Purple Hazes and Miry Blogs

I woke up looking battered and bruised, as if I had been punched in the face. I guess that's what happens when you fall asleep with your cheek pressed against the "caps lock" and the "shift" keys.

There's not much I can do except wear my two new purple stripes with pride until, hopefully, they fade. The last thing I need is more visible scars. "What the hell happened to your face?" was the greeting I received from a casual acquaintance in Starbucks this morning. My hand immediately flew up to my cheek, although for all I know she was talking about all the new wrinkles and the deep black circles that have sprouted since I last saw her. I told her I slept funny. Luckily, she changed the subject. Otherwise I would have felt compelled to return the meanness, maybe ask her what the hell had happened to her ass (or maybe why she had kept her jeans in the hot dryer too long).

No sooner had I survived the somewhat harsh reaction to my face than I ran into my trainer, who just happens to be a bit more into the whole Christianity and "word of Jesus" thing than your average hedonistic Jew. If he was at all taken aback by my latest shiner, he kept it to himself, flipping instead to a psalm he thought might strike a chord in my sinful heart. "From the Old Testament," he assured me, the one I often refer to as the "real book," the one before they started coming up with all the really outrageous supplementary material. I mean, come on, I can buy into the idea of the evil snake and the toxic woman and the weak man, even burning bushes in the dry desert, but blind faith has its limits.

There are many reasons I don't sit around in the morning reading the Bible, not the least of which is I always forget my reading glasses and the print is so darn small. But I indulged my trainer -- as I always do, knowing that, in return, my next session won't involve the slide board -- and skimmed the short verse. Something about being drawn out of the pit of destruction and planting one's feet securely on some rocks (fair enough); something about singing a new song (oy, I can't even sing old songs) and being lifted out of the miry blog. What??? Miry? My blog? Them's fightin' words. I squinted and looked again. Ohhh. Miry bog. Well okay then, lift away. Just don't ever try to pull my ass out of my blog, even if it means I'm going to hell. I was probably headed there anyway, with all the other fun people.

I am all for being drawn out of destructive pits and miry bogs; life can be exhausting down there. And proud as I may be of all my battle scars, I am kind of hoping the purple bruises on my cheek fade by Monday, when I begin phase two of my life as a retailer, this time at a store called Hot Mama. (Could there be a better venue for me? A more aptly named showcase for my Mrs. Potato Head assets?) Yes, between miry blog posts I will again be donating my time (practically for free, as my skillful negotiation techniques failed to win me a higher wage) to the worthy cause of peddling clothing to the hip mom market. I am hopeful that my stud-like personality and spud-like physique will once again prove to be a winning combination and I will be perceived as indispensable -- at least until someone asks me to clean a toilet. Talk about miry bogs.

Luckily, purple is a hot color these days for hot mamas and fashionistas of all demographics, so it shouldn't be too hard to find an outfit for day one that blends well with my bruises. I normally don't go for "matchy matchy," especially when it comes to my face; otherwise I'd be stuck with a closet full of garments that are wrinkled and sallow. But what the heck? At least purple gives my face -- and the clothes -- a bit of pop, maybe an extra boost out of the pit.