02.28.07
Dear Creativity
Please come back. I miss you. I know I’ve neglected you, dashing off blog posts with only small snippets of conversations with Gabe that are guaranteed to bring the funny, but really I know he’s doing all the work for me. I know I’ve not written a word on my novel in two whole weeks, but I blame the husband for taking my laptop with him to Texas so he could watch DVDs instead of dying of boredom in the hotel room. Really, his portable DVD player will be fixed soon! I promise! Or at least Best Buy does, and because I’m desperate, I’m choosing to believe them despite their past history of screwing us over on fixing things. I know I’ve got another computer at home, but really, when the boy decides to destroy the house, I can’t live with the guilt that I just sat by the flickering screen of blue light and let him do it. I have to get up and check on him. He will not be contained in the computer room, despite the cool toys we’ve put in there for him to play with. He’s torn up the train tracks in utter boredom only to ask me for help in rebuilding them. So the computer watched that process in the corner, my novel blinking its cursor at me in quiet resentment at the neglect. I know, alright! I know. My head hangs in shame.
I’m really very sorry, Creativity. I know you’re a muscle that needs to be exercised or you atrophy, and I can feel that process beginning. Please hang in there? I’ll take you out for ice cream if Gabe can come along, too. I’ll finish that scrapbook I’ve been working on, even if it’s not the same workout as the writing. I’ll leave the TV off or just keep it on for Gabe. I’ll buy you flowers. Take you out for surf n turf. I’ll even splurge on some wine. Just stick around some more until I get used to this weekday single parent thing and can get back to the writing I need to do to keep you going.
I haven’t forgotten you. Please don’t forget about me.
Sincerely,
Andrea
02.26.07
When Yuppities Attack
It’s no secret that I have a complex. Anyone who reads my blog with any sort of regularity knows that I’m a hand wringer extraordinaire. Everywhere I go, I’m either comparing myself to people around me (a habit I WISH I could break) or I’m pep talking myself to not even look. Meeting new people? Yeah, I’m measuring. You can bet on it. Only I’m not measuring them to see if they fit my standards. I’m measuring myself and attempting to figure out their standards to see if I rate.
So sad.
Which is why it’s hard for me to wrap my brain around people who think their shite doesn’t stink so much so that they have the green light to look down on others. Mothers often take a beating over our choices, for our career choices (damned if you have one, damned if you don’t), for our breastfeeding choices (damned if you do it, especially in public, damned if you don’t), and for the occasional glass of wine or a beer at a playdate (damned if you do it, you alcoholic).
But the beating lately has gone from debating issues of value such as public versus home schooling, breastfeeding rights, single mothers who must work being discriminated against for costing their employers more in health insurance to cover their little ones, to the issues of being a “hipster parent”. There are several articles here, here, and here that illustrate the utter disdain people in the media have come to use when speaking of parents who dress their children in a style similar to their own, who do not succumb to the establishment’s idea of what a parent “should” look like. The tone of the NYT article is particularly sarcastic and cynical, from a person who simply cannot reconcile that a parent is free to choose the style in which they parent, whether it’s how they dress their child to the CDs they listen to in the car to the ideals they are teaching about individualism and friendship.
I call them Yuppities. It doesn’t matter the age of a Yuppity, but they are basically suburbia personified, and if a parent falls outside their idea of the status quo in any way, that parent is to be vilified as a hipster parent pushing their own individuality to make their children into mini versions of themselves, thus supposedly becoming hypocrites of the very individuality they tout. Yuppities are an exclusionary force unto themselves as they berate parents who happen to tell their stories using utter and complete truth, puke and poop included, without the sunshine and roses of yester year. So of course, the Yuppity radar is pointed at bloggers, and specifically parent bloggers who try to buck the “mommy/daddy blogger” label.
I am not a hipster parent. I’m not even cool. Seriously. I don’t have much style to speak of, even if I refuse to wear Mom Jeans. I have a non-descript wardrobe because my budget does not allow me much leeway for trendy clothes. I wish it were otherwise, but I’m a realist. I don’t pretend to belong in the hipster parent thingy the Yuppities are bitching about. But I’m a truthful blogger who chooses to write openly about my son and the ups and downs (because yes there are some) of parenthood. So even I, over here in the bland outfit that can’t be placed in any era, have been muttered about alongside this group of hipster parents a time or two in this mudslinging despite my serious un-trendy appearance because apparently blogging the truth really means that I fell for some kind of media campaign and am surprised that my new accessory (Gabe) doesn’t afford me all the cool I could have wanted. According to them, honesty in and of the parental experience in a blog is another clue that I was only trying to join the cool kids. And I am getting sick of the Yuppities and their sarcasm.
I have to wonder, why the disdain?
Let me set the record straight. I had a baby because I wanted to have a baby. Not because it’s suddenly popular or cool or trendy. Because I wanted a child. To raise. Until adulthood. I didn’t have a baby to have the perfect accessory. I knew as well as any first time parent can know in advance what I was getting myself into: at least two decades of worry, some tedium, joy, wonder, difficulties, triumphs and love. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, nor did I need to trade in much (except spare time) to do it. But I certainly didn’t do it to fit into this imaginary cult hipster parent following the Yuppities have dreamed up.
I don’t get it. And I’m sorry if my refusal to wear Mom Jeans pisses somebody off, but I didn’t leave my sense of style (what tiny bit I have) in the hospital delivery room. Besides, what does my choice of music have to do with my parenting skills?
There are a multitude of other posts by people far more eloquent than I that have covered this topic. I think Rebecca said it best when she said, “I am not a ‘modern parent.’ I’m just twenty-five years old.”
So maybe I’m not that young. Maybe I’m not that hip either. But to tell anyone they are steering their kids wrong simply because they’re imparting their own sense of style ~ clothing, musical, writing, story-telling or otherwise ~ on the amazing journey of parenthood is rude, narcissistic, self-inflated bullshit from a Yuppity that can’t reconcile turning over the reigns of parenting to the next generation of up and comers. To them, I say get your head out of your Ralph Lauren clad arses. You’re making my comparison complex worse. It’s not the styles hipster parents are putting on their children or the music in the iPod or the neighborhood in which they live that matters. What matters is that these children grow up being loved. After reading the daily list of blogs that I do, I happen to know that hipster parents may dress their kids in alternawear, may give nursery rhymes their own melody, or may gasp! tell the truth about parenting not always being an episode of Father Knows Best, but they also love their kids. Of that there is no doubt.
02.23.07
Open Heart Surgery
She lies on the table, shivering in her transparent paper gown, feeling as though the eyes around her can see straight to her private places. What does it matter? she thinks to herself. Soon, they’ll know me better than I know myself. And then no one will know me. Ever again. That’s a promise.
What’s wrong with her heart? She’s never known, and no one can explain it to her. All she knows is that it’s slowly dying, bits and pieces turning black and jaded every day. It is nearing the point where it cannot sustain her. She’s disappointed to say the least. Of all the things to fail, she really needed her heart continue beating, shouldering its job in the center of her being.
She fears the failure of her heart is her fault. She crossed the line too many times. She gave too much until her heart began to give out. She handed out a piece here and there, to people with whom she desperately wanted to befriend, to men she’d urgently wanted to love her, to friends who needed her but turned away when she needed them. After awhile, her heart wasn’t whole anymore. What she’d expected was that a piece of her heart would reside in a friend, and in turn, they would bestow a piece of their heart upon her. She would have gladly accepted their pieces of heart and sewn them lovingly into the holes where her given away pieces once were, until her own heart was a patchwork quilt of the relationships in her life. She would have been whole and yet the entirety of her patchwork heart would have been more than the sum of its parts. It would have been beautiful, and full and happy, healthy and life affirming! So she gave. And gave. And gave. And she did not always get in return, not in any way measurable. Not in big enough patches. There are a few sewn in, but those only serve to make the lumpy organ look like a sad doll with missing eyes, a line of stitches over a gash in the fabric, and stuffing puffing from the hind end.
But the heart is a miraculous muscle, able to heal in remarkable ways despite the pieces she’d given out only to be refused the counterpart pieces for which she’d once hoped. She healed from those holes, eventually. Mostly. Sure there were scars, pits in the surface with sharp disfigurement of the ventricles that resembled the sinewy twists of the skin of a burn victim. The chambers still pumped though, and despite a really short and stumpy aorta with a scar across it spelling out the name Rick, it worked for her. Its interior was pure, still hopeful and sustaining. Even though it was wizened, knowing just the number of seconds necessary to pump the life giving oxygenated blood the farthest through her body despite the scars and life lessons, it was still a good heart.
Until she gave out too big a piece. She put all her hope and love and future dreams into this piece, and held it up to him like the prize it was. It quivered with fear, knowing the death blow to the rest of the heart if it were not replaced with a similar piece of his heart. Which it wasn’t. The piece was used, prodded, sucked of every bit of good left in it, and then it was unceremoniously dumped back into her chest, poorly stitched back to the other half and withering like a dying flower.
So it will need to be replaced. She is convinced there is no healing from this. The patchwork for which she’d hoped will never happen, she knows now. She is bitter, angry that she gave so much, and angrier that those she loved didn’t love her enough to give back as much as she gave.
The doctor steps up to the table as a mask silently breathes anesthetic air over the girl’s face. The eyes above the surgical mask are unmistakably her own, a mirror that she knows extends beneath the fabric covering the doctor’s nose and mouth. The Patient Girl nods to her doctor self before allowing the mask to be placed, an acknowledgment that her heart will be excised and replaced with the robotic mechanical one on the sterile tray. Its own beats already sound through the room though there is no machinery hooked to it yet. It looks fluid to her, smooth and exact as liquid metal precisely sculpted.
Better to have a steel heart than a shredded one, she thinks as she begins to get sleepy, barely registering the girl in the hallway beating on the window looking into the operating room. She doesn’t want to hear the sobs, beseeching, pleading that she look at the mechanical heart in truth, for it is an ugly sight. It is not the sculpted wonder the Patient Girl thinks, but a square, rusty thing with sharp edges that will do more damage to her insides than any of the absent heart patches could have done.
Bursting into the room, the Crying Girl pulls off the anesthesia mask and explains that she is Patient Girl’s hopeful future, and she knows that if the operation takes place, she will become an unrealized dream, unattainable at best, and forgotten at worst. And so she does the only thing she can. She reaches inside herself and pulls out her own heart, the whole healthy thing. She shakily steps to the table and offers it to Doctor Girl, who then looks at Patient Girl. Back and forth between the steel monstrosity and the bleeding muscle in the hands of the fading future, Patient Girl looks, wavering and suddenly unsure. Doctor Girl is impartial. The old heart must come out. It is damaged beyond repair. It matters not to her which goes in its place.
Finally, Patient Girl decides, accepting Future Girl’s offer with some trepidation. What she doesn’t understand, cannot possibly fathom in her position on the table, is that the heart Future Girl offers is the same heart as the one damaged in the first place, complete with the pieces of those who truly deserve the ones she gave them and bestowed upon her their own pieces. Yes, it is the same heart healed by the grace of time.
*this post inspired by this post from Kelli who is Roaring Through Her Twenties, though Patient Girl is NOT Kelli.
02.22.07
Shot Through the Heart
…and you’re to blame. Darlin’ you give love…a bad name.
I played my part this morning, but not in the way that song describes. I played the part of the hardass parent. And what did I get for my efforts? A pretty please, Mama? A temper tantrum? A few alligator tears slipping from puppy dog eyes? No. I got this:
I hate you, Mama
The sunlight took on a cold washed out tone and the sounds of traffic around the babysitter’s house muted themselves into silence. My tunnel vision zeroed in on Gabe, in the throes of a fit over my not letting him bring a toy into his daycare, and I saw him as a sassy teenager, stomping up the stairs and yelling down at me that I’m the worst mother in the world. Those experts who tell you to reason with your child? Have never had a grumpy toddler in the middle of a tantrum. Who misses his Daddy. And is taking it out on his Mama. There is no reasoning with that child that his toy will be fought over and either broken or eventually confiscated anyway if I allow him to take it with him. I thought by letting him take it in the car, he’d be okay with it, but no. I had to pry it from his sweaty, clammy clenched fist as he bucked and reared in his car seat and tried to slap me with his other hand.
Of everything I expected to happen this morning, I hate you, Mama was not it. Nor did I expect the words, “Well, that’s fine. You’re still leaving your wind-up train in the car,” to fly from my own mouth as if “hate” didn’t snatch my heart from my pants leg (where I wear it all the time anyway now that I’ve had a child) and mince it to small, quivering and drying out, broken pieces, like red Jello that splatters across white porcelain, leaving stains in the wake of the impact. All my pants have a bloody stain on the knees where my heart rests, all the better to be reached and battered, kneaded and punched, squeezed and prodded by little tootsie roll fingers.
I hoped that I would have years before hearing those words flung at me in anger, their sharp edges cutting my cheeks as they whizzed straight into my ears. Their surprise visit this morning is just the icing on the cake of a suck ass week that makes me want to shake my fist at February. Never have I hated a month so bad as I do now. February suffers from what I call Little Man Syndrome. I’ve seen it in people who have positions of authority that don’t match their body types, i.e. the 5′6″ State Trooper, the stunted CEO, the fire fighter who is a head or two shorter than his counterparts. Lord Farquad from Shrek is the perfect example. They carry a chip on their shoulders thinking it will make them seem taller, more authoritative, more believable in their role, and that people will listen to and respect them if they impose their force of will. They don’t realize that the minions will see them for their assholier than thou attitude, and they’ll lose respect for that reason. Yoda didn’t have that problem, though I can totally see him saying, “The asshole is strong in you, young padawan.” As for the mini-month of February, it makes up for its mini-ness by being nastier than any other month in the year. The weather? Sucks. Sunlight? Still sucks. No (real) holidays. Groundhog Day actually requires that we hope for a cloudy day so that the stupid rodent won’t get spooked by his shadow. How depressing is that?
I gathered my dignity in my arms like an animal quivering after nearly being run over in the road and I walked into Nana’s house with my head held high. Sobbing and snotting the whole way, Gabe followed. He refused my every request, from going down the stairs where the part of the house holds the daycare to taking off his coat and shoes and getting comfortable. He wouldn’t give me a kiss or hug, and when I tried to explain that I was keeping his train safe, he got his battering ram look and turned away, decidedly ignoring my gentle explanation. Gah, he’s strong willed! Wonder where he gets that? *whistling and tapping my foot, looking up at the ceiling and the floor and anywhere but the screen*
I sighed, raised my chin again and said, “Well, okay. Bye then.” Relief coursed through me like warm chocolate spilling over a strawberry when he yelled, “NO! Mama! NO!” and ran over to give me a hug and two kisses. I looked into his little face and I saw a little boy who didn’t mean it when he said he hated me. I saw a little boy who just wanted to play, and didn’t understand why I wouldn’t let him. And I saw a little boy whose world has been heaved upward and out in a radiation of shock waves brought on by his daddy’s changing jobs twice in the last four months.
I even understand it, even if I did step in the remains of my heart on the way back to my car. Luckily, another one grows in every time he throws his arms around me, caresses my face, or smacks a kiss on my cheeks. And hopefully, that reserve will never dry up.
02.21.07
Grey’s Groupie
How did I not see this?
Have you ever loved a set of characters so much that you thought of them as your own friends? That you expected a phone call from them any minute inviting you over for dinner or drinks or just plain vegging? That’s me with Grey’s Anatomy. Obviously. Seriously.
I’ve cracked the spines on many books with my favorite characters in them. Odd Thomas. Frodo and Samwise. Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield from Sweet Valley High. If ever there was a reason to dampen my fear of having a girl baby with child #2 (because I know boy; I’m comfortable with boy; and I can predict boy), reading the Sweet Valley series just might be it.
I’ve been a fan of TV shows and followed characters before. I’ve been warm and gooey inside from the good things that have happened to them and nearly choked on my own heart when bad things happened. Nick getting buried alive during the CSI finale last winter? DUDE! But never, NEVER have I been as invested in a show as I have in Grey’s. And honestly, never has a set of characters inspired me so much to study their nuances of behavior, their tics, and their words from previous episodes as this show has.
Also, I love blogging. I love reading blogs. I love writing my own blog. I like finding new blogs (though my spare time can only take so much). I love being inspired by the writing I find on the web. So when I find out that there’s a blog written by the writers of Grey’s Anatomy, I flipped. My heart really actually skipped a beat.
And because of my previous post on the subject, I know there are some fellow’s Grey’s Groupies that read here, so I’m passing this black-hole of time suckage on to you. Because you will get lost in it. You will find it so revealing to learn the stories behind the writer’s stories, how their experiences influence episodes, and really how much they love their own characters. They write about the episodes as if the characters really are people and do things unexpected and stupid and earth shattering. It’s creating at its best.
Go. Read. Love. I understand.
*and please say a little prayer for my best friend Crystal. She’s going through a health scare right now. She’s my person.
02.20.07
Cruella De Vil on Phone Solicitors
Okay, yeah. Hi! How are you? Me? Well. Um. I’m a little embarrassed. But I’m not going to apologize for the post yesterday. I write to expunge. Yesterday, I couldn’t think about very many things that didn’t lead to being upset about Mike being gone. I needed to expel the garbage. And no, I wouldn’t even consider being that upset about it if there were an end in sight. But there’s not. This is the job and he had no choice but to take it. That and it’s only temporary if he can find a replacement. Which bites the big, green weenie.
I’m Cruella De Vil today, but I think that’s purely hormonal. Which actually helps sometimes! Did you know that? Being hormonal can be a good thing now and then? Like when solicitors call.
Last week, Mike was not yet home and Gabe was In. A. Mood. I had just put him in Time Out for throwing a toy car at the cat (he missed and the cat is a REALLY good sport about all the kid torture Gabe puts him through. But he’s getting pissed at me for torturing him, too.) and Gabe was melting down. He was a puddle of goo covered in empty clothes because he’d melted. And stained my couch with his melting, dammit. I wasn’t happy. He wasn’t happy. The cat was happy (Gabe missed) so he started running around in fast-like cat pounce mode, which only incited the puddle on the couch even more. The Puddle wanted to suck back together like the Liquid Terminator did in T2 after being frozen by liquid nitrogen and shattered, only to be melted by that horribly placed, random fire with such bad timing. Gabe wanted to do that. Because Time Out shattered him. Or it sounded like it. It also sounded like a Banshee had inhabited The Puddle.
The phone rang.
Miss Bubbly Voice: May I speak with Mr. or Mrs. [butchers last name horribly]
Me, a.k.a. Cruella De Vil On The Phone: This is Mrs. [Carefully enunciated correctly pronounced and drawn-out-to-point-out-faux-pas last name.]
Miss Bubbly Voice: I’m Miss Voices Change for Drama’s Sake and I’m calling from the Sick Children’s Wish Group and … [ensue sob story]
Cruella De Vil OTP: Oh, that’s awful.
Miss Emotional and Dramatic Voice: Yes, it is. [flipped on bubbly voice switch] So can we count on you for a donation? Can I tell a child who may not live out the week that your donation helped him/her to realize their last dying wish?
Cruella De Vil: No. [I? Am going to HELL!]
Miss Shocked, Then Steely Voice: Oh… um… Okay. Well, there are some children who could really use your support. Because, you know, they’re dying and all. They won’t get to learn to drive. Or graduate high school. Or get married. Or have their own babies. And you never know when your own children will be struck down with a terrible illness and you’ll NEED the Wish Group. Because, you know, your refusal now means that your children WILL need us someday. Are you sure I can’t tell a little boy in Idaho that he doesn’t have to die without going to a simple professional sporting event that his parents can’t afford to send him on because they’re already facing millions in hospital bills and Idaho doesn’t have a pro sports team, so they’d have to fly him somewhere?
Cruella De Vil: Yes, I’m sure.
Miss Steely Voice: Well, we do have different levels of donations.
Cruella De Vil: Ma’am. I don’t mean to be rude, but we just declared bankruptcy. I’m worried about putting food on my table for my three year old. I’d love to donate. If I had it, I would. I just don’t have it. Hear my child screaming in the background? Because he’s hungry. I have to give him a piece of cheese and three day old soup for dinner. And hope that will hold him until tomorrow night when I can feed him dinner again.
Miss Curious Yet Skeptical Voice: Oh, you declared Chapter 13?
Cruella De Vil: Yes. [hoping to God that Chapter 13 really applies to bankruptcy of a private individual]
Miss Steely Voice: I’m very sorry to hear that. You have a good evening, Mrs. [butchers last name again, probably on purpose.]
Yes, I am so going to HELL (I LIED to the WISH GROUP! Satan is setting my personal fire right this second.) for not donating to that poor boy in Idaho, although I’m sure if I were to give money straight to his parents to help them with the medical bills, they’d be just as grateful as if I’d paid for him to go to a baseball game or something. Except that part where I said I’d like to donate if I had the money? That part was true. I guess I could have just given her my URL and told her to read up on the whole story about Mike’s job, and that we are broke arse.
Then, not two hours later, the phone rang again. I’d had enough.
Caller: This is I’m Never Going To Be Surprised By Your Excuses To Not Talk To Me, So You Might As Well Save It, and I’m calling from the Blar De Blar Survey Company out of Somewhere, Northeast. May we speak with the male of the household?
Here we go, I thought. I’m gonna lay this one on.
Cruella De Vil: Um, no you may not.
Mr. INGTBSBYETNTTM,SYMAWSI: [more timid] Is there another time when he’d be available?
Cruella De Vil: Well, if you can track him down in Texas where he moved with his latest bimbo, you’re welcome to talk to him.
Mr. INGTBSBYETNTTM,SYMAWSI: Oh… Well, may I speak to the lady of the house?
Cruella De Vil: No. Now’s not a good time. I am, right this minute, signing papers to start divorce proceedings. If you’ll excuse me…
Mr. INGTBSBYETNTTM,SYMAWSI: Well, um. When would be a good time to call back to speak with you?
Cruella De Vil: [internally cackling] Middle of the day. The weekday. I work nights mostly. Which is when the latest bimbo moved in on my huband.
Mr. INGTBSBYETNTTM,SYMAWSI: Thank you for your time. We’ll try back then.
Unfortunately, they called back. Twice more. And figured out I lied about working nights. Finally, I just answered their damn survey. It turned out to be a political survey on my opinion of issues and potential candidates in the 2008 presidential campaign. A very important research tool. Yeah. How seriously do you think they’ll take my opinion now? They’re probably writing me up to be the next new Presidential Candidate. After all, I’ve shown a penchant for lying.
And for the record, Liquid Terminator put himself back together long enough to bathe and then melt down again over sleeping in his own bed. Yeah. Resolve is still his bitch. Also, when I told Mike what I’d said, he grinned wickedly and started helping me come up with new reasons to make phone solicitors uncomfortable. I started calling him Mr. De Vil. We’re totally in it together. But they don’t have to know that.
02.19.07
Lists
I am a list keeper. Grocery lists, things to remember lists, ideas for blog posts… I have Post-Its in my purse to write down the things I see that I might find as inspiration for writing a blog post. Not all of them make it to the screen. In fact, I sometimes find it hard to remember what in the heck “lady cadillac hats back window troopers eating banana” means. Actually, that one I do remember. There was a lady pulled over by State Troopers. She had adorned the back window of her obviously expensive Caddy with a row of hats the likes of which I would have expected to see in the back window of a pickup with giant mudding tires, a Git R Done sticker across the back window alongside a Calvin sticker streaming his opinion on the logo of that truck brand’s competition, and a duck head adorning the hitch ball to keep it from rusting. She was leaning against the median wall casually eating a banana as if she hadn’t a care in the world while troopers and what I can only surmise were drug/explosive sniffing dogs went through her car. Now if she can calmly eat a banana during all THAT, then she can put any damn thing in her back window that she wants despite her car costing as much as my college education to a private Midwestern university, and I’ll leave her alone. Me? I would have been bawling and puking, not eating. But some of the time, my notes to myself are cryptic and they take me a few minutes to decipher.
I had a list when I was younger of all the things I wanted to do with my life. College. Graduate college. Get job. Get paid. Get paid more. Have nice car. Nice house. Nice man. Kids. Write something that gets published. Raise happy kids into happy adults. Write for living. Retire. Travel the country with Nice Man and dog(s). Die peacefully in my sleep.
Here’s what I’ve done: college, graduate, get job, get paid, have car that gets to work and back, have house that covers head but leaks all the damn time, irreplaceable man, irreplaceable kid… It’s a start. I realize how little importance I put on the things that mean the most, the man and kid. Because, wow. Really. How shallow of me to include them in a list of accomplishments, AFTER get paid, get paid more, have nice car, have nice house… I was clearly off my rocker when I wrote that list, because it is the irreplaceable man and child that get me through. They are my reason to keep on.
Which is why it’s so hard for me to accept the changes that have been happening in our lives. Mike was unhappy at his previous job. So he quit to try and improve our lives. It turned out to be a collossal mistake. His absences at home grew more frequent, and the income slowed from a trickle to an unsustainable drip. So he went back to the unhappy company and a job that has so much travel that he might as well move to Texas. I feel so lost. My best friend is decidedly absent. My partner in crime is a Weekend Dad. And of course, I’m second guessing. What I wouldn’t give to go back to last October and change our minds about the risky job move!
Is it really this hard? I mean, I know for some it’s just a cake walk, that the perfect circumstances just sort of fall into their laps, but not for me, I guess. I read somewhere in the blog world last week something about a book of positive thinking, that a certain kind of thinking just breeds success. Obviously I didn’t put much stock in it or I’d have bought it and would be trying it now. Something about if you believe enough and expect nothing less than success, it just happens for you. I’m rethinking my first scoffing of that idea and am valiantly attempting to remember where I read about it, to no avail. I guess drinking that much vodka this weekend killed off brain cells I really needed.
I’m beginning to wonder if my constant Case of the Mondays that bleeds into the other days might be the beginnings of something more. I know February sucks ass. I know brighter days are around the corner. I just can’t get that excited about them when the one I want to spend them with isn’t by my side to share them with me.
So I’m crossing my fingers that something presents itself to be a solution to this problem. Because I can already see just how bad this is for our family.
02.16.07
Don’t Mess with Grey
Did anyone watch Grey’s Anatomy last night? Oh. My. God. If I was ever hooked this bad on a show before, I can’t remember it. Not even CSI (the Vegas version) can hold my interest the way Grey can, and I have CSI t-shirts, CSI the board game which I have actually suffered my family to PLAY with me, and all but season 5 on DVD.
I do not understand it. It could be that I cackle with wicked amusement every time Dr. Bailey opens her mouth. Maybe it’s the twists in the plot that keep me guessing and gasping with unbridled shock every time something new happens. Maybe it’s the fact that Izzy is so much like the running commentary in my own head and at the same time is so stunningly pretty that I either want to BE her or be her boyfriend. She actually said last night, “I believe that if I eat a whole tub of butter and no one sees me do it that the calories don’t count.” It’s a philosophy I’m adopting, only I’m substituting butter with chocolate.
Then there’s the hot men. Need I say more?
But, for the first time ever, as moved as I was by last night’s episode ~ Izzy drilled several holes in a trapped man’s head! With a carpenter’s drill! ~ I was not happy with the drama of the show. And I never thought I’d say I was not happy with an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
While I realize it’s just TV and that no one’s lives are that eventful, I’ve been willing to suspend disbelief and follow some of the eye-rolling drama with much cheering, gasping, and OMGing. I’ve been moved to tears nearly every week because, while there’s a lot of stuff worthy of rolling eyes, there’s also an awful lot of humanity in the show. People lose loved ones every day. People have embarrassing mishaps that send them to the ER every day. It happens. So while the lives of the characters may be a bit dramatic, there’s often drama in the real world that puts some of the scenes in Grey’s to shame.
~~~***SPOILER ALERT***~~~***SPOILER ALERT***~~~
Read no further if you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want to know the ending!!!
My contention isn’t much with the content of last night’s episode, because after all, it’s the content that has kept me watching breathlessly since I discovered Meredith and gang last summer. My contention is that with the latest twist, the flatline signifying Meredith Grey’s death, I know what will come in the next episode.
You simply don’t name a show after a character and then kill off that character three seasons into it when it’s THE most popular show on TV. It’s just too absurd.
So because the writers have written the main character into the Great Beyond, I know that next week, someone will be a hero and bring her back. But I don’t WANT to know what’s coming next. I never saw it coming when Dr. Burke got shot and had subsequent nerve damage in his operating hand, nor could I have foreseen the struggle that followed between him and Christina. I never in a million years would have guessed Izzy would have cut her fiancé’s heart wire (right after Dr. Burke, his cardiovascular surgeon, got shot) to bump him up the transplant list because the higher his need the greater the likelihood he’d get the next available heart, nor could I have figured out in advance that after a successful transplant, the fiancé would have died of a blood clot, leaving Izzy eight million dollars. I never would have pictured Grey’s mom getting a reprieve from Alzheimer’s for just a few hours and becoming lucid.
There are so many things that I just haven’t seen coming above and beyond all the Musical Sheets among the hospital staff. And I don’t want to start seeing things becoming obvious now.
Of course, maybe I’m giving myself too much credit. While I don’t believe the writers would really kill off the character after which the show is named and will thus write her miraculously back to life, I do believe that they’ll write it in such a spectacular and messy way that the ripple effect of which will continue into future episodes, none of which I’ll be able to predict in this way. And I’ll have to wait all spring and summer to see it.
Yes, I’m giving myself too much credit. And who knows? What if they leave us all in shock by NOT bringing her back? Whatever comes next, it will definitely be worth watching. I believe that. Just as I believe I can now eat all the chocolate I want, as long as no one sees me.
02.15.07
V Stands for Belvedere
Me: You didn’t get me anything for Valentine’s Day, did you?
Mike: Just a little something.
Me: I told you not to! Why do you not ever listen to me?
Mike: Because sometimes you just don’t know what you want. What if I wanted to get you something for Valentine’s Day? You’re going to take that away from me?
Me: Well, no. But Valentine’s Day is a retail holiday. I don’t want you to feel obligated to spoil me just because a date on the calendar says you should. Except for our anniversary. And Christmas. And my birthday.
Mike: Oh just those dates.
Me: Hey, stuff it. Those represent something. Our marriage. The birth of Christ and the gifts of the Three Wisemen. My coming into this world. Valentine’s Day is just another day where stores want you to pay three times as much for flowers that will just die and for chocolate that will only glom onto my waistline. I know you love me. You show me every day when you call me at work to tell me something funny, and when you hug me when I get home, or kiss me hello.
Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you something anyway, and it won’t add to your waistline.
Me: Damn you. Thank you. But damn you.
I have never liked Valentine’s Day. Maybe it’s because in second grade, I got laughed at for signing all the valentines I handed out with “love, Andrea”. Because at 7 years old, I apparently wanted to date the whole class, and was progressive enough in my young age to include the girls. Hey, it was a Catholic school. And you know the reputation given to Catholic girls. Maybe it’s because I never had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day until my senior year of high school. And then that boyfriend was a schmuck and a half who was above treating me well any time, let alone on Valentine’s Day. Maybe it’s because I don’t know how to graciously accept being spoiled by my husband. Maybe it’s because we don’t really have the money for him to really try to spoil me, and if I end up opening something more than just a box of truffles then I’ll worry about where the money for it will bite us back later. I don’t know.
I’ve just never cared for Valentine’s Day.
However, Mike is slowly changing my opinion. He’s a thoughtful gift giver in the best of times, and I’m beginning to think he views my abhorrence of Valentine’s Day as a challenge to all that makes him a good husband. When I walked into our house last night, my gift greeted me from the countertop. A small vase of roses next to a bottle of Belvedere Vodka.
It’s a sweet gesture, given our stress level and some of my misgivings over his job and the amount of travel he’ll be doing in the next several months. I rarely drink, maybe a drink or two once every two months or so. But he thought I might like a bottle of vodka to have a martini now and then. Not to mention that on the occasion that I do partake of alcohol, vodka drinks are some of my favorites: vodka and cranberry juice and sometimes with a splash of pineapple juice, Bloody Marys, and maybe martinis if Kelli would just get back to me with that explanation of all things martini.
Though some things did perplex me. The ambiguity of the statement given by such a gift is that he knows I like vodka, but do I like it too much? If I’m to desire a drink now and then, and am home with Gabe while Mike’s in Texas for work, and I have one cocktail, will I be as bad as Meredith Viera says moms are who drink A DRINK at playdates? In front of their kids? And what of trying for a baby? Not such a good idea to have a Bloody Mary in one hand and an ovulation predictor stick in the other, right?
Really, the gift simply means he knows that when I do have a drink, it’s usually with vodka and I happen to like brands a little more refined than Popov. Grey Goose, maybe, or Ketel One. Or Belvedere. While he’s totally okay with that bottle languishing in the freezer for months and months on end as I abstain from imbibing while traveling the fertility train, he just wanted to let me know that, alcoholically speaking, he’s got my back.
And if that doesn’t change my opinion of Valentine’s Day, nothing will.
02.14.07
A Lesson on Driving in Snow
As a public service to my fellow commuters, I am composing a list of driving do’s and don’ts when there is snow on the road. A copy of this will be left in Mr. 15 MPH’s mailbox as soon as I can get his address, provided I find someone who can cross reference license plates with home addresses.
Do ~ drive at a speed that is comfortable to you. The roads are slick. If you’re comfortable going 30 mph on the highway, then go 30. Only you are aware of your car’s capabilities in those road conditions at that time. However, if you’re only comfortable going 15, don’t drive. At least not in front of me. You’re going to get me rear-ended.
Don’t ~ decide to teach other drivers a lesson by blocking lanes and creeping along. This is not the time to push your driving morals on the other driving population, Mr. 15 MPH. If you’re going slower than everyone else and you have the room to do so, get over and let the people who insist on going faster pass you. It’s better that you let them get ahead of you and farther down the road anyway, instead of risking being near someone going too fast for the conditions when they spin out. You’re not doing people favors by driving down the middle of two equally plowed lanes in an attempt to keep people from going too fast, Mr. 15 MPH. If seeing other drivers going faster than 15 angers you, it’s best to stay home.
Do ~ attempt to stay in the ruts of snow created by traffic that has gone before you. It usually provides contact with the road that driving through the as yet unplowed snow in the far right lane does not. However, if you can see the delineation of the lanes, please attempt to stay in your lane as closely as the ruts allow. If there are two lanes side by side that are equally plowed, do not drive in the middle of the whole shebang in some loser’s attempt to make people slow down to your speed, Mr. 15 MPH. There is a reason two lanes have been plowed. The painted lines on the road, if visible, trump the ruts of the snow, unless the ruts are such that your wheels would fall off if you attempt to cross over them and those cliff-like ruts force you to straddle two lanes.
Don’t ~ drive 15 MPH in the fast lane, Mr. 15 MPH. This applies to times of snow as well as times of sun. When others attempt to pass you, don’t use the absence of visible lines on the road to squeeze the offending passer into a snow drift pile created by the nocturnal passing of a snow plow, thus forcing them to either slow down and resume a frustrated pace behind you or speed up to unsafe speeds (faster than normal, not just faster than 15, Mr. 15 MPH) to get around you, endangering themselves and others on the road. Also, if you’re going slower than every other car on the road, Mr. 15 MPH, your best bet is to get over to the right as far as is safe and LET people pass you. It’s okay to feel unsafe going over a certain speed. Really it is. But shaking your fist and popping the One Finger Salute at every single person who is doing 25 mph or more takes a hand off the wheel and if you’re so scared that you’re going 15 mph, you probably should keep both hands on the wheel as well.
Do ~ keep a good sized space cushion between you and the car in front of you. Sliding happens, especially when you hit the brakes. Unless you’re stuck behind Mr. 15 MPH. Then you’re not going fast enough to even need to brake. You can just coast to a stop. Your car was idling anyway.
Don’t ~ drive like there is no snow on the road. If you’re going 60 in a 55 mph speed zone and there’s snow on the road, you’re screwed if you run into Mr. 15 MPH. Slow down a bit. Keep it below the just-shy-of-fishtailing point. You won’t always be able to correct. Though part of me wishes that if you insist on going 60 and end up causing an accident, you also take out Mr. 15 MPH. You’d be doing the rest of us a favor.
For the sanity and safety of everyone on the road, please adhere to these common courtesy rules of driving on snow. Now, I’m off to find a parking boot to put on Mr. 15 MPH’s front truck wheel after I leave this list in his mailbox.
