Outings

We only have one car. For the most part, this isn't really a problem. But now that we have Pepper, things are a bit more complicated. In order to get Husband to work and still arrange it so that I have the car all day, we all get up early and take him to work.

The first day we did this I decided to make the most of being out of the house by going to my favorite neighborhood cafe for some espresso and to read the paper. It felt so good to be out on the town with my baby. I was still significantly worried, however, about exposing my newborn to the public's germs. And, I think a substantial part of me was also worried that other people thought I was a bad mom for exposing my newborn to the outside world.


Nevertheless, I was thoroughly enjoying the experience of sitting in the cafe, reading my newspaper, drinking my latte, and rocking my baby. This lasted right up until I heard a woman ask another woman, "Is that a real skunk?" At that point, I looked up just in time to see a real live baby skunk peering out of the woman's handbag, about 4 feet away from me and my vulnerable baby.

What was I thinking? How could I take my baby out on the town without considering the possibility that people would bring their newly rescued baby skunks into the cafe with them. Just when I thought I had considered all the dangers the world presented, a woman takes her skunk out for coffee.

Can you hear me now?

Sorry for my silence. Apparently, l@w school really is a full time affair. Sheesh, what a bother.

After reading some info on the development of Fetus (nicknamed Curry), I found that her ears have developed enough so that she is hearing a lot of what I hear in a day, even if its significantly muffled. I spent a little time thinking about what it is she hears during an average day. The list looks something like this:

• long boring lectures about family l@w, education l@w, and social security
  
• my snoring during aforementioned lectures
• litigants screaming at each other during so-called negotiation conferences (I am externing for a county judge)
• loud thumps as litigants' attorneys bang their heads against the wall during aforementioned conferences
• a whole lot of crunching, gurgling, slurping and other sounds originating from the beginning to the end of my digestive system
• my voice singing to the many lively songs of the Violent Femmes
• many, many episodes of The Simpsons

It will be a miracle if after hearing all of this, Curry wants to come out and live with us at all.

Laughter through Tears

Laughter through tears is by far my favorite and most powerful emotion. It makes me feel human again. So in honor of that feeling, I will tell you a very short story about what an idiot my ex-husband was and is.

In the first year of that marriage, I was scanning the charges on our credit card bill. One line in particular caught my attention. It was a charge for $20 and I definitely did not recognize the vendor. It was a website called lunarembassy.com. Initially I thought that it was either an error or that someone had gotten ahold of our credit card number. Later that day, I asked then-husband about it. His face lit up when I mentioned it. He claimed it as his own purchase, and proceeded to tell me what our $20 had earned us. He had purchased a piece of the moon. That's right, we were the proud owners of a specific parcel of land on the moon. He was clearly proud of his shrewd buying activities. I was in shock while he rattled off the benefits of getting in on this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Despite his excitement and the fact that we were first time landowners, I got on the phone with the Lunar Embassy, and told them that "my son" had gotten ahold of my credit card and made the purchase without my permission. The woman was very kind and agreed to issue a credit to my credit card. It was the first time in that marriage that I realized I didn't have a husband, I had a teenage son. Sheesh.

The Socks

Left: Photo of a landscape architecture installation in our collegetown area.


I stayed home from class today. I really had no desire to wander the l@w school while I sobbed in public. Plus, did you know all that ugly crying seems to make you twice as ugly the next day? So as much as I would like to be surrounded by people living in the world of the sane, I am spending my time blogging at home. Historically, I have stayed home from work or school because of emotional trauma, and subsequently, I end up feeling so isolated and alone in the world that it makes everything worse. So now when I stay home, blogging allows me to be by myself while still remaining connected to people, really really good people.



I have a dozen stories in my head that I would like to write about at this time, but one in particular has been at the front of my head. Mainly because it happened recently, and for the 3rd time. It involves some very minor crafting, and the dogs. I take a white tube sock and fill it with uncooked rice. Then, I tie off a knot at the end of the sock to close it up. At that point, it becomes The Sock. When my neck/back muscles are sore, I heat up The Sock for around 2-3 minutes in the microwave. It serves as a fabulous heating pad for sore muscles, and can easily be wrapped around the back of the neck. The truly crafty can add lavender to the rice to give off a lovely scent.

The problem at my house is the dogs. I have made 3 of these socks in the last couple of years. All 3 of The Socks, have been summarily ripped open by our two dogs, a male German Shepherd and a female Jack Russell Terrier, when we have mistakenly left The Sock out and not in use. Once they get The Sock open, the two of them consume as much of the rice as possible. The rice that escapes into the carpet is like a snack that they can go to when feeling the munchies come on later. During the last sock destruction and consumption party the dogs had, they did manage to leave some of the rice in the sock. I threw that sock and its rice in the garbage. About a week later they found the garbage that contained the remnants of the sock, and succeeded in pulling it out of the garbage and eating the remaining rice now well seasoned with other garbage. Nice.

The digestive fallout from these rice episodes isn't pretty. And now that I am not pregnant, I am part of the clean up crew again. Good times.

Let it grow

Once upon a time, I was a very very high maintenance woman, in the aesthetic sense. I am still pretty high maintenance in every other sense, but aesthetics fell to the side right around the time my boobs did.

My 3 sisters are high fashion extremists. They all fret constantly over all manners of their epidermis including their weight, the color of their hair, the quantity of their body hair, their nails and their make-up. Once I left California, all of this stuff just didn't seem important anymore. Granted I live in the land of granola, but I think there is more to it than that. Admittedly, when I go back to California to torture myself with family, I regain the self conscious feeling over my looks. Suddenly I am not so confident about my choice to go natural. Of course, it doesn't help that my mother never fails to mention how good my hair would look with some highlights. And my sister Anne asks me if I want her to wax my eyebrows. Then, Beth slyly asks if she can try some of her make-up on me. And when I put on a pair of shorts, Carrie rolls her eyes and makes gagging sounds upon seeing my hairy legs. So the grand support of the sisterhood doesn't do much for my confidence.

And then they start in about questions about their own looks. "Should I dye my hair? Should I have my lips done? Do I need botox? I need a boob job. I need a breast reduction. Perhaps I should have eyeliner tattooed on my eyelids. I need laser surgery for my wrinkles. My fake nails are coming off, I MUST get in to see my manicurist." It goes on and on and on.

I am thinking about all of this for multiple reasons. The Oneliner has a fabulous post about her va-ja-ja and the fear of the chewbaca look. I have never, even in my most high maintenance of Cali days, considered a waxing. But now that frequent cooter appointments loom ahead I have started to think about some pretty landscaping down there. At the very end of my previous marriage, the boy started hinting that perhaps a full waxing might be nice on me. That should have been my first indication that he was keenly attracted to very young women, like his 19 year old girlfriend for instance. My current husband seems to be a bit repulsed by the adolescent look of a hairless cooter, and I am so grateful for that.

But now, I keep thinking, do I really want my doctor to be scared of going near the wild and overgrown landscape I have going on? Am I the only one not getting a good mowing? And the fact that I don't shave my legs adds to the concern. So now, I am starting to think like my sisters a bit, but only from the waste down. Is it time for a good waxing to clear the brush? Do I need a pedicure before every pelvic exam? My toes are not attractive even with a good pedicure though, so do I really want to draw attention to them with colored nail polish. Funny that when I go au naturale at the beach or an allowing spa resort, I don't even consider it, but put me in a doctor's office only half clothed and I get self conscious.

Just call me Chesty LaRue.

Now with more boob.

My deepest apologies to those of you who will find this post annoying. But being annoying has never stopped me before, so why start now?

A few days before the great pee on a stick event, I remarked to Husband that the girls seemed to be outgrowing their luxurious home. He agreed with a big grin. I hate to say that I am well-endowed because that would imply that I like the size of my chest. I do not. All throughout high school, I was lucky if I could fill out an A-cup. In fact, I was smaller chested than my younger sister, Anne. So I would lie in bed praying (this was back when I was a practicing Roman Catholic) and begged God for a bigger chest. Nice that I bothered the supreme being with my pressing needs, right? Well, be careful what you ask for. By the time I was in my second year of college, I was bursting out of my D-cups. After visits back to my high school town, rumors could not be quashed that I had had a boob job. Believe me when I say that I did no such thing. So up until a few weeks ago, I was buying $70 minimizer bras made by W@co@l to accommodate and support my double D girls.

But now, those don't even do the job. Sigh. I am terrified that I am going to have to buy G's. So last week, I ordered 2 new W@co@l bras of the triple D variety. Honestly, it made me so sad. I know, I should be grateful that I am still having all the "right" symptoms, but I really could have done without this particular one. I may be able to buy maternity clothing used, but I draw the line at used bras. Plus, it's a bit hard to find used ones in that size range.

Some say that my size will go lower than what I started with, once the gestating is over, but somehow I am not convinced. You see the skin has already been stretched and we would need new laws of biophysics to get these things to take a pleasing perky stature again. So even if they get smaller, they will be like tube socks with a rock stuffed in them, hanging down to my knees. Doesn't that sound sexy?

Let the games begin...

Awww, you all just warm my heart with your well wishes and happy dances for me. I was very worried about posting about our news because I didn't know how it would affect my readers, especially those who are still fighting the good fight against infertility. I desperately worried that I would alienate some of my readers with my news and you would hate me and be bitter towards me, in the same awful way I am bitter toward my pregnant sister. I eventually decided that everyone is entitled to their bitterness and anger and if it helps to be angry with me then so be it. And so I trust that if I say anything lame or insensitive in the coming months, that you will all call me on it and I will be a slightly better person for having learned a lesson. Just promise me that you will call me on it, OK?

That said, I will give you a few details on how the whole thing is progressing at this point. I am at the 5 week mark. Pooter is the size of a sesame seed and already causing me problems. Apparently I didn't inherit the non-nausea gene from my mother (she claims she never experienced morning sickness with any of her 4 pregnancies). So, if being green is equivalent to glowing, then I glow like a mo-fo. Or if being bright red from a recent trip to the bathroom and an attempt to squeeze out the tiniest poop qualifies as glowing then I am practically nuclear. My dreams seem to illustrate my anxiety through all of this. Last night, I had a dream that I gave birth to a 1 year old boy, and after a good amount of unsuccessful nursing attempts, my left nipple fell off. That's right, it fell right off and didn't even bleed. Nice, huh?

I should also mention that the fabulous doctor that I found a few months ago will no longer be delivering babies as of July because as a small 2 doctor practice they can't afford the insurance any longer. So I am going to stick with them for a little while until I can make an educated decision on who will birth it if I make it that far. I am considering going out of town for two reasons. First, the other single practitioner doctor is addicted to episiotomies and doesn't appreciate input from the mom on how things will be run. Second, the big practice that births almost everyone's babies in this town has been labelled by my G.P., my pdoc, and a number of nurses I have talked to as a "Baby Factory". Now, I have at least a couple of friends here who went through their system and were quite satisfied. I, however, am a self proclaimed difficult patient, and they don't deal well with people like me. I have tried them for routine GYN stuff, and walked out in tears or in a fit of rage. I don't need either while I am pregnant. My friends think i am a bit crazy, I think, because of my view point. So, I am looking into the neighboring areas for good docs and my current doc will have some info for me about what they think of the other doctors.

I have mixed feelings about midwives. Some seem fabulous, while others seem like old battle axes. And I don't really feel like leaving it up to the luck of the draw. Plus, all the local midwives are in cahoots with the baby factory. It's like a monopoly around here.

Then, there is the idea of a doula, added into the mix. Sounds like a particularly attractive option for someone like me who has a very high chance of postpartum psychosis, according to my pdoc. Given those odds, I think Husband and I may need a little help and coddling, especially after the birth. I am a bit concerned that Husband will feel like the doula is usurping his position as my supporter, but perhaps the doula will be a good person for him to talk to if and when he has concerns about me, especially once he becomes comfortable with her. We will be talking to my doula choice next week sometime. I will let you know.

In the meantime, I have an incredible craving for turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Trying to convince my vegetarian husband to incorporate gravy into all of our meals has been a bit of a stretch. Although, he is really trying hard. Mushroom gravy seems to do the trick, but it still doesn't go well with pizza or salad. It's incredible how I can be so nauseous and so ravenously hungry at the same time.

Can do.

When I saw these on the back of my friend's toilet, I knew I had to have some too. Partly because dry toilet paper doesn't always do the job, if you know what I mean, but mainly because there is a picture of a frog wiping his arse, right on the box. Who could pass up the opportunity to adorn their lavatory with frogs practicing proper hygiene? Certainly not me. So I bought not one, but two boxes, plus refills. They even have a lovely cucumber melon scent. No more fishy odor for me, it's all fruit and vegetables down there from now on. To top it off, every time I use one, I can be heard singing in the bathroom from outside the house. It's a simple song, something like, "Caaaaaaannnn dooooooo, caaaaaannnn dooooo, (repeat about 10 times over)." Have I finally lost my mind? Oh yeah, but that happened long ago. I may be the only woman without kids that owns these things. What can I say? I am young at heart.

Since I don't feel like battering all of you, again, with my tales of whimpering woe, I will tell you a story instead. Gotta give you all a break every once in awhile.

When I first met The Ass (aka first husband who doesn't really deserve the title of husband) at the ripe age of 19, he told me that his last girl friend had dumped him. Believing him, we started dating. A few weeks into our relationship, we decided to camp out over night in front of B10ck.buster so we could get tickets to the P1nk Fl0yd concert. By the way, the concert was on April 20th. For those in the know, I think you will find that date ironic, for those who are not please don't ask, because it's not appropriate blog conversation, even on this blog.

Any hoo, we spent a freezing night on the sidewalk, not sleeping. I had to work at 10am the next morning, so around 9am I headed to his house where I was staying for a few days because of a terrible fight with my college roommates. When I came in the door, I saw that my underwear were dispersed about the living room, with a trail leading to the bedroom where my duffel bag was. His dog, Sierra, was not as big on eating underwear as my current dog, but every once in awhile she would express herself by eating the crotches out of my underwear, you know, just for shits and giggles. So as I picked up my crotchless undies, I scolded her and tried to reason with her regarding her behavior. Usually, she slinks away, wagging her tail in an apology, but that morning she just looked confused.

I decided to change my clothes and put on my jeans for work. As I put one leg in, I realized that my leg went through, but not into a pant leg. Staring down, I realized that my leg went through a gigantic hole in the crotch of my relatively new jeans. Again, I scolded Sierra. So I picked up a different pair of pants, and the exact same thing occurred. Then I realized, every pair of underwear and pants were missing the critical crotch component. Where the hell did all my crotches go? Upon closer examination, I realized that this was not the haphazard work of a bitter dog. Instead it appeared to be the careful work of a bitch, of the human species, wielding a sharp pair of scissors. After some investigation, I discovered that his girlfriend, who still lived with him, had come in during the night, when she knew we would be out, and removed all of the crotches from my clothing.

That should have been the first sign that The Ass was a two timing basturd. But, let's face it, I was 19, and I was clueless. Maybe even really dumb.

What did The Ass do when I told him what his supposed ex-girlfriend had done? He vomited right there in the B10ck.buster parking lot. Yep, back then, I really knew how to pick'em.

Out and About

Before I regale you with this new snort, I would like to give attention to an essay written about the expression of grief. It's on the NPR website under "This I Believe". Cortney Davis, a nurse practitioner, says some powerful things in her essay entitled "A way to honor life". If you have suffered loss, it's definitely worth the read. Helps restore my faith in medical professionals.

And now without further ado...

In our part of the country we have a chain of restaurants called "Fr1end1y's". For those who don't have a clue what I am talking about, it's pretty much a family restaurant-diner style-that also heavily markets their ice cream products. On hot summer nights, I love to go there and get something really bad for me. They have a deal where you can get a free sundae if you buy a meal, or something like that. Apparently, their advertising execs don't have the same gutter mind that I do, because they gave this sundae deal quite an interesting name. Here's what the sign said outside of the Friendly's in a nearby town:

"Free Happy Ending with Every Meal!!!"

Clearly, Fr1end1y's has earned its name.

Ah, yes, I am a dirty, dirty girl.

Faking it.

This is a significantly revised version of the earlier post.

I have Seinfeld on the brain today. While I patiently (yeah, right) wait for code egg white, I have invested a lot of time in watching all the old Seinfeld episodes via DVD. The show always sparks controversial discussions in our house. My all time favorite is the episode titled "The Mango", and it doesn't have all that much to do with mangoes actually. For those who don't have every Seinfeld episode cataloged in their head, the episode concerns a discussion of faking it. Specifically, women faking an 0r.g.@sm during ahem, you know. (Desperately trying to deter goo.gl.ers from finding me using some of these words.) There's a great scene where Elaine reveals to Jerry that she had faked it every time they were together.

This episode sparked some continued thought regarding another blogger's post that discussed what it meant to be a woman. There was some exchange regarding not feeling like a full woman if you couldn't either get pregnant and stay pregnant at all or even yield a child without intervention. I found it so interesting that so many women said they never thought that was what defined Womanhood until they found that they were in that position. Suddenly, it changed they way they defined their gender. While, I am not about to go into what is right or wrong about that thought, I still find it incredibly pertinent here because of the discussion I then had with Husband.

I told him about what I had been reading and then asked whether men feel the same if their boys (sperm) are challenged in some way to make conception more difficult. Would his status as a man feel threatened? (I'm aware that I'm not asking a man who has actually experienced male factor infertility so far, but I thought his response may tell me something anyway). He was quick to say that he would not likely feel any less of a man if he was deemed fertility challenged.

After some rumination, it became clear to me that males qualify their manhood not by making a baby, but, let's be honest here, by being able to enjoy a good "O". Alternatively, women, at times (I know, I know, I can't lump everyone together here, but stay with me on this one), assess their womanhood by their ability to successfully reproduce. Not ground breaking conclusions, but I find it intriguing nonetheless. So if we go back to the faking it issue, I can't help but make connections. You see, I have noticed that while men can and will grieve intensely about the loss of a fetus, women tend to carry a much greater grief (sorry guys, but I am just calling it like I see it). And while women can easily have great sex without the big "O", that seems to be the requisite goal in sex for most men.

I am sure that I have opened up a big can of "WTF?" with this post, but I am really curious what you all think. Are my generalizations way off? Do you have another theory? Any fakers out there? This is one more reason I love to blog. I get to talk about all the stuff that I wish people would discuss in the open.

Open mouth; insert foot.

I am frequently the first to absolutely lose it when some idiot sticks their foot in their mouth. I am a pretty sensitive girl, and don't take well to teasing or insensitive comments. I will roll them over and over in my mind, allowing them to attack me again and again long after the moment has passed. And yet, I am also infamous for my own foot in mouth maneuvers. When I drink, I say whatever is in my head. The fallout can be really ugly for both sides. In fact, I hang on to my insensitive comments and torment myself with them, convince myself that I am the meanest, rudest person alive.

Here's a few excerpts:

• As I entered the lunch room of my former lab, I exclaimed, "Holy shit, what the hell is that smell? It wreaks in here!" At that point, the source of the smell became obvious. A very, very kind Chinese postdoc had heated up his lunch which consisted of some sort of fermented fish. Upon hearing my comment, he blushed and excused himself from the lunch room. He even apologized for his lunch giving the room its lovely aroma. I was mortified and equally apologetic for my comment. I begged him to stay and finish his lunch. He left anyway. I am such an ass.
• I was standing behind a fellow grad student and friend of mine one Friday evening while hanging out at our favorite bar. Suddenly, I found myself staring at the top of his head. Without even a thought, I said out loud to him, "Hey, looks like you're losing quite a bit of hair up here." Silence followed when he turned around and stared at me, jaw on the floor. He finally says in his saddest tone, "I'm losing my hair?" Doh!! What the hell was I thinking? Oh yeah, I wasn't.
• A few minutes after the midnight celebration of the transition from 1999 to 2000, I was happily chatting with then-husband's good friend, D. D was relaying a story to us and said, "...I'm a reliable and dependable friend, right? So I...". I interrupt with,"No you're not! You are a really really flaky friend actually." OK, so we weren't exactly in a legally approved state of mind, but still. I got that stare that says, "I can't believe you said that". What do I do to recover? I burst into tears, and my poor insulted friend ends up trying to console me.
• For the grand finale, I recall making this statement to a fertility challenged friend upon finding out that her last round of IVF worked (granted this was about 10 years ago, way before I had a clue) and she was pregnant with twins. I said, "Wow, twins...well at least you're not having triplets." She was kind and didn't blink an eye. I later discovered, that actually she was originally pregnant with triplets, but one died not long before they made their twin announcement to me. If karma tries to balance out in a single lifetime, I am really in for it.

Am I the only one who has foot in mouth disease? Have any of you said something really insensitive to someone without thinking? Or am I the only asshole in the blogosphere?

Because I need to laugh, or something.

It's been a heavy week for my blog, and I think we all need to laugh. I can't guarantee that you'll laugh, but these things make me giggle a bit. Husband frequently accuses me of cracking myself up. He's right. I think I'm pretty funny sometimes. Funny looking too, actually.

So here's some rather funny (more the strange than the haha) about me...

1. I pee with the door open. Most other things I do in the bathroom I do with the door closed, but for some reason I forget to close the door if I'm just peeing. Husband is totally grossed out by this bad habit of mine. I tell him, "Hey, I'm only peeing, what's the big deal?" His answer: "It's not the peeing, it's the wiping." Me: "Oh...I see your point."
2. I have a blankie. It's not the same blankie as when I was little (I finally retired that one in college), but it serves the same function. And it's not nice and soft, it's crocheted from cheap acrylic yarn so the blanket is pretty scratchy. That's what the first husband used to call it, "Scratchy". He used to hide it from me, so he wouldn't have to sleep with it next to him. What an ass he was.
3. I used to go places where it was customary to exist without attire. (Oh, Lordee, I hope that phrase was innocent enough not to bring certain goog.l.ers my way.) In particular there was a spa in Napa that I would go to with the first husband. Absolutely lovely natural hot spring that forbade any romantic displays of any kind, and it was strictly enforced. It was a very family place actually. Plenty of kids and babies. You always had to sit on your towel, and I found that comforting. The spa offered its patrons a string of beads to wear around the neck as an indication that that patron did not wish to be spoken to. Husband cringes when I talk about wanting to go there again. He loves his clothing and wants to keep it that way.

OK, so maybe none of that was actually funny-ha ha. It was all just strange. It's my way of scaring away my readers. If you can handle this, then you can handle tomorrow's post. Stay tuned... (Feel free to comment with a funny-strange or ha, ha. Like I said, I need to laugh, and you may need to laugh as well, after tomorrow that is...)

Things that make me go....EEEW!

Get ready, this is a gross one. Now, you can't say that I didn't warn you ahead of time.

I came home from my therapist appointment this morning and ran straight to the bathroom. I had to pee, really, really badly. I made it just in time. While contemplating my timely arrival, I looked down and saw something that made me go eew. Apparently, I missed a crucial detail this morning when getting dressed. My underwear, at the site of where the crotch should be...well, there wasn't a crotch left at all. It was still connected, but only by the strand of elastic that runs around the right leg. I went to my therapist's office and ran errands all while crotchless!!! Sure I had the remnants of underwear but they weren't really functioning as underwear anymore. I can't believe I didn't even notice that I was walking around in string underwear that were never intended to be string style. Now, I know what your are thinking, " a person who blows out her underwear with the power of her own cooter may want to have some tests done; the threat of infertility may be the least of your problems." Well, in this case, the dog is the one doing the creative alterations. The Jack Russell Terrier frequently gets a hankering for my underwear...usually when they are lightly seasoned. Then it hit me that maybe I was wearing crotchless AND dirty underwear. To my great relief, they were clean, whew. So it seems that I failed to notice that this pair had been made into a pooch snack when I threw them into the laundry this weekend. I am considering keeping them around as a decoy, perhaps then she will be less likely to go after the ones that are still in one piece. Although, it probably wouldn't be effective as a decoy if they were clean.

I forgot clumsy

6. Clumsy

I forgot "clumsy" on my list of themes from yesterday. Husband thought I should add it. I had never considered clumsy to be one of my life's themes, but he's right, let's face it, it is. I am forever clumsy. My father used to tuck my long hair into the back of my shirt so I wouldn't dip it into my food during meals. I was never allowed to eat or drink anything while on any carpeted surface of my parents home. I should own stock in Resolve for how much I buy the stuff. My husband's favorite clumsy story is the one about the first time we met. It's a classic example of my clumsy theme.

My husband and I met at a local festival here in town. There is no purported reason for the festival other than the interesting fact that it is usually held after all of the students leave for summer break. My town is a college town so the departure of the students can be bittersweet. For all intensive purposes, despite my current status as a student, I consider myself a "townie". Some use this term with derogative implications, but I wear the townie badge with pride. After all, this is the longest I have ever lived in one town and I tend to feel like I belong here. Anyway, it wasn't but a few months after my first husband and I separated when the festival occurred. So, I was doing just about anything to keep my mind off of the divorce. Thus, I took up a friend's offer to go to the festival for the day.

It was an up day for me at the time, in fact, looking back, I was probably hovering in the realm of hypomania. Nevertheless, I was having a great time and felt very energized by the street music, the arts, crafts, and herds of people. My friend and I saw a friend and her husband while they were listening to a local band perform. After some chatting, I finally noticed that the friend and her husband were towing behind them a friend of theirs. I had no idea who this guy was, and in my mood, I decided to find out, pronto. Oh, boy was this guy cute! The first thing to draw me to him was his necklace which consisted of brown wood beads of uniform size with the main bead being a ceramic fish. Then, his t-shirt caught my eye, a Phish t-shirt.

In the same way that you can tell certain things about a person when they have a Grateful Dead sticker on their car, you can read certain things into a person when they wear Phish paraphernalia. For those who don't know who the hell I am talking about, Phish is a music jam band with a similar following as the Grateful Dead. With my first husband, we used to follow Phish around on tour. We were never the cross country followers, but we did coincide our move from California to New York with Phish's tour along the same route. We also were one of the die-hards that sat in line in our car on a Florida highway for 12 hours just to get into the Phish concert for New Year's 2000. 12 hours to travel less than 30 miles! So, when I saw his t-shirt, I knew we had something in common, something fun. It would be my "in".

Somehow, we all agreed to meet later that evening at a local beer bar. Another link- he likes beer, I like beer. So far, so good. I was feeling especially sparky that day with my overalls on and a slightly tighter shirt than normal. When we all met at the bar, we were all feeling pretty lively from the day's festival. We all ordered beers. Now this is where the details become important. The bar is set up with benches and long tables and therefore, even if you aren't at the same table as another person, you can still be fairly close to the person sitting on the same bench or in the same row. In my high mood, I was busy telling stories to entertain my friends and this new guy. It should be noted that a full pint of beer was sitting in front of me on our table, and I am not sure whether I had already drank one or not, but I was definitely not inebriated. When I tell stories, I use my hands to an annoying degree. This tactic gets me in all sorts of trouble. So as I told the story with my hands, I inadvertently, clumsily, knocked the entire beer over, spilling the whole pint onto my overalls. I was soaked in beer. Because I do this kind of thing all of the time, I was prepared to laugh at myself.

Sitting there covered in beer, I am laughing with friends when the girl sitting diagonal from me at an adjacent table leans over to the friend across from me at our table. The girl asks my friend if she could try to keep me under control. Now this is where you have to picture a tiny waifish college girl foolishly telling a friend of mine to keep me under control. Oh boy. Apparently, some of the beer I spilled all over myself must have splashed up and dotted her table. Crisis. Once the three women at my table realized what this girl had just said, we just stared at each other while I schemed. I have to admit that the three of us are sizable women. While not fat, we were tall, large boned, sturdy women. I would like to think that most skinny, waif-like girls wouldn't risk picking a fight with three women of our stature, but apparently we were sitting near an exception to my assumption. One female friend finally leaned over to the waiflet to ask her to repeat what she had said. On that note, I promptly got up from the table, went into the bathroom, and unrolled a hefty number of paper towels. Upon my return to our table, I slammed down the paper towels on the waiflet's table and said, "Here you go", and then sat down at my table. The laughter was difficult to suppress, but we continued on with a rather fun night. And no, I didn't go home with Husband-to-be...

...well, not that night anyway.

That was Husband's first impression of me. Good one huh? I am so smooth!

Just thought I'd share

FDA, finally, approves cloned food. Check out this one people. How nice of the FDA to join us here in the 21st century on something.

It's the end of 2006, thank god, and it's time to reflect upon all of the ludicrous things that I have seen and done this year. One main story comes to mind for the moment.

This tale is one about a fine sunny day in the Spring. I pulled up to my favorite coffee shop with an ice cream cone in hand and ready to pick up a paper as soon as I could find a parking spot. After a few crafty maneuvers at an adjacent parking lot, I pulled forward to take my position in the exit. A woman walking down the sidewalk stopped about 20 feet back from the driveway. An action I understood to mean she wanted me to go ahead, which I did. I proceeded to pull up to the same side of the street the woman had been walking (a one way street if you're trying to picture it). Since it was an unusually warm day, my passenger side window was down. While I fiddled around looking for change to feed the meter, the woman walking down the sidewalk stuck her head into my car through the passenger side window and just started screaming at me.

I just sat there in shock while she bobbed her head like a chicken inside my car, complete with all of the good descriptive expletives. Then she continued to walk down the street as if nothing had occured. Because I have absolutely zero self control, I jumped out of my car and ran after her. She had gained some ground by the time I was running in her direction. But, once the light turned green, I caught up with her on foot. Oh, I should mention that I was screaming at her all the while, "Come back here! What did you say to me, bitch?!!!?" Yup, screaming this at the top of my lungs in the middle of the street, in front of my favorite coffee shop. Lovely. I'm gonna make a great role model for my child.

Lunacy at its best.

Gifts that keep on giving

After going over Tertia's blog, I couldn't resist addressing her same topic. She asks her bloggers what their worst and best gift has been over the years. Love that she limits it to material things and takes the words right out of sappy people's mouths by outlawing cheesy responses like the baby growing in my belly reply. Yuck. I want materialism here. So I thought I would share some of the best and worst, but mostly the worst, from my gift getting history.

Worst all time gift for me has to be one from my first husband. We'll just call him ass to keep it short and to the point. Ass had a cat that was carving up all of my somewhat decent furniture. Thus, in his ultimate wisdom and thoughtfulness, Ass gave me a cat scratching tower for Christmas. Wrapped it up and everything. Lovely.

Second worst gift wasn't so bad, if I had given it to Ass for Christmas. During the same year as the scratching post, Ass gave me the CD box set of the Rolling Stones. I don't particularly care for the Stones, but he did. In fact, apparently, he loved them more than he loved me.

Another great gift from Ass said a lot about what he thought of me. A full length, full skirt made of black velour. Wore it once and everyone asked me if I was preparing early for Halloween. Perfect.

Towards the end of the marriage, it got even better. Instead of buying me CD's, he just burned some for me. Normally, I would appreciate the effort, no matter how illegal. Unfortunately, the source of music was questionable. Turns out the burned music came from his girlfriend's CD collection, some of the CD's were ones he bought for her. Well, at least he fucked women with similar tastes in music. I admire consistency and efficiency.

Best gift this year was my little shuffler iPod. This is definitely something I would never have bought myself which made it all the more special. It was a total surprise from Husband and he was proud as a peacock when I opened it. It comes with a lanyard so I can use it while I am working off the comments on my treadmill. So leave a comment damnit! I have hours of podcasts from NPR to listen to and need some comment motivation. Also, feel free to leave your best or worst gift in your comment. Love reading that stuff, especially the bad gifts. By the way, I am pretty sure Husband would put on his bad gift list the nose hair trimmer I put in his stocking this year. Well, it made me laugh, that's what's important.

By the way, Veronika, if you are reading this, I hope you get a good chuckle, it's the only thing I know that helps.

If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit next to me.

Love that quote from Steel Magnolias. I have desperately tried to memorize my favorite poems and philanthropic quotes but all I seem to be able to remember are lines from movies and TV shows I have seen hundreds of times, including Caddyshack, Fletch, Simpson's series, South Park, Monty Python's movies, all of the Vacation movies, and many other classics. Nothing ground breaking, only sarcastic remarks.

So, to stay with the theme, I will tell a tale of craziness contributed by my family. One of my mother's brothers, D (actually all of them start with the letter D but that's a whole other story entirely), has a lot of cats. So many cats, that there is never a current count that can be relied upon. D and his family are not of wealth in any arena except for pets. When D and his wife went away one weekend, they asked D's mother (my grandmother) to stay and watch their kids (4 in total). Despite the abundance of kids, their refrigerator is stocked with nothing but 2 liter Pepsi bottles. Grandma really didn't know what to feed the kids out of this well stocked fridge, so she resorted to the freezer to try and find something nutritious.

The freezer was well stocked with lots of foil wrapped things. After rummaging through its depths, she finally found what she was hoping would be a roast, it was the right size after all, what else could it be she thought. As the children stood around drooling, she carefully began to unwrap the item. At last, it revealed itself. It was not a roast, it was a frozen cat! The children looked unsurprised and just blinked at their grandmother as she screamed. The oldest one finally fessed up, "Well, grandma, what else are you supposed to do with a cat when it dies?" They ordered out that night and she never opened the freezer again.

Why was there a cat in the freezer? Well, the cat had died right before they left on vacation that weekend, and my uncle wanted to have it autopsied to discover the cause of death. So to preserve it for future discoveries, he wrapped it in foil and tossed it into the freezer until he could get to it and had the money to have the procedure done. Well, of course, that is a perfectly reasonable solution, after all, there wasn't any food in there anyway.

Tired of hearing me complain that bipolar sucks? How about bipolar socks then?




Even my socks are bipolar these days.

Crazy conversations

So I am definitely on my way to crazyville, where there are no meds but plenty of unsolvable problems. I am up to two total and complete breakdowns a day. Good times to be had by all. Studying for finals has me wanting to either eat my casebooks or burn them for firewood. It's both cold in here and I am really hungry all of a sudden. Sleep is becoming elusive, but when I am able to visit slumberland I have plenty of nightmares. The big fertility calendar that I am using says I may be able to detect the pregnancy hormone with a test on Monday. It's everything I can do not to test beforehand. The pregnancy tests sit on my bathroom counter and call to me everytime I am in there. They sing to me and say "Stick me in a cup of that warm, sunny, sterile stuff only you can give us. Come on you know you want to." Oh, and I do. "Why not use all five of us to be doubly sure of the disappointment of knowing that you are in for an additional month off your meds and an extended stay in crazyville. Those casebooks are so tasty and good for the colon."..."You can always buy more of us, in a hurry, at the drug store, for the mere price of one arm and one leg for just one precious test." I need to start wearing earplugs in the bathroom. Great, what's that gonna cost me?

My husband and I have conversations with our imaginary children, they go something like this...

Little crazy child: Mommy, why do you drink so much?
Me: Because you're bad.

LCC (crying): I am so so sad that I make you drink, mommy.
Me: Tell it to your therapist.

LCC: But I don't have a therapist.
Me: You will.

I am going to make a great mother, aren't I? I try to keep therapists and psychiatrists in business, where would they be without me?

Mom and Paunchy

Today I am studying for finals. Thus, I am particularly interested in tracking my blog and other people's blogs. Why study when you can wander aimlessly through the internet?

Recently we had to buy my husband a new cell phone because his old one sounded like it had a cold when it would ring. I am not much of a technophile so I rate going to buy a new phone right along with having to purchase tampons. I am overwhelmed with the choices and just want to buy something that will do the job. This attitude elicits a considerable amount of disdane from the salesman at our cellular service outlet.

My husbands attitude is pretty close to mine and we both hate having to learn the workings of a new cell phone. We are especially bitter about all of the options for messaging someone. Of course, we are probably just jealous of how the children of our friends deftly code messages using their phones at lightning speed. Why call someone when you can send cryptic messages with grammar and spelling that would cause my high school English teacher to wretch? To add to the pain, my youngest sister who is well-skilled in the art of text-messaging cannot seem to write a regular email message without resorting to all of her usual text-messaging idioms and acronyms. It's all I can do to not correct all of her spelling and grammar and send it back to her to make the revisions, telling her that I will reply when she starts typing in English.

New phone in hand, my dear husband was struggling with his new phone and trying to overcome the auto-text functions while he programmed in all his phone numbers from his old phone. As he attempted to type in "Mom and Paul" his phone tried to anticipate his entry. Upon typing in the "u" for Paul, his brilliant phone offered up the word "Paunchy". PAUNCHY?!?!?!? Is this such a common term that a phone needs to introduce it for you? So there it is, the phone number for our greatest and dearest family members, "Mom and Paunchy". We'll call soon, Paunchy.