True/False, ladies, I hope it's an amazing affair, even if your genetics don't keep your tits pointed toward god. Who wants to be simply our parents, anyway? Let's show those "nonfiction films" some nonfiction body. Suck it up, pop it out. Left. Right. Queso pop! Beer lite pop! Adult body pop!

a reminder that all images are copyrighted by dagmar ottenham and her nonfiction creator. unless of course they are borrowed google images, which possibly have their own copyright.

Ah, The Lovely Mornings of God

Ingredients for this My Time: Taco Bell, Netflix account, your owned damned body

Oh Honey, it's OK, no one knows. No one is here except you and your cat. BECAUSE YOU'RE ALONE, YOU DISGUSTING WENCH. Ahem, I mean, because you are a feminist and don't need anyone except strong shoulder pads!

So when you wake up and realize that Taco Bell bits are scattered in your bed, and beside you sits the evidence bag and a bottle of hot sauce, just throw them away, worry about the sheets later, and climb back into bed. Clearly you had a long night after running into a recent-past lover while you were drinking tequila alone at the rock show where he excused himself to "bring drinks to friends" and you screamed (on the inside) "I HAVE FRIENDS, TOO"

so give yourself a break. You DESERVE IT. You can clean your 5,600 count cotton sheets and not-yet-released Macbook 17 (with beans on it) streaming Law and Order reruns later.

If you don't remember eating it, clearly the calories don't count, do they?! Go back to sleep. You still have your mascara and lip stain on, so you look fabulous--if you died right now upon passing out--I mean, falling back asleep--you'd be a specimen of perplexing feminist perfection. Just your naked body with shoulder pads attached, and your gorgeous, never-a-bean-did-smear-lipstick painted, dead face.

(btw, google predicted that after I typed "beautiful dead" that the next word I would type would be "woman," and just so you know, apparently everyone and their maid wants to see "beautiful dead women" because not only do you get thousands of real photos of these women--clearly of the lower classes and grade D celebrity kind, but you get thousands of alive women posing dead with perfect lipstick on. Isn't technology amazing?! We're all so lucky to live in this world we've created!)