spanked.

I'm behind in telling you what I did on Tuesday night - not because I've been overwhelmed at work or busy with after-work activities.

Quite the opposite, actually.

I'm just not sure how to, in the most G-rated-parent-friendly-please-don't-judge-me way, tell you that I went to see Spank!, The Fifty Shades Parody.

Because in telling you about the musical, I would also then have to tell you that I have read Fifty Shades of Grey.

I’ve actually read the entire trilogy.

I should also probably mention that my book club gets together at least once a month, but thanks to a crappy work schedule and general laziness, I think this is the only the second time in a year I've attended any book club activities.

I’ve passed on opportunities to read and chat about great books like, The Art of Fielding, Cutting for Stone, Unbroken, but someone says, Fifty Shades of Grey-anything – and I’m all in. The girls in the book club that I don’t know that well, which, let’s face it, is most of them, probably think I’m either stupid and/or a huge creep since in the last year I’ve shown up just twice – once to discuss The Hunger Games and this week to watch a play that makes fun of the pop culture pornography book.

I must, must, must go to next month’s book club meeting – aside from wanting to prove I’m actually capable of reading a real book and discussing it intelligently, the girls in my book club are fun, and good company.

Assuming you all have better taste than me, and haven’t read the books and have no interest in the play, I’ll spare you the scene-by-scene recap. But Spank! spoofs the ridiculously stupid and poorly written book that uses endless gratuitous sex scenes to try and distract the reader from the annoying characters set in unrealistic scenarios.

E.B. Janet, instead of E.B. James, is the author, a middle-aged woman highly unsatisfied in her “personal” (read: sex) life, taking an advantage of her husband and child’s weekend away as an opportunity to write a sexy novel. Enter Hugh Hanson (aka Christian Grey) and Tasha Woode (aka Anastasia Steele) and the play develops as a humorous reenactment of everything about the book that made me want to quit reading it.

If you’d read the book, I highly recommend going to see Spank! You will chuckle, if not at the actors than definitely at the mostly female, middle-aged, southern audience and the five men squirming in their seats after being dragged to the show by the women in their lives.

Also, since my big secret is out (I read mommy porn and went to see a play about it) I feel compelled to tell you that I cried last night watching the series finale of The Office.

Though I’m in agreement with most that it wasn’t the same after Steve Carrell, the show still made me laugh and I watched it fairly regularly. I know it was time for it to end, but I sincerely loved the characters, I loved the actors who played the characters, and I love that the talented ensemble cast was relatively obscure before landing their roles and they were all rooting for each other and for the show from the beginning.

(Kate Flannery "Meredith" sums it up perfectly.)

I’m not sure if those feelings about a television show are healthy or normal or that they justify crying.

But when Andy Bernard (aka Nard Dog) said, "I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you've actually left them,” the tears were flowing.

I admit it.

Hope you're weekend is full of equally embarrassing entertainment.  Please tell me what you've got going on.

happy mommies day.

My Facebook feed is already starting to fill up with tributes for Mother’s Day – friends have changed their profile pictures and updated their statuses to deliver words of praise for the women who brought them into the world and raised them right.

I’m headed home this weekend to celebrate my own brave mama.

Besides just being thankful to be her daughter, there is even more to celebrate this year – namely, her improving health and new, twisted sense of humor.



When I was a child, Mother’s Day was all honoring MY mother – and since I’m not yet a mother myself, it mostly still is. But since my friends have begun embarking on the adventure of motherhood, I’ve noticed a shift from just celebrating my own mother to instead celebrating all women who hold that title.

I am a surrogate aunt to all of these beauties (and more) – enjoying, from a safe distance, watching my crazy friends learn how to parent and succeeding with flying colors.

What an entertaining show it has been.



In many ways, their mothering looks like it did when we used to "play house" – my friends live in nice homes; their offspring are healthy, happy, well-behaved children with cool names and good hair.

But unfortunately, along with the highly entertaining and often humorous narrative of my friends’ adventures in raising a family, has also come unexpected struggles of infertility, miscarriages and challenges to adopt.

Heartbreaking realities that never surfaced when we played house.

I haven’t ever felt the strong desire of wanting to be a mother - if there is such a thing as a biological clock, I think someone turned mine off. But sometimes it feels like a cruel joke the universe is playing – when loving people, who have so much to offer a baby, can’t have one.

"If I knew it was going to be this hard for me to get pregnant," one of my girlfriends once said to me, "I could've saved myself a lot of freak outs over pregnancy scares!  I could’ve been having casual sex all over town!"

My friend was kidding, of course, but struggling to have a baby isn’t funny at all. It’s devastating.

So while spending this Sunday with my own awesome (albeit, a little crazy) mom, thanking God she's on a fast road to recovery, I will also be spending special prayers and good vibes to the women who ache to be mothers and who every day, patiently wait for it to be their turn.

I’ll also think about the Newtown moms, the Boston moms, and all of the moms who might feel sad on Sunday – thinking about children they lost to senseless acts of violence.

And I’ll celebrate the mothers who excel at the most difficult job there is - performing miracles for their children daily.

Happy Mother's Day from me!

And Triangle Sally (aka Kristen Wiig), who like me, is not a mother, but is amazing and wonderful and awesome.

She's hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend - in case you were wondering what I was doing on Saturday.