Zoe vs. My Quest for Perfection. AND I'M IN A NEW BOOK! I JUST WANT TO BE PERFECT

I just want to be perfect. Is that too much to ask? Considering I've been asking that question forty-plus years, you'd think I'd have my answer by now. Especially since this blog is a catalog of one humbling experience after another.

Thing is, if I did somehow become perfect, I'd have little to talk about! And who likes perfect anyway? The ability to laugh at oneself is one of the qualities I look for in friends. Furthermore, I enjoy telling stories where I'm the butt of the joke. In the mood for some schadenfreude? Well, I'm the schadenfreudiest.

Before having Zoe, I thought any child of mine would think I was perfect, at least for a few years. But it seems my daughter was born with an innate awareness of Mommy's imperfections, often feeling the best time to point them out is as I reach for a can of artichokes on the top shelf at the supermarket. "Mommy, you're short. And your shirt's moving up. . . . You've got a big tummy."

Getting called out in the local Foodtown for being a fatty was part of the reason I decided I needed to get in shape, and naturally, as a mom in her forties, I chose MMA. Because it's not too late to be a superhero.

I wrote about it in my essay "White Mamba," which is included in I Just Want to Be Perfect, fourth in the New York Times bestselling series that began with I Just Want to Pee Alone. Here's a snippet:

Put together by blogger, humorist, and editrix extraordinaire Jen Mann from People I Want to Punch in the Throat, I Just Want to Be Perfect brings together 37 hilarious women writers, all sharing their personal stories of striving and coming short to hilarious and heartwarming effect. Here they are:

Jen Mann - People I Want to Punch in the Throat / I Just Want to Pee Alone

Bethany Kriger Thies - Bad Parenting Moments

Deva Nicole Dalporto - MyLifeSuckers

Julianna Wesby Miner - Rants From Mommyland

LOLA LOLITA - SammichesPsychMeds / MockMom

Kim Bongiorno - Let Me Start By Saying

Alyson Herzig - The Shitastrophy

Kathryn Leehane - Foxy Wine Pocket

Harmony Hobbs - Modern Mommy Madness

Erin Dwyer Dymowski - Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

Tara Wood - Love Morning Wood

Kelcey Kintner - The Mama Bird Diaries

Lisa René LeClair - Sassypiehole

Joelle Wisler - Joelle Wisler, Writer

Christine McDevitt Burke - Keeper of The Fruit Loops

Meredith Spidel - The Mom of the Year

Meredith Gordon - Bad Sandy

Nicole Leigh Shaw - NicoleLeighShaw.com

Allison Hart - Motherhood, WTF?

Jennifer Lizza - Outsmarted Mommy

Suzanne Fleet - Toulouse and Tonic

AK Turner - Vagabonding with Kids

Robyn Welling - Hollow Tree Ventures

Ashley Fuchs - The Malleable Mom

Kim Forde - The Fordeville Diaries

E.R. Catalano - Zoe vs. the Universe

Chrissy Woj - Quirky Chrissy

Stacey Gill - One Funny Motha

Wendi Aarons - wendiaarons.com

Jen Simon – jensimonwriter.com

Janel Mills - 649.133: Girls, the Care and Maintenance Of.

Jessica Azar - Herd Management

Susanne Kerns -The Dusty Parachute

Audrey Hayworth - Sass Mouth

Hedia Anvar - Gunmetal Geisha

Christine Organ - christineorgan.com

Shya Gibbons - ShyaGibbons

Buy it here, read it everywhere, and then feel free to join the fun. Share your own epic fails on Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag #IJWTBP and/or on the I Just Want to Pee Alone Facebook page.

Though I imagine I'll always be a perfectionist when it comes to some areas of my life, for the most part I enjoy celebrating the imperfections. Because it's part of what makes us human. Nothing brings us together like sharing our struggles and vulnerabilities and nothing makes success sweeter than those times we fly too close to the sun, hopefully slathered in a sunscreen with a high SPF. Because as we plummet to our deaths, at least the witnesses will say, "She was an idiot, but she took care of her skin."

Zoe: 138; Universe: 0

For more of Zoe's hijinks, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse. 

I need a win here, people. 

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