bitchin'...but not a bitch

tiny hammock, big ideas

2012-02-04T10:47:00.004-06:00

I never really got the Anne Geddes obsession when she was all the rage. But now that our own baby is almost here, I have been wanting my own little album of our baby at his tinniest in these cute little props. There is an Omaha photographer that offers such a service for basically the cost of having a baby in the first place. Might as well take advantage of new parents at their most vulnerable. I get it, it's brilliant business.

I want a picture of Brandon in this adorable little hammock.

I pitched the idea to Steve, but apparently not very convincingly. "You want to spend that kind of money on a picture of our baby in a pot with a flower on his head?" He said incredulously. "Just snap a few pictures of him yourself!" And I laughed. I laughed because of how ridiculous the idea was in the first place, but I hadn't realized it yet. I was blinded by that pint-size hammock.

What is it about being pregnant that makes you lose touch with reality? Probably the same thing that has me filling up his closet with adorable clothes, some of which he won't be able to wear for a year or two. Probably the same thing that has me thinking there's got to be some way I can work less so I can be home with him more. I'm already obsessed with this little guy, and as of now he is just kicks in my stomach.

I guess a new reality is coming my way, and it might not be quite as reasonable as my old reality was. All aboard!

Parenthood

2012-01-18T17:57:00.004-06:00

Steve and I like two genres of TV: well-written, thoughtful shows and smutty reality shows. Any of that shit in between, we don't waste our time on. We always end up watching each other's shows, sooner or later. So when Parenthood came out awhile ago, it was a bit surprising I didn't even give it a chance after Steve raved about it. Maybe that's because I know it's based on the movie by Ron Howard and I have a strong aversion to redheads. Anyway, sooner became later and I am now hooked on it right along with him. It is just so damn well-written.

One of the story lines follows Erika Christensen, who is adopting a baby. The birth mother is staying with her while she is pregnant. Erika admirably tries to shield the birth mother from the many emotional triggers that comes with trying to detach yourself from a natural attachment that already exists. She doesn't show her the nursery, telling her husband it would be a bit awkward for her to see the room her baby is going to live in, the room belonging to the baby that is her's now, but won't be once it is born. Problem is, those triggers are everywhere and there is no way to prevent the birth mother from them all.

They go to a birthing class and the instructor tells them that labor is hard and terrible but it's all worth while when you're holding your baby in your arms. The birth mother leaves the room, and begins to cry. And here I am on my couch, crying my eyes out. Crying for the birth mom because I know exactly how she feels and crying for Erika Christensen who comes rushing out after her, undoubtedly thinking now she might not give her baby up for adoption after all.

It is easy to appreciate the sacrifice a birth mother makes, but so difficult to understand the feeling. It might even be impossible for anyone to understand who hasn't been through it. I feel silly when I cry at one of those emotional triggers, even now, six and a half years after Gracie was born. But the fact is, it is unnatural to grow a baby inside of you for nine months and completely detach yourself from it. This is your flesh and blood: a life you have created. I have never completely detached myself from Gracie, and that's why that show last night made me cry uncontrollably.

But it was a bit cathartic, as well, feeling as if someone understands what it feels like. Even though the birth mother is an actress in Hollywood, it was written so realistically that I felt as if she was really a person with those real feelings who could really empathize with me.

People tiptoe around the subject with me or avoid it all together or bring it up awkwardly so as to act like they're not avoiding the subject, but either they think it's awkward to talk about, or they think I'll think it's awkward to talk about. Really, I just feel like no one understands what I'm feeling and will think it's ridiculous when I cry at some silly thing that reminds me of Gracie.

But the show last night reminded me it's not ridiculous. I'm attached to someone who was once attached to me, living off my body until she had grown into her own. There is nothing ridiculous about that, no matter how many years have passed, she remains a part of me and I of her.

one in a million

2012-01-14T09:19:00.002-06:00

I sat at Happy Hour the other day, drinking my Dr. Pepper (don't even think about getting on me about drinking caffeine while I'm pregnant - I wasn't having a margarita like I really wanted) and listening to the girls I work with talk about relationships. I thought about Steve and smiled at how lucky I am.

Some people are with others who bring out the worst in them. Some people are married to people who nag them, criticize them, won't let them be themselves. Some people restrict the other from their hobbies, don't help out, tell the other what to do, and generally treat the other like shit.

Steve isn't like that. Steve loves me for me, and that's what I think love is. Steve doesn't try to change me or tell me not to hang out with my friends. Steve vacuums while I scrub the toilets. Steve makes dinner while I run to the store to get him beer. Steve supports my choices and encourages me to do what I love.

I came home, without an alcohol buzz, but smiling nonetheless because Steve was here at home. I told him how lucky I am to have him and kissed him. And he kissed me back. I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

collars, buttons, laces

2011-12-20T20:53:00.003-06:00

Confession: I have a new obsession. It's buying stuff. That part is not new, I've always loved some good retail therapy. But now I'm buying baby clothes like they're going to stop making them as of December 31st. This baby isn't even born, he doesn't have a crib or a bottle or one of those things that sucks boogers out of his nose. But he has an aviator jacket, jeans in multiple shades, adorable onesies in stripes and solids and tiny prints, lace-up shoes, and Nike shorts with matching t-shirts.

I can't walk by a store that sells baby clothes without just peeking at the infant boy racks. I think I love baby clothes more than buying my own clothes. Maybe it's because I'll never have to try them on. Maybe it's because it's not cheesy for babies to be color-coded and matching. I told Steve yesterday was the last time I would buy baby clothes until after my baby shower. My baby shower that doesn't yet have a date. Do you believe that? I can't believe I said it. Well, I can believe I said it because sometimes I make promises that I don't keep. This might be one of those...

sanity-retrieving rituals

2011-11-29T21:00:00.002-06:00

I came home tonight from a long stressful day of work on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I'm a nervous kind of person - that's what they used to call nearly-insane people before they had titles for them like "bipolar" and "manic" and "depressed."

I haven't felt myself lately. I can always tell when I'm out of my element because I stop writing and read fewer books and get less sleep and become agitated even more easily. This occurs when I feel I can't be myself because of social pressures: the requirements of lying and talking and listening when you don't want to.

I am constantly doing things and saying things and listening to things that I don't want to because it's what is expected of me. And it's making me crazy. My kind of heaven would be a place where everyone is free to be themselves without judgement and prodding from people to be someone else. A place with no such thing as obligation. I don't think there's anything I hate more than obligation. And I hate a lot of things.

I came home and ate dinner and told Steve I love him but I was just going to be alone for awhile in a hot bath. So I sat in the warm water and began to read one of my favorite books, The Bell Jar (also about a nervous young woman). I never feel so much myself as when I'm in a hot bath, I read. To me there is no greater cure for a full mind than solitude. So I sat in the water with my book about a girl as crazy as me, if not more so. I didn't listen or talk to anyone. I let the solitude wash me clean and back to myself.

I must be a less resilient person than most, because I know of quite a few people with much more stressful lives than me that handle it all with ease--god damn grace, nearly--with seemingly no sanity-retrieving rituals of their own. But not me. I'm not graceful or poised or resilient. I'm frantic and moody and stressed. So I do what I can to reclaim a little bit of myself when I no longer recognize my own reflection in the mirror.

Then I made my way back downstairs, prepared a cup of hot chocolate, and sat down to write. That's how I knew I had returned.

giving thanks

2011-11-23T17:55:00.003-06:00

Since every blogger in the world is writing about what they're thankful for, maybe I should, too. Not because I'm a band wagoner, but because I never really do stop and think of what I'm thankful for. I'm much more likely to bitch about what I'm ungrateful about. But in the spirit of holiday cheer, I'm thankful for:

1. My loving husband. I've often heard that I'm lucky I found Stephen because I'm a hard person to love. Screw them; I'm awesome. But I really am lucky I have Stephen. He is my other half. He makes me complete, as cheesy as it is.

2. My family: immediate, in-laws, and extended. Although we've got our fair share of crazies, I'm a part of a family who wants to best for each other. We celebrate triumphs and milestones together and encourage one another to become better people. Some succeed, some fail, some don't even try. But the point is, if you are motivated to do something with your life, you will have plenty of cheerleaders telling you you can do it along the way.

3. Gracie's parents. I'm grateful every day that they love my daughter as their own, provide for her what I couldn't, and give her a childhood in a happy, loving, complete family. I'm grateful for their unconditional love without judgment. I wish there were more people like them: more people whose family bonds extended beyond biological connections.

4. Our future son who has been kicking me to remind me he will be arriving soon.

5. Our house that we will become a family in. Our house that is our home.

6. My job that provides me a way to pay the bills and go to the dentist and deliver a baby in a hospital. I bitch about working a lackey job and will always hope to become a writer, but I have to admit that having a regular paycheck I can depend on is nothing to sneeze at.

7. Friends that I can bitch to when I'm feeling ungrateful, who will remind me there are things to be grateful for.

8. Hobbies that make me smile and realize I've been frowning.

9. A whole slew of other little joys that arrive in life, and make me realize how lucky I am.

our baby has an identity

2011-11-16T16:08:00.006-06:00

Since the day we found out we were expecting, Steve and I began picking out boy names. But let me back that up even further: since I was a girl, I didn't imagine my perfect wedding, instead I imagined my perfect family which consisted of a loving husband and me and two boys. The only other scenario included a girl as a third child if we got crazy and wanted a big family.

Little boys who like football and wear Miami Dolphins jerseys on Sundays while watching the game with their dad. Little boys who are rambunctious and like to run around and get into things and play rough. Little boys who wear polo shirts and sweater vests and adorable shoes. Little boys who push around a toy lawn mower next to their dad and ask for cars and Legos for Christmas. Little boys who love their mommy and idolize their daddy. Those are what I always wanted.

I am not girly. I've always gotten along better with boys. The girls I'm friends with are fine with me not being girly. They don't ask me to get manicures. They don't expect me to keep my hair looking cute. Some of my best friends have been boys. My dog is a boy. I'm more comfortable around testosterone than estrogen. Estrogen makes me nervous and fidgety. Steve is a man's man that likes sports and beer has learned to do handy tasks around the house. We would have nothing in common with a little girl.

I was interested in those wives' tales that claim to accurately predict your baby's gender. But the Chinese calendar said I was having a girl. My cravings said I was having a girl. My face breaking out said I was having a girl. The only thing that pointed to me having a boy was my own wives' tale that if you don't have morning sickness, it's a boy. I quickly gave up on those stupid wives' tales since they wouldn't tell me what I wanted to hear (if they had predicted a boy though, I would have believed them as seriously as some do a religion).

Everyone who knows I'm pregnant has asked me if I want a girl or a boy and I always reply without hesitation and with an exclamation point: "BOY!" I know I'm supposed to only want a healthy baby and the gender shouldn't matter, but I'm much too honest of a person to give a fake answer like that. I mean, I want it to be healthy of course, I just prefer it to be a healthy boy.

The last couple weeks, I tried to mentally prepare myself for the possibility of this baby being a girl. I asked Steve last night, "what would be fun about having a girl?" and he said, "everything."
"You can't think of a single thing!" I moaned. I always think lack of specifics means nothing specific. Everything means nothing to me. I tried to come up with some girl names that I liked, and nothing stuck. I have one bizarre name that I would consider for a girl, but no one else likes it and maybe it's better no baby gets stuck with it. My list of boys names just gets longer.

Today was our Ultrasound day. Today was finally the day we found out the gender. Steve and I both took the day off of work in excitement. The Ultrasound tech busied herself with dull shit like measuring the head and making sure our baby was growing at a normal rate, blah, blah. I tried to act interested, but the whole time I was trying to interpret the spots into private parts. At one point, I saw the outline of the pelvic bone and my heart leaped as I thought it looked like a male pelvis.

"Do you want to find out the gender or do you want to wait?" she asked. "Tell us! We want to know!" I blurted out uncontrollably. I looked at Steve and he nodded in agreement. She found the baby's butt but couldn't see between the legs. A lump formed in my throat as I prepared for the answer. What if it was a girl? I wasn't ready for that to be her response. I only wanted her to tell me the gender if the gender was male. After what seemed like an eternity, she got a shot between the legs, and there it was in all its tiny glory: a scrotum.

Steve and I smiled widely at each other. It was like the day we found this house and couldn't stop smiling. It was just what we'd hoped for. We immediately texted everyone in our contact lists. Everyone who knows us at all knows it's what we wanted. So here we are: it's getting dark out and I still haven't stopped smiling. I'm just so thankful that we're going to have a tiny Steve running around here soon. It definitely beats a mini-Holly any day. He is the better half of us, hands down.

The first woman a little boy falls in love with is his mom.

Upgrading

2011-11-12T23:08:00.008-06:00

It's that time of year again: the time when I read The Catcher in the Rye and start saying "god damn" in every god damn sentence. Every year when I read it, I want to start writing in J.D. Salinger style. So tonight I wrote this:

Up until a year ago, I drove a yellow 1990 Honda CRX. I loved that car. I bought it when I was 18, right before I moved away to college. I have always liked yellow cars, even though I really do hate the color yellow. But a yellow car, I thought that meant something: like its owner was real unique or special in some way.

In college, my friends would mock my yellow car and call it stupid names like the taxi or the banana-mobile. They were so creative, calling something that’s yellow a name of something else that’s yellow. I have terrible taste in friends, I really do. If you want to know the truth, I wouldn’t have any friends at all if I didn’t get so lonely by myself all the time.

But even though they mocked it, they still all wanted me to drive them around in it. A lot of them didn’t have their own cars on account of being from out-of-state and all. I guess they thought it gave them a free pass to not have to be responsible and provide their own transportation, but I didn’t buy it. I just thought they were lazy.

I bit my tongue hundreds of times when my classmates would be in the passenger seat while I drove them around on their errands, and would say they had a car back home. I'm surprised I have a tongue at all anymore, with how much I chewed it up. No they didn’t. They were just talking about their parents’ car they drove around. The only way any of these people would have a car was if their parents bought it for them. I was the only one out of all my friends who was already a responsible adult capable of paying for car repairs and holding down a job that required working more than 10 hours a week.

If I didn’t bite my tongue, I wouldn’t have any friends at all. If I told people what I was thinking every time I was thinking something, I would offend a whole roomful of people. I really do have an opinion about everything. And no one wants to hear your opinion if they don’t have the same one.

Last year I traded in my yellow CRX. I really didn’t want to. I guess I knew the day would come at some point, but I wasn’t prepared for it. I thought I would drive that car until it was smoking and a spark plug sparked and I had to jump out of the cab before the entire engine exploded. But it never came to that and I traded it in anyway. The car salesman was a young pimply boy about the age I was when I bought that car in the first place.

He offered me $800 for it and I looked at him like he was crazy. “You know that will be the only thing that still exists after the Apocalypse,” I said. He looked at me like he didn’t even know what the Apocalypse was. He probably didn’t. He looked like a real moron.

“Well, most people would offer you less than that, it’s pretty old and it’s got a lot of miles,” he said. I wanted to tell him his mom was old and had a lot of miles, but I thought better of it. 'Just keep your mouth shut and buy your responsible, dependable new car,' I told myself. Plus, his mom probably wasn’t all that old, any way; probably just a couple years older than me. Now that was a depressing thought: that if I got pregnant right after I had my first period, I could have a kid almost the age of this pimply car salesman. I kept thinking about that while I signed these thousands of documents they kept shoving in my face.

I left my yellow car in the lot next to all those shiny new models. It looked so sad and dirty and old next to its showoff neighbors. No one was going to buy it. The car dealership was probably just going to sell the parts or auction it off. I felt like I betrayed my car that had never betrayed me. My loyalty was only worth a measly $800. I was real emotional about the whole thing. I even cried while I drove off in my new car.

Not the feeling you’re supposed to have when you get a new car, I suppose. I suppose you should be busy setting your radio presets, because everyone who gets a new car immediately sets the radio presets. But not me: I’m a nostalgic kind of person. If I see moon pies at a gas station, I’ll buy twenty of them. I didn’t even set my presets for a whole month. I would just drive in silence while mourning my CRX and hating the new car smell everyone else is so crazy about.

(To read the real-life version of my car-selling story and see how I can't write about anything I don't know about first-hand, click here.)

McFlurries

2011-10-26T19:27:00.001-05:00

I am one feisty pregnant woman. I'm always feisty. But being hormonal gives me an even bigger attitude. Just what I need. I am the only person you know who would get in a fight with the McDonald's manager at the drive-thru window. My friend and I wanted ice cream, and since my first love, Dairy Queen, was closed, we had to settle for McFlurries. We placed our order.

And we waited. And waited. "How long does it take to toss some M&Ms into ice cream?" I groaned, blaming the baby for my impatience, but knowing the little one had nothing to do with it. "This has taken a while," Marie answered while eying the receipt. "It says here that we placed our order at 10:46."

"It's 10:56!" I cried incredulously. "10 fucking minutes for two McFlurries? This is insane!" At that, I straightened myself and peered into the window, trying to see what the hold up was. I contorted my body to see the ice cream machine, and there was a girl with a bad attitude staring back at me. "She is in no hurry!" I exclaimed while slumping back into sitting position. "Just taking her sweet time and giving me the stink eye."

Marie didn't have time to warn me that the manager was opening the window. "Yes ma'am?" he asked, annoyed. I didn't know what to say to that. Was that a question? I didn't respond. "What can I do for you?" He rephrased. "I'm just waiting for my food," I said, and of course I threw in the shrugged shouldered-open palm-raised eyebrow gesture to show just how stupid his question was. I'm in a drive thru. I have been for ten minutes. I'm not eating. What do you think you can help me with?

"Yes, we're working on it," he said. No apology. No explanation for the hold-up. No free Monopoly pieces. Jack shit. A waste of opening the window. Finally, he brought the two McFlurries. I grabbed them impatiently and drove off in a roar. Marie stopped trying to stifle her laughter. The pregnant bitch finally got what she paid for.

preparation

2011-10-11T22:26:00.003-05:00

I had some bitchy, snarky things to say, some complaints to make which have been welling up inside of me. I have been pretty irritable and it doesn't take much to set me off these days. But while I was sitting on the couch, watching tv, Steve came and sat down, holding the free American Baby magazine that came in the mail today.

He ripped out an ad for a Boppy and passed it to me, exclaiming how cool this thing looked. I told him I knew what a Boppy was and of course we would get one. Then he passed me an article about the seven types of annoying people to pregnant women, all seven of which I am very aware of and encounter every day. He told me I could subscribe to weekly emails which explained how the baby was developing inside of me. I told him I am already subscribed, but he should download the free app on his iTouch.

It made me smile to see him so interested in the next phase, trying to prepare. I am always unprepared (but I prefer the word "spontaneous"): I give speeches at work without index cards. I throw a few shirts in the suitcase twenty minutes before we leave for a trip. I moved halfway across the country without having a job or an apartment lined up. Steve is my opposite. He remembers to bring the cell phone charger on trips and worries about circumstances that may never happen and reads reviews before buying any product.

We balance each other out. So while I don't know if either of us will be good at this whole parenting thing individually, as a team, I think we will manage. He will cram for parenting over the next six months, and I'll hope I learn it as it happens. And one way or another, we will.

bully disease

2011-10-03T20:56:00.004-05:00

It's only October 3rd and I'm ready to declare, "I'm aware of breast cancer." I'm aware of it without needing to see pink ribbons everywhere and pink cleats on NFL players and yogurt tops and "race for the cure" and "Susan B. Komen foundation" on T-shirts and signs and buses. I'm aware of breast cancer without all this marketing the same way most Americans are aware of it: we know someone who has it or had it.

In fact, breast cancer is the way I plan to die. So until then, can I please live through Octobers and every other month without being inundated with breast cancer paraphernalia? I'm not against finding a cure - by all means, find it! Preferably in the next twenty years before I'm diagnosed with it. But while finding a cure, let's stop acting like breast cancer is the only cure we're in need of finding.

How about a cure for AIDS? Heart disease? Skin cancer? I don't even know what colors those ribbons are because those diseases aren't parading around like they're the King of Diseases and the only cure in need of finding. I know I still have four more weeks in October and the rest of my life to continue seeing and hearing "breast cancer" like it's the source of the Apocalypse. But damn it if I'm not going to voice my hatred for pink ribbons in the midst of it.

Drink/personality chart

2011-10-02T10:09:00.004-05:00

I want a margarita. An icy cold, blended, flavored margarita. I only drink socially, never alone, so imagine my sudden longing for booze when I was invited to happy hour despite my condition. I'm still going. I will go and eat cheese balls because I enjoy the conversation, even without the booze that makes it so much more interesting. I wonder what drinks they will choose. I always have an expectation of what kind of drink someone will order because of what person I think they are. Here is my interpretation of a person based on the drink they order:

1. Domestic beer: low maintenance; run-of-the-mill; somewhat dull
2. Specialty beer: unique personality; knows what they want; has a few vices
3. White wine: somewhat snobby
4. Red wine: full-out snobby
5. Rum and coke: new to drinking cocktails and didn't know what else to order or first ordered a rum and coke and never switched to anything else when the rest of us did
6. Whiskey: future alcoholic
7. Gin: full-out crazy
8. Michelob Ultra: weight issues - might be extreme dieting, extreme exercising, anorexic or bullemic. Doesn't drink much and leaves the party earlier than most.
9. Vodka tonic: same as #8, but this one wants to get drunk
10. Margarita: no longer a young drinker but still knows how to have a good time
11. Shots: desperate to get laid tonight
12. Jägerbombs: wants to get laid or have fun, and can't do either without this drink

There are hundreds of other drinks, but these are the main ones I see people order, so these ones I have the most opinions about. Don't comment to me on how you love red wine but you're not snobby or anything like that. Keep in mind, I have drank all and still drink many of these beverages. So whatever terrible thing you think I'm saying about you is what I am saying about myself. What did I miss?

buttons

2011-09-28T22:36:00.011-05:00

Feeling super pregnant today: bought maternity clothes off the internet then got emotional watching The X Factor while eating cookies. OK, so other than the word "maternity" that sentence could refer to any other Wednesday night of mine. But now I have an excuse.

I've always gotten hot easily with my hyperhidrosis, but now I'm even hotter more often. Can scalps sweat? Because mine seems to think so. I constantly check our thermomstat to see if it really is hot or if it's just me. The sad thing is, I look at the temperature, and don't even know if 76 degrees is hot for a house or not.

I've been watching a lot of the Rachel Zoe Project - this season in which she is pregnant. She is always wearing skinny pants with tall stilettos and a leather jacket - making pregnancy look so fashionable and nearly glamorous which all of us non-millionaires know not to be the case.

But maybe I could clean myself up a little more this time than I did last time. Last time I was a slob. So it doesn't take much to be a step up. I factored that into my maternity clothes purchases tonight, not being so sloppy. I even bought one shirt with buttons on it.

When my little brother was younger, he hated buttons. He refused to wear shirts with buttons. Once mom forced him into one for church and he bit the buttons off in the car. It was a real struggle to find anything acceptable for him to wear to church. I remember he had a striped polo with a zipper. He wore that pretty frequently. Even now, he doesn't love buttons. He's a t-shirt kind of guy.

I wonder if our child will have some weird idiosyncrasy like that. I'm sure he/she will. I don't know anyone without something. I don't know anyone who is 100% normal. How boring we would be if we were.

What I love about normal is that there is no such thing. It's like a holy grail for the oddballs: what other people tell them to be but they probably aren't that interested in becoming. We all have our thing. I cry while sweating with a cookie in my hand, watching reality tv. My brother bites buttons off his shirt. My husband wears soccer socks in his team's colors on game days.

I could out a hundred different people here with the oddities I love about them, but what would the point be? Because the point is to find some odd person and love them how they are. Sweaty, buttonless, crying and all. If you're constantly trying to change people, you're never actually loving them.

expecting the unknown

2011-09-26T09:42:00.004-05:00

Parents, close friends, and boss have all been notified. I think that means it's OK to post it on the internet: Steve and I are expecting our first child. And by expecting I only mean waiting for it to come, because we certainly don't know what to expect. Sometimes I ask him, "do you think I'll be a good mom?" because I honestly don't know. I'm impatient and moody and undomesticated and a whole slew of other things a mom isn't supposed to be.

I have always wanted a family, but never felt prepared for one. Six years ago, I had just graduated college and had no idea what my life would bring, but certainly wasn't ready for it to bring a baby. I'm wondering if things have really changed that much over the last six years. On paper, I'm ready: I've been married for five years, I have a house with empty rooms. But in my head, it's a whole different story.

People say your natural maternal instincts kick in once your child is born and I'm really banking on that. I have great plans of family traditions and picnics and back-to-school shopping, but I don't know about the bulk of parenting: the everyday. As much as I hate being pregnant, I guess it's a good thing that it takes 9 months for that baby to emerge. It will take me 9 months of telling myself over and over that we're really having a child before I finally believe it. That is my mental preparation: acceptance.

So until the first week of April, you can expect a few blogs from me bitching about pregnancy. My chin looks like the Appalachian Mountains right about now. I have exactly two pairs of work pants and two pairs of jeans that fit and my shirt selection is getting slimmer by the day (I, of course, have the opposite problem). I pant walking up the stairs. I feel out of shape, exhausted, and just plain fat. But it's all for the greater good.

I will still plan to write about life outside of pregnancy. I hope to keep my individuality and not morph into one of those women who is only defined by the title of "mom." I plan to continue having hobbies and aspirations and friends without kids. I hope to be able to hold conversations that don't start with, "my son/daughter said/did the funniest thing yesterday..." I hope to maintain myself, while receiving my new title. But like I said, I don't know what to expect except a baby out of all of this.

hyperhidrosis

2011-09-12T21:56:00.005-05:00

Nobody thinks about it if they don't have it. But I have it. So I can do nothing but think about it. My wardrobe, my mannerisms, my activities are restricted by it. What bothers me is my hyperhidrosis. Because you don't have it, I'll explain what it is. OK, Wikipedia will: Hyperhidrosis is the condition characterized by abnormally increased perspiration, in excess of that required for regulation of body temperature.

It only afflicts nearly 3% of the population, so it's rare to find someone else with it. But I have seen the signs. I have a radar for excessive sweating. I notice people who only wear black shirts or shoes that allow them to wear socks. I notice people with an aversion to shaking hands or giving high fives. As twisted as it sounds, it gives me a tiny bit of happy camaraderie, knowing I'm not alone.

I went to high school at a private K-12 school. As soon as the lunch bell rang, I would walk to the junior high bathroom, because the junior highers were still in class and that was the only bathroom with a hand dryer. I would aim the nozzle up at the pit stains on my shirt and stand there until the stains dried, or until someone walked in - whichever came first. It is humiliating - sweating for no particular reason except for that it's what your body does.

Over a decade has passed since then and I still find my daily activities restricted by it. I might as well have a uniform with how often I wear gray pants and a black shirt to work. Black is the only color that the pit stains aren't evident on. I don't wear shoes that I can't wear socks with. I wear boots with slacks or tennis shoes with shorts. I would love to wear this adorable pair of gladiator sandals I found, but my feet would slip right out of them.

I had to wear a dress twice in the last month. I like dresses and skirts, but I can't wear them because they both go with sandals. I was a bridesmaid in my sister's wedding and she wanted to get pictures of us bridesmaids on the beach. The sand stuck to my sweaty feet and turned them a gritty gray. Five minutes before the ceremony, I was scrubbing my feet in a public bathroom. I teetered down the aisle, not only because my heels were high, but because I was afraid my sweat was going to slide me right out of my shoes and onto my face.

My hands also sweat. I used to do counted cross stitch (you know how much I enjoy old lady hobbies), but the canvas would turn brown as I neared the end. During piano lessons, I would wipe the puddled keys with the back of my hand, as if my piano teacher couldn't tell what I had done to her precious ivory. I cringe looking at or thinking about carpet while my hands are sweating. If I ever go crazy, I will be in a padded room in a straight jacket muttering "fucking carpet" for my eternity.

After shaking hands before an interview, the interviewer excuses herself to wash her hands, then returns. I don't dance at weddings because I'm uncomfortable without socks. I don't wear vibrant colors because they would showcase my armpit stains. I hate being in houses where I have to take my shoes off. I wear sweaters when I'm not hot to cover up the stained shirt underneath it. I feel like I am living a slighter version of life: the self-conscious, uncomfortable, crossed arms version.

Even though it's out of my control, it's embarrassing to be writing this on my blog, where anyone can read it. Sweating disgusts people. I am a modern day leper, but not contagious. But writing it out here makes me feel a little better. In high school, there was a girl two grades above me who co-wrote the comic strip for our newspaper. She was named "clammy hands" in the comic, and I admired her for being honest about it, despite how embarrassing it was. There is something admirable about owning your faults, rather than hiding behind them. There is a way to live this life without it being a slighter version, I just have to let go of this dream of a stupid pair of sandals.

the help

2011-09-12T21:38:00.007-05:00

I'm reading The Help (if you haven't read it yet, you need to pick up a copy immediately). In it is a woman right out of college who wants to be a writer. She applies to Harper and Row Publishers and receives the following response:

Dear Miss Phelan,
I am responding personally to your résumé because I found it admirable that a young lady with absolutely no work experience would apply for an editing job at a publisher as prestigious as ours. A minimum of five years in the business is mandatory for such a job. You'd know this if you'd done any amount of research on the business.

Having once been an ambitious young lady myself, however, I've decided to offer you some advice: go to your local newspaper and get an entry-level job. You included in your letter that you "immensely enjoy writing." When you're not making mimeographs or fixing your boss's coffee, look around, investigate, and write. Don't waste your time on the obvious things. Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.

Yours sincerely,
Elaine Stein, Senior Editor, Adult Book Division

I love writing about what disturbs me. So the next few posts will be dedicated to just that. Maybe more than a few. A lot of things upset or disgust or disturb me.

warm nights

2011-09-10T21:03:00.002-05:00

I give Omaha a lot of shit, because for three months every year I drive on snow-covered streets in white-knuckle terror. Then in the summer, I dread going outside for fear I will faint from heat stroke, or else just sweat so bad I leave a trail of sweat droplets behind me.

But for as much as I hate winter and summer here, I love fall and spring. Sure, these are the two most overlooked seasons here, as they tend to be week-long segues from extreme heat to extreme cold, but I love those very short seasons nonetheless.

Tonight I stood outside in the warm early fall air, closed my eyes. It felt like fall ten years ago. Ten falls ago I moved to Omaha to begin college. I was young and innocent and excited for whatever the world was about to bring me. I thought I was on my own, even though my mom and dad paid for my dorm room. But in a way, I was. I could be myself completely, without my family interrupting.

In college, we would stay out in the warm nights, at a park or just go for a walk with the sounds and smells of Omaha swirling around us. Those nights are when Omaha became my city. And as each summer turned into another fall, there became more and more reasons to love it.

Tonight Steve is out watching football somewhere while I have some alone time. Steve and I married each other without any intentions of changing the other. We liked each other for who we already were. So when he is not around, I am not moping around (unless I've watched too many Criminal Minds and scared myself shitless). Without him, I am me. With him, I am me. I believe every couple should be individuals.

So in the fall, he watches football on Saturdays and Sundays while I go for long walks or watch tv marathons or put together jigsaw puzzles or read a book without getting up for hours. And sometimes, I just stand outside in the warm Omaha air, and marvel at the falls that have been and the falls that will be.

dream in my pocket

2011-08-29T20:27:00.006-05:00

A few months ago, a friend of mine sent me this. She knows that I have always dreamed of being a writer. And she knows that like most dreams, it gets shoved behind daily tasks and my job and my relationships. It ends up dead last in my priorities, even though at one point in my life it was first.

You have a dream in your back pocket, don’t you? Over the years, that dream has taken on many different names in your mind: Silly. Ridiculous. Hobby. Foolish. Impossible. Waste of time. You have called it that for so long, that you have never actually taken the time to consider how it got there in your pocket in the first place.

We throw trash away; we don’t put trash in our pockets. That dream is there because at one time, you saw that it had value. And so you tucked it away for safe-keeping. But doubt and fear have convinced you to keep it hidden, convinced you to rename that dream Wrong. What would it take for you to pull that dream out again, to stop taunting it with cruel names and to simply listen to what it has to say? No filters. No back talk. No eye rolls.

Dare to handle it, to hold it in your hands and consider it with kindness, with compassion, with (dare I say it?) goals. Are there tiny, itty-bitty baby steps you can take toward pursuing it? Can you at least pull it out of your pocket and hold it in your hand? Place it on the desk, maybe? (read the rest here)

Sometime in the last few months, I quit writing. I was so overwhelmed with life and work and daily stresses that for some reason I didn't do the one thing that destresses me and makes sense of my emotions. I missed it. I suffered without it. Those months felt worthless. I felt worthless.

Then, about a month ago, I started writing again. Nothing fancy, nothing noteworthy, just writing in general. I'm writing about my childhood and a poem here and there and maybe a couple pages of fiction. Nothing noteworthy, but the dream is out of the pocket and onto the desk. No longer forgotten. My first tiny, itty-bitty baby step toward pursuing it.

jigsaw

2011-08-28T17:28:00.006-05:00

I am like this album cover.

My hobby is that of a 75-year old crotchety woman. It's jigsaw puzzles. Sometimes, I get the urge to do a puzzle the way a heroin addict probably gets the itch for a fix. I have 500 hundred piece puzzles and 1,000 piece puzzles, but it's the 1,000 piece puzzles that I really like. 500 is too short (takes me 45 minutes), but 1,000 is just right. On a Friday night, I want nothing more than to turn my iPod on full blast and sing along with my favorite songs while racing the clock, frantically making piles and putting together pieces.

Sometimes I can hear Steve laughing at me from the other room, but it doesn't bother me. I know how I must look (and sound). I have narrowed down my puzzle selection to a few favorites that I do over and over again. I've become pretty quick, but still haven't met my goal. My goal is to put together 1,000 pieces in two hours. That might sound like a lot of time, considering I can do 500 pieces in 45 minutes, but with double the pieces to sift through, it takes more than twice as long. Yesterday I almost made it. Two hours, four minutes.

People that know the bitchy and outgoing side of me - the girl who drinks two or three bottles of wine at parties and talks trash - those people probably wouldn't believe this puzzle maniac is me. The people who know the pensive side of me - the reader and writer - might believe it. The people I work with, who see me in work mode - busy, frantic, perfectionist - would think it was a bit far-fetched. I am all these things at once, yet at different times. I'm not defined by one word or mood.

That is why my blog entries are all over the map. I admire people who can write in the same voice that appeals to the same readers. But I can't do it. What I write is dictated by how I feel at the time. And it's not always bitchy, it's not always pensive, it's not always angry or happy or sad. It's not always anything. It's always something. I don't have thousands or hundreds of followers. I have a handful of people like me who are different at different times, and maybe aren't always "on" or can't always turn it off. I wish I had more control over myself, but I don't.

I am a puzzle, made up of all these different pieces - all these different moods and hobbies and personas in the album cover - and I'm not complete if even one piece is missing.

Hoes in different area codes

2011-08-25T19:32:00.003-05:00

You leave home and you move on and you do the best you can
I got lost in this old world and forgot who I am

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself

If I could walk around I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

~Miranda Lambert

Personally, I'm much more of a Miranda Lambert than a Carrie Underwood.

I went home three weeks ago, and every time I do, I feel like I'm reclaiming a little piece of myself that I had left there. I don't make it home as often as I'd like to, but every time I do, I feel myself, in a different way. The me that lives in Nebraska is responsible with a stable job who drives an air conditioned car and lives within a budget.

But the me in Washington is on vacation. I have no dog, no job, no car, no cable for those few days. I can just chum around with my brothers and chat with my mom and forget about the budget and eat out and don't exercise. The entirety of my life being responsible has been spent here, but Washington holds my childhood, my adolescence, my ~~college~~ party years. It holds my brothers and my parents, my niece and my sister-in-law. It reminds me of who I was.

Sometimes I think I want to move back there. I miss the mountain and the cool breeze and the seafood and the places to shop and my family. Mostly my family. But if I lived there, I couldn't be irresponsible Holly. It's kind of nice, having two of me - one for there, one for here. One who lives within her means, and one who does whatever she wants. Those two can't collide - they're best left in their own zip codes. This way, they can both exist.

Bitchy bakery girl

2011-08-24T07:00:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I was at Olive Garden picking up my to go order, since even at 4:30pm on a Tuesday night, that place is sure to have a one hour wait. In front of me in line at the to go counter was a woman with a fat ass ordering. I was already in a pissy mood, because who the fuck orders to go food from a sit down restaurant at the restaurant? Hasn't she heard of a god damn phone? So she is going to order the food and wait twenty minutes while glaring at the to go lady impatiently. Brilliant.

So the fact that she was a bitch just made me more pissy. I already figured she was based on the way she was standing, hogging the whole aisle rather than standing near the person she was behind in line, but I'm trying to be a gentler person a give people a chance. This woman orders, and says, "and I want a lot of breadsticks," as if she is planning to shove breadsticks in her mouth the way the Guiness record holder did with cigarrettes.

"I can only give you two for free," the to go lady replied tartly. Fat Ass rolled her eyes and shook her head and said, "well I'm not paying for them, so I guess I'll take the two." Then as soon as she said it, she added, "but I know that's bullshit because I work at a bakery." Apparently she thinks working at a bakery makes her an expert at Darden Restaurants policies. Or maybe she was trying to say she knows the value of bread, because she's in the bread industry. Either way, she just sounded like a real idiot and I coughed to cover up my chuckle.

"How long has this policy been in affect?" she asked the to go lady while signing her receipt - she just couldn't let the breadsticks thing go. "Since as long as I've worked here, and I've been here four years," the employee responded. "Well that can't be true," she retorted, "I got more than two breadsticks when I came here in...2008." She was racking her brain in the diary section, trying to see when she last wrote an entry about snorting a six foot line of breadsticks. The to go lady looked at Fat Ass, then looked at me, then snapped, "well, that's the policy."

Finally, Fat Ass stepped aside enough for me to pick up my order which was sitting there getting cold the entire time she was arguing about breadsticks. We all know that there are hundreds of breadsticks behind that door and that thousands of them get thrown away each day, but the point the to go lady was trying to make was that you get back what you put out, as J. Lo would say. If you have a breadstick instead of a small intestine, a bear claw instead of a heart, and angel food cake instead of a brain, maybe you're spending too much time in the bakery and need to start working on your social skills.

perky tits won't stand up straight

2011-08-17T21:07:00.003-05:00

Googled phrases that landed people here:

1. Why are people bitchin about the rain...its 1opm on a wed
Yeah peeps, don't bitch about rain after the sun has gone down on a weeknight.
2. Old people play with poop
I thought it was babies. But infants and the elderly do have a lot in common
3. My tall cactus won't stand up straight
Is this really about a cactus?
4. How do you outsmart a carnie
If you have to ask, you're not up for the challenge.
5. "teenage booty"
Get off my site, perv. Wrong place.
6. Holly Pelesky fucks
This one really bothers me. I mean, really, what are we expecting to find by googling this? A list? Google images? I might have a blog, but there still are some things I don't post on the internet.
7. Aziz Ansari google himself
Him and everyone else. I wonder if he puts "fucks" at the end.
8. Chipotle 401k
Unless aluminum foil counts as currency, I don't think anyone is retiring early on this.
9. Bell Jar tattoo
I just got a great idea for my first tattoo.
10. Perky tits
Wrong place again, perv. My tits haven't been perky since 2004.

the next level

2011-08-08T19:52:00.004-05:00

This is where I was this weekend.

My sister has put the last year of her life into planning her wedding. And I must say, it showed. It was beautiful and frantic and emotional and fun, all wrapped into one.

It was supposed to be a dry (no booze, but tears are allowed, if not encouraged) wedding, but my brother and I changed that. I said it was "fun," didn't I? Nothing is fun about dry. Nothing. If you're thinking of something to refute that, you're not thinking of anything dirty.

Speaking of dirty, at breakfast my aunt was talking about some Christian romance author that lives near her and we both agreed that Christian romance sounds like a real drag. "I want to read a book about the Christian girl with the messy hair," she said.

I could write that. That shit is real. No matter how beautiful something looks, is there really such a thing as a fairy tale romance? I don't think so. Relationships take work and compromise and tears and arguments. Anything less than that belongs in the fiction section.

Mylsch

2011-07-30T12:30:00.014-05:00

Six years ago today was also a Saturday. I remember it very vividly. I remember what it felt like to give birth to another human being. I remember what it felt like to hold her and smile at her tiny fingers and toes. I remember the lump in my throat, but maybe that's because it never left.

Even though I love words and try my best to put my feelings into them, I can not do it with Gracie.

Words are a one-size-fits all costume, not fitted clothing.

"Love" is too general to describe what it feels like to make and give birth to a miniature you. It's too general of a word to express to her what she means to me. Perhaps I'll never to be able to explain how it feels to love a daughter who is both your own and someone else's. Or perhaps I could, if I created my own word, from my favorite letters, one that hasn't been overused and misused yet.

So Gracie, I mylsch you. It means that there is no circumstance that could make me stop caring this much about you. It doesn't have strings attached - no matter what you feel for me, it won't change how I feel for you. It is an overwhelming emotion - in my subconscious, you are always there, sitting in a quaint little chair, occupying my thoughts. There is no past-tense for this word - the feeling is eternal.

I hope she feels it too, from all of her parents. She is one very special girl - to a lot of people. There is a lot of love for her, and a whole lot of mylsch, too.

no good very bad morning

2011-07-25T21:32:00.005-05:00

I don't handle mornings gracefully without a giant sea of specialty coffee in my stomach. Even then, your odds of me being in a civil mood are slim. It is my personal belief that "morning people" are people who have never had a hangover. They are those same people who believe a good run can cure anything and never look to self-medicate with a drug of choice. They are those people who make their own home decorations and grow their own herbs and have a natural childbirth. Those people and I have nothing in common.

Today is my second morning waking up before 6:30. It wasn't good. I slumpwalked downstairs for breakfast. Steve poured me coffee into my favorite mug - a black and white monogrammed one my sister got me. Awhile ago, the handle broke off, but Steve superglued it back on for me. Apparently superglue is not eternal. As I held the mug up to my lips by the handle, the cup part dropped, splattering warm coffee all over my body on the way down to my freshly mopped kitchen floor.

I had to take a second shower (to my three male readers: all though this is an insignificant and quick task for you, for a woman with hair, it is a giant pain in the ass). I still had some extra time, so I popped in my yoga DVD. While I was standing erect with my palms pressed together above my head (the only yoga pose I know), the spinning ceiling fan knocked my phalanges together as I yelped in pain.

Finally, I make it to work, cursing the morning and my shitty home brewed coffee I never got to drink. As soon as I walk into my office, I see a ceiling tile in pieces on the floor and water stains on the carpet all around it. The ceiling is dripping. Someone surmises the problem to be the air conditioner, and a service is called. "Please don't shut off the air," I whine like the overheated hyperhidrosis victim I am. No one gives a shit what I have to say about my clammy hands - the air is turned off. The temperature climbs and climbs until I can't take it any longer - I leave to get a cold specialty coffee, and consider not returning at all.

But I do return. Because I'm a responsible adult who needs a paycheck. And because I know in the grand scheme of life, these problems aren't really problems. There are people with a much shittier time of life than mine. But I'm so busy being a self-involved whiner I don't even notice it. Tomorrow the alarm will sound bright and early again. And maybe tomorrow I won't violently suffocate it with my pillow.

egg me

2011-07-20T19:28:00.007-05:00

Every morning, Steve and I eat breakfast together: we each have one egg over easy, and a mug of coffee. On the weekends, we make a big breakfast: our favorite is breakfast burritos. Breakfast burritos involve eggs, sausage, bacon, cheddar cheese, tater tots, and tortillas. We fucking love eggs. We eat as many eggs as Gaston.

Since my last check-up was five years ago (well, really since I needed something prescribed to me for my hyperhidrosis), I visited a doctor. All I was interested in was getting that signed paper from him, but he made me get needle-poked (I added "needle" so it didn't sound so dirty, but now it sounds worse) and give urine and all sorts of other intrusive tasks I wasn't in the mood for. All that to tell me I am healthy. But my cholesterol is a bit high.

Guess what has 65% of your daily cholesterol? One measly egg yolk. What the fuck am I supposed to eat now? And don't tell me oatmeal - that mushy shit looks like what they put in pig troughs. Don't tell me grape nuts, either: I'm not 85. No, I would never spend the two hours it requires to peel an orange. In fact, don't tell me to eat any breakfast food that isn't eggs, because it's only eggs I'm interested in. If only Gaston weren't a cartoon - I'm sure he'd know what to do.

the blogger is out: to return in september

2011-07-11T19:40:00.004-05:00

Forgive me for my absence.

Big Brother has begun.

If it weren't for that show, there would be absolutely nothing I liked about summer. I hate mosquitoes and unbearable heat and that stuff between your window panes. I hate the sound of flip flops, I hate those teeny bikinis that I can't wear ever since the stretch marks. I've even become indifferent about ice cream, which was at one time a great joy of my life.

But Big Brother saves me from my misery, even if only for three hours a week. Who am I kidding? Three hours? That's just watching the network show. Then there's twitter feeds and jokers updates and message boards and Big Brother After Dark on Showtime.

Steve says it's my religion, then laughs, as if it's a joke.

No one should joke about people's beliefs. It's disrespectful.

I will lurking around the internet, checking out Big Brother gossip. And every now and again, I'll pop in here, too - to remind myself of my own reality outside of reality tv.

help wanted

2011-06-26T13:45:00.004-05:00

I have such an inflated sense of my work ethic that every time I see a Help Wanted sign, I think the establishment wants me. They don't want help, they want Holly. The sign makes me consider quitting my job so I can go work at Runza/Scooters/Bag N Save and revolutionize their company. With me as their employee, they will become a Fortune 500 company virtually overnight.

Drive-thru? I could kill it on the headset. I could get serving times down to 12 seconds, as long as the customers have their hands out the car window with their credit cards ready.

Coffee shop? I will create six new drinks which will get everyone to come from Starbucks over to our place. And only our alcoholic customers will recognize the secret ingredient in my drinks is Kahlua.

Grocery store? I'll sell alcohol without carding anyone.

Everytime I see one of those yellow signs, I want to grab it, slap it onto the counter and say, "I hear you loud and clear. Where's my apron?" For some reason, this feeling only strikes me with the signs. Newspaper ads, online job postings, they do nothing for me. Something about the desperation of the sign lures me.

Or maybe it's because receptionist and data entry jobs never have signs. I don't want to be anyone's bitch, I want to run the show. I want to show everyone what they're missing. I quickly tire of not being recognized.

While putting up the Help Wanted sign, I can imagine the owner dreaming of an employee like me to come in with a perfectly spelled résumé. No business owner dreams of a person in dirty jeans coming in and asking for an application and a pen while stealing a pack of gum. But until I can be cloned, they will have to do.

same postal code

2011-06-20T07:20:00.002-05:00

Tonight, I was asked if I am happy.

"For the most part," I answered.

"That means 'no'," he replied,
"Life is black or white."

"No," I argued,
"Life is shades of gray."

But even as I said it,
I thought, what if he is right?
What if everything can be reduced
down to a "yes" or "no" answer
and all of this reasoning
in the grays
is simply a waste of time?

If that's the case,
I guess he's right:
I'm not happy.

So I hold onto my belief
of gray areas -
I want to believe I am happy
or at least
that I'm in the vicinity.

splitting assets

2011-06-14T22:31:00.004-05:00

I need encouragement. I'm taking a stab at writing a book, after talking about it for years and years. Read a page and give me some feedback. Any feedback. I have to start somewhere.

I lifted my downcast eyes and snuck a look at my husband, soon to be ex-husband. He was watching our two lawyers discuss splitting assets with interest. He was dressed in a gray blazer, he sat erect; his eyes danced with amusement.

He looked more alive and vibrant. I wondered if he had a new girl; if this new energy was the result of a new fling. Or, was it that at last being himself, rather than my husband and all that entailed, was responsible for this change in him? Perhaps being through with my endless requests for more affection had freed him.

I tried to imagine his day-to-day, but could picture nothing past his commute. I knew nothing of him anymore. He hadn't stooped to my level of having juicy date gossip filter through our mutual friends, hoping it would end up in a conversation he was included in.

All of a sudden, I felt as if I was the one being divorced, rather than the initiator. To realize he didn't need me after all those "I can't live without you"s caught in my throat and I instinctively reached for the pitcher of water. The clinking of the glass caught Aaron's attention and he looked at me.

I held his gaze, and he smiled at me. Not a smirk or a sympathy smile, but that grin that would erase everyone else in a room full of people. I gulped down my loneliness, reminding myself to contemplate it later.

old songs and poems

2011-06-12T21:12:00.002-05:00

Once upon a time, I lived alone; I lived in a one bedroom apartment by myself. My friend and I went shopping at Furniture Row where I opened up a credit card and bought dark wood furniture for all three of my rooms. It took six weeks for the furniture to come in, so until then, I slept on the floor. All I had brought with me from Washington to Nebraska was what would fit in my Saturn: books and clothes and a box of memories.

I had a tv, but no cable or bunny ears. I spent my time at work, and then came home, read my books, listened to music, and wrote. I cleaned the place frequently. It was small, and soon full of furniture, but it was my cozy little nook. The fridge was full of Mug root beer, bagels, and smoked turkey; the cupboards of pasta and Swiss cake rolls. It was meager living, but I was myself.

And now, I am still me, but I don't always feel myself. I have a job that stresses me out, at times so much that I forget who I am. I am too conscientious now of money and how much things cost and that I'm not making enough or saving enough. At home, I work out, as to not gain as much weight as I'm consuming. Then I watch tv because it's there and so am I and I don't want to put the effort it takes into doing anything else.

There are things to do: cleaning is now a daylong project, not a fifteen minute chore. There are events I feel guilted into attending, even though I don't want to. Even those things that are supposed to be fun, like a happy hour with the girls from work, sometimes feels exhausting because I just want to be at home by myself, with my iPod and a puzzle. I want to feel myself again.

Sometimes I feel completely myself for a moment, when I'm reading a book of poetry or listening to an older country song, but it's the exception now. I feel like I'm constantly being poked and proded into a responsible adult. That's not who I am. I am that person who doesn't consider money and overdrafts her account. I'm that person that will spend three hours on a walk because I have no agenda. I was that person who drove an old beater car because it meant something to her.

I am losing myself in an endless cycle of alarm clocks, DVR recordings, and monthly budgets. I have become the responsible adult. But I long to feel myself - the girl who did what she wanted when she wanted and always felt at peace. Sure, it isn't responsible or respectable at my age, but it was familiar territory.

carnie guesses

2011-06-08T20:42:00.007-05:00

There are things I can turn down: saunas, gym memberships, mani/pedis and chocolate chip bacon cookies are in this category.

Then there are things that I can't turn down: a trip to the bookstore, a nap, reality tv, and premium coffee are in this category. Premium coffee is a real vice of mine. In my personal expense column of our budget, nearly every line reads, "Starbucks" or "Scooters."

So when driving back from a seminar, my co-worker suggested we stop at Starbucks, I swerved my car across three lanes of traffic and into a parking space so fast it compelled her to ask, "does Steve usually drive?"

Inside, the lonely barista was so excited to see some young women, he made up some carnie schtick, claiming he could guess our drink of choice by looking at us. He completely butchered my co-worker's, but she ordered it anyway, probably to boost his self-esteem. He was, after all, a carnie in his past life, and she still has compassion for much of mankind.

When it came my turn, I let him get a good look at me to size me up. "Look me in the eyes," he said, "it's all in the eyes." How many seconds until a gaze becomes an eyeful? Because wherever that line is, he came dangerously close to it. Of course, he butchered my drink of choice as well, although I am hard to guess because my drink is no longer listed on the menu (I'm mysterious and elusive like that).

We left with our drinks in hand, and with the disturbing sense that a lonely barista just made up a hell of a line to ogle us. "Turn around, I need to see your ass to decide whether or not you want whip cream," I joked. But was it a joke? Or did a carnie just outsmart two businesswomen from a seminar? God damn it.

sunburn

2011-06-04T15:04:00.006-05:00

I've come to hate small talk.

It means two people have nothing to talk about. But to mask that, they have pointless chatter, most commonly about the weather, but it doesn't have to be. Sometimes it's other observations. I hate small observation talk. Most commonly, it's something like, "you got a haircut." What are you supposed to say to that? "Why yes, I did. Thanks for noticing"?

For me, it's sunburns. People are always commenting to me how I got a little sun over the weekend. I never know what they expect me to say in return. "Why yes, I have very pale skin. If I get the mail, I have to use aloe vera for a week." Or, "no shit - I went outside."

Or do they want me to comment on some observation I have about them? How about I say, "you look tired - did you have to sleep on the couch again last night?" If I commented on every observation I had, everyone would be offended. But somehow, other people do, and no one gets upset at them.

No one, that is, except me. It's pointless. I hate that which doesn't serve a purpose. Keep your observations to yourself, unless there is some point to verbalize it. Like, "you're on fire," would be helpful, whereas, "your Skittles are all different colors," is not helpful, just infuriating.

Now I'll go rub some aloe vera on my arms - I just got the mail. My celebrity magazine came today, so I'll read that while my skin starts to peel.

my new car smells

2011-06-02T21:19:00.002-05:00

It finally happened.

I got a new car.

After seven years of driving a salvaged car without air conditioning, you would think I would be ecstatic the day I traded the bucket of bolts in for a newer model.

But I wasn't.

I cried.

I fucking cried! Full out red eyes, red nose, sniffles.

The salesman came back from negotiating with the broker and saw me crying. He asked what was wrong while I sniffled into a kleenex. Steve said, "she's very attached to her car."

I thought about all the hours I worked and all the money I saved to buy it. I thought about how I've had that car longer than I've been married. That car knew me when I was in college, when I was pregnant, it moved halfway across the country with me. I think it even knew me when I was still a virgin.

I took it to the mechanic and fixed up what I could and it was faithful to me. I always thought I would drive her until she sputtered to a stop for good. But we didn't even make it to the end together. I felt like I was betraying an old friend. No amount of money they offered me for a trade in would accurately portray that car's value.

I told Steve I wanted to not trade it in, but sell it myself so I can meet the new owner. I told him it was as special to me as a pet and I didn't want her sitting in an impersonal lot, getting sunburned and mocked, parked amongst the new models. But after a few more kleenex, I swallowed that lump in my throat and signed the papers.

But the lump resurfaced.

Even now, I feel guilty, having a new car when ~~nothing~~ not everything was wrong with my old one.

People say I deserve a new car. But sometimes you don't deserve what you get.

Sometimes contentment is more valuable than determination.

tornado survivors

2011-05-25T23:38:00.002-05:00

You might have already heard this, but if not, this bike helmet story is pretty amazing:

"As the tornado neared her home in Joplin, Natalie Gonzalez ran to the bathroom and huddled in the tub with her 9-year-old son Augie, her puppy and boyfriend.

"We saw the tornado warning," she told ABC News today. "We heard the sirens. I looked outside and saw the dark cloud. We made the split-second decision to take a blanket, take a pillow. ... I threw these things over my son. "

Gonzalez said that at the last minute, she got her son to put on his bicycle helmet because she'd heard it would protect a child during a hurricane.

"At one point, the toilet flew up out of the ground and hit my son in the head and me in the back and the bicycle helmet saved his life," she said. When it appeared that they were in the eye of the storm, Gonzalez said, the three ran from the bathtub and jumped into a ditch."

~ABCNews

divide or conquer

2011-05-24T22:22:00.002-05:00

Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.
~Eugene Ionesco

I don't talk much about religion or politics. Not on this blog, not in real life. It really is true, that quote. Political and religious differences separate nations, cause wars, and are the reason that a mob was standing on the corner of 144th and Harrison the other day with signs that read, "God hates fags." Some serial killers claim their motives to be religious. Religions shun and shut out. Churches excommunicate. Friendships are lost. Families have feuds.

It all seems silly to me.

"Live and let live," I say. You believe what you believe, I'll believe what I believe.

Neither of us will try to convert the other, or say someone who believes differently than we do is wrong, or their lifestyle is sinful or that they are going to hell. How about people only go to funerals when they're invited, not to tell mourners that the dead deserved it.

And then, we can co-exist.

I think that people often believe what they want to believe. They will mask a prejudice with the words, "the Bible says" so as to not sound prejudiced. Seriously, none of us have the answers. So why do we try to convince each other that we do?

Rather than share my religion, I share my dreams and anguish on this blog. I've already felt division from people I grew up with. That's why I choose the opposite.

going postal

2011-05-19T23:17:00.006-05:00

At work, we have a mailman who was nicknamed "Papa Smurf" for his uncanny resemblance. The beard, the stature...he even wears all blue. I thought Papa Smurf was a harmless lonely old man, so I would chit chat with him each day while signing for our certified mail.

And then, a co-worker moved into my office with me.

That's when the creepiness went from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds.

One day, he pulled out his phone and fiddled around with it for a full minute before holding it out at arms length and saying, "smile."

The next time I saw him, he said, "your co-workers probably all thought I was creepy because of the picture thing - I just wanted you to know, I didn't really take her picture, it was a joke." When I asked what the joke was about, he said, "in case she ever turns up missing, I can submit it to Robert's Dairy to put on their milk cartons."

Then, on Friday, he brought in roses. One for my co-worker, one for me.

Suddenly, Papa Smurf went from harmless to having a medicine cabinet full of roofies. He was no longer asking us to sign for certified mail, but saying, "it puts the lotion on the skin."

So my boss called the post office. He said under no circumstances is the mailman to talk to the young girls who he brought roses to. He's to go to the accounting manager to have anything signed, then drop off the mail, and go on to his next stop.

I saw the post man after that, said a casual "hello" and he nearly growled at me.

If I stop posting for more than two weeks straight, call Robert's Dairy, see if my picture is there, then plaster it on every milk carton you can find.

second bra, dumpster, not invited

2011-05-16T18:48:00.003-05:00

My blog showed up in these Google search results:

1. Second bra
What? People have more than one?
2. Saturn sounds like bucket of bolts rattling in back when driving
OK, good, so it's not just mine.
3. Envision your perfect partner
Done. So where is Mark McGrath? (I've been watching a lot of "Celebrity Apprentice" lately)
4. Is fairview heights il a good place to live
It's decent if you lock your doors and don't buy drugs from the wrong person.
5. Hoarder rent a dumpster
That's what I've been saying for years. If only hoarders were willing to throw things away.
6. Bitch didn't invite me
You're right. She sounds like a real bitch.
7. t shirt with scientific equation and then there was life
Let me guess: you're single?
8. Maybe I'm not a beauty queen but am
But am what? Ugly?
9. face book next time you think i give a bitch, remember the 3 b's
Whoa, this sounds violent. But at least not as violent as:
10. stabbed in heart steak knife Puyallup
What kind of freaks are loitering on my blog? I didn't do it, by the way.

Omaha

2011-05-15T18:44:00.003-05:00

I love my little big city.

Yesterday, I drove across the breadth of this town that I love, my window rolled down with the smell of freshly-cut grass in the air. My new used books on the seat next to me, and a smile on my face.

I know the streets: which are one ways, which traffic lights aren't timed with the others, where the potholes and dips are, which neighborhoods have outlets. I have walked through the neighborhoods, ran down the streets, and drove the interstate. I have my favorites, like Farnam and 16th and I will always love the rundown streets of Little Italy.

I have shopped in the stores, ate at the restaurants, drank at the bars.

I interact with the people: I I have honked at those fuckers who cut me off, I have swayed with strangers at concerts, I have made small talk with people in check-out lines. I have even began to consider them all being clothed in red on Husker game days endearing.

A friend told me about a used book store, so I went there for their closing sale. The owner asked me if I was from Omaha, and I said "yes," which is probably what I say if anyone asks and I'm not in Omaha. But then I corrected myself, and said, "no, I'm from the Seattle area." That reminded me:

There was a time in my life when I knew nothing of this place. And I could have never known it. I could have heard it mentioned in a song or seen Eppley Airfield on "Up in the Air," or thought it was the capital of Nebraska. But it could have never been a part of me. I could have never known of the Henry Doorly Zoo or what ConAgra Foods manufactures or who Warren Buffett is.

But I do. Omaha wormed its way into my being and made a nest there. Or I wormed my way into Omaha and made a nest here. Even though it's where I'm from, Omaha has become my home. I moved away from it, and in doing so, longed to move back. It got in my blood: Dodge Street became my main artery. I know this place better than I know the place I grew up. And somehow, the place where I grew into adulthood now means more to me than the place where I grew out of childhood.

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.
~Maya Angelou

success rate

2011-05-13T20:01:00.001-05:00

I hear people say the divorce rate is deplorable – can you believe only 50% of people who get married stay married?

I think that’s amazing. It’s pretty great that half of the people who decide they want to be with someone forever really mean it. Forever is a very long time. It’s easy to make a promise, but words are our weakest hold on the world (Alberto Rios). Keeping a promise is where we run into snags.

Humans are fickle creatures. We’re always changing or wanting other people to change. Who someone was when they were 22 isn’t who they are when they’re 55. But some couples stay married through all those changes regardless.

I believe you should stay with someone only because you want to. No other reason.

And if for that reason, you are still with the person you married, you are worth applauding.

Each year of marriage that passes, I feel more and more confident that Steve and I are going to become a part of that statistic. We’ve got a 50/50 shot.

I change, he changes, but I love him for more than who he was when I met him. I love him for who I know he can and will become. I dream with him. I know we won’t always be the same, but I’ve found someone that I want to evolve with.

If I was with anyone else, I’d be a part of the other 50%. But I’ve found the person who loves me as I am and doesn’t mind who I’m becoming. I’ve found the person I need.

Maybe we are the way we are because of the people we’re with. Or maybe we just pick the people we need. ~5/11/11 Modern Family episode

reunion

2011-05-11T20:48:00.000-05:00

So it's happened. I've been invited to my 10-year high school reunion.

When we were about to graduate high school, some of us thought we'd still be friends. We're not.

I have considered going. I live half the country away, but it might be fun to see people from my past again. I considered using a day or two of precious PTO for the occasion. I thought of going back to say hello to the other 48 members of our private school graduating class. The private school that prohibited dancing, so as you can imagine, they also prohibited everything else.

Back then, I didn't mind, because I was still innocent and hadn't even tried out the secular pleasures the world had to offer. But now, I have. I don't know that my old friends would enjoy my tales of debauchery. I don't know if they've changed, or if they expect the rest of us to also have clung to our parents' virtues with fierce resolve.

Because I couldn't decide on my own, I messaged the one person from high school that I know isn't a goody-goody.

Me: so I got an invite to our 10-year high school reunion today. What do you say we buy a couple fifths of vodka and go crash it?
Her: umm fucking yes please! haha! that would be hysterical.

That would be hysterical. To us, any way. Everything's funnier when you loosen up a bit.

advice

2011-05-09T21:47:00.004-05:00

I found this over at Rabbit's blog and had to share it.

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most
interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the
future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable,
politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

~Mary Schmich
of the Chicago Tribune
June 1, 1997

Mother's Day

2011-05-07T11:53:00.004-05:00

I kind of hate Mother's Day.

Because people don't know how to treat me on it.

People never know what to say or what not to say around me, and I get it, because if I was anyone besides myself, I'm sure I would be confused too.

What people will ask is how often I see her and if I send her cards and if she sends me cards, and I hate those questions because I feel like the asker expects a certain response out of me. If I say I haven't seen her for two years, they will think that isn't often enough, or if I say I only send things on her birthday and Christmas, they'll think I don't care. I feel judged.

A few weeks ago, I went to a baby shower for my college roommate. I hadn't seen her in quite some time and she was one of the few people who didn't make the situation awkward; she asked me how I felt. It was the first time I said the words out loud, because it was the first time anyone had honestly asked; I said, "each year it hurts a little less." And once I said it, I knew that's how I had been feeling.

A few days after, Gracie sent me a card that said, "I probably loved being in your belly."

That was all the Mother's Day I needed.

doppelgänger

2011-05-06T22:59:00.007-05:00

Ever wonder what it would be like to be yourself all of the time?

I have a theory: that there are two of all of us - one which acts on impulses, speaks her mind, laughs and cries when the feelings strike, ignores people who annoy her, doesn't go to events she's not interested in, wears pants with drawstrings, is able to honestly express her political and religious beliefs, texts her husband when she's afraid of the car idling outside their house. That is yourself.

Then there is the you people expect you to be. The one who works at a job she doesn't like just for the paycheck because she needs to be responsible. The one who wears clothes that don't look good on her because they are trends so she fits in, rather than stands out. The one who agrees with people but doesn't really agree. The one who doesn't text her husband that she's scared lest his friends think she's psychotic. That is the alternate you: the one you feel you have to be outside of your own home - outside of your comfort zone. The person people have pushed you to become.

I see myself slipping further and further into myself with each passing year. I am realizing who I am and who I am not. I do not define myself by what people tell me anymore: I'm learning who I am for myself. I don't believe in a religion because I went to that type of church during childhood. I'll figure that out on my own. You also won't find me reading Twilight or wearing a Livestrong bracelet. I already know those aren't for me.

I have a long way to go - but I'm getting there, little by little. When asked, I will tell people my plans for Friday night are to put together a puzzle and watch "Shark Tank" and I'm not ashamed of it. I don't feel the need to have grandiose weekend plans just because I'm under the age of 30 and older people expect me to still party. I am learning to be myself, regardless of what that makes people think of me.

Maybe I just stopped caring. Maybe I'm giving up on outward appearances. Call me lazy and preach to me about social norms all you want, but you'll find I'm not listening. It's taken 28 years so far, and I'm sure a few more to go, but it feels good to finally become me. Being anyone else is just exhausting.

flirt

2011-05-04T20:58:00.002-05:00

I am an expert flirt; it is a basic instinct of mine. I laugh at jokes that are funny. I pay attention to people when they talk (if I'm interested). Dirty banter beyond "that's what she said," pops out of my mouth unexpectedly. I don't toss my hair, but the more subtle flirting - that's my expertise. So subtle, in fact, that I don't notice it.

But other people notice it; women notice it.

Single men who haven't noticed my ring notice it.

Old men love me for it.

It used to bother Steve, but by this time, we've reached that point. That point where you realize there are parts of someone that aren't going to change, and you best just learn to accept it. I love him for that.

My flirting with other people will never amount to anything because of Steve. That's what this ring he gave me does: it says I belong to someone. So I joke around and talk to men for twenty minutes sometimes. At the end of the day, I belong to the one man I will never tire of flirting with.

And as a bonus, the ring wards off the creeps.
Usually.
But I did get a rose from a much older man on Friday.
That will be a blog post all it's own.
Let's just say, Steve wasn't surprised.

rat race

2011-05-03T17:09:00.002-05:00

I was reminded of a story I read...It was about a woman in a small town who bought a vacuum cleaner. Her name was Mrs. Jones, and up until then she, like all of her neighbors, had kept her house spotlessly clean by using a broom and a mop. But the vacuum cleaner did it faster and better, and soon Mrs. Jones was the envy of all the other housewives in town - so they bought vacuum cleaners, too.

The vacuum cleaner business was so brisk, in fact, that the company that made them opened a branch factory in town. The factory used a lot of electricity, of course, and so did the women with their vacuum cleaners, so the local electric power company had to put up a big new plant to keep them all running. In its furnaces the power plant burned coal, and out of its chimneys black smoke poured day and night, blanketing the town with soot and making all the floors dirtier than ever. Still, by working twice as hard and twice as long, the women of the town were able to keep their floors almost as clean as they had before Mrs. Jones ever bought a vacuum cleaner in the first place.

~from Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
by Robert C. O'Brien

mortality

2011-05-02T20:53:00.003-05:00

My blog almost died. Almost. But not yet.

Last night, Steve asked me what happened to my blog and reminded me the writing was something I loved. I hadn't forgotten, but I had nearly given up.

I confessed to him my fear of mortality. You see, I don't believe in heaven or hell; I believe when we die, our story ends. Every book has a beginning and an end. And I've been thinking about the end lately. I don't fear death, as I know it is inevitable, but I fear every part of me dying with my body.

I'm afraid of not living on in anyone's minds. I fear my poems staying locked on yellowing, unread pages, never to mean anything to anyone, and then one day to be thrown in Monday's trash without hesitation. Without anyone to read them, they are only thoughts, and it doesn't matter whether or not they were ever written on a page.

To me, failure is being nobody to everyone.

But last night, when I shared my fear with Steve, I realized that very fear should be motivation: to write my memoir, even if I am still young. For me to work harder to get a poem published in an anthology somewhere. For me to spend each day writing something, because maybe someday someone will remember it. But even if not, I won't regret not trying.

Immortal

Sometimes I think
of
what I would write
if I didn't plan on
it one day
having an audience.

If one day it was
never
discovered in a
battered notebook
locked away in a
wooden chest
in my attic.

And I think
if
I would write
anything at all.

-February 5, 2008

campus tour

2011-04-19T20:57:00.003-05:00

With a college friend back in town, we took a trip to the place we met. We roamed the hallways, the library, the gym. It all came flooding back to us: memories of our early adulthood. The looks of some things changed (very few, but a few), but the smells all remained the same. I smelled leaving class early in the hallway. I smelled flirting in the common lounge. I smelled ambition in the old gym equipment.

We laughed over the memories we had there, and mourned our former selves. I'm not sure if it was the person I was then, or the loss of my innocence that I mourned. I remembered when every sin was to a lesser degree: sex was making out, drugs was drinking, assault was insults. I was more pure--not of heart, but of mind. I was still optimistic and hopeful. I wasn't yet hardened by the world. No one had broken my heart or my spirit. I hadn't let anyone yet.

On Glee, Emma says, "At what age are you able to look back on your life with nothing but regret? Is 30 too young?" I know people say they have no regrets in life, because every decision they've made has made them who they are today. But I do have some regrets, because I know I could be someone better than who I am today. I regret sleeping with certain people. I regret not chasing a career I'm passionate about. I regret my ambition slipping and letting my writing just sit on the shelf as an empty dream.

Also on Glee, Holly says, "there are ramifications (for your actions) because it makes you comfortable with insensitivity." The person I was back in my first couple years of college was in no ways perfect, but she also wasn't yet comfortable with insensitivity.

We left our old school, feeling old and empty. Because we knew that once you lost that innocence, you can never get it back. But although you can't reclaim your innocence, you can always become a better person. And maybe my regrets are the best way to tell me how to do that.

pages

2011-04-13T17:27:00.004-05:00

Maybe I'd prefer movies if...

1. The same actors didn't play different characters. When I read a book, I imagine this character as unique. But then when the book becomes a movie, they have Matthew McConaughey play the character, and I'll I can see now is his shirtless body in a role that definitely requires a shirt. I typecast every actor where they should really only play themselves.

Plus, my imagined characters never look as bad as some of their screenplay counterparts. Drew Barrymore can stop ruining stories for me any time now. I'm all about the aesthetically pleasing. Luckily for Joan Cusack, I don't rule the world.

2. More of them narrated. Too much dialogue, not enough thoughts. I love the few movies with narration. If I ever write this book, it will be mostly thoughts, so I'm sure it won't sell. But my position is, if you want dialogue, watch a sitcom. I read for those pensive thoughts between the snappy conversations.

3. They didn't feel the same because the same writers and producers are mulching all these different stories into their same plot: guy meets girl, they bicker, but finally realize they want each other, trouble occurs or secret is revealed and one leaves, the other catches them right before it's too late and they end up together anyway.

4. I could read from so far away.

5. They didn't all have happy endings.

But until then, I prefer books.

drive-thru breakfast

2011-04-10T14:04:00.002-05:00

On the weekends, Steve and I make a big breakfast and eat it together. Breakfast burritos, pancakes, omelettes, something like that. It's one of the cutesy couple things we do together: you know, one of those things that people not in a couple say, "awww" to out of complete nausea.

But on days when we're out of a key ingredient -like sausage- and we are up before 10:30, I go to Starbucks for a ~~milkshake~~ frappuccino and then McDonald's for sausage mcmuffins. The woman who handed me my bag of food said the oddest thing. She said, "come again."

If there's one place in the entire world that doesn't need to worry whether their customers will become repeats, it's McDonald's. Everyone who goes to McDonald's once goes again, save the people on death row. Even the new vegetarians and vegans relapse at some point and where do you think they run to first? That's right, McDonald's.

It isn't like I woke up yesterday and said, "what is that place with those golden arches I see on every other corner? Maybe I'll try that joint out." We all know what McDonald's is and go when we're drunk or hungover or broke or pregnant. Or on a road trip or out of groceries or craving beef. And everyone is one of these at some point again. Everyone returns to McDonald's. Even if it's just to return the recalled cadmium-tainted drinking glasses. McDonald's has a way to get everyone to come back.

silent rain

2011-04-05T21:53:00.003-05:00

There are attributes of myself I hate. There are personality traits I wish I didn't have. But the wish isn't quite strong enough for me to really focus on changing it. I've become pretty set in my ways, which is dangerous at my young age.

But maybe if it's out there floating in cyberspace, I will acknowledge that the want to change was there, however weak and fragile.

I hate that I'm not more tactful.
I hate that my heart is always worn on my sleeve.
I hate that my every thought is verbalized.
I hate how all my emotions and thoughts being public makes me look so stupid and emotional and unpoised, however true those assumptions are.

I hate that my life is an open book, rather than a locked diary.

I hate that I can not keep my own secrets.

Silence is the secret to sanity.
~Astrid Alauda

pursuit of happiness

2011-04-02T07:27:00.005-05:00

In loving somebody, you realize your own shortcomings. And in loving that person, you want to become someone better for them.

You become a better person by curtailing urges, impulses, and addictions with self-control. By trading in your selfish "it's all about me" mentality for one that includes the word "us." That means thinking beyond yourself and immediate gratification.

At some point, we realize our vices are hollow pursuits, and instead spend our time and energy on those pursuits with purpose - like earning an honest living to support our families, pursuing the hobbies that balance us out and make us happy.

It is a sacrifice: it requires you to say "no" to what you've been saying "yes" to: whether it be drinking, drugs, gambling, pornography - whatever your weakness is. It requires losing touch with friends that encourage those empty pursuits.

But although it's not easy, soon enough, you will find joy in other pleasures. And these ones won't be empty.

accidental chemistry

2011-03-30T22:18:00.004-05:00

My theory on relationships, and how you know you've found the right one:

Before being in love, we have expectations. We think things will or should be a certain way when we're in love.
You might envision perfect dates of strolling down a street lit up by Christmas lights while sipping hot cocoa and talking about your childhood.
You might envision what your perfect partner will look like: good height, straight teeth, disheveled hair, dark brown eyes, stylish wardrobe.
You might be less shallow and think more about personality traits your future mate will have: caring, smart, funny.

In your mind, you build up a perfect mate and a perfect life together that follows, without ever meeting. Gambling on great expectations, you keep "your type" in mind, clear as a picture in your wallet. You are looking for someone who fits a list of characteristics you've created. You have boiled the love of your life down to a scientific formula. Then you find yourself out there among the other people somewhere around your age who are also single and looking.

That's when we date people and then break up with them for seemingly shallow reasons: their name has too many vowels or not enough consonants, the way they chew their food drives you insane, or they drive an Impala. It could be any innocuous reason, the point is the person isn't right for you, and you know it. Maybe they fit the scientific formula in every way, but you still find a reason to break up: you found a gray hair and bolted.

And then you end up dating someone not your type. Maybe friends set you up, or maybe you were friends with this person while you were dating others. Maybe you followed your mom's advice and "gave him a chance." He isn't like any of the other people you dated. If you saw him on paper, you would have immediately dismissed him as "not a fit." But it does fit. And suddenly, that characteristics list and "your type" is what seems shallow.

Because when you find the person who suits you, you know it. It's as if you just pulled on a tight dress and it hugs all your curves in the right places and makes you look better than you have ever looked before. This person makes you laugh and when you're not with him you think about what he's doing. He calms you down or gets you excited and love becomes more than a list of what you want. Your selfishness disappears as it becomes about the both of you being happy, together.

We make lists to tell ourselves what we want when we can't be completely sure what it is we're looking for. But you can't know what you're looking for before having seen it. Love is a connection: it's a perfect chemistry of two people that you can't reason away into a scientific formula. Instead, you stumble across it by chance: by pouring different liquids into beakers until two combine and make steam.

cactus arms

2011-03-24T21:19:00.011-05:00

There is something I read over at simply freckles many months ago that I haven't forgotten: "...I desperately needed to share it, catalog it, and keep it where I can always find it. Here...safe in my collection of pretty lil nothings."

That is what my blog is. Whether it's nothing or whether it's something, anything I want to remember and share is the for my blog. That is the reason I have a blog. Every post does not need to be an original thought. Many times I read something and wish I would have thought of it or wrote it myself.

No one has time to read every inspiring or interesting thing - there are books that many of us would love, but will never read. So I will share the snippets that inspire me here on my blog, in case my readers haven't had the chance to read it in its context. Those things I desperately need to share and catalog will be here: safe in my collection of pretty little nothings.

* * *

The drive home seemed to take ten minutes. As we descended into the hot desert, I felt a lump in my throat.
"I hate cactus," I grumbled.
"I like them," Jedd said. "Know why they grow those big arms?"
"No."
He lit a Marlboro.
"When a cactus starts leaning to one side," he said, "it grows an arm on the other side, to right itself. Then, when it starts tipping that way, it grows an arm on the opposite side. And so on. That's why you see them with eighteen arms. A cactus is always trying to stand up straight. You've got to admire anything that tries that hard to keep its balance."

* * *

We sat and waited for her crying to subside, as if waiting for a monsoon to pass. Handing her one Kleenex after another I remembered what Jedd had said about cacti, how they right themselves, how they are always trying to stand up straight. This was what my mother and I were doing, I decided.

If only our arms would quit falling off.

~J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar

Déjà Vu Déjà Vu

2011-03-22T20:48:00.003-05:00

Do you ever feel like you've run out of things to say? Every day I talk to the same people. We talk about generally the same things. With my co-workers, we talk about work and the people there. With family, we talk about sad or funny things that happened before and people we all know. We give and get unsolicited advice on how to run our lives. With mere acquaintances, we chat about the weather or other meaningless topics that are neutral. We try to find a common thing to complain about.

I feel like I've done it all before. Like my conversations are on an endless loop. You know when you're in a waiting room of an apartment complex so long that you know the pool picture is next, then the gym, then the master suite? That loop. I'm in it. But I don't get to leave once I put down the security deposit: it just keeps happening over and over again. Life is the movie Groundhog Day, except for the whole killing yourself and waking up the next morning part.

I read something by Sloane Crosley about when she locked herself out of the apartment she was moving out of and had to call a locksmith. Twelve hours later, she locked herself out of the apartment she was moving into and had to call a locksmith again. The same guy with the ponytail from that morning shows up. He changes the lock and points down with his pen at her doormat which reads, "Déjà Vu Déjà Vu," frontward and backward. "That's a funny doormat," he says.

That's how I feel, but like no one else is in on the joke.

old people don't scoop poop

2011-03-21T21:12:00.005-05:00

One thing I've quickly learned living amongst the elderly (I know it sounds like I live in a nursing home, but quite to the contrary: I live amongst the still-independents) is that the older you get, the more money you spend on services, rather than products. Personally, I'd rather have three DVR boxes than have my gutters cleaned, but that's just me. But once you're old, I guess you've done enough of those shitty chores to have someone else do them for you.

So I'm rarely surprised by the flyers on my door: lawn services, painting, stringing up your Christmas lights, taking down your Christmas lights, power raking, gutter cleaning, handyman services, snow removal, the works. I've seen them all. Until the other day. The other day, I got a flyer for EntreManure or the Poop Butler. Whatever name they go by, the service is pretty self-explanatory: they come and pick up the poop your dog has left in the backyard.

$6/week, but the price increases with each additional dog you have. As a bonus, they will pick up dead animals in your yard, as well. Now I'm sure this service is the brainchild of some college kid who just wants to put "Business owner" or "President and CEO" on his resume, but either way, this company exists. I feel bad for whoever set the prices. It would cost $6 in gas to get from one house to another. This company can't be making a profit. The old people are completely taking advantage of this kid unless he's smart and low-balling his prices.

I'm a pet owner, and I knew scooping poop came with him. It's a package deal: like having hair and owning a brush. Really, the only responsibilities with my dog is that I keep his dishes full of food and water and I scoop up after him. That's it. How lazy can someone be that they farm out the second of two responsibilities? Too lazy to own a pet, that's for sure.

But hey, when I'm old, I'm sure I'll subscribe. Better than that: I'll shoot squirrels and rabbits with a pellet gun and make the poor entrepreneur scoop up their dead bodies while they're still warm to be sure I get my money's worth. The other thing I know about the elderly? They sure as hell are cheap old coots. Give them a dollar and they'll trade it in to the Dairy Queen cashier for six quarters. Sneaky bastards. I'm kind of excited to become one. No one can give me shit for being a bitch, because I'll be old and I will have earned it.

adulthood

2011-03-16T21:01:00.006-05:00

Today is Erica's birthday, I thought to myself this morning in the shower. Which was a weird thought to pop into my head because Erica was my best friend when I was in fifth grade. 18 years ago, we were friends who would play Monopoly until one of us had all the $100 and $500 bills. 18 years ago, I went to her party and lost my team charades because I didn't know who Steve Urkel (or was it Pee Wee Herman?) was since I didn't have a TV.

Jr. high, high school, college, boyfriends, babies, moves and new jobs have all come and gone since that time, but somehow today, her birthday popped into my head. I think subconsciously I wish for that simpler time. It wasn't the most desirable childhood as it was much like being Amish, but with electricity. I did my schoolwork and my chores, then played outside until I was called in, allowed to read for 30 minutes before I had to turn out my light and go to bed.

But I always knew what was expected of me and what was coming up. Yet ever since learning to drive, I've been stressed. I never have a clue what the next month will hold. I am constantly stressed about work and about all the things people expect of me. I'm stressed about money and my car breaking down and family members. I'm stressed that I have to be stressed and am not the carefree and wealthy writer I had dreamed I would be by age 30.

As a kid, you are shielded from the overwhelming responsibilities of adulthood. You have your own little responsibilities, but failing to commit to them holds no real consequences. You have starry dreams of being an adult with a job that sounds fun and heroic and makes at least $20/hr. $20/hr could buy you anything you could ever dream of, you think, calculating how many packs of Bubble Yum that could get you.

But being an adult, optimism slides into pessimism, as one by one, you realize your starry notions were just notions. You realize $20/hr is not that spectacular and certainly won't buy you a mansion. Suddenly, you are both aware and afraid of consequences. Consequences make me grit my teeth and listen when someone I have to see regularly makes me upset. Consequences hold me back and keep me from the freedom of being myself again: the myself that still believed in good and hoped for even better.

grabby grubs or grubby grabs

2011-03-12T10:50:00.012-06:00

Sometimes on Sundays, dad, a sibling or two, and I would ride our bikes to the nearby high school. There they had grates instead of door mats: gum, loose change, and a blanket of pine needles would fall into them. Pine needles are all over everything where I'm from. It's a good thing I don't smoke, because I would have started a few fires by now if I did; I'm terribly careless. But we weren't after the pine needles or gum, we were after the loose change.

My dad had a grabby tool which is hard to explain, so it's the basic idea of this picture but a lot less sophisticated looking. We would stick it into the grate, and try to close the claws around the penny or if we were lucky, something of the silver variety. We would ride to each of the doors - the gym, the cafeteria, the classrooms, the pool. And then, once we finished, we rode home with our $1.37 or so jingling in dad's pocket.

Sometimes there would be a young couple there, smoking weed on the grass or just walking around with their hands in each others' back pockets. I would pedal away quickly, embarrassed. Embarrassed of my hand-me-down clothes, embarrassed of my bike with metal baskets on the sides for delivering newspapers, embarrassed to be working so intently at maneuvering a quarter through the thin squares of the grate.

It wasn't the Great Depression, but it sure as hell was depressing, living like it was. My dad taught me not only the value of a dollar, but the value of a penny.

Some lessons can't be rounded up.

crystal globe

2011-03-09T23:37:00.008-06:00

My favorite birthday present.

Although I don't live in bustling NYC, I like to dream I do. I dream that I chop up my car for scrap metal and walk or take taxis or the subway to get where I'm going. I dream of running in Central Park. I dream of shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue where this snow globe came from. I dream of the romantic, busy city life of buying flowers on the street and sipping coffee alone in coffee shops à la You've Got Mail.

To me, NYC is the perfect place to be alone, but not lonely. But I've learned to live in reality, rather than the fantasy of books and movies; I've learned that renting a tiny one bedroom apartment there is what I pay for the mortgage of my beautiful home here. I've learned that there are freaks on subways and cabs get stuck in traffic just like cars. I've learned being lonely has nothing to do with how many people surround you.

But something in me always believes things are better elsewhere. It's the pessimist in me who is always thinking I'd be happier in a different job or a different location. I'm always forgetting that anywhere you go, there you are. If I'm not happy where I am now, what makes a change of scenery any different? Soon enough, there I would also be bored and thinking it's better somewhere else. But no matter how many times I tell myself that, I inevitably forget it.

I keep forgetting that and remembering the beauty of elsewhere. So I keep my books and movies, and now this snow globe on my desk to remind me of the beautiful when I forget it's all around me.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

ageism, Peeping Toms, abacus

2011-03-07T23:22:00.008-06:00

More Google searches that lead to my blog:

1. Would you mow the lawn unasked of a 75 year old neighbour?
First off, let me justify the needless "u" in the last word, because this hit came from Australia. They can throw "u"s into anything and be excused.
Secondly: hell no, I wouldn't! Have you met me? I've never even mowed my own lawn. I'm the one who wakes up in the winter hoping my 75-year-old (oh yeah, we use hyphens in the US) neighbor snow blowed my driveway. Let's not be ageist and think that older people are useless now. We should all treat each other equally if we want to live in harmony.
2. Hot women in short black mini skirt to fuck
Just because I wrote a post about the subject after I received a blog hit from someone Googling being a restaurant hostess doesn't mean I will engage in this behavior for every single Googled phrase.
3. What does "you stiffed me" mean?
You must be home schooled. You think every phrase you don't understand is a euphemism for sexual behavior when really sometimes it isn't. Or maybe it is.
4. I'm a server and the hostess sit me only with teenagers
First off, are you a teenager yourself? Because full-grown adults have learned how to use "sit," "sat," and "set" by now. There might even be a Dr. Seuss book on the subject. Second, you sound like a real dumbass, so I bet the hostess is trying to teach you proper English, starting first with words you would understand. Although teenagers might have overshot the mark a little. Problem is, most kindergartners don't come with a credit card, so you'll have to start higher than your level. By age 90, the hostess might be giving you college kids if you progress nicely.
5. Sweaty women working out
Go to the gym to see that, you lazy bastard! Get out of your computer chair and take a peek without looking like the total pervert you are on the internet. That's what gyms are for: disguising Peeping Toms in mesh and Under Armour for a low fee of $30/month. I think I missed my calling in the marketing world.
6. Bitchen fucking everything under the moon
No, I was wrong before. This is that Dr. Seuss book I missed growing up.
7. Sexless bitch
You are the only person in the history of the world wide web to add "less" to the end of "sex." Was your mom coming up the stairs? Should have stopped there; "bitch" is a dead giveaway.
8. on friday night let's superglue steve's hands together in her sleep. she deserves it for being such a%2.
The real crime is that your friend Steve is a female. You gluing her hands together is petty larceny in comparison. And I have no idea what last word you were going for there. What's a three-letter swear word that doesn't require an article before it in that sentence? You got me. Must be an acronym.
9. matchprofiles.com
This always gets me: people google search something they don't know the url address of and write ".com" at the end as if that will magically make the site appear. Even though you typed it in a search engine and not your URL window, and that is not a website to begin with. I could fill books with mocking stupid people, so let's not waste all my energy on it in this one blog.
10. Giantess dd cleavage
OK, I really thought this person meant to write "gigantic" but is an idiot. But then I dictionary.com'd that shit and found out a giantess is a female giant. So you're telling me someone wanted to see an actual female giant w/a DD bra size? That has to be the smallest-chested giantess in the history of giantesses. Even Heidi Pratt is GG and she's a size 0. Giantsess' cleavage has to start at the size of Kirstie Alley's ass (pre-Jenny Craig, both rounds) and work upwards from there. We're no longer on the alphabet, people. We need an abacus with a lot of beads where we're headed.

Facebook "friends"

2011-03-03T22:13:00.005-06:00

I got on Facebook to see the latest boring "news" with people I once knew, a couple of whom I called friends. Someone ate chili tonight, someone else isn't feeling good, someone is following DMB all over the world, someone's cat died, someone lost a bet, someone hates their job. Twelve other people are bitching, and the rest of them are drunk. It was too much for me.

One by one, I deleted the people who annoyed me. I deleted the girl I babysat fifteen years ago who incessently uses the letter "U" ("luv u gurls, had so muuuuch fuun tonight!") I deleted the guy with the bad breath and bug eyes in high school who always stared at my tits. I deleted the ex co-worker who posts fucking positive thinking quotes every day. I deleted everyone who watches foreign movies. I deleted the girl who keeps "falling in love" with guys she meets on the internet who live in the Middle East and break up with her the following week. I deleted the Bible verse posters and the only-song-lyrics posters and the whiny posters.

Once I finished that, I deleted the people who are trying to get something out of me. I deleted the girl who always needs affirmation that she's not fat. I deleted the person who stares me down until I fake laugh at his lame joke. I deleted the people who invite me to obligation parties. I deleted the people who try to convert me to their preferences: religious, political, or any other opinions which they believe they are right about. I deleted party crashers who don't bring their own booze. I deleted anyone who has ever asked me for money, whether it be outright or disguised under "a good cause." Yes, girl scout cookies and walks for the cure included.

Once I finished with that, I deleted the people who I hate. I deleted the ugly bitch who still has a problem with me because once upon a time I dated her current boyfriend. I deleted the ex-girlfriends of all my family members because fuck them; my family is better than you anyway. I deleted that annoying girl from all my college literature classes who asked questions at the end and made the class run long. I deleted the losers I worked with once upon a time but would never be friends with because they are two-faced kiss asses. I deleted the losers I once dated, but in my defense it's only because they had weed.

Then I deleted my family members who I wouldn't talk to if they weren't in my family. I deleted anyone on my friends list out of obligation. I deleted my old piano teacher and all the other old people on Facebook that added me just because they want their friends number to hit 25. I deleted anyone who I have never been in a picture with. I deleted anyone whose house I have never been to. I deleted anyone who didn't invite me to their wedding. I deleted anyone I didn't invite to my wedding. I deleted anyone who hasn't heard me sing aloud.

I smiled at the opposite of obligation. I don't know what it is called to no longer feel like you have to give a shit about someone you don't give a shit about, but it's a glorious feeling; let's call it "euphoria." I cut those fucking clanging cans off the back of the honeymoon car; I hate that noise. And only then, when I chopped 386 people off of my friends list, buried beneath a sea of people I don't care about, did I find my friends.

25 things

2011-02-24T23:09:00.007-06:00

25 things you don't know about me
or maybe you do - that all depends on how well you know me.

1. I still have all my wisdom teeth
2. I collected basketball cards as a kid
3. Ten years of homeschool is the secret of my brilliance (is "homeschool" one word or two?)
4. I have seen every Sex and the City episode multiple times - even the ones with Aleksandr Petrovsky
5. I have only had two cavities in my life - both were when I was on hiatus from my Sonicare
6. If I was to be a brand ambassador for one company, it would be Sonicare or Camelbak water bottles. Those are two products I completely believe in.
7. I type 76 wpm. Just tested myself.
8. I have hyperhidrosis
9. I'm not into movies that much, but I can't live without TV.
10. I walk or run 20-30 miles per week. 20 in the winter, and I get better with the weather.
11. I hate white walls.
12. I am reading all the Newberry Award and Honor books. At this rate, I should finish by the year 2025.
13. I have a wave pattern/cowlick thing right above my neck. I can never get hair to look right and wish bald really was beautiful.
14. Pink, JLo, Ke$ha, Christina Aguilera, and Rihanna make me run faster.
15. I read the Bell Jar every Thanksgiving and Catcher in the Rye every Halloween.
16. I've only owned this one car that I'm still driving
17. My dad was a state representative when I was 11. I helped him on his campaigns with sign waving, canvassing, cold calls, fund raisers, and a parade.
18. I was a camp counselor for two summers: I think I made a grand each summer. Now that's truly minimum wage.
19. All I can cook is pasta and pancakes
20. I always wear heels, unless I'm exercising or lounging around the house. Or if it's summer.
21. I have never been in a tanning bed (it shows)
22. Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch
23. I will never wear a bikini again after having a baby
24. I haven't been on a vacation where we didn't visit family since my honeymoon.
25. I love making pointless lists.

tasteless parties

2011-02-23T17:31:00.003-06:00

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I don't do parties that sell shit. I don't go to candle or jewelry or food or makeup or any other parties that try to lure you in with the promise of appetizers. I don't believe in preying on the easy sell of a woman who feels obligated to do something for her friend. I also buy anything I want myself, and certainly don't need to start buying shit in my friends' homes: I mean, if you let it go that far, when does the buying stop? I don't even take the time to RSVP "no" to them because I don't think it deserves my two seconds. I hate them. I have made my life goal to never attend one. Lofty, I know. Dream big.

I remember my mother coming back from a candle party years ago and she felt terrible. She felt terrible because she never wanted to go to this party in the first place, but would have felt bad not going, and once she got there, she felt guilted into buying this ridiculous candle holder that cost $45. $45! This was paid by the woman who once stretched $300 to cover the food, clothes, presents, and general expenses of four children and herself each month. Knowing how hard it was for her made me vow right then and there to never attend one of these stupid things. If I want appetizers, I'll go to TGI Fridays anyway - I doubt your party has pot stickers.

But, I broke my vow. Although not by choice: I was duped. I was lured to a party under false pretenses: I was told we were meeting for happy hour and then meeting up with her sister. So I got to happy hour and as soon as I arrived was whisked away to the sister's house for a sex party. It's not as fun as it sounds: you don't go there to have sex, just to look at lingerie and dildos with other women, some of whom love to disclose what they have and wish they had. It's one part interesting, six parts repulsive. And of course, as I knew I would be, I was pressured to buy something. So I did buy something inexpensive, and was given it in one of those black plastic bags that porn comes in which makes you feel filthy. I still haven't used it, of course: it's in a drawer as all things bought out of obligation are.

I was still feeling pretty filthy about the whole thing-not because of my actions, but because of what I learned about the other women-when I went home for Christmas. That was when my mom told me and my sister about this sex party she went to. Apparently that candle party was just a rite of passage and now she's a regular obligation party crasher. She told us how much fun she had tickling the other girls with the feather and joking about sizes. Wow, I'm a prude. My mother is enjoying these things while I'm cringing and wringing my sweaty hands.

All that being said, I am always shocked when I get one of these fucking invitations sent to me: Tastefully Simple, Avon, Pampered Chef, Girl Scout cookies (oh wait, that's something different), you name it. How many times do people have to be turned down before they realize it just ain't gonna happen with me? It ain't gonna happen unless you lie to me about where I'm going, and then I just might show up and hate myself for being so gullible. These party hosts are predators and I'm simply prey.

grinding away

2011-02-22T23:01:00.002-06:00

This girl has some lofty ambitions. And all of them center around not having to work anymore. I would love to be able to wake up each day when I want, decide what I want to do. Maybe I'd write, maybe I'd read an entire book, maybe I'd kill three hours shopping for things I don't need, or maybe I'd watch an America's Next Top Model marathon. It doesn't really matter what I do, it matters what I don't have to do anymore. No more job, no more looking for a job: the perfect scenario.

But I've realized that you have to work hard to do nothing. You have to work hard and long enough in your job that you can get raises and promotions and have enough money to quit and live off savings. You have to pursue someone who has enough money that your contribution is minuscule in comparison, and then push his 10 lb child out your vagina to secure him (or at least his child support payments). Or if you have a talent, you have to perfect your talent and go to auditions or submit your art and hope someone finds it good enough to pay you for it.

And sometimes, if you do not have a job, you still have to clean the house and make sack lunches and pick up and drop off kids and that is really not avoiding work at all, in my opinion. I want to avoid all work. Maybe I'll wipe the toilets down each Friday, but don't ask me for anything beyond that. I didn't say I didn't want paychecks anymore, I said I didn't want to work anymore. How young is old enough to retire?

You know I've been reading about astrology lately, and here's what my sign says about my relationship with my job:

When a Pisces is under stress, all you want to do is hide, hoping reality will disappear or magically mend itself. The last thing you need when you feel your nerves on edge are major obligations and responsibilities to others —Pisces does not like to be confined; especially when feeling vulnerable. Therefore one of the best healing tonics for you generally is just being alone and escaping the day-to-day stress grind.

Great! Where do I sign up? I'm ready for that.

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
~John Lennon

dates

2011-02-21T21:58:00.006-06:00

With each year of marriage that passes, dating life slips further and further from my memory. Going on dates is a thing of the past, for the most part. But I keep all of the memory I can of when Steve and I weren't married, just were together.

The time when people are pursuing each other, seeing if they should end up together is so sweet. When they don't yet think about bills and future children and home remodeling: they are still trying each other out to see if that is someone they could end up discussing those things with someday.

I remember the first day I met Steve: he was at a table, the only person I hadn't met before, but he was the only one I noticed. He had this crooked smile and a dirty white hat and I remember thinking about his smile on the ride back to my dorm room. I remember our dates when we still barely knew each other and conversation wasn't natural, so we listened to his punk rock CDs.

I remember even then, going on walks together, grabbing hands for a moment or two, relishing every moment we had together before retiring to our halls.

I think of how much is the same, only now we know each other better, talk either more or less based on what we are comfortable doing. We know each other enough now not to ask stupid questions, since we know the answers. We know each other enough to know how to and not to piss each other off. We know now how to react to each others' emotions.

We are the people we were then, just more comfortable with being that person. I don't feel the need to suppress my thoughts or emotions and he doesn't feel the need to wear collars. He can smoke a cigarette around me and I can drip hot fudge down my shirt without being embarrassed. We have become best friends, we have trust and a mutual respect for each others' ambitions and opinions. We have each other: and all that entails.

It's hard to believe that at one point, we lived independently from each other. It's hard to believe that at one point he was just a white hat at Buffalo Wild Wings. It's hard to believe we could have both gone on with our individual lives, not knowing what we were missing by not trying us out. It's hard to believe he could be with someone else, and I could be alone, and we never would have known this life we have built together.

Do you believe in soul mates? Or do you think that you can learn to love anybody given the right circumstances and timing? Because I have never been with a man like Steve, and don't think I ever would be again even if I was still out there dating.

hoarders in the making

2011-02-17T22:46:00.009-06:00

Objects around the house that tell you you're dangerously close to ending up on that show "Hoarders":

1. Puzzle glue
2. A TV guide (made out of glossy paper)
3. Multiple colors of that ribbon you curl with scissors
4. Expiration dates B.Y. (Before Y2K)
5. Pet items if you don't have a pet
6. Clothes in a mending pile are parachute pants and sweatshirts without hoods
7. VHS or cassette tapes
8. Decorative birdhouses or fake ivy
9. Longaberger baskets
10. Excessive amounts of lotion
11. A mound of old shoe boxes or recycled wrapping paper
12. Trophies if you do not have children in the house
13. Tomato plant cages sans tomato plants
14. Shoelaces that aren't on shoes
15. Anything being held together by hot glue

Consider yourself warned. I have listed some of the cheapest, most outdated, or useless items. If you have these lying around, it's time for Spring cleaning. Rent "A Quick Dump" and toss that shit out before someone subjects your house to A&E Cameras and you end up eating your dinner on an overturned 5-gallon bucket because your kitchen table is covered with junk.

This is my Public Service Announcement. There is no need to save old butter containers or Readers Digests or doo dah birds. The rest of us have moved on. It's time for you to do the same.

And for God's sake - clean off your table!

out of focus

2011-02-13T23:17:00.006-06:00

Yesterday's post reminded me of something I wrote five years ago. I plastered it onto the front page of my photo album, which I searched the house high and low to find. I just found it a minute ago, next to all my other pictures, where it would logically be. I didn't even think to look there...

My mom didn't take a whole lot of pictures. Well, that's not true. When us kids were still little and cute, there are a ton of pictures of us: chubby cheeks, striped sweatsuits, and scenes of us playing. But as all kids do, we hit the awkward stage: buckteeth, straight bangs, and slouch socks. Maybe that was just the eighties, though. But the pictures we have remind me of memories I would have otherwise forgotten.

I just wish there were more pictures in between my mom using a camera and me getting my own. I tried and tried to remember a picture that was never caught on film. I remember parts of the picture: what I was wearing. I was wearing one of those skirts with the three layers of ruffles. I think I was at a reception after a funeral. A grandparent's funeral, but I'm not sure which grandparent. I must have been seven, but I only know that from my mom's memory, not from my own. I remember these gaudy velvet chairs lined around the perimeter of a large room, and a temporary wall that my chair was against. We were in a restaurant, or maybe a hotel. There was a buffet, and there was punch.

But past that, I can't remember. I want to remember what I felt. I want to remember who I was sitting next to. I want to remember everyone who was there, and where we went next, and the conversations people had, and how we all interacted. But all I can remember is those velvet chairs, and my three-layer skirt, and that temporary wall.

Even though it never was one, it reminds me of something I would see in a picture. Only this picture is blurry; all you can see is a girl, about seven, swinging her feet off of a velvet chair, which sets in front of a temporary wall. There are faces on either side of her, but no one can tell whose faces they are. There are many details that have been distorted into a hazy blur.

You don't know which ordinary day is going to turn into an important memory. You don't know when it is the last time you'll see someone. You don't know when a memory will escape you. That's why we take pictures. ~July 2005

woman without a memory

2011-02-11T23:54:00.004-06:00

My memory blows. It's terrible. People will recall memories they had with me and I'll say, "wait, was I there?" I can't remember anything. Most of the memories I do have were actually told to me by someone else; I myself can't remember it ever happening. I remember vague outlines, but few specific details. Or then sometimes I'll remember some stupid detail, like what shirt I was wearing, but won't remember something important, like who I was with.

Do I have early onset Alzheimer's, or am I just stupid?

Don't answer that. Really, don't. I already have blond hair and Polish decent stacked up against me; I don't need any more ammunition for people. So I probably shouldn't have mentioned this. Oh well, I don't believe in the delete button. Once it's out, it's out.

I told Steve tonight that I wish I would have kept journals my entire life, starting early, like age 8, and wrote an entry every day. Like Anne Frank. That girl was a genius. No seriously, if you haven't read her diary, you must. She had the brilliance of someone much beyond her years. Had I kept these journals, I could read back and refresh my memory as to what happened and how I felt. I could remember parts of me that are missing: the parts that can only be pieced together by other people's memories, and I don't know that I can entirely believe those. I would much rather listen to myself than someone else claiming to be an expert on myself.

I did keep journals when I was younger, but they all made their way to the bottom of the garbage can on trash day out of fear or knowledge of a nosy family member reading it. But if I could be a kid again, and if I didn't live in a house without privacy (we shared bathwater, for God's sake), I would keep journals ẚ la Anne Frank. I would remember my own life. I wouldn't be a mystery to myself. And maybe I could make some more sense of my senselessness.

At least I've got my blogs. I have chronicled the last two years of my life: my emotions and triumphs and frustrations and events. And this time, I'm asking people to read it. Try to make sense out of that. And if you can't, blame it on the blond or the Polish in me, or the Alzheimer's.

losers cause excessive profanity

2011-02-10T21:22:00.004-06:00

Let me bitch. I had a long day. I don't bitch enough considering my blog title. I could spout "fuck" non-stop for three straight weeks and still not catch up on the venting that has built up inside of me. So here's something that really pisses me off: blog commenters who write of how they were offended by your latest post.

Are you fucking kidding me? You don't agree with me? You think I'm an asshole? Am I supposed to give a flying fuck? Because I don't. It's my blog. I say what I want. You can choose to read it or not. I am not offended that you're offended. I'm glad! Get off my blog if you're so pissed, I don't need you and certainly don't need your approval.

Who are you again? Oh, some stranger living in your mom's basement browsing blogs so you can spam penile implant comments on them? Oh shit, I didn't mean to offend you! Not you of all people! You're third on my list of people I'd like to meet right behind David Beckham and Adam Brody (wait, what list am I referring to again? Did I say "meet"?). Write your own blog about what pisses you off or offends you. That's what the rest of us do!

You must think I had some stupid commenter on my own blog. That's where you're wrong. My commenters are few and far between, and pretty much all related to me. I'm pissed about comments on other people's blogs. How stupid is that? But like I said, sometimes I just need to bitch about something, anything. I had to contain it to one topic since I have a job to get to tomorrow.

In ~~other~~ related news: I'm thinking about seeing a psychiatrist. What do you think, good idea? You better fucking agree with me.

P.S. Got a running start on the "fuck" usage, didn't I? I don't have a lot of skills in life, but I'd say swearing has to be one of them.

looks good on paper

2011-02-08T23:13:00.004-06:00

Resume bullet points are ~~often~~ ~~usually~~ always bullshit. People use words like “analyze” and “monitor” because it sounds impressive; whereas if they really listed what they did at their job, it would look more like this:

Clock in
Screen phone calls
Play Yahoo games
Get coffee for a pick-me-up
Minimize my internet windows when the boss comes around
Take a lot of smoke breaks
Bullshit with co-workers to make the time pass
Watch the clock
Check my Facebook news feed
Wish I had a different job
Look for a different job online
Procrastinate on projects
Take a pen and paper to meetings to look interested
Go get coffee again in the afternoon with the treat receipt
Delete my internet history
Clock out

And to think people who review resumes for a living wonder why it is so hard for job applicants to make one. Because unless you have a job description to copy and paste, you've got to remember what it is you're be paid to do. If work was mostly blue collar before, and we've "evolved" now to white collar, I shudder to think of what the next collar will be.

astrological advice

2011-02-06T17:06:00.002-06:00

I don't know much about astrology except that they sell little rolled up scrolls of them at Safeway in the checkout line. But today in my magazine, I read my love forecast for the hell of it. Because it's there and so am I.

It said that Pisces are dreamy, artistic and sensitive. And it said my best match is a Virgo because they encourage you to be more practical. So then I looked at what Steve's sign is and wouldn't you know it: he's a Virgo. By one day, but a Virgo nonetheless. And he is what they say: detail-oriented (they didn't expand on specifics much: best to be vague if you want to be right).

The stars fucking nailed it! That is our relationship in a nutshell. So then I thought the stars must really know what they're doing. I wondered if the couples I know that shouldn't be together (you know the type: the people who make each other miserable but for some god forsaken reason stay together) are suggested for each other by the stars. And no, they are not. The stars do not recommend the slut and the whiner be together. Sure, my research on this topic was limited, since I know very few birthdays. But from what I read, I was impressed.

Maybe I'll go to a psychic next. Or a palm reader (are they the same thing?) It's pretty fascinating to think stars know us better than we know ourselves. What kind of idiots are we, any way? Stars are rocks (well, technically they are some sort of gases held together by gravity, but that makes them sound smart, so lets go with rocks). Next time someone tells you you're as dumb as a box of rocks, take that as a compliment because the stars are geniuses. If only we were so lucky.

restaurant hostess

2011-02-01T22:50:00.007-06:00

Today, someone found by blog by googling, "is it hard to be a first time hostess at applebees" {sic}. Now I haven't been a hostess at Applebee's, but I have bitched about that establishment and worked as a hostess at other establishments, which in my eyes makes me an expert. So let me tell you why being a hostess sucks. There are many reasons, but I'll touch on the main ones:

1. The list checkers:
It's either a bitchy middle-aged woman asking "am I still on the list?" or sending her husband to ask the same question. Yes, you're on the fucking list. I didn't shred it: it's sitting right here like it has been the whole time. It's called capacity: we're at it. There are no empty tables to put you at, trust me: if there were, I'd be happy to rid my lobby of you.

2. The detectives:
These are the people who think seating is one big conspiracy against them. They are always sure that the person you just sat arrived after they did. Well guess what: they didn't. I quoted you a 30 minute wait, and you can just sit tight, before I do shred the list your name is on.

3. The empty table argument:
There are inevitably people who point out to you that there are tables that no one is sitting at. What these people don't understand is that a table does not come with service. Yes, there is an empty table in the corner - the table that rats have chewed most of the cushion off of. Be my guest and sit at it. No server is going to come help you, because we have seven servers and seventy tables. I'm a realist: you, apparently, are not.

4. The conspiracy theory servers:
Nearly as bad as the guests are the servers. If you're not dating them, they think you're screwing them (no pun intended). They will come up and ask why you are you giving them all the families with kids or foreigners or teenagers who don't tip, or the ugly young people. They think you hate them and you are ruining their night by not giving them all Wall Street brokers in pinstripe suits who order seven scotches. I tried telling them I was following a simple rotation: first Jen, then Diane, then Mitch. It's not some sort of restaurant science where I consider the square root of the number of guests multiplied by the number of servers divided by the date, eeny meeny miny mo and end up at table 12. Trust me, if I had those kind of skills, I wouldn't be a hostess in the first place.

5. The to-go orderers who don't tip:
Now things have changed a bit since I was in the biz; many places now have a to-go person and door and phone number and logo and federal ID# just for call-in orders. It's basically its own restaurant for impatient types like me who aren't going to wait around an hour for a buzzer to go off. But before all these advances in technology, the hostess answered the phone. The phone calls consist of the same three calls: 1) What are your hours? (2) Do you take reservations? (3) Can I place a to-go order? Oh, and the collector calls for Mitch, but caller ID was around back then.

To go orders were like my tables - the only tips I received. I made sure the orders were perfect: I put in plasticware and mints and made sure I got the freshest bread and put au jus in ramekins for all eight prime ribs. I bitched out the cook on your behalf about the temperature being wrong. And then you stiffed me. You signed your credit card receipt with just a dash through the tip line. Well fuck you. I'll remember you next time, cheapskate. I do have caller ID, you know.

You're spending $25 for a slab of prime rib and can't even give me a dollar per plate? Outside of drink orders, the service you get from a server is taking your order and delivering your correct food. That's service worthy of at least a fucking dollar. A dollar so I can buy myself a McChicken on the way home while you eat your fancy prime rib. If you didn't want to tip, you should have stopped at a place with a drive-thru window like I will be forced to based on your stinginess.

6. Whew, that last one took a lot out of me. A bit of a soap box, as you can see. It's been seven years, but I remember being stiffed like it was yesterday. What an insult. My hourly rate of pay is nothing worth noting, so the least you can do is give me a fucking bill. Any bill. OK, onto #6) Collecting:
Most don't, but a few restaurants require servers to tip out their hostesses. So at the end of your shift, you are walking around with an open palm, hoping for alms for the poor. Servers think they're better than hostess, so they will turn up their noses and walk quickly to the back for their fiftieth cigarette of the night. But when you do catch one, you would think you're asking for a kidney, not five bucks. They're still pissed that you gave them a couple with an infant and ask you for change on a five. That's when you forcefully flick a penny in their face and say that's all the tips you made on to-go orders, and that's only because it dropped out of someone's pocket. "There's your fucking change!"

Like I said in the beginning, those are only the main reasons. I could regale you with stories of sleazy managers and teenagers coming back, this time sans parents and asking if you found a sandwich bag full of..um..medicine after they left. I could tell you about the drunk people who spill their cosmos and then point out that you should clean it up - someone could slip. People love to bitch to you about the quality or quantity of toilet paper or paper towels in the bathrooms. But those aren't the big six.

So after hearing the main reasons being a hostess sucks, my advice for you, ghost IP address from somewhere in the Midwest, is this: skip the hostess shit and go for the big time: serving. That's where the tips are good and you can act like a total bitch to the lowly hostess who ended up in the spot you just narrowly avoided. The manager will tell you you need experience, and being a hostess first is your best way to end up a server. That's when you unbutton your shirt and say you're only interested in the big time. Let me know how it turns out.

white elephant

2011-01-31T21:59:00.004-06:00

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. ~Ecclesiastes 1:9

There is nothing new on this blog. Nearly two years ago, while unemployed, I made this blog. I had a lot of time between employers not calling me and walking the dog. I was fresh: the topics were endless, my mind was full of three-paragraph posts just waiting to be published. I had a pithy endings to wrap up my thoughts. I was occasionally funny and usually insulting. I reread my old posts and smiled with pride. I did it: I gave those thoughts that were rattling around in this tin brain of mine a home.

As a kid, the ultimate achievement for me as a writer would be for strangers to read what I wrote. Well I achieved it. My ten-year-old self would be proud. Sure, she didn't know that everyone would have a Facebook account and people would read about people brushing their teeth and eating a bag of cookies with rapt interest, but nonetheless, strangers read this blog. Strangers from all around the world who googled "dds in a bra" or "preserved artifacts food" or "moldy cheese" ended up on my site for a few seconds and maybe even read a word or two.

A few strangers from the blog world became like friends. I read other blogs with the same enthusiasm that I wrote my own. I looked forward to the ~~half~~ hour each night where I would sit at the computer and catch up on the daily blogs. It became a hobby and then a part of me. That was then.

But lately, I haven't read the other blogs. I struggle to think of anything to write on my own. I feel that everything I have to say I have said before: just this time I'm using a semicolon instead of a period. My enthusiasm is waning; I am restless. I know I never made it in the blog world. I never exceeded 15 subscribers. My sitemeter hits are still under 20,000. It seems too early to retire now without reaching any level of blogging prestige.

But prestige was never my intention. Accolades are appreciated, but not necessary. What I wanted was a place to log my thoughts knowing someone could read them. I wanted to practice writing and see if it had the effect on anyone else that it does on me. And whether or not it affected anyone positively or negatively, I may never know. But I do know how it has affected me.

I have rediscovered the one passion I've ever had: writing a book. I'm not good at much, but when my pen strikes the paper, I come alive. It is in my blood. Green ink pumps through my veins. I read on a blog, "don't follow your dreams; chase them." I immediately sat up straighter (and not just because of the semicolon) - it was quoted for me. My dream is to write a book. It takes a dedication I haven't yet committed to. I don't expect it to be published, just finished. I will write the book for myself. And if anyone else ever reads it, that will be a happy surprise.

Next to me is my purple spiral notebook. Twelve pages have been scrawled on with my green ink. But the rest of the pages lie empty, waiting to be written on. A story is in me, it just hasn't been told yet.

army of tweaked mes

2011-01-27T23:37:00.003-06:00

There are very few people who I can always be completely myself around. There are a handful of people who accept me and like me for who I already am. They don't expect me to be more like them or to agree with them or to act more pious or politically correct. But with everyone else, I feel like they expect me to be someone else. Someone more like them. Someone who doesn't curse like a sailor. Someone who laughs at their jokes. Someone who goes to church and is a republican. Someone like the person I was raised to become.

So I play the part, not because it's me, but because I respect the person who expects it of me. It's silly, really. There are different versions of me for different audiences: mes who are more subdued, less vocal, quiet even. There are versions of me who don't start shit, just sit with my unvoiced opinions. There are mes who are miserable but won't say it because then I would be unzipping the costume and revealing the real me: the one I'm covering up for my audience who disapproves.

It gets confusing. I forget who I've revealed what secrets to, and find myself acting one of those different versions to someone I can be myself around. I am so used to covering up my true self that I forget it's OK to be her. I'm beginning to lose sight of who she really is. It's as if she is another version I've created to hide the real me who I don't even know. It's like staring into a mirror with another mirror behind it: hundreds and thousands of your reflection standing in a line that never ends.

Pick which one you'd like. She is tailor-made to your specifications. Because the original one was made irregular. And who wants something imperfect?

My 43

2011-01-26T22:58:00.005-06:00

While looking for something else entirely, I was side tracked by these lists people were making online to describe themselves using 43 words. So here are my 43:

1. Moody
2. Unpunctual
3. Procrastinator
4. Impatient
5. Judgmental
6. Passionate
7. Poetic
8. Determined
9. Opinionated
10. Hospitable
11. Learning
12. Honest
13. Wife
14. Curious
15. Inquisitive
16. Observant
17. Homebody
18. Pensive
19. Reader
20. Writer
21. Loyal
22. Creative
23. Empathetic
24. Resourceful
25. Decisive
26. Expressive
27. Sarcastic
28. Dreamer
29. Stubborn
30. Playful
31. Independent
32. Sincere
33. Flirt
34. Superstitious
35. Distracted
36. Impulsive
37. Blunt
38. Forgetful
39. Demanding
40. Flawed
41. Nostalgic
42. Hungry
43. Evolving

Sexless appeal

2011-01-23T10:40:00.002-06:00

I noticed my legs were a bit grizzly yesterday before hopping into the shower. So I thought to myself, well maybe I should shave. But it's January and we have about a foot of freshly fallen snow I need to shovel and then I thought of the legs, really, why bother? And don't give me the whole: "You should try to stay sexy for your husband" line. Let me just say, I am the unsexiest woman alive. Really, I am.

My beauty regimen consists of clipping my fingernails, cleaning out my ears with a Qtip, and washing my face. And that last one only of recently at my husband's suggestion. I don't blow dry my hair all the way. The only makeup I wear is mascara and eyeliner. I have never had a manicure or pedicure. I don't wear dresses or skirts. I don't have any underwear that are mesh or have those bungee cord contraptions that connect to thigh high pantyhose. I wear socks to bed.

Saying all this, I don't know why my husband has sex with me. But I've been like this as long as he's known me, so I haven't just gotten lazier. I've been the same amount of lazy the whole time. I've never been super girly with any of that stuff. I used to wish I was a boy (not in the considering-gender-transformation serious way, just in the tomboy way). So maybe that's the reason I have never tried to be a girl. Is it possible to have sex appeal without being sexy? Well, guys have slept with me. I must have some sort of appeal. Maybe it's my personality. Oh yeah, I'm sure that's it.

so long, farewell

2011-01-19T23:40:00.007-06:00

Last Friday I said "goodbye" to someone very dear to me. Only now am I able to talk about it, after having a week to process the departure. I was always comforted and offered a hot meal when I was there. I was given gifts even when it wasn't my birthday. We got tipsy from having too much of a good time. I sung his praises to co-workers and friends. Everyone who knows me knows how much I love him. And although people often tell me to try something different, I know what I want. And it has been only him.

My heart breaks thinking that we may never see each other again. Maybe someday in some remote city I will bump into him on pure accident and we will reminisce. But that maybe is mostly a faint hope and hardly a reality. It's been a week, and my ripped heart is trying to mend itself, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten. I will never forget the times we shared. I'll never forget laughing over dinner and drinks. I'll never forget driving to Timbukto just to see you after a long week at work. You offered me peace and serenity, if only for an hour. You were my haven away from the chaos a 40-hour-a-week-working-woman-without-kids-or-any-other-responsibilities endures. I'll never forget you for everything you were to me; I'll never forget my TGI Fridays.

You will be substituted, but never replaced.

TGIF will never mean what it once did.

I guess now I'll put the Olive Garden on speed dial.

ID for dogs

2011-01-18T20:06:00.006-06:00

Look what came in the mail today:

Apparently dogs have ID cards now. I know actual humans who can't board airplanes because they don't have identification, but my DOG has a laminated card with all his essential stats on it. What is he supposed to do with it? Put it in his dog wallet in his dog hip pocket?

He should keep it on him at all times in case he faints on a running trail. In fact, I should probably get him a rape whistle, too. He will need to keep his ID card handy in the event that a female dog wants verification that he's been neutered and has all his vaccinations before she jumps into bed with him. Actually, maybe we should just skip the dogs and give these type of cards to humans.

Women can check in a guy's wallet to see if he's neutered, married, the income he brings in, his diet, what hobbies and vices he has, date of birth, and so on. And guys could check out a woman's, too, of course (sometimes I forget that there are four males who read this blog). The possibilities are limitless. It could save a lot of people a lot of disappointment. But alas, we haven't mastered that type of identification yet - we would rather misrepresent ourselves on the internet. So far, only canines have the ID card down to a perfect science.

I won't correct you, but know I'm thinking it

2011-01-17T21:58:00.011-06:00

If Steve didn't already hold the title, I'd take words as my lover.

I find both the curve of the "s" and the loops of the uppercase cursive "L" very seductive.

I love the way letters form words, and the same letters can make thirty words. I love how syllables tumble on top of each other or separate themselves by beats like a band marching. I love how there can be fifty words with the same meaning, but only one fits perfectly into your sentence, the way a jigsaw piece fits into the puzzle.

I like crossword puzzles. I even play those Find-a-Word puzzles that are usually only for kids on road trips. I have read entire pages of the dictionary before, and not because I was stuck in Scrabble with nothing but consonants. I listen to the phonated words on dictionary.com because I like the sound of them. In fact, I waste as much time on dictionary.com as most people spend on imdb or iTunes.

I'm a total word geek. And so is my friend, Patrick. Yet he's not nearly as outspoken about it as I am. He is a closeted word geek. Patrick is the one who pointed out to me that "belligerent" meant something other than extremely drunk. On New Years Day, we went out to lunch. I was hungover from wine, which we all know is the worst hangover of all, but I was still coherent enough to talk about how people destroy words. Certain words become popular and overused and misused to such an extent that soon they are merely shadows of their original meaning.

He told me how he hates when people say "decadent" to refer to a dessert, knowing the word is derived from the word "decay" and should mean deterioration. Driving to Kansas City last weekend, my sister and her fiance got into a debate on whether she used "dilemma" correctly. That's when I realized it's not just me and Patrick, but there are other people who love words, too. There are other people who don't like when people push and prod words into sentences where they don't fit - like jamming a puzzle piece where it doesn't belong. It's against everything I believe in, and also the reason I don't do puzzles with kids.

Here are some examples:

1. Literally
Should mean: exactly what you say is accurate, no metaphors or analogies.
Often misused: I'm literally dying of thirst (or anything else Rachel Zoe says)

2. Peruse
Should mean: to read or examine very carefully
Often misused: as the exact opposite - to skim or glance over quickly without paying much attentionre

3. Random
Should mean: has no specific pattern, purpose, or objective
Often misused: “This random man approached me and asked for the time.” The man isn’t random (especially since he had an objective to find out the time); he's just a stranger.

4. Ironic
Should mean: some incongruity between what is expected and what actually occurs
Often misused: coincidence, Alanis Morissette's whole song on the subject

5. Antisocial
Should mean: against everything society has to offer
Often misused: shy, introverted

6. Unique
Should mean: one of a kind
Often misused: different/weird. As in, "wow this talking cookie jar is such a unique gift!"

7. Fact
Should mean: information capable of direct verification, not of matters of judgment.
Often misused: "I am irresistible to women and that's a fact."

8. Sublime
Should mean: elevated or lofty in thought, impressing the mind with a sense of grandeur or power.
Often misused: by rich ladies at tea talking about the new wall color.

9. Media
Should mean: plural of "medium" and can refer to anything used to carry a message
Often misused: a black cloud of pinstripe suits behind television, magazines, and radio who influence your daughters to take diet pills and your sons to look at porn.

10. Sorry
Should mean: apology. It implies you have something to apologize for.
Often misused: accidents, like bumping into someone's cart at the grocery store. Don't apologize for the fact that there are sixty people in the fucking juice aisle! Not you're problem. Perhaps "excuse me" or "get your god damn apple juice and keep moving!" is what you meant.

Maintaining the integrity of words is next to impossible. Because words mean exactly what we use them to mean. Words develop as our meanings for them do. New meanings are added to existing words as new uses become popular. So if you look a word up now, it doesn't have one meaning - it has seven to twelve. Which brings me to the realization that this whole post was in vain. Oh fuck it: I've always got curse words when I want to make an impact. I can't depend on any word greater than four letters to evade misinterpretations these days.

Cited:
Yahoo
Copyblogger
other sites too, but I forgot which ones.

moldy cheese

2011-01-16T19:12:00.009-06:00

I'm not much of a cook in the kitchen. So my job to help out is shredding cheese. And occasionally slicing tomatoes. Today, I was about to grate our cheese block when I saw mold. Just one little spot. I made the mistake of saying something to Steve. Now to understand this blog post, you'll have to know the major difference between Steve and I: I was raised poor, he wasn't.

My family found our dining room set on the curb the day before trash pickup and got it reupholstered. We got 3/4 cup of cereal for breakfast each morning. We had to stretch our Halloween candy to last us until we got candy again in our Christmas stockings, and that until Easter. I spent entire afternoons willing Molly across the street to invite me over so I could get a CapriSun.

Steve's family went to the grocery store with two different carts, and he was allowed to throw whatever he wanted into it. He drank two CapriSuns for a snack. He got name brand food. I'm sure he had brand new clothes, too back then, lucky bastard. I wore hand-me-downs. My 1991 self is green with envy of Steve. My 1991 self hates him and his 1991 self is lucky I didn't know him back then or we never would have married.

So when I saw the mold, I did what any ~~poor~~ practical kid would do and turned the block to the other side and started grating. After all, the expiration date is still four months off. I know for a fact that my mom still has a block of mozzarella in the freezer from when I was 10, so cheese is pretty much immortal in my eyes. Steve finished preparing the omelettes (fuck you spell check, I know you want to shorten the word to "omelet" but I think that looks like some giant bird, so I doll it up) and we sat down to eat.

And I noticed a glaring absence of cheese on his omelette. Fucking ~~rich~~ ~~middle-class~~ normal kids are such snobs. I bet he doesn't even know they make cereal in bags. I bet he has never heard of Grocery Outlet. I bet he got a new pillow and it didn't count as a Christmas present.

But as for this poor kid? I saved myself some of the leftover cheese to make nachos in a couple hours. One thing I can say about people who are raised on a ~~single~~ shitty income: we are extremely durable.

terrible advertising

2011-01-16T09:25:00.004-06:00

Saw this ad today in my celebrity rag.

Is it just me, or do the "before" and "after" pictures look the exact same?

Well, maybe not exactly the same. She straightened her hair and got an even tan in the second picture.

If you need straighter hair and an even tan, buy Slimquick!

defining yourself

2011-01-13T22:43:00.003-06:00

I've often wondered what happens to emotions that are never recognized: the tears and laughter we never allow to escape. The feelings we push down as soon as they come up, not allowing them to exist. The ideas we have that nothing becomes of, the dreams unpursued, the fleeting thoughts that are never contemplated like they deserve.

I think that all those things that could have become a part of us, but we never allowed them to be. They did not become a part of our personalities, beliefs, or memories.

When I was younger, I didn't understand when people would say, be yourself. I thought, who else would I be? But now, I think that means allow those emotions, thoughts, and ideas that come naturally to you to play out.

People change to be like the people around them. Or liked by the people around them. They change to be cool, or liked, or at least socially accepted. They will believe what they're told to believe, act calm when they're are sad because they don't want to be a crybaby, laugh at jokes that aren't funny because the person saying it is good looking. They will acter dumber than they are so men will find them attractive, they will sleep with people they don't want to so they aren't called a prude. They will lie, cheat, steal because they're with someone else who does. They will lose themselves completely while morphing into a clone of someone else.

And all that time, those parts of us that were killed upon inception - those emotions and thoughts and dreams and beliefs - they are laid in the ground, tombstones are etched for the person that you could have been, but chose not to become. And soon, the ground is littered: *a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.

*Final line stolen from Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

boat steam

2011-01-09T15:53:00.006-06:00

On September 5, 1856, the Arabia set out for a routine trip. Around the town of Parkville, Missouri, the boat hit a tree snag. The snag ripped open the hull, which rapidly filled with water. The upper decks of the boat stayed above water, and the only casualty was a mule that was tied to sawmill equipment and forgotten. The boat sank so rapidly into the mud that by the next morning, only the smokestacks and pilot house remained visible. Within a few days, these traces of the boat were also swept away. Eventually the boat was completely covered after numerous salvage attempts failed. Over time, the river shifted a half a mile to the east.

In 1987, David Hawley, a member of a family in Kansas City who owned a refrigeration company, set out to find the boat. Using old maps and a proton magnetometer, Hawley figured out the probable location, and then found the Arabia half a mile from the river and under 45 feet of silt and topsoil.

With permission from the owners of the farm - and a requirement that the work be completed before the spring planting - Hawley, his brother, Greg, and father, Bob, along with two family friends - set out to excavate the boat during the winter months.

They performed a series of test drillings to determine the exact location of the hull. Once this was done, the perimeter was marked with powdered chalk. Heavy equipment, including a 100-ton crane, was brought in by both river and road transport during the summer and fall. To lower the water level, 20 irrigation pumps were installed around the site to keep it from flooding. The 65-foot-deep wells removed 20,000 US gallons per minute from the ground. On November 26, 1988, the boat was exposed. Four days later, artifacts from the boat began to appear. On December 5, a wooden crate filled with elegant china was unearthed. The mud was such an effective preserver of everything that the yellow packing straw was still visible. Thousands of artifacts were recovered intact, including jars of preserved food that are still edible. The artifacts that were recovered are housed in the Steamboat Arabia Museum. On February 11, 1989, work ceased at the site, and the pumps were turned off.
~History details were gathered from Wikipedia so I didn't butcher the truth, which I have a knack for doing.

And one fine day in January 2011, Holly & Amber stumbled across this museum by complete accident. It was the most fascinating experience of my life thus far. Yes, more fascinating than birthing a child or having sex or being thousands of miles above land in an airplane.

Amber and I spent hours looking at all the preserved artifacts from the mid 1800s: dug out of the ground under a cornfield where once upon a time the Missouri river flowed. Although they didn't dig up treasure worth millions of dollars, the excavators dug up a time capsule. There was food and clothes and building materials from people moving out west. David Hawley was there and spoke to us. He was the ungrateful recipient of some of my hand sweat. I felt like I met a celebrity. I bought his book, as all starstruck fans do.

And the entire drive back to Omaha from Kansas City, Amber and I spoke excitedly of our adventure, our words forming sentences which tumbled on top of each other until we had repeated everything we remembered learning. Somewhere among old slates and buckets and keys and pea coats, I rediscovered enthusiasm: I had forgotten what it felt like. Next adventure: to harness that energy, reign it away from an old boat and steer it into my dream; to propel myself with my new enthusiasm: my own paddle wheel.

Taking life

2011-01-05T17:53:00.004-06:00

Today, at the high school a mile from my house, there was a school shooting. I drove by the school on my way home a few hours later and I could feel death hanging in the air. It feels like a heavy dark curtain, so thick in the air, your throat closes up.

Right before the shooting, the shooter posted his final status on his Facebook page. It reads:
"Everybody that used to know me, I'm sorry, but Omaha changed me and fucked me up and the school I now attend is even worse. You are going to hear about the evil shit I did, but that fucking school drove me to this. I want you guys to remember me for who I was before this. I know I greatly affected the lives of the families I ruined, but I'm sorry. Goodbye."

I have never been so troubled by a tiny word as I am by his "but"s scattered throughout his apology/goodbye. "But" is a word used as an excuse. It is reasoning away actions rather than taking responsibility for them. How can you apologize to the families of people you are about to shoot? An apology is an expression of regret. If you were sorry before doing it, you shouldn't have done it.

He pleaded for people to remember him for who he was before this. People remember you for what you did in your life. Certain actions hold more weight in people's memories than others. And a school shooting holds more weight than anything else, one can be sure. We only get one chance at life: no do-overs allowed. We live by our choices and die by our mistakes.

snobby elitist

2011-01-05T00:43:00.004-06:00

I met the most miserable person. She bragged about intimidating people. She carried a clutch because she thought people would instantly peg her as rich and cater to her. She reveled in stories about telling people off, not because she was provoked, but because she enjoyed making others miserable as well. She mistook disdain for respect. She mistook pity for awe. She mistook distance for fear.

And I thought to myself, my God, I hope I never end up like that.

I had a thousand things to say to her. I wanted to tell her what people really think when they meet her: not that she is rich and respectable, but that she is a snobby elitist.

In Anne of Green Gables, Anne says about someone who has just called her ugly and red-headed: "Oh, but there's such a difference between saying a thing yourself and hearing other people say it. You may know a thing is so, but you can't help hoping other people don't quite think it is."

So I didn't say anything. It is not my place to make her feel bad about herself. We are our own worst critics, so if I'm thinking that about her, she must be thinking something worse about herself.

Nothing like seeing a worse version of yourself to prevent becoming it.

I hope to never become someone who revels in other people's misery. I hope I never hate the people who love me. I hope when things are going badly for me, I do not project it onto people around me. I hope I don't create distance that happens in friendships. I hope I keep what has been salvaged of my optimism. I hope I never let myself fall into hopeless despair and hatred. I hope to keep the part of me that I like best about myself.

January

2011-01-03T14:48:00.000-06:00

Here's a bit of wisdom imparted on me by dictionary.com via Facebook:

"January is often considered the month for deep reflection. We look back at the year behind us, bemoaning our regrets and celebrating our successes. And then, we look forward to the future year. We make well-meaning resolutions and hope for the best.

So, in this way, we’re all a little bit like Janus, the Roman god for which January is named. Janus is usually depicted with having two heads that face in opposite directions. One looks back to the year departed, and one looks forward to the new and uncertain year ahead."

Like my car title, I found this poetic. And I became thankful that I only have one head. I don't want to see some of the shit that goes on behind my back.

beauty in this beholder's eye

2011-01-02T14:00:00.014-06:00

I thought today of what is beautiful to me.
Here is what came to mind:

1. Birds' nests in leafless trees
2. An old journal saved for many years
3. Globes and old maps
4. Snow blanketing a hushed place
5. Books of all different heights on a shelf
6. Letterpress prints
7. Trains abandoned on the tracks
8. Dimples on chubby cheeks
9. Ripples in rain puddles
10. Loved ones meeting their visitors at airports
11. Children's play forts
12. Singing outloud to the radio when you're alone
13. A couple's unnoticed kiss in a crowd
14. A secret you can't wait to tell
15. A friend you've never met

Pictures can be found here

Previously salvaged

2010-12-30T19:41:00.014-06:00

Today could be the first time I have ever looked at my car title.
Maybe it's because I'm working too much and my brain has turned to mush, but I thought it was poetic.

It says, "previously salvaged."

I thought that was beautiful.

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
~W.H. Auden

Salvaged is to be saved from some disaster. To be saved and remain useful. I thought of how not only my piece of shit car was salvaged, but how we are. How we live through our rock bottoms and are able to continue on as someone better. The only reason I still have hope in this bleak world is because I know people can change.

Over Christmas, my siblings and I went to the theater and watched "How Do You Know." The movie is somewhere between fantastic and terrible, but probably closer to the latter. Regardless, there was a part at the end where Paul Rudd tells Reese Witherspoon about Play-Doh.

He tells her that it was made to be cleaner to remove soot off of wallpaper. But when people switched from using coal burning furnaces to oil fueled ones in the '40s and '50s, demand for the product evaporated. The company was in danger of going under when a family member discovered kids liked to play with it. It was remarketed as putty for children and the family business was saved.

The point of the story was that we're all just a tweak away from our full potential. That although now we may be shitty assholes, we can still be salvaged. That one difference would make all the difference.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
~Robert Frost

mattress situation, greener grass, Christmas bow

2010-12-29T19:46:00.002-06:00

I just finished up a week with my family and two days back at work.

I am exhuasted.

My mom tried to make Steve and I feel at home by putting us in a bed we can share.
This is difficult in a house that doesn't have mattresses larger than full sized.
So she and my little brother shoved two twin beds together.
The mattresses are older than I am.

Now I need to go to the chiropractor.

But it was thoughtful of her all the same.

I was jealous that my sister got an air mattress until she woke up on the hard basement floor with no air left in it.

The grass isn't always greener on the other side, just usually.

* * *

Having siblings teaches you to compare yourself to everyone else.

And Christmas presents are no different.
I now see why most parents are very careful to spend the same amount on each of their children; because if they don't, the kids notice.

It seems very stressful to be a parent.
You're always trying to make your kids happy or at least keep them from hating you.
How do you do it? It's realizations like this that scare me off the idea.

That and even more stretch marks and not sleeping through the night and toys that make noise and premature piercings and deadbeat boyfriends and...

But there must be some good in it, too.
An overanalyzer can't even tell what color the grass is anymore.
I'm talking about myself, of course.

My mind is so unraveled that I forgot how I wanted to end this.
That is unusual for me because all the time when I am writing I am thinking how I can sum it all up and tie a nice bow around it on the last sentence; how I can accentuate what I was trying to say. But honestly, I don't know what I want to say today. I just know I want to say something because I am having blogging withdrawls. Sorry I couldn't tie a nice bow on my thoughts today. Just imagine this blog is like the last present under the tree where there was a bow on it at one time but now it's in a gift bag stuck to some tissue paper because of all the jostling. Yeah, I like that.

most worthless words

2010-12-20T23:46:00.000-06:00

On the radio they were taking calls for the most annoying words of 2010. "Whatever" won in a poll. To me, that's not that bad.

That got me thinking...

Most annoying words:
1. Sure
As in an answer to a question. Answer the god damn question!
2. Fruition
It's one of those words I think people say just to sound smart (like "plethora"). I hate the sound of it. It makes me cringe, actually.
3. Ya'll
I had never heard it used in excess until this season of "the Apprentice," and now I can't stand it. It sounds lazy and purposefully hickish.
4. Proactive
I never want to hear that word again! It is overused in the workplace and relatively meaningless in my line of work.
5. Vaca (vay-cay)
How lazy have we become that we have to shorten everything?
6. Just
When meaning "only" or "merely." As in, "I just spent $300 on this pointless piece of crap."
Just is used to justify something stupid.
7. Irregardless
I absolutely hate words without meaning
8. Abhor
It sounds filthy
9. Pacific
(when it is supposed to mean "specific")
10. Heighth
and any other words with added letters or subtracted syllables.

And some favorites:
1. Suburbia
2. Tinsel
3. Moron
4. Audacity
5. Carny

letters from home

2010-12-19T13:54:00.003-06:00

Today I have a to do list longer than I am tall. Only two more days until we board that plane, and two days doesn't seem like enough time for everything I have to wrap up at home (literally and figuratively). I was looking for these photo holder stickers so I could send off a book, and couldn't find them anywhere. I went down to the basement to see if they ended up in a box in a tub somewhere.

In a tub was a box and in that box was a bunch of letters I've saved. Letters from the people I love the most: the people who love me back. There were letters from my sister and my dad, from my college roommate Karen, from my best friend Patrick. There were letters from Stephen before we got married, scribbled on the backs of receipts or on scrap paper from the company we worked at together. I found a letter from my Grandpa dated 1998 which meant so much more to me now that I've lived more and can understand what he meant. There were letters from Gracie's parents and grandparents. Letters thanking me and letters telling me they loved me.

I found myself sitting on the cold concrete floor, tears streaming down my cheeks and snot dripping out my nose. A biography of my life in letters people have written me. Feelings and conversations that I have since forgotten are there in that box, written on bright stationery or dingy receipts. Why is it that the parts of life so easy to forget are the times you felt loved and the times easiest to remember are the times you felt pain? Despite my feelings, I have never been alone. There are people who love me and care for me even though I'm a Superbitch most of the time. And when they can't say it outloud, or when they can and know that it would mean more to me in writing, they write it down so I can keep it always. It is there in the basement: this burning warmth in the cool dampness.

Pounds on board

2010-12-16T23:28:00.004-06:00

I did something stupid.

Reeeeeeal stupid.

I stepped on the scale.

I noticed my love handles expanding a few days ago, but then later I had one of those mornings where I hadn't put on my glasses yet and thought I don't look that fat today. So that's where the scale came in.

I thought maybe it had overlooked that I am working out less and eating more. I thought maybe it was forgiving me for not stepping on it much recently and was going to reward me with a nice number under 150. I didn't think. The reality hit me like a sack of potatoes to the back of the head.

I am a chubster.

You all know by now that over five years ago I had a baby. Well, once I returned home from the hospital, I stepped on the scale. What I weighed then is what I weigh now. Eeks. This time I don't have a child growing inside of me to blame.

So I will continue to blame having a baby for forever ruining a woman's figure. It does. Well, it did mine, at least. That coupled with my aversion for dieting and my lack of self-control around anything from the baked goods category. But we can blame lack of control on pregnancy too, right? (I hear all these stories about bladder control going out the window after child #2).

I know Denise Richards and Kelly Ripa and Heidi Klum and all these other skinny blond bitches had no problem going back to washboard abs and perky tits. Well, I live in reality - you know, that place separate from personal trainers and catered meals under a daily calorie count of 2,000 (gasp). So hello, 155. Welcome you couple extra straggling LBs that just made it on board. We've been expecting you. After all, I live in reality.

Bitch naked on a trampoline

2010-12-14T20:40:00.003-06:00

I know my blog posts have become a bit sporadic. I hate myself for it. But I'm working a lot and working out when I can to prevent the second chin that is trying to arrive in time for Christmas. My page came up in some more interesting Google searches, so since that's easy, that will be my post today. The shit people Google, I tell ya. Oh, and I'm glad you can't see what I've Googled because some of it is pretty embarrassing.

1. 2010 boy scout popcorn overpriced
Oh, so it isn't just me?
2. Can you have no reflection in a mirror
If you're a ghost or invisible
3. I hate the word foodie
So do I. And "prego" and other kidsie sounding words (save for "carny")
4. Bitchlust
Who doesn't want a good bitch?
5. I worried about bitching me at work
Maybe you should start doing your job properly then
6. These donut bitches used to believe they were grown up bitches
I'm just proud that I appear if you Google "donut" "bitches" and "grown up"
7. Announcement of Rich Brown being named CFO of Garden Ridge
I imagine Rich's disappointment when he Googled his achievement and found nothing but my blog.
8. Bitch naked on a trampoline
Sorry to disappoint in my lack of nude photos here, but trust me, you don't want to see this.
9. Sweaty women
Some people have weird fetishes.
10. Stepbrothers sweater vest
I have made it on Google! I come up in sweater vest searches!

separation anxiety

2010-12-09T23:10:00.009-06:00

Just as children, step by step, must separate from their parents, we will have to separate from them. And we will probably suffer...from some degree of separation anxiety: because separation ends sweet symbiosis. Because separation reduces our power and control. Because separation makes us feel less needed, less important.
~Judith Viorst

It's been six years since that Christmas I was pregnant: when the morning sickness was just about to begin along with the emotional tornado that has become me. Over five years have passed since Gracie was born. While those years have passed somewhat uneventfully for me, this whole time, she has been growing taller and smarter and more personality.

Without me.

I gave life to her, but her parents gave her the life she has. They are doing a spectacular job. Much better than I could.

Girls who get pregnant unexpectedly sometimes feel they're the only candidate for the job of mothering. Responsibility should go to someone responsible. And six years ago, I was not. I am glad I recognized that then.

Although the separation will always be an emotional choice, I can still watch her grow up; with the pictures, emails and Facebook messages her parents send me. Today they sent me her letter to Santa and I smiled to know a little about her.

She is a daughter apart from me, but always a part of me. I will never let go of that.

Sexiest Man Alive

2010-12-07T22:31:00.011-06:00

After yesterday's post about creeps, did anyone catch Millionaire Matchmaker? Creepiest guy ever. I wasn't sure if he is a serial killer or a cannibal, but either way, I'm having nightmares tonight.

So onto a lighter topic: People magazine recently released their 2010 Sexiest Man Alive issue. Some of the men were ugly, some of them were OK, and a couple actually were sexy. Since I disagreed with some of the picks, I figured I would chronicle my own (very subjective) Sexiest Men Alive list:

It doesn't get hotter than Beckham. Period.

Not physically perfect like Beckham, but there's no denying his sexual magnetism.

John Stamos! (I am the uncast third brother on "Stepbrothers")

What can I say? I hate to be cliche' but he's the All-American guy. Sometimes what is popular is popular for a damn good reason.

Overlooked and underrated. It's a shame he never made it too far out of the OC.

It's next to impossible to find a picture of this one without Kardashian. Did people know who he was before? (also, why doesn't People ever make an athlete their Sexiest Man Alive?)

I have to agree with People's winner for the year. He's in peak physical condition. If humans were judged like dogs in shows, Ryan would win the blue ribbon (Beckham would lose out because of the tats - those judges are stuffy traditionals).

I like to round off my lists in even tens, but no one else came to mind. I called in my husband for help and he said, "aren't you forgetting someone?"

Oh yeah...

creeps on the loose

2010-12-06T21:36:00.005-06:00

Remember the list of all the shit you can't write on a personalized license plate? Some of those were merely the mention of anything religious. So that's not allowed, but this is?

(RU18YET)

I imagine the inside is stocked with Boone's Farm and those Camel cigarettes in the pink boxes which are supposedly marketed for children.

Never let your teenage daughters near Hobby Lobby where we found this man. He must have been loitering in the bead aisle before hopping in his ride to go look for young blood at the skating rink, where with any luck Chris Hansen will be waiting.

the pitter-patter is a rabbit in the front yard

2010-12-02T18:43:00.004-06:00

Sometimes, I feel my life is somewhat trivial and meaningless. It's been over four years since I got married and five years since my daughter was born. And since that time, I feel like I've done nothing. I've had a hundred jobs and paid my rent and kept Furniture Row afloat, but have I really done anything?

Is it selfish to say having someone to depend on me would make me feel like there was a purpose to my life? Because that's how I feel. I don't mean people without children don't live fulfilling lives, I just mean that I don't. There is nothing special about me and my daily comings and goings. I am not shaping anyone's life or influencing anyone. I am existing.

I don't particularly like babies. I don't like how they can't talk and are always screaming. I don't like changing diapers or sucking boogers out of noses with a baster. But babies grow up to be cute little boys who play little league games and cute little girls who want to dress themselves in mismatched clothes.

That part doesn't sound half bad. I have already thought up traditions we would keep. I have thought of names and smiled at the thought of furnishing another room. I know what books I would buy them and where I would put the playhouse in the backyard. I know where I would lock Steve's booze up at and where I would hide their Christmas presents from Santa. I am playing house, but with only the house.

a little coast left in me

2010-11-29T19:31:00.006-06:00

In a conversation, I heard myself refer to I-80 as "the interstate." Oh God, I thought, it's happening. After five years of my waning resistance, Nebraska is eking it's way into my personality. I've always been proud of the geographical location of my upbringing, but I'm afraid regardless of it, I'm turning into a Midwesterner. That scares the hell out of me. So I've compiled a list of things that sets me apart from my neighbors to make myself feel better. It's all I have left now besides the occasional, "you're not from around here, are you?"

1. I still haven't worn tennis shoes with jeans
2. I've managed to remain under 180 lbs
3. I don't eat any food made of corn except popcorn which doesn't count because it's a snack
4. I hate Runza
5. I don't wear red on game days and in fact I don't own any red clothing save for one sweater vest I bought in a sweater vest frenzy.
6. Lake Okoboji is not "the beach"
7. Bad teeth are still a turn off
8. "Supper" is "super" misspelled to me
9. I don't own a John Deere, Harley, or a pickup truck
10. Neither me nor my dog hunts
11. I still can't cook
12. I've never ordered from Omaha Steaks
13. My outdoor grill is tiny
14. I don't have a quilt on my bed
15. All my silverware matches
16. I don't own wind pants
17. My hair is not brown
18. I don't consider Plato's Closet to be high fashion
19. I didn't go to the Olive Garden after prom
20. Both my car headlights work

O Tannenbaum

2010-11-28T15:44:00.003-06:00

Over the weekend, Steve's grandpa told me about the first outdoor Christmas tree. I thought about it today while I trimmed my indoor one. Before these lights that are such a hassle, they had candles on the trees. Just when I think modern conveniences aren't convenient, I realize the alternative is a fire waiting to happen. Read this story; it's fascinating.

IT was Christmas Eve 1914. On a quiet street in snowy Denver, a young boy lay in his upstairs bedroom, too ill even to be carried downstairs to join family members around the Christmas tree. According to the attending physician, this would be 10-year-old David Jonathan Sturgeon's last Christmas.

The boy's grandfather, D.D. Sturgeon, one of Denver's pioneer electricians, could not bear to see his grandson completely miss out on the holiday festivities. Saddened and desperately wanting to brighten the small lad's holidays, he took some ordinary light bulbs, dipped them in red and green paint, connected them to electrical wire and proceeded to string the glowing baubles onto the branches of a pine tree outside David's bedroom window, within easy view of the boy's appreciative gaze.

News of Sturgeon's efforts to please his grandson spread throughout the city and, night after night, folks came by horse and carriage to see the wondrous sight of an outdoor lighted Christmas tree. And it's no surprise that they were so fascinated, considering the fact that David Jonathan Sturgeon's Christmas tree holds the record for the world's first outdoor electric lighted Christmas display.

Complete story here
By Doris Kennedy
with special thanks to the Denver Post

DDs without a bra: must be fake

2010-11-23T22:51:00.006-06:00

Apparently there is a new gym in town. We have tons of gyms around here which is surprising because most everyone in the midwest is fat. Although I'm sure that's how gyms make their money: off the fat people who buy memberships and don't use them. The skinny marathon runners that are damaging the gym cardio machines are losing them money. Anyway, I received this ad in the mail today:

Is this what you look like when you work out? Do you put your giant hoop earrings on and wear your necklace that dangles right into your DD cleavage that doesn't need a a sports bra during all that jiggling? That is what I call false advertising. I have DDs and I work out and I look a bit more like this:

With my honesty, I could never hold a job in marketing. I wouldn't be able to sell water to a millionaire dying of thirst. He would take one look at my sweaty middle and say, "no thanks, I'd rather die."

And with my post-workout look, you best believe I stay in the comfort of my own home. No one wants to see my tomato face. While I was running on the treadmill in my basement tonight, the neighbors pulled into their driveway and their headlights were shining into our basement window. I thought, oh no, I hope they can't see me. They're three times my age and probably can't see ten feet but the thought occurred to me nonetheless.

So no, Aspen Active, thanks for the VIP offer, but I will be staying in my basement away from your flying boobs and sweat-destroyed silver jewelry. Nothing personal (or maybe it is since your ad says, "finally...a health club that cares about it's members" - maybe they do need me in marketing after all).

P.S. For those of you who have never met me, the second picture is not me. It's some girl named Staci from Google images. I would never be caught dead in those rubber band contraptions that are giving her knees a Spanx boob effect: even in my own basement.