Do you know what I’ve discovered? Very few of us see ourselves as we really are. What I mean is that we’ll get dressed on any given workday or club night, using up most of Earth’s resources (shaving, blow drying, primping, spritzing, and coiffing) to present what we think is our awesome selves to the world.
Image pinned by Ingssparkf.com on Pinterest
The problem is that it’s a rare soul who will give his or herself a 360 review to make sure we look as good “going,” as we do “coming.” A couple of weeks ago as my husband, WW (“White and Wonderful”), was checking out his new Brooks Brothers suit (navy blue and pinstriped, Swarovski crystal cuff-links, perfectly coiffed, combed-over hair, and blue-swirled Jerry Garcia tie), he glanced back at the mirror with his finger tips interlocked to catch a quick proud glimpse of his ass. Low and behold—he had ripped his pants. What you must understand to process this story at its proper level is what my husband sees when he looks in the mirror at his ass. WW does not see a sixty-year-old balding, in-need-of-a-tan and could lose twenty pounds white dude with a bit of a tummy—my man sees himself as David Beckham!
David Beckham||image courtesy of H&M Pants mirrorco.uk
Which is why when I announced that the pants would never be the same because the rip was against the grain of the fabric, and the repair job would leave a noticeable line across his derrière, he summarily announced: “That’s okay—I’ll just leave my suit jacket on because there are only certain people I would ever allow to look at my ass and gaze at its splendor, anyway!” (ALL RIGHTY NOW!) Apparently, my approbation about how handsome he still is (he is; his ass just doesn’t look like Beckham’s, that’s all) after all the years we’ve been married has gone just a tad bit to his head. I think my husband now believes his own press!
But at least WW checks out his ass to make sure it is as together as his front. I simply “assume” my ass is keeping up with the rest of me. So when I wore my problematic scarf skirt to work recently (WARNING: this wardrobe item is demon-possessed), I should have followed my husband’s lead and checked out my behind before I left the office bathroom on the executive floor of my company.
CLOSE ENOUGH PICTURE OF DEMONIC SKIRT||Image courtesy of eBay
Yeah, if you’re a woman you guessed it: a full range of demonic scarf ends were tucked into my panty hose leaving my ass fully exposed to the air for every Tom, Dick, Harry, EVP and Board member to see as they trundled to and from their respective meetings. No one said anything because I have no idea if anyone saw. I felt the breeze of the air conditioner against my ass and that made me reach behind my back to discover that my tuckus was on full display and keeping company with the air. As I moonwalked my way into the bathroom at a speed that would have impressed Michael Jackson, I could only thank God that I was wearing my “granny panties” that day. (HEY—ABSOLUTELY NO JUDGMENT FROM YOU BITCHES—IT’S ALL RELATIVE! BETTER THE VIEW OF GRANNY PANTIES THAN “THE VIEW” OF MY GRANNY ASS IN A THONG—YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYIN’?)
Image courtesy of jonnascheezeburger.com
When I told WW about the incident, he had little sympathy for me and said: “You’ve got to always check your ass—don’t you know that?” At which point my response was . . . (well, it’s not printable here).
Because I was so raw from the experience of falling for “believing my own press” that I looked as good in the back as I did from the front without getting back-end mirror confirmation, I began researching online to see if others had suffered my fate. Besides having my computer bombarded with images I’ll never be able to erase from my brain, it didn’t take me long to find other sisters in my rump sorority (famous and not so famous), whom I’m thinking of sending knee-length T-shirt cover-ups to keep in their purses for emergency use with the slogan: “Leggings are never, ever, pants and never have been. Obviously, you didn’t look in the mirror at your ass before you left home this mornin’ or you’d know that!”
Kim Kardashian||Image from leggingsjustforsneaks.wordpress.com||Kim looked only at her face this day and assumed her ass was good to go—Not!
Wearing flesh colored tights as pants: “Don’t do it—don’t ever do it!” Image from betterstyled.com
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I discovered half-way through my search on Google for stories of offending asses (I’m going to need an Exorcist to purge my computer after this), that this ass quest, like all journeys, was meant to be a spiritual experience (work with me here). So I had a “SELAH” moment (what Oprah calls an “A-ha” moment). This is the word I use to proclaim my “Eureka” awakenings. (SELAH—a Hebrew word that is found at the ending of verses in Psalms that basically means: pause, meditate on this, and learn.)
ET’s SELAH MOMENT: All of us (kings, queens, rich, poor, celebrities, and everyday peeps) are one exposed-ass event from disaster, because we humans tend to believe our own press. We write the “fake” copy, we post it on our own mental online resumes, and then we swallow the lie about who we say we are—hook, line, and sinker, so that on any given day, we keep lying about ourselves when the truth would sound better. In our hubris, we don’t bother to look in the mirror to see if “these things be true,” or if our asses are flapping in the breeze.
Just this week Rielle Hunter (John Edwards’ mistress—talk about a guy who believed his own press to a fault) released a book about her affair with Mr. Edwards. She wants us to believe her memoir that states she’s simply a mom whose life in the media spotlight has taken a toll. “I’m not a mistress — I’m a mom,” Reille protested over and over again on the parade of talk shows she visited to hawk her memoir.
Rielle Hunter||theatlanticwire.com
Ms. Hunter, I don’t want to judge you or nothin’, but you might want to check your ass in the mirror and see what is written on it: “Stole another woman’s husband who had kids, had his baby, lied about it, and continued to sneak around with him while his wife was dying of cancer.” Psst: I think the definition of that is “Ho,” not Mom.
And then on the same day, I read about a sweet little intern at the Wall Street Journal, Liane Membis, who got fired for lying about faking her sources. Apparently she’s a reigning beauty queen, graduated from Yale with a double major, wrote copious articles for the Yale Daily News, as well as posts for CNN and Huffingtonpost.com. At this point, everything she has ever written since kindergarten is being called into question and scrutinized for lies.
Liane Membis||Image from stockmarketwatch.com
Oh, Liane Baby—you in trouble girl. I feel badly for you, and I’m cutting you a little slack because you’re young, and you worked for a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch (being near that spurious spirit of a human being probably poisoned the water you drank). But in the end, you’re a free agent, and you’re responsible for your own actions. I’m glad you’re learning the lesson from this debacle early in your life. You can recover from this (you won’t ever work in journalism again, so get over it; in fact, I suspect even your grocery lists will remain under scrutiny for the rest of your life). But the first step you have to take is to look in the mirror and read the two words on your ass: Jayson Blair. Look him up. You might even want to pay him a visit and get some counseling from his certified life coaching firm. He has definitely walked a mile in your shoes.
BREAKING NEWS: On June 29th, Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise announced they were getting a divorce after barely six years of marriage. Yet, just back in May, Tom had told Playboy Magazine that he loved his wife as much now as he did when they first married. I guess the interviewer should have delved further and said: “But can she stand being married to you?”
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes||Image courtesy of makems.com
Tom Cruise, I have been watching you, lo these many years. There is just something that doesn’t ring true about you. Ever since you inappropriately jumped up and down on Oprah’s interview couch declaring your “undying love” for Katie and did the swooning kiss pose on the red carpet (I don’t trust people who suck face in public), I’ve been wondering about you. I know this is none of my business, and I should probably get a life, but I’m going to give you some advice anyhow, because . . .well, this is my blog and I can. Put on your costume from “Risky Business,” check out your tidy-whities in the mirror and repeat the saying written on them with me: “Me thinks thou doeth protest too much.” Then go get yourself some counseling that doesn’t involve that weird Scientology (Baby, it doesn’t take a guru to see that religion ain’t workin’ for you), and find out why you can’t keep a wife.
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“Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.”—Luke 12:2 – 3/The Message
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”— Abraham Lincoln
“The truly scary thing about undiscovered lies is that they have a greater capacity to diminish us than exposed ones. They erode our strength, our self-esteem, our very foundation.” ― Cheryl Hughes
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“Every person in America has done or said something that would keep him or her from being president. Maybe a nation that consumes as much booze and dope as we do and has our kind of divorce statistics should pipe down about ‘character issues.’”
“… in our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.”—P.J. O’ROURKE — American political commentator/novelist
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