Like an Enema, Time is Fleeting

OK, first? I can't believe I just typed that title.

I have I don't know how many few minutes here, so I'm just gonna spew stuff out until I come to an abrupt stop. I know, I know, such a departure from my normal well-thought-out, mannered entries.

We flew in to O'Hare one week ago today, and every day has involved long car trips and/or large gatherings, which is exactly as much fun as you can imagine it would be with a baby who is at the peak of separation anxiety. But for me, it's been lovely to see people--95% of whom I haven't seen since last year at this time--and weird to be seen as a mom now. You go through an identity shift when you first have a baby (duh), where for the first three months, when someone asks you if you have kids, you still start to answer "no," before you realize that, holy shit, yes you do! But then you get used to it and you and those around you begin to see "parent" as part of who you are. I hear that eventually that aspect gets integrated into your whole person; for me, I still see myself very clearly as "before" and "after" shots. It still feels short-term, possibly reversible. Like a new haircut. Not that I have any regrets about having a baby, just that it's hard for me to wrap my brain around something this huge, this life-transforming, this...forever thing. And while I flip back and forth between feeling totally natural and totally alien at this mama thing, I am also seeing myself now through other people's eyes and wondering what they see. You know, besides the giant rack.

So, the day before we left, MOTH and I got new phones. Fancy smartphones. Very possibly smarterthanmephones. We hadn't planned on going fancy, but when we signed our new contract, I was offered a new phone free, and the store had this buy-one-get-one sale, and we ended up getting two schmancy phones for free. I can haz interweb on my phone now! But my margin of error is still quite large on things as basic as, say, dialing, so I'm still learning how to work it. However, I have great hopes of blogging on the go, learning to take and post pictures and video, and generally amassing the technological skills of your average eight-year-old. In the meantime, however, I have been taking advantage of this hand-held treat to make notes for blog entries! (And a pox on those of you who would point out that, even before I got the fancy phone, I could have used something like, say, a pen and paper for the same purpose.) Here's what I've got so far:

On visiting my in-laws (who live in the NW corner of the state, in the middle of nowhere): "It's like Fargo, but without the accents and fugly hookers."

On my very sweet father-in-law's attempt to soothe a fractious Tankbaby during the loooong-ass car ride from the airport to their house: "Of course, because what else would you play an overstimulated, overtired baby to lull them to sleep but the opening song from Ragtime?"

On my own frustration after Tankbaby came down with yet another cold and thus yet another Crummy-Five-Interrupted-Hours-Of-Sleep-Followed-By-Three-Hours-Of-Fussing night, during which MOTH moved to the other room (later I found out that he moved because he was tossing and turning and afraid that he was making things with Tank worse, but at 4 AM, I just thought he'd left me alone with Hellbaby without saying a word, and so of course I lay there for two hours plotting our divorce followed by his slow, painful death by being pinched repeatedly by baby fingernails): "I realize that I'm not mad at MOTH, but I can't be mad at who I'm really mad at: the asshole in the diaper."

And, as a bonus for her fans, I give you my sister:

We had some family friends (Ed and Carol, a couple that have been friends with my dad since high school and their kids) over on Saturday night and played a board game. We divided into teams with the "kids" (who are all now over 30) versus the "old people." When my sister was assigning game pieces to the teams, she offered the parents team a black piece, "because you're all closer to death." When Carol literally tackled her from across the game board, my sister relented: "OK, OK, just kidding! You can be white." As Carol resumed her seat, my sister muttered, "Just like the light into which you'll be heading soon."


But enough about me. How have you all been? I have been learning to use Fancypantsphone to surf the web, but haven't yet had enough time/hands to comment on blogs, but rest assured that I'm stalking you all, quietly.

For People Without Kids, There's a Joke at the End

I've composed endless blog posts in my head this past week. They all start, "I'm so tired."

I am really making a concentrated effort to stop complaining about Tankbaby's sleep (I do acknowledge that various people in my life might take issue with how that effort is panning out). It's been an issue since he was born, and, while it is hard not to think about it (considering how my sleeplessness affects my ability to cope, much less succeed at anything these days), worrying about it does not make him sleep more, it only makes me sleep less.

So, while this topic takes up plenty of space in my head, I am trying not to complain about it to others. Besides the fact that it's BORING AS HELL to anyone who's not me (I'd originally added "or MOTH," but I'm not sure that he'd want to be included in this little party), I try not to talk about Tank's sleep much anymore because I don't want the advice that is inevitably, well-meaningly given. We are doing attachment parenting (or at least our version thereof), and I feel good about that decision, but I feel defensive when questioned or challenged about it. I may have all this early childhood knowledge to back me up, but I still have the same self-doubt any first-time mom has. My standard line is, "I've tried everything I'm willing to try." Without getting into the philosophical or academic reasons why I won't let Tank CIO ("cry it out," for those of you who aren't familiar with the lingo...on the other hand, if you aren't versed in sleep-training lingo, I'm guessing this whole topic is already inducing sleep in you), I can only say that I, personally, am not capable of letting my baby cry himself to sleep alone. He does sometime cry himself to sleep while one of us is with him, or if he's in the car, but to me that's way different from sitting in the other room while he cries.

That's why I was so glad to find Naptime Writing. She writes about parenting in a way that resonates with me: equal parts committment to certain ideals and ambivalence about how living up to those ideals feels in the day to day. Reading her archives, I came across this quote:


"...why the heck bother with all the attachment parenting? (Because we wouldn’t have it any other way. Every time I complain about not sleeping, someone tells me I can let my child cry. But that is not a real parenting option for us. Why in the name of all that is nurturing would we do that? When said child can get up to use the bathroom by himself, get himself a cup of water, and use soundly developed coping skills to get back to sleep, he will. Until then, any kid at my house who wakes from a deep slumber screaming in fear and sadness gets his mom. End of story.)"

And that's the kicker: I know this is my choice. I know that there are other options, but for me, there aren't. Which means that I choose this hell. Which means that I don't get to complain about it.

Except, except, except...I am slower on the uptake. I have less patience--with everyone. I yawn constantly, probably appearing rude to the parents of my kids at school. I am cranky. I want to challenge myself at work, but can't seem to find the energy to change things up.

I know that, in a year or two, this will be a blip. It's temporary, which is sometimes the lifeline I cling to at 4 AM when Tankbaby has decided that he wants to sleep on his stomach, but then realizes that rolling onto his stomach makes him want to crawl. In his sleep. So that he crawls into the side of the crib. Again. And again. And again.

And until then, I'm holding on. Sometimes with more swearing and under-eye bags than I'd like, but I'm holding on.


And now, for those of you who stuck it out this far: On Thursday, a car cut me off. It was a Jaguar with the license plate "THE JAG." I assume the "-OFF" wouldn't fit on the plate.

Ba-dum-pum!

Conveniently Bite-Sized

Sorry to have disappeared (immediate neurotic thought: is it presumptuous to assume that people care if I haven't written in a while?). Besides the Cold That Never Ended, there's been some goo at work that has sucked up my brain and I keep wanting to write about it, but being too paranoid to put it out on the interwebs. Everything that's not Cold or Work comes to me in tiny useless bites, like those "100 Calorie" pack versions of actual snacks:


Yesterday some preschoolers were headed over to a wooden boat and I heard one of them cry, "Come on, guys...Let's DO this!" Now, I'm not sure if you're getting the appropriate inflection from reading this, but imagine a frat boy exhorting his friends to pull it together for the last scrimmage of a football game (um...sports metaphor help, anyone?). This was not, sadly, followed by a series of tiny high fives. Except in my head.


In desperate need of something that turns my brain off, I have begun watching old episodes of 21 Jump Street on Hulu. I'm only four in or so, but so far I have to say? Not terribly impressed. I mean, this was big at some point, right? Did Johnny Depp's cheekbones really carry this show for four seasons? You'll note that I have plans to continue watching episodes, both in hopes that they improve and...well...the cheekbones, folks, they do not disappoint.


I recently came across this post on Ask Moxie. I'm a little embarrassed and more than a little anxious to admit that not only do I not have any disaster preparedness going on, I hadn't really thought about the need for such since, like, Y2K. I know we have water in the basement (in jugs, that is...not just, like, standing water) and some stuff in our chest freezer, but that's it. Although, at the moment, we are storing 1/7th of a cow for some friends of ours, so any time between now and Friday we'd have a better shot at survival. What do y'all have in the way of readiness for flood, famine, or zombie invasion?


Later tonight, we're supposed to go see our across-the-street neighbor play in his band. Turns out, he's the 2008 national yodeling champion. I have so many questions about this.


A friend of mine posted the following inquiry on Facebook: Skinny Elvis or Fat Elvis? Another friend replied that she couldn't stop singing the Fat Albert theme song in her head. "Hey hey HE-EY...it's Faaaaat Elvis!" You're welcome for that.

Gah. Still sickly, but better. Baby still sickly, but better. Now it's at that not-quite-incapacitating, but still-quite-affecting normal activities stage. I say again, gah.

***

Would you believe that I finally, finally bought some Christmas presents today? And by "bought," I mean "clicked 'continue to checkout' on my Amazon page." We're not doing too many gifts this year. One less full-time worker + one full-time baby = well, let's just all remember it's the spirit of the season that counts.

I talked to my dad this morning about our holiday plans. We've been trying to figure out how to schedule all the family and friend visits during the two weeks we'll be back in Chicago. We were fondly remembering the simple days when it was Christmas Eve with Dad's family, Christmas Day with Mom's, and New Year's Eve with friends. Then we went and grew up. Now there are in-laws and grandkids and friends' kids and in-laws and grandkids, and everyone has the nerve to live in different houses, cities and states. Plus, many of these people have these annoying jobs that limit their available time. The education field, people! Sure, you might miss things like "money" and "respect," but three weeks off for the holidays! Hard to beat.

If I could do a cool Venn diagram, I'd make one with various circles labeled "People I want to see," "People I have to see," "People who have never met Tankbaby," "People who only have Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and/or New Year's Day off...." You can see where it would get complicated.

Dad's take on it is, "This is why no one should marry outside the family." Beat. "Of course, the kids would all turn out weird."

***

Moms out there: any tips on how to clear the teeny baby nostrils? Right now we've got this whole try-to-nurse-realize-can't-breathe-open-mouth-stop-nursing-realize-hunger-cry-create-runny-nose situation. It's...less than ideal. He hates, hates, hates the bulb syringe. (Well, in his nose. He loves sucking on it.) So right now, there's this wrestling match where I try to manage his grabby hands, his kicking feet, his head that seems to spin 360 degrees, all in the face of the Squall of Extreme Anger.

It is always stressful, but today I watched two episodes of Dollhouse and the wrestling of an unwilling innocent onto a mat while performing a procedure...it seemed a little...darker, is all I'm saying. (On a side note, if Alan Tudyk is ever missing, check my purse.)

***

MOTH and I went out last night to see a show that he propped (meaning "provided the props for," but I'd hate to end with a preposition). It was The Lying Kind, a dark farce that was terribly funny, but I had a hard time enjoying it for the first half. The premise is that these two bumbling cops (because it's a British farce, you've gotta have the two bumbling cops...and a vicar) have to tell an old couple that their daughter, Carol, was killed in a car wreck. Now, all kinds of wacky hi-jinks ensue, but I kept thinking, "But Carol's dead! This is all funny now, but whaaat abooout Caaarolll?" It didn't help that the actor playing Carol's father was a) absolutely tiny and wizened, looking like a stiff wind would blow him down, and b) the same actor that played Herr Schultz in Cabaret, so I kept thinking "First the Nazis, now this!" Poor guy can't catch a break.

At intermission, MOTH was asking me how I was enjoying the show, and I had to confess my neurotic empathy that was putting a slight damper on how much I could laugh. I mean, obviously the play was a farce, so all would be well, but I just kept thinking that somewhere, someone would have cops show up to tell them about their daughter's tragic death (well, hello, Dark Side, I didn't see you come in!). MOTH laughed at me (mostly fondly, I'm pretty sure), and refused to reassure me that there was a misunderstanding and that Carol was fine. (Grounds for a good hard pinch? Discuss.) We went back in for Act 2 and I idly flipped through my program, until I saw an actress listed for the part of Carol. I crowed, "SHE'S ALIVE!! SHE'S ALIVE!!" much to the amusement of MOTH and the confusion of those around us.

It's possible I might need to get out more.

Pity, Party of One

Um, you know how when you haven't written for a few days you feel all, "Damn, I better make sure that when I do post it's really good, to make up for the time that's gone by"? But then you don't have the time/energy/whatever to write that "really good" post, and then another day has gone by? Yeah. Pardon our dust here, folks, but this is just an attempt to not get out of the habit of posting. Quality is most assuredly not guaranteed.

I am (wait for it) STILL SICK. I am feeling better than I was last week, but I can't get rid of the sore throat and headache. Tankbaby is also still sick, and letting neither of us sleep well, so neither of us are recovered. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that, despite neglecting you all to go to bed early each night, I've been averaging about four to five hours of sleep per night. Since last Wednesday. And that might be almost doable if it was four to five hours in a row. Sadly, they are broken up into chunks ranging from 15 minutes to two hours. In between these chunks is the tossing and turning of one Tankbaby, who, in addition to having a cold and teething, is apparently learning to sleep on his stomach. However, every time he rolls to his stomach while sleeping, he automatically starts crawling, because his poor baby brain is all HANDS DOWN PUSH UP ENGAGE LOCOMOTION, even while he's sleeping. And yet, this same sophisticated machine cannot seem to also point out that, if your nose is all stuffed up, BREATHE THROUGH YOUR MOUTH. You know, instead of, say, whimpering for upwards of an hour.

Argh, argh, argh. I've had three different paragraphs written at this point, all describing (with varying degrees of humor vs bitterness) the sleeplessness that has occurred and is likely to occur again. But I keep deleting them, because, really, if you've had a baby you know what I'm talking about without me having to spell it out, and if you haven't had a baby, you probably don't care about this new parent goo anyway, unless you are debating whether or not to have kids, in which case I think my testimony at this point would be a wee bit biased.

If I were to write what I'm really feeling right now, you'd get a long diatribe about how I can't get my act together, and how can I be a good mom and a good spouse and a good friend and a good teacher when I can't even GET FUCKING WELL, but that seems a little heavy, not to mention of interest to exactly no-one, not even really me. So, let's just see what's left. Consider this, if you will, the crumpled Kleenex in the blogosphere's pocket. Not terribly pretty, but useful if that's all you've got:

• Today I lost my voice entirely for a while, and the rest of the time had something akin to the voice of one gasping for their last breath. Yesterday I was all sexy Jessica Rabbit voice, but today I was like one of Marge Simpson's sisters (and thus ends our cartoon character vocal comparision section of the post). I received two suggestions from coworkers about the best way to handle this. One recommended hot Tang. I said, "Does my throat feel better before or after I throw up?" She insisted it was yummy, "like hot orange juice." I replied, "Yyyeahh...that's the 'throwing up' part I was referring to." She almost convinced me, though, when she said, "You get to feel like an astronaut." Well, hell... The other suggestion was, "Take a swig of hydrogen peroxide and tip your head back. Don't gargle, just poke your tongue up through the peroxide." I, again, made reference to vomiting, and he said, "Yeah, I do every time, but it totally works." Um, okay, then.

• It is a special kind of humility that settles upon you when you listen to a new CD of an old musician boyfriend and realize that, once again, none of the songs are about you.
  

• I had a kid yesterday ask me if I knew that Michael Jackson had died. I said, yes, I knew. "Because you saw it on your news show, right?" Well, sure. By the way, kid, do you know who Michael Jackson was? "I dunno. He's, like, an adult. But he had kids." And with this epitaph, she was off, pretending to be the mayor. "But I'm a nice mayor," she reassured me. I'm dying to know what they're watching on TV in that house.
  

• If you want to inject a little joy in your life, buy a box of old-fashioned gum drops. Then put them in the console of your car. Then, because you are sleep-deprived, forget that you've done this. For the next couple days, randomly reach for your cell phone charger, a CD, or a pen, and instead find...gum drops!! Be amazed each and every time.

Oh, people. Y'all are writing such neat stuff and I haven't commented. I do, in my head, as I lay there in the wee hours, compose pithy, yet brief comments for all that I've read. And I have been reading your kind words on this site, and yet responded not at all. Perhaps one of us isn't quite ready for the responsibility of a blog with readers, hmmm?

Don't give up on me! I will feed you and walk you and clean up after you. I promise. I just need a few more days. Eventually both me and the boy will run out of mucus and go back to Ordinary Shitty Baby Sleep, instead of EXTREMELY Shitty Baby Sleep. In the meantime...can I offer you a gum drop?

Now With Mouth Breathing!

I still have this dumb cold. I stayed home Friday, I have been napping and taking vitamin C, and so far? I have achieved exactly one thing: to pass the cold along to Tankbaby. Um, whee? Because now I have a headache, runny/stuffy nose, sore throat AND a cranky, teething, drooling, juicy-nosed baby who keeps forgetting he can breathe through his mouth, rather than snort and snuffle and wake himself up. Why, it's almost as soothing as one of those lavender-scented eye pillows. Except, you know, with boogers.

On the upside, today MOTH recovered a bench we have in the living room that was previously equipped with baby-cranium-stabbing corners. It now has a lovely mossy green upholstery with padding around all of its poky-out parts, thus to better protect the Tank's little bald head when he inevitably whacks it while trying to stand. We picked it out last night at the Big-Ass Fabric Store we frequent (yes, we frequent. I love having a husband who will roam miles of upholstery and have earnest opinions on the amount of gold in this one versus the cleaning nightmare that is silk. Just gay enough, that's how I like 'em). That's an exciting Saturday night at the Falling house, folks...upholstery shopping, followed by drive-thru food that we ate in front of Tank, all the while telling him that the single thawed peas on his high chair tray were "just as good" as our Yukon Gold waffle fries.

And while I had planned on making up for the past days' absence with a nice long post, I'm afraid I'm bailing on you. I need to go to work tomorrow, and I still haven't kicked this cold, so I really ought to begin my night of Inevitable Poor Rest, Now With Mouth Breathing! It took me 45 minutes to put Tankbaby down (um, to sleep, not like a horse with a broken leg, although around minute 41 I was thinking about it...), and sadly, those were your 45 minutes, people. I blame the baby. You all should write him sternly worded letters.

Somebody Call the Waah-mbulance

I stayed home today. I have a cold. It's not awful, not the swine flu or anything, just your Basic Annoying Head Cold, version 1.0. But it was bad enough that a) I wasn't feeling up to chasing children who might be able to defeat the Vaseline, and b) I didn't want to get anyone else sick. So I spent the day at home with the family. MOTH was kind enough to get Tankbaby out of the house a few times so that I could nap (Tank's mommy radar is extremely well-tuned, and our house is extremely tiny, so it doesn't usually work very well for me to just be in the other room if he's home. Also, I can't relax and sleep when I hear him fussing...stupid bonding). I'm feeling better now, but still head-cloggy and have that awful taste in my mouth that you get when you're all stuffed up. What is that phenomenon where you have a cold and your tastebuds are numb when it comes to food, but your own mouth tastes like what I imagine that Mucinex commercial character would taste like (and really, what is the deal with that? How much money did some ad exec make coming up with a talking wad of mucus? That's what you want the public to think of when they think of your product?)? Also, water tastes bad when you have a cold. But pound those fluids! Ick.

It is, as those of you with kids know, very different to be home sick by yourself versus home sick with a baby. When I have a cold, what I really want to do is get my cup of OJ, maybe some graham crackers, and a book and curl up under a blanket on the couch. I want to fall asleep as I'm reading, wake, pee, and go back to sleep. I want to have kleenex, phone, and computer within reach, thus to minimize any movement I may need to make. If the dog wants to come and curl up by my feet, so much the better. A little forlorn rain on the windowpanes? Perfect. I like to wallow, is what I'm saying.

With a baby, it's different (Ooh, lookit me with the cutting-edge realizations. This just in: Having kids changes things!). I'm lucky in that MOTH stays at home with the baby, so he was around and I was able to get a little rest today, but still. Baby's got needs and baby doesn't care if you're feeling like the underside of someone's shoe. So in between OJ and kleenex, there are still games of peek-a-boo, diapers to be changed, and dog hair to be pulled out of mouths.

I'm not complaining. Today was a picnic compared to the last time I was sick. When Tankbaby was about six weeks old, I developed mastitis. For the blessedly uninitiated, this is basically an infection in the breast. Symptoms include a fever, aches, chills, and lots of tenderness around the infected area. Treatment is hot compresses on the boob, massage, and as much nursing/pumping as possible, because you want to unclog the milk duct. If those don't work (and they didn't for me), then you get antibiotics. If that doesn't work (and they did for me), then you get to undergo (shudder) a lancing. That was threatened, but deemed unnecessary.

Oh, and I'm forgetting the most important part: rest. If you look up mastitis, you'll find over and over again that you're supposed to rest.

Now.

If you have a young, nursing baby (which is basically a given if you have mastitis), how in the blue fuck are you supposed to apply-heat-massage-pump-and-ABOVEALLFORTHELOVEOFGODREST?!? Oh, and don't forget nursing the baby as often as possible. But rest! I was miserable, not just because of the achy, flu-like part of things, but because I kept feeling like I was stupid, that there must be some way to do this, because my midwife and all the books kept giving me these simple instructions and I couldn't figure out how to do it. I could nurse the baby, but then I couldn't pump afterwards, because who could hold the baby? I could massage with one hand while holding the baby, but how could I apply the heating pad without it touching him? And exactly how was I supposed to rest with a baby who never slept, plus instructions to not let milk build up in the breast and to apply heat and pump in the middle of the night?! Sure, MOTH helped when he got home from work, but he also needed to eat, pee, feed me, the dog, and do any of the laundry/dishes/bills that I certainly wasn't getting to in the day.

What happened was a) this fed nicely into some PPD for me, and b) luckily, my dad was scheduled to come visit about that time, so he was able to help out a lot. Poor dad. Yes, he got to see his first grandchild, but he also saw a lot more of his daughter's ta-tas than he'd probably prepared for. But, bless his heart, he walked the floor with Tank while he screamed (Tank, not Dad, although I wouldn't have blamed him if he did), and I sat, pale and frumpy, and massaged and heated and followed instructions. Then, when the baby finally fell asleep, Dad would maintain whatever magical position or movement had led to this miracle, recognizing that to do something as simple as shift your weight could wreck it all. So he held still. He was the baby Beefeater. So I did nap, and I did heal. (Oh, and before I forget? The antibiotics you take for this condition? Require a very strict eating schedule, as you're not supposed to eat for an hour after you take the pill or for two hours before you take the pill, and you have to take them four times a day. Also, they cause diarrhea. So you've got regimented eating and spontaneous pooping. Not a great combination for someone solely responsible for the well-being of a tiny infant, is all I'm saying.)

Anyway, the point is that today wasn't so bad.

In other news, but related in that it's interesting to no one out side of our household, we have a tooth! Tankbaby's first tooth (at almost nine months old) is poking it's pointy little...um, head, or something up out of his little bald maw. While it's exciting in a milestone way, I confess to being a little sad. For some reason, I really like the gummy mouth. It's so pink and simple. Teeth seem weird in babies to me, as extraneous as a mustache. I know that I'll get used to it, but right now imagining him with teeth seems very strange and false and I think of Kermit the Frog in this old Sesame Street sketch.

And now I must shuffle off to bed, in hopes of defeating this dumb cold and enjoying tasting things again.

How Can You Miss Me If I Don't Go Away?

It felt a little weird not to write yesterday. I didn't intentionally take the day off, all FUCK YOU NABLOPOMO, it just so happened that we really needed to grocery shop and then Tank wouldn't go to sleep and the evening just...elapsed.

As experiments go, I'd have to call my wee blog thus far wildly successful. As my best friend told me today, "Expect nothing, but hope for the best." I went into this blogging thing with very few (real) expectations (I'm not counting indulgent, quit-my-job-and-become-rich-and-famous-like-Dooce fantasies), but I was hoping that someone might find my little trifles amusing. The fact that I have such smart, witty, and all-around swell people reading and commenting this early in the game is the best success I could have hoped for.

And, of course, me being me, I take that sweet success, hold it close...and then twist it around and crush it until it becomes Pressure! To Do More! Because what if they like you now but then you don't write every day or you keep writing every day and run out of ideas or you keep writing maybe not every day but most days and they still stop reading because it's just too much?!?

Say, anyone out there need something simple and good turned into something complicated and anxiety-producing? Perhaps a simple "congratulations" that you'd like me to turn into paranoia over jealousy? Or maybe an excellent recipe that I can convince you is harboring salmonella? Any takers? I'll be here all night.

I guess that's all I have for tonight: many, many thanks for reading this past month, and a sweaty-palmed, dry-mouthed desperate desire to make you promise to stay. Can't say I don't make an attractive offer.

Oh, and this: So, at school, I have a couple of kids who like to open one of two doors in the classroom and run off. They think it's oh-so-fun to be chased by the silly big people. We can't lock the doors, so my assistants came up with the idea of putting Vaseline on the door knobs to hopefully slow the little Steve McQueens down a bit. This tells me that I either work with the smartest women on the planet, or that my job is populated by refugees from a Tom and Jerry cartoon. I'm good with either.

REVEALED! Part 2

Well, well (yawn), is it November 30th already?

Heh. Kidding.

OK, where we we? Oh, yes, the Velvet Finger...

5) True. I was not some horrible Bridezilla, I swear. But the gorgeous park and reception hall that we chose for our wedding came with an event/catering company that provided the food, chairs, linens, sound equipment, etc. And, although I could write a NaBloPoMo's worth of posts on this alone, suffice to say that they were...less than pleasant to work with. They basically did a bait and switch about the cost, then told us that they weren't sure that working with us would be worth their time, since we were trying to work with a budget. THEN, they proceeded to screw up about ten things on the day of the wedding, including serving the wrong food and having a failing sound system (luckily, I had actors in my wedding party who were able to project across a large space without such piddly things as microphones). Anyway, being the kind of Virgo, first-born, anal person that I am, I brought my contract to the wedding, and so was able to make note of all the things that were wrong. When we got the bill, they had overcharged us by over $1500. Is this a good time to mention that I had worked in an accounting office for a while? So I pulled out my handy Excel spreadsheet and went line by line through the bill and the contract and e-mailed them off to Lynn, the coordinator. When she called to go over the bill, she clearly was hoping that we could just breeze through things like $200 for printed napkins ("I didn't order those." "Well, we had them printed, so we're out the money for the printing now, so..." Like I was going to say, "Oh, well, I didn't realize! Let us pay for those. And here's a C-note, just because."). Instead, I kept her on the phone for an hour, disputing each and every inflated or mistaken charge. Politely, but very, very firmly. By the end, I did feel bad, because Lynn was in tears. To her credit, however, when she made a statement to the effect of how stressful this was and how her boss was really riding her, I started with, "I'm sorry, but--" and she finished for me: "...it's not your responsibility." Booyah.

Hm. I've just realized that story is really only interesting to me, and possibly to my sister, who is getting married next fall. Ah, well. I've typed it all out and I'm not fool enough to try revisions at 10 PM, not with five more questions to answer! Onward!!

6) False. False, false (slight gag), false. I have many texture/flavor issues with food, and if it's white and creamy and not vanilla frosting, I want no part of it. Exception that proves the rule, and possibly eliminates me from your fancy dinner party invite list: I do enjoy a healthy dollop of Miracle Whip on sandwiches, in tuna salad, etc. What can I say? I'm a sucker for the zip. Of the Whip.

7) True (allergic to cats), false (allergic to shellfish), and true (refrain from consumption of either). I am well aware of the miracle food that is fish, omega oils, blah blah blah, and am really working on expanding my seafood repertoire. It currently includes canned tuna, ahi, mahi-mahi, and swordfish (why, hello, mercury poisoning...loved your work with Jeremy Piven...). I can occasionally enjoy shrimp (the plural of which I like to believe is "shrimps," as is written on the menu of my favorite Thai place), but I confess to squeamishness about all other manner of seafood. Scallops, for some reason, especially give me the wig, as they resemble marshmallows. Salty, fishy marshmallows. Urp.

8) True. Well, mostly. I believe we attended a Peter, Paul, and Mary concert with our parents when we were small, but I'm counting "first concert" as the first concert I chose to attend. My sister and I discovered the Monkees through Nickelodeon's re-runs and were fanatic about them, in the way only prepubescent girls can love something. Like, we bought the re-issues of Tiger Beat that had run back in 1969. You know, when the Monkees actually were twenty. Somehow, the "flashback" aspect of all of this eluded us. Like, I knew that the show was old, because no-one wore plaid bellbottoms and Nehru jackets anymore. But somehow there was road construction in my brain between that thought and the idea that this meant that Micky (the wacky comedian, my personal favorite at the time, although as an adult I adore Mike, the deadpan Texan) was not actually twenty, but forty. And thus, old enough to be my dad. I suspect it was this leap that my brain was unwilling to make, and so I just plastered my walls with their pictures and listened to the albums until I'm sure my parents, having already lived through Monkeemania--you know, the first time--were ready to put me on that last train to Clarksville. Anyway, God bless my dad, who braved squealing preteens and their screaming moms (!) to sit through three-fourths of a band from twenty years ago performing schtick that wasn't original then. Preceded by Weird Al Fucking Yankovic.

9) True. I dunno. I was two when the first movie came out, and then...I was into the Monkees, apparently. So I never saw Star Wars. What? It was only in college, when I began to find my geek posse, that this became an issue. For guys. This was incomprehensible to them, and explaining that I'd seen all the John Hughes movies seventeen time each didn't cut any ice. And yet, those guys who were most insistent about the need to show me this pinnacle of filmdom were the ones who made me think that it was romantically cursed.

First, there was Jeff, who I fell for in a stupid, moon-eyed way. I'd visited Chicago on school breaks, and we'd been hanging out and I was absolutely besotted. So imagine my surprise (read: dramatic tears and Tori Amos songs playing in my head) when I came home for the next break and learned he had started dating this redheaded waif and that she would be joining us for movie night. So yes, technically, at 19, I was in the same room with Star Wars playing, but I didn't watch it. I was too busy watching this couple across the room, this couple that I had been a month earlier, only now my part was being played by someone prettier, skinnier, hipper (and, as my well-meaning friend pointed out in a colassal foot-in-mouth moment: "just a very sexually...open...person." Oh. Good thing those words won't, like, haunt me for the next three years, or anything.).

Fast forward two years to Matt, my boyfriend at the end of college. We were dating as the prequels/sequels/whatthefuckEVER, Lucas were about to come out, and he had this whole plan to show me the three existing SW movies. I explained the Jeff story, and he reassured me this would be a very different experience. Oh, the plans we made!

Then he broke up with me. On graduation night. While my sister slept in the other room. About four hours before he was supposed to help me and my family move out of my apartment. Because--get this--he was "a different person" when he was with me than when he wasn't with me. "Well, do you like who you are when you're with me?" Pause. "No."

OK, then! I'm sure that won't do any lasting damage to a young woman's self-esteem! Thank you for your candor!

Given this as a background, you can imagine my reaction when, a few months into dating, MOTH was all, "You haven't seen Star Wars?!" I did eventually watch all three movies with him, but only after I'd secured a promise that he would not break up with me in some horrible way. So far, so good. But if we split up, you know why...the Curse! (cue lightning flash, maniacal laughter)

10) Um, true, but you knew that anyway, right?


Ta-da! Done, and just a click away from successfully completing NaBloPoMo! I feel like this is the place for some reflection on the past month, on my foray into blogging, on the joy and honor I feel, being so welcomed into the blogosphere...but hell, I gotta save something for December, right?

REVEALED! Part 1

(First, if you didn't read yesterday's post yet, you may want to go there first, lest I ruin the huge, huge, pleasure you indubitably receive from reading my every word in exactly the order in which it was written. Ahem.)

Without further ado, the answers to yesterday's quiz! (UPDATED TO ADD: Um...some of them. Sorry, but I started this five hours ago and now it is getting late and I have to work tomorrow and I don't want to rush the rest of the stories and yes, yes, I admit I am a bit pleased that means that the final NaBloPoMo post is also taken care of, but that's not the real reason I'm doing this, you gotta believe me...)

1) True. My future roommates and I were looking at apartments in Chicago. Another friend was living in a women-only artist residential center at the time and called us to say that the center was having a fundraiser and Robert Downey, Jr. would be there as the celebrity auctioneer and would we like to come by? Hell to the yes, we said (or something that was hip slang at the time). So we all perched in one of the large windows of the courtyard, self-conscious because we were a) far less fancy than the attendees of the fundraiser under the best of circumstances, and b) having planned on perusing affordable apartments that day, this was hardly the best of circumstances. I'm pretty sure I had on lipstick, but that's all I can guarantee. T-shirt, jeans, and Chuck Taylors were the rest of my outfit. Precisely what you want to be wearing when meeting a cute celebrity manchild with a penchant for illegal activities. Anyway, he came in with his handler or whoever and just...sat on this big ol' couch, waiting for the fundraiser to begin. We all nonchalantly stared at him for a few minutes, before I finally said, "Well, this is stupid, we're here to meet him, let's meet him!" and walked over to basically acknowledge "Hi, we're staring at you, could you just meet us and get it over with?" He was, as I mentioned, terribly sweet and funny and did very little to discourage undying junior-high-girl-quality devotion, what with the big brown eyes and throaty laugh and all. And, after a few minutes of what I have no doubt was the most sparkling conversation in which he'd ever partaken, we stood up to go, and--allegedly--when I stood up, his eyes...traveled. My friend A-E, who was sitting on a chair across from us, said, "They kind of defy gravity, don't they?" (It's worth noting that I was 21 at the time. They did. Then.) Aaaannd...the rest is a blur. I'd be more mortified, but he relapsed and got sent back to jail a few weeks later, so I'm guessing that getting busted for checking out the boobs on some chick ranked rather low on his list of embarrassing transgressions, right below being in The Shaggy Dog.

2) True. When we lived in Chicago, we ran a small theatre company, and the annual fundraiser always included at least one puppet number. So a few years ago when MOTH's agent asked him, "You don't happen to know a female puppeteer who sings, do you?" MOTH was all, "Lemme make a call." And next thing I knew, I had an audition for Sesame Street, which happened to fall on my 30th birthday. Sadly, I kinda bombed the audition, because it came up just as we were leaving for Burning Man, and a week in the dusty desert had thrashed my voice, plus I didn't get the audition materials until the day we came back, which was 24 hours before the audition. So I didn't do well, and was really, really upset about the whole chance-of-a-lifetime-blown thing, until I stopped by my friend's apartment on the way back from the audition. I should probably mention that while we were out partying in the desert, Hurricane Katrina was happening. So my friend was watching the coverage of the Katrina refugees and I was suddenly quite humbled, realizing that I really had nothing to complain about.

3) False. I started knitting right before my 30th birthday (and the fateful audition). My mom taught me. I was back visiting her and she wanted to know what I wanted for my birthday, and I told her I was wanting to learn how to knit. So she dredged up what she could remember, we bought a book and supplies, and for the next year or so we showed each other our unfinished projects. I have made some progress since then (read: have actually finished approximately five items in four years), but haven't picked up needles since the night before Tankbaby was born. Somewhere in this house there is the first half-inch of a hat for him.

4) True. I went with my first gay friends (hee--new from Fisher-Price: My First Gay), Matt and Dave, while we were visiting Matt's hometown. Matt was delighting in taking us wee sheltered Midwesterners into The Velvet Finger. I was stunned and overwhelmed, but managed to hold it together better than our friend Andrea, who was even more sheltered than me (she once had to ask me if what she'd done with a guy "counted as sex") began to quietly sing "Jesus Loves Me."


More tomorrow! Probably with more parentheticals!

True or False: A Quiz

OK, this is like ye olde Highlights quiz. Get your pen and paper, and begin! (Do not, however, turn your computer upside down to read the answers. Because they're not here yet. I'll post 'em tomorrow. Also, that is probably bad for your computer.) Go!!


1) I met Robert Downey, Jr. at a fundraiser several years ago. He was very sweet and accommodating of us goggle-eyed girls, and my friend A-E totally called him out for checking out my rack. He made headlines a few weeks later for relapsing yet again. I blame myself.

2) On my 30th birthday, I auditioned for Sesame Street.

3) I have been knitting on and off since I was a teenager and my grandmother taught me in an effort to get me to help make holiday knickknacks.

4) My one and only foray into an adult store was while I was in college. It was called The Velvet Finger and it charged an admission fee. I still have the receipt.

5) I made the event coordinator of my wedding cry, using nothing but my indoor voice and an Excel spreadsheet.

6) I love mayonnaise.

7) I am allergic to cats and shellfish, so I don't eat either of them.

8) My first concert was during the Monkees' reunion tour in the 80s and I was kind of shocked that they were all...old. Like my dad's age, or something. Also, Weird Al Yankovic opened for them, so I got two surreal experiences for the price of one.

9) I made it to the ripe old age of 22 without ever watching Star Wars, much to the consternation of various boyfriends, and prompting a five-page letter from my friend Dennis about why it was the best movie ever made.

10) I am totally gleeful that, by using this format to post the answers tomorrow, I already have tomorrow's blog post figured out. Take that, NaBloPoMoPo!

Leftovers

Well! *claps hands briskly* Let's see if the Thanksgiving elves left something more cheerful in the blogosphere today, shall we?


Tankbaby talks! Well, babbles, really. This is just your basic language milestone--stringing together consonant sounds in repetition: But the Tank, while performing operatic arias for quite some time now, has yet to offer up much in the way of consonants. MOTH heard a "ga ga" a few weeks ago, but nothing since. Until yesterday, when he busted out these long babbling strings--"ma-ma-ma" and "ma-ba-ba" or "ah-ba-ma" (Obama? Let's hear it for mama's little Democrat!)--out of nowhere. Now, this may seem like no big deal to you, but that's because you're not an early childhood specialist, mentally cataloguing every possible sign of development as either "typical" or "atypical" because you are also a whackjob. Poor baby. He's just trucking along, moving at his own pace, giving me those big gummy grins, and I'm all, "That's great, kid. MAKE WITH THE CONSONANTS, ALREADY." The good news for him is that my professional training tops out around kindergarten, so when he's eight, I'll be off his case. I don't know what a typical eight-year-old is supposed to be able to do. Read? Long division? Change the oil on my car?


I have a Hershey's bar sitting in my candy jar. I won't tell you how many bars there were in the jar at the beginning of the week. I did warn you.


My friend E's three-year-old told me yesterday that she wasn't going to have a baby. Instead, "mine brudder will be mine wife and we will just live together, wif no baby." When I asked her why she didn't want a baby, she informed me that "sometimes they have to cut your tummy open if the baby gets stuck." Point taken. I reminded her that neither her mommy nor me had needed our tummies cut open, which reminded her to offer her periodic check-in: "Does your vagina still hurt from when the baby came out?"


Are you watching "Modern Family"? Are Cameron and Mitchell totally your new imaginary best friends? Just me, then?


Let's say that you are going through baby clothes and putting too-small clothes (or "alphits") away. How many times can you sing "Sunrise, Sunset" and find it amusing? MOTH and I apparently have different algorithms for this number.

Thanksgiving, Plus A Little Bit About Nazis!

Ah, the ubiquitous Thanksgiving post. I believe that I’m contractually obligated to write about either what I’m thankful for or what I’ve cooked/plan on eating today. Neither are what I really feel like writing about right now. So I will go with my usual method: Try to Please Everyone A Little Bit, Thus Actually Making No One Really Happy But They Can’t Complain Because Hey, You Tried. (Note to self: may want to investigate coming up with either a new method, or a snappy acronym for this one.)

Of course, I’m thankful for so much. I have my health (and health insurance in case that changes—no small thing, that), my family, this little baby who’s sleeping angelically, if corpulently, on my lap as I write this. I like my job, which is more than many can say, and I have ample opportunity in that job to note how very, very lucky I am. In fact, as I list things, I become irritated with myself for not being happy all the time, singing to the little birds that alight on my finger and feeding my pet unicorn, for so blessed am I.

We’re having Thanksgiving with some very good friends of ours. This will be our third Thanksgiving together, and my friend E and I delight in the fact that we’ve created a new tradition from what started as an idle conversation wherein we realized that neither of us had family-related plans for the holiday. (You might think that looks like a huge run-on sentence, but lemme tell you, I’m writing this in Word, so I can copy and paste it later, because our internet is currently down, and Word’s little grammar Nazis* don’t seem to think that’s a run-on. On the other hand, they also didn’t flag that last sentence, either, so perhaps they’ve taken the day off.) Our friends have two little kids who love Tankbaby and like to bring him toys that they think he’ll like, much like my parents’ yellow Lab used to do with new visitors to the house. We’re having your basic turkey-mashed-potatoes-pumpkin-pie meal, with various accommodations being made for lactose intolerance (E and the kids), geographically-influenced taste requirements (E’s husband), and overall pickiness (the kids and…um, me). It will be everything a family meal should be: lots of work for one grand meal, of which the kids will eat three molecules between the two of them, and then the formal Packaging Of The Leftovers ceremony will commence. I am beyond touched that we have created this family out here, that E’s kids talk about Tankbaby as being their “little brother.” Please don’t let anything that follows make you think that I’m not grateful for this. Because I really, truly am.

And I’d trade it all to get to have Thanksgiving with my mom again.

Mom died in April of 2007. That year, the holidays were a bit subdued. That Thanksgiving, Dad went out to Iowa to be with his family, my sister went with her now-fiance’s family, and that was the first year we went to E’s house. At Christmas, I flew home, but as a family my dad and sister and I agreed: no tree, no decorations. Not in a “Fuck you, Noel!” kind of way, but just because that was Mom’s thing, the holiday decorations, and it didn’t feel right to do them without her. Also, the year before, what had turned out to be her last holiday season, Mom had been really sick and trying to cover it and…well, those were best memories left buried a little longer. So we gave gifts, we went to my aunt’s house on Christmas Day, and we celebrated in the way that felt right to us.

When I came back to town, my friend J asked how my holidays had been. I explained that they’d been nice and it was great to see my family again, and that of course there had been kind of a shadow. “But the first year is always the hardest, huh?” J hesitated and said, “Well, not to scare you, but I’ve actually heard that the second year is the hardest. You know, because the first year, everyone is thinking about it being the first year without the person, and so there’s extra care taken, blah blah blah. But by the second year, a lot of people have moved on and are ready to go back to the way things always were, and you’re left being like, ‘but um, she’s still gone and I’m still sad’.”

She was right. Each holiday, each birthday, each life event that happens without Mom still hurts. Maybe not as freshly as the first, when the grief is still so new, but in a different, more subtle way. Because each event or season that passes reminds you that, not only is that person not here for this, they will never be here for this again. Ever. And you think that you understand that, but it still grinds into you with an insistence that makes you realize that, for a little while, you’d forgotten that. It’s not the heavy black grief that sends you weeping into the bathroom at Aunt Linda’s house; it’s a very light, silvery cloak that covers you for a couple days. It makes you sleep a little less well, makes you a little less hungry. You find it hard to care about whether the turkey is brined or basted, or whether you can get SuperSaver shipping from Amazon.

(And at this point in my thinking, I always imagine the voices of those who would say well-intentioned but awful things like, “But you can’t always be sad about this,” or, “But can’t you be happy for what you have?” or “But you don’t want to ruin your holidays being sad.” To which I say, “Watch me,” and “Yep, sure, I can be grateful while still being a little sad,” and “You’re right, I don’t. I sure do wish I wasn’t so sad.” And, oh yeah, BITE ME, ASSHOLE. Talk to me when your mom dies. Or not, because maybe you’re not as close to your mom as I was to mine. But surely there’s someone you’re close to, someone that you would still be mourning, even after some magical 12-month deadline was past. I’ll bet that you’ll find that someone telling you to not be sad only makes you a) still sad and b) also angry and wanting to punch that person.)

Does that sound awful? I don’t mean to imply that I plunge into a dark despair around mid-November. I still love this time of year. I am a sap for Christmas-themed commercials (remember that coffee commercial a few years ago—maybe Folgers?—where the older son comes home and starts the coffee and the little sister comes downstairs and hears him and then the parents come down and he’s surprised them by coming home for Christmas and oh Lord, someone get me a tissue), I love It’s a Wonderful Life and turkey and stockings and the whole shebang. And of course I’m delighted at the idea of Tankbaby’s first holidays (THAT HIS GRANDMOTHER WILL NEVER SEE—oh, you get the idea). It’s not that I don’t get the joy out of the celebration, but there’s an…awareness of The One Who’s Not There that is impossible not to feel. Not instead of the joy, but in addition to it. It just means it’s impossible to feel the one without the other.

So don’t feel bad for me today, or anything. I’m OK. I’m happy and I’m sad and that’s how it is. Now go and hug all your people, because you can bet I’m sure as hell going to hug mine.

*About the use of “Nazi” as a term meaning “strict police-like force”: Last year at work, someone had gathered all of the various lunchbags, Tupperware, etc, that had been left in the kitchen and put it all out with a note that said, “If this is yours, you have until Friday to take it home or it will be THROWN OUT! Love, the Kitchen Nazis.” I waited until after that Friday and noted that this very cool thermal lunchbag was still sitting there. I left my own note that read, “Dear Kitchen Nazis, I have taken the yellow bag, since no one has claimed it, and given it a good home rather than have it be thrown out. If someone comes looking for it, send them my way! Love, Falling.” A few hours later a co-worker approached me and told me that he had been in the kitchen when someone from another department saw my note and began loudly talking about how inappropriate it was to use the term “Nazis” and how offensive that could be to people. Co-worker defended me, saying he was sure I didn’t mean it that way as I myself am Jewish (I’m not, but for some reason he thought I was). Turns out the original note had gotten thrown away, so it wasn’t apparent that I was addressing an entity who had chosen to call themselves Nazis. Anyway, I was mortified, and am now terribly conscious of any time I use the word Nazis that I am being offensive, or, at the very least, inconsiderate. So, if any of you are Jewish and offended, I apologize. If you’re Nazis and offended, well, fuck off, Nazis.

The Closest Yet to That Promised Knock Knock Joke

Back in undergrad, I thought about doing my honors thesis about humor. I am fascinated by what people find funny, where that comes from, how a sense of humor is "installed," for lack of a better term. For myself, I know that no one can make me laugh more than my dad and my sister. Well, that's not entirely accurate; it's just that no one can make me laugh as consistently and as comfortably as my family. We share the same sense of humor, because I learned funny from my parents.

In my family, there is nothing so sacred that it can't be laughed at. The night before my mother's funeral, my dad was telling MOTH and me about a conversation he and my mom had had with a group of friends about dating again after losing a spouse. My dad's response? "I'll see who shows up at the wake."

Lest you think that humor a little too black, I will point out that it wasn't just Dad. Picture this: my mom and I are out shopping for blenders after an appointment with her naturopath, who has advised daily smoothies with various supplements. Mom has started yet another chemo regimen, after yet another earlier medicine worked for a while, then stopped working. There's a short list of chemotherapy drugs that can be used for her, and she's more than halfway through that list. But she's willing to try other things, too, so we're out shopping for blenders. Amid comparing puree speeds and ice crushing capabilities, Mom looks at a couple choices and says, "Well, heck, it's not like I need the lifetime warranty. Where's the one that's only good for a year or so?"

All this is not to say that we didn't all do (and continue to do) our fair share of crying, as well. But what I saw growing up was that if you could laugh, you could survive. And that, if well-timed and witty enough, a snarky comment could form a connection that transcended awkward, sad, or difficult moments. (See also: Tankbaby's birth. I have been pushing for two hours after about nine hours of labor. My friend E smooths my hair away from my face, rubs my back, and gently whispers, "Is there anything you need that you don't have right now?" I whisper back, slighlty less gently, "A fucking baby.")

Henry Rollins does a spoken word piece about music as the great equalizer, basically saying that "If you dig the Ramones, and I dig the Ramones, as far as I'm concerned, there's no problem we can't work out." I agree, but also feel the same way about humor. If you love this, if you can't stop hitting repeat on this, if you are clapping in your own living room during this, and if you walk around quoting this, you're very likely My Kind Of Person. If, on the other hand, you love "Jackass," well...we probably would have to work to find some kind of common ground.

(Am now secretly terrified that all four of my readers are stalwart "Jackass" fans and I have alienated you all.)

So, if you were making a list of "Dat's Some Funny Shit,Yo," what movies/TV/books/blogs/etc. would you include? What has informed (or malformed) your particular brand of humor? What falls in the category of Sorry, I Just Don't Get It? Any deal-breakers (for example, "If I found out you loved/hated __________, you would be dead to me.")?

If You Drink At Every Parenthetical in this Post, You Probably Should Not Drive

How awesome is my sister? You haven't heard the last of her...I have a few other e-mails (including one with the subject line "Why I Am Not Allowed to Have a Blog") saved up. I can't believe I didn't think of this before...I could have meted them out throughout November and saved my own thoughts--all six of them--for later, once the NaBloPoMoPre (National Blog Posting Month Pressure) is over.

I haven't told my sister about this blog. What do y'all do about the whole anonymity issue? Do you have a chosen circle? Are you totally incognito? Reasons for/against?

Personally, I have told only three people about this blog, for a number of reasons:

1) Truthfully? I wasn't sure I could stick with it, and thought it would look quite lame to make this announcement of My New Project, only to have my enthusiasm wane once it became hard, time consuming, etc. (see also: guitar, knitting, learning Spanish, shaving my legs on a regular basis).

2) I wanted the freedom that writing anonymously would provide. I like that I can write for my loyal cadre of readers (you don't mind if I call you loyal, do you? I mean, I know you haven't had to prove your loyalty in a fight or anything, but I choose to believe you'd totally have my back) and just come at this in a very tabula rasa (oh, that's right--I went to the Latin. Booyah.) way. I'm not thinking about "well, I can tell Person A this, but if I tell Person B this she's gonna get all..." Not that I want to offend anyone, but I tend to be a very people-please-y person, so just having a little interweb distance is incentive to be a little more honest. Should I offend you and you decide you don't want to read anymore, you can just stop and I can just assume you were struck by lightning or something. No pressure.

(On the other hand, when I read up on how to start a blog, I kept coming up against the warning that you should always write as if people you know will find your blog because [ominously] they will. Which is kind of a buzzkill, really, albeit probably good advice. Not that I planned on slandering my nearest and dearest, of course, but you know when you have that interaction with a friend and you still love them and it's all fine but you really, kinda just want to vent about it for a while? And be right, even though of course we're all unique snowflakes with our own fresh perspectives...anyway, I do try and keep in mind that anything I write could someday be found by someone who knows me. I dunno...is this something y'all worry about?)

3) It's nice to have something private and my own, you know? Something I'm doing just for myself and only I need to know about its success or failure.

That being said, of course, I did tell three people (MOTH and my two oldest, closest friends) and the reason for that is simple: I cannot SHUT UP. Not that I can't keep your secrets, of course, but I sure as hell struggle with keeping my own. I totally would've caved eventually, either to be all, "Yay! I-have-a-blog-and-all-these-readers!!" or "Waah! I-have-a-blog-and-no-one-reads-it!" and then I'd have to explain why I didn't tell them earlier.

So I don't know. I'm thinking about telling my sister, if for no other reason than I should probably get her permission before disseminating her writing all over the web. On the other hand, she might start her own and then you'd all leave me for hers. Hm. Maybe I haven't thought this through enough.

(P.S. Just look at that last line: thought, through, enough. Can you believe any of us learned to read/write/speak this completely disorderly language of ours? I mean, I consider myself a grammar and spelling nerd, but even I have to admit that English is all effed up.)

Creepoid FTW!

So, the comments y'all left were 100% in favor of me not being a bitch about this whole Facebook request thing (extra points to those of you who signed comments or e-mails "Love, Greg," which I found HI-larious). I have not yet responded to Stalky McClueless, but I did e-mail my sister with the dilemma. She e-mailed me yesterday with this possible response:

Dear Greg,

Thanks for your persistence. I was waiting to see if you truly wanted to reconnect. Of course I've missed you, oh how I have. I've never stopped thinking about you. When I think of all the nights I lay awake just wondering if you were thinking of me too...

I know what you’re thinking: Why didn't I respond to your first message? Well, of course I just assumed you only wanted to reconnect as casual acquaintances, and I couldn't bear to suffer that pain. Then I got your second message. I know, why not respond then either? Well, I had to carefully weigh whether or not it was worth it to leave my husband and child and this life that I've built for only a slight possibility that you truly had "missed" me. But then I got your third message, and I knew. I knew that you have truly missed me with the same intensity I have you. I mean, we were so close in high school, spending each day together, and hours at night on the phone. And though we kept in touch through college, all those weekend trips back and forth to each others’ schools? Eventually, we drifted apart. Lost contact. And know I could've taken the first step to find you again, but I was afraid to put my heart on the line just to have it stomped on, to find out you had moved on...forgotten about me...

But now I realize this is our chance! I've left a note for my husband, a video tape for my son so that he will always remember me, and I've got my plane ticket. Meet me at our place, you know, that place we spent so much time together during high school. We'll catch up on everything we've missed and start anew, as the duo we once were. I'll be waiting for you. See you soon...

Love,
Falling

She added at the end:

Yeah, there was going to be a line in there about the shower, and how you were there just hoping he would be there with a camera, but every time the dialogue started to sound sexual, it got too icky, even in ubersarcastic private e-mail form. Anyway, I think platonic stalker is even creepier . . Hope I've been helpful.

And this is why I love my sister.


In other news, my pants no longer fit. Seems that the combination of breastfeeding and regularly hoisting a 25-pound baby have worked for me, fitness-wise. And I'm not complaining, Lord knows, but it means that, unless I wear a belt, my pants are constantly sliding down past my hips, thusly rendering me constantly ready for cracktion (my friend E's term: crack + action = cracktion). And I can't help wondering how all those thuggy teens do it. Shit is annoying, yo.

Interweb-Un-Savvy-Newbie Unknowingly Ignores Honor!

I have been twice given an official award-trophy-shout-out for this, my wee little maiden blogging voyage! I'm so terribly excited about this that I keep telling my husband about it (he being one of three people in the three-dimensional world who know about this blog, so once I've told all three, I just start at the top of the list again).

I don't know how to make the badge thingy show up here (Submom? Jen?), but I sure do want to thank you guys for giving me the bloggy love. I have always loved writing, but I enjoy writing for me very differently than writing for others. And since if I was only writing for me, I'd be using some bound book with a sad kitty and a lock on the front, I am so honored and grateful to have found some readers so quickly. And the idea that I'm making other people laugh is really my idea of heaven.

I think that part of the dealie with this is that I also get to give the trophy to blogs that I adore. My (needs to be updated) blog roll has the blogs that I read for years and years before I took the plunge myself, so I think I'd rather take this opportunity to testify about the blogs I've discovered just this month (and yes, I realize that this is basically a masturbatory exercise, considering that I've found these blogs through my tiny-but-mighty cadre of readers, so y'all are already familiar):

The Absence of Alternatives--My inaugural reader, Submom has been giving me encouragement on a near daily basis, while still managing to post daily herself. I am still working my way through her archives, but so far I can see that she covers parenting, race, politics, all with equal insight and humor. I love that she has a category called "Mark my word, Twitter will doom us all." Plus, Venn diagrams!

Nathan Rising--Of course, being a new mom, I'm going to want to read what another new mom writes. And there's the fact that (from what I've gathered) our sons are about the same age. Also? Check out that baby. That's is one nom-nom-nomable baby right there. But if you want to know why I started reading her? Poop.

The Kitchen Witch--Caution: do not visit this blog if you are hungry. Or are ever hungry. Or have eyes. Because while at first you will just be reading along, snickering, soon you will be hit with photos of glorious food and then come the tantalizing recipes and then your whole day is shot, what with the drooling and making shopping lists and all.

Naptime Writing--Just found her today, via TKW. Excellent, funny writing that makes me feel all, why bother writing, I'll just send people to her, because she's already written it. Better. Also? Is Good Person. Check out how they've handled the Santa Conundrum in her family.

I am equal parts excited and overwhelmed at being on the verge of this wonderful community. Now I just need to figure out how to get my baby to do my job so that I can eliminate two time-sucks in one swell foop, as they say, and thus have more time for reading, commenting, and learning how not to be so ignorant as to not know what to do with a trophy.

ETA: Thanks for the instructions. Here goes:

Creepoid vs. Bitch

So, back in August, I got an e-mail through Facebook from a guy I went to school with. It was all, "hey, are you the Falling who went to Certain High School I'd love to catch up blah blah." I didn't respond to it, because I really had no interest in reconnecting with him. We did know each other for several years, because we were in the same activities and went to the same junior high and high schools. But we weren't friends. We didn't hang out outside of school. We tended to bicker. I would call our relationship "grudgingly tolerant." Plus, my freshman year on an overnight choir field trip, he and this other guy busted in on me in the shower and took a picture. I got the picture back (luckily, this was a Polaroid, so I'm sure there's no other copies floating around out there, in case I decide to run for office), but, dude...that is not easily forgiven, you know? If you were ever a freshman girl, I think you probably understand. So when I see this guy's name, my first thought is, "That little shit."

Good thing I'm letting that go, huh?

What was weird was that, just a week or so before I got the friend request, the shower thing (hereafter referred to as The Incident) actually came up in conversation with MOTH, and the embarrassment flooded over me all over again.

(Not-so-quick aside: The reason it came up? I was taking a shower and MOTH came in with Tankbaby and had him peeping over the top of the shower curtain at me. I didn't hear them come in, so when I pulled the shower curtain back, I kinda shrieked, then glanced up at Tankbaby, shrieked again and batted out wildly at the shower curtain before I realized it was the baby. Poor Tank, of course, burst into terrified tears. MOTH was all, "What was that about?" and I had to explain a) that you just don't sneak up on people in the shower, because they're Naked and Vulnerable, b) you particularly don't sneak up on me, because of already-cited traumatic Incident, and c) I certainly didn't expect to see my son hovering in mid-air, seeing as how he has shown no talent for levitation thus far. I said, "I didn't realize it was the baby!"

MOTH: "What did you think I was holding, an angry badger?!"

Me: "Why would you be holding ANYTHING over the shower? Baby or badger, both are equally unexpected!"

MOTH: "If it was a badger, screaming and whapping at it isn't likely to be effective, anyway."

Me: "Noted. Now get out."

Fast forward to a week later, when MOTH was taking a shower and I decided to show him what it felt like, so I went in there with Tankbaby. MOTH heard us, and pointed out--rightly--that I probably didn't have the upper arm strength to get our giant baby that high and that maybe I should just cut my losses while no-one was injured. I conceded, and pulled the curtain aside just so Tankbaby could say hi. MOTH leaned back, his hair slicked back and his face covered in soap...and Tankbaby once again burst into terrified tears. Scarring shower associations: 2, Tankbaby: 0.)

Where was I? Oh, right, so I told MOTH the story and it all came rushing back. I still vividly remember the absolute mortification I felt when the curtain was suddenly pulled aside and I saw a flash. Then the outrage as I demanded the picture back (after who knows how many of the other kids had already seen it) and the quiet, impossible, stomach-churning ookiness of staring at that picture, at my horrified face, at my own body just...there...without clothes. Not that I thought my body was awful, or anything, but at 13 (I skipped a grade, so I was younger than my classmates), I was in that no man's land of being acutely aware of my changing body, but still wary or grossed out enough by the impending changes that I preferred not to be confronted with them.

So. No Facebook friend for me, thanks. I deleted the message. A few days go by and another message shows up in my inbox:

It's Greg ______ from _HS. Now, that I know that it is you I was hoping to become friends, so we could chat and catch up. You look great. Anxious to see what you have been up to. Hope to hear from you soon. Love, Greg.

I ignored this message as well. Not because of the poor use of the comma, or the creepily familiar "I know it's you" and "anxious to see what you've been up to" (anxious? really??) and "Love, Greg" (!!), but because I really haven't missed this person's presence in my life. I have never once said, "I wonder how old Shower Perv is doing," nor really given him much thought at all, save for remembering the Incident as part of our discussion of future household rules around shower etiquette.

So, life goes on. I e-mail my sister and my friend about this weirdness and they both take advantage of my discomfort by signing various e-mails and text messages "LOVE, Greg."

Then, yesterday, I log on and damned if my inbox doesn't hold the following:

Hey-It's Greg ________ from _HS and I would love to chat and catch up. Hope to hear from you soon. Miss ya.

The hell? I mean, if your e-mail is ignored twice, what does that tell you? Dude, take the hint! Also? "Miss ya"?! Even if I ignore the annoying "ya" business, what the hell do you miss? The long walks we never took? The heart to heart conversations we never had? The places we never went together?

So this is where I find myself tonight--framing possible responses in my head and wondering if he's being as creepy as I think he is, or if I'm being a big bitch. And yes, I'm aware that the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. What do I do now? Ignore again, and hope that this time he finally gets it? Write back and pretend I don't know who he is? Politely turn down his friend request? Those are all the nicer options, ones that are in line with the kind of person I'd like to be. However, that humiliated girl in the shower wants to write back:


Look, jackass--I ignored you twice, because I was trying to be polite. But since you can't take the hint, let me spell it out for you: WE AREN'T FRIENDS. WE WEREN'T FRIENDS. I AM NOT INTERESTED IN BEING FRIENDS. EVER. ALSO, YOU ARE CREEPILY OVER-FAMILIAR. Now stop it, because you're embarrassing both of us. Well, mostly you.

What do you think? Is 20 years too long to hold a grudge for something like this? Do you think he even remembers the Incident? I know WJWD, but Jesus was never a 13-year-old girl.

Inside My Brain, as Performed by Dinosaurs

So, this might be cheating a bit as an entry (don't tell the National Blog Post Month Police, or the NaBloPoMoPo), but once again it's 11 PM and I am staring blankly at a screen, drooling while my lids drop shut.

There's a comic by in our local free paper called "Dinosaur Comics" and it is brilliant. One in particular is clipped out and stuck to our fridge, and I use it as a reference point to explain how my brain works (you may need to click on it to see the whole thing in a new window):



This is exactly what happens in my head when confronted with any problem, question, or even slightly unsettling fact: I rage about the unfairness, then begin to plan for the worst and then, when I realize (or it is pointed out) that I can't, in fact, control everything, I just opt for paralyzing panic and doom.

I think this will serve me really well as a parent, don't you?

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

Today, one of my kids was having a hard day and everything was frustrating him. He was at our "job board," trying to decide between line leader and cup helper. Finally, he burst out, "Fuck this job!" It took every ounce of restraint I had not to respond, "Amen, brother."



Aaaand...that's all she wrote tonight, folks. I have a headache that I'm hoping is just a headache and not some harbinger of doom. We've had a lot of staff out sick lately (the reason for today's headache...we weren't short-staffed enough to warrant canceling the group, just enough to make it completely chaotic and Lord of the Flies-y in my classroom), and I'm really, really, really hoping that this headache isn't the beginning of illness, swine-related or otherwise. I have all of next week off, and I'd rather not spend it miserable and sick. I have big plans to clean and childproof my house to that I don't have to call Child Protective Services on myself. Any suggestions for what to do when you live in an old house with limited outlets, necessitating the use of surge protectors and extension cords, and your baby wants to teethe solely on power cords? When we had a rabbit who chewed cords, we used a bitter apple spray to discourage the behavior...

It's Been a Long Day

Do you think, if I posted as my Facebook status: "is tired of passive-aggressive Facebook status updates," people would get the irony?


Hey, you guys? Merging from the on-ramp? I know it's hard to tell, what with the MILLIONS OF RED BRAKE LIGHTS and the fact that THIS HAPPENS EVERY DAY AT THIS TIME, but there are an awful lot of cars right in front of me. I actually can't go very far ahead. I'm not purposefully keeping you back from your obviously very important organ donation appointment just to be a jerk. You still want to zoom past me on the shoulder, just to cut in thisclose to the front of my car and then slam on the brakes? Fine, but I'm gonna assume you all have small penises. Especially the women.


I went to my car after work today and saw a large dent and scrape on the back passenger door. My heart dropped, because I just had the whole back end of my car repaired back in May after I was rear-ended (note to self: if you are going to be rear ended by a giant RamThunderEgostroker truck, do not drive a prissy little hybrid made of crepes and fairy dust. You will get smashed to bits, while the truck rolls away without a scratch, picking your brake lights out of its teeth.) and I couldn't believe someone had hit my car and driven away and...wait, there's my car over there. Thank God. No, wait, that's not my license plate. Dammit! This is my car. God--no, wait that's not my license plate, either. Oh, there I am. Ah, Pacific Northwest, where any given parking lot has at least three blue Priuses (Prii? Prium? Where my Latin peeps at?) within a fifty-foot radius.


I had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for two of my three meals today. I could do the same tomorrow and feel just fine about it.

I am part of an online discussion board for parents and teachers, and someone recently posted about the trouble she has getting her kids to get ready in the morning. She wrote, "I give her a choice between 2 -3 alphits and she usually gives me some resistence and then finally picks an alphit." Luckily for her, many, many wonderful people wrote in with suggestions, all of them avoiding using the word "outfit." I'm not sure I could have done so. "Alphits"? Is this a regionalism I'm just unaware of, or are you guys as baffled as I am?

(Also, by "you guys," I mean Submom and Jen. I have readers! You are them! Come in, come in, find a seat...anywhere. I can't wait for NaBloPoMo to be over, so that I can divide my limited blog time more equally between reading and commenting elsewhere and posting here.)


I spoke to a cheerful, helpful real live person on the phone today when I called my insurance company. I'm pretty sure that's one of the signs of the apocalypse.

This Is Not Tonight's Post

I came home after a long day, in a grumpy, exhausted, pissy mood. MOTH had to go to work, so he handed off the Tank, who I put in the Ergo so that I could take our woefully under-exercised dog for a walk. Said dog was so delighted at the idea of A Walk! O Joy A Walk! that she kept jumping at me and the babe and I was so frazzled that I had to aim a kick at the dishwasher just to let out some frustration, thus greatly (and perhaps rightly) alarming MOTH, who I'd thought was out of earshot.

I leashed the nutbag dog and muttered goodbye to MOTH and stomped around the windy dark for a while. While I walked, I composed a lengthy, venty post in my mind about how hard it is sometimes, how frustrated I get with myself that I can't pull it together enough to be a good mom and a good wife and a good teacher and a good friend and a good dog owner and a good citizen...

Then I came home and, while nursing Tankbaby, read this post from Aunt Becky (found via Submom at the Absence of Alternatives, thanks!) and I shut up. I thought about how lucky, lucky, lucky I am. I have this gorgeous (albeit non-sleeping) baby boy who was born full-term and without any medical issues. I never had to face the NICU, I got to take my baby home after my three-day hospital stay, and we never looked back. Lots and lots of families aren't that lucky.

So I shut up. And I watched my boy crawl around the kitchen, consistently going over to the dog dishes, and I smiled. And I gave him a bath and watched him figure out how to pull to a stand! In the tub! (Um, don't do that, dude.) And I did his nightly massage and I looked at his fat, fat legs with their very first bruises and scratches, courtesy of his new mobility. And I watched him nurse, pulling off every few minutes to give me his gummy grin, to stare deeply and solemnly into my eyes so that I'll lean close and he can bat my glasses off my face, finally falling asleep as I sang Aimee Mann songs to him. And I shut up.

Tomorrow I'm sure I'll find something to bitch about. Tonight I'm going to try to breathe deeply and shut up.

Why This Post is Lame

(last night)

9:37 PM: Baby is asleep. Blog is posted. Time to go to bed...early, even!

9:37:30 PM: Ooh, the last half an hour of Moulin Rouge! (I'm sorry, but if that "Roxanne" tango number doesn't give you the shivers, you have no soul.) OK, so I'll watch for a bit and then go to bed. It'll be fine. 10 PM is still early. Ish.

10:12 PM: OK, now to bed. Great. All primed for Ewan McGregor, color-saturated dreams. Excellent.

10:27 PM: Go to sleep. Go to sleep. You're finally here. Go to sleep.

10: 34 PM: Sleep. Sleeeeeeeeep. Sleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleepsleep SLEEPDAMMIT!

10:35 PM: Perhaps agitation isn't the best way to point myself toward dreamyland. Breathe. Relax. Smell the babyhead. Ahh...

12:55 AM: What? Shit. OK. Nurse. Where's Daddy? Home yet? Yes, in the kitchen. OK. He needs to stay there until you're done nursing and have gone back into a deep sleep. Stay, MOTH, staaaayyy.

2:31 AM: You can NOT be hungry again. You just nursed. Dammit. Fine. Have a boob. Be quick about it. Also, can I just move this arm? Because the nerves are--no? OK, then. It's my left one anyway. Not like I use it much.

3:01 AM: THE HELL? Fire? Flood? What is producing that siren? Oh, it's you, Tank. OK, lemme get the weasels that are clearly chewing on your face...hm. No weasels. Diaper scorpions again? What in the HELL is wrong? Here, have a boob.

3:02 AM: Ah, back to sl--

3:02:15 AM: Ouch. Not so much with the gentle releasing, there, huh? OK, no boob. No problem. Goodnight.

3:03 AM: Fine. Boob.

(Over the course of the next 45 minutes, boob is alternately accepted and rejected a dozen times. Withholding of boob leads to increasingly frantic cry, but boob apparently offers no comfort. Tankbaby repeatedly appears to go back to sleep, only to semi-wake five minutes later with moans, snurfling noises, and aimless flailing of arms. Finally, cuddle position #347 appears to work, and he quiets and stays quiet.)


4:04 AM: Seriously? GOD DAMN IT!!!

4:15 AM: Here. Sleep on my chest. Look. We're all cozy and warm and I've got you. Shhh.

4:25 AM: Oh, baby. You poor thing. All sniffly. Yeah, go ahead, rub your face against my chest. OK, get comfy. Go ahead. Go ahead. Come on. Settle down. Get comfy. Go for it. Just settle down. OK. Come onnnn....

4:27 AM: OW!! OWOWOWOWOWOW!!! Dude, headbutting is NOT COOL. Especially if you insist on headbutting me in the exact spot where you grabbed my lip UNTIL IT BLED earlier today.

4:52 AM: That's fine. You just keep flipping sides every seven minutes. I'll adjust. The good news is that, by now, I've given up on going back to sleep, so my expectations are mighty low.

4:55 AM: Not that I don't want to go back to sleep. But what if I do and he rolls off me and I roll onto him and somehow, despite the fact that he is the world's lightest sleeper and also a whole lot more than pea-sized, neither of us wake up until I smother him?

5:07 AM: Swell. Now both baby and husband are snoring. This is juuuuusst great. Smothering not sounding so bad now. For any of us.

5:30 AM: Wha? Did I just fall asleep? And then jerk awake for no reason? Terrific. Wait! He's asleep! Time to attempt the shift. Sweet Jesus, please oh please don't wake up don'twakeupdon'twakeup.

5:33 AM: Victory is mine! Ignore the light starting to come in from the window. It's still night.

5:40 AM: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... (snoring)

6:30 AM: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... (vibration setting on the cell phone, which is also the alarm)

6:31 AM: fuck.

Playdate for Mama

I had lunch with my new friend today, the girl who I met at a conference last weekend. It was delightful. She is fun and smart and basically has my job in another agency, so we got to geek out together. She played with Tankbaby, complimented my grilled cheese, and gave me a hug at the end. It was lovely and I spent the next ten minutes glowing and junior-high giddy about My New Friend.

And, of course, twenty minutes later I was all, did I talk too much? Did I ask interesting questions? Did she actually have to go, or was she just tired of me? Is she as fun as I think she is? Did I inadvertently insult her agency with that one comment? Was that question about kids too personal?

It's weird, making friends once you're past, like, 20. It's so easy (she says, with the glaze of hindsight cleverly blurring away any details that would contradict her) when you're living in the dorms and there are thousands of other people in the same situation and everyone is all about meeting other : "You like U2? I love U2! Wanna be roommates?" It's low-risk, because there's always a June around the corner, an opportunity to shake the Etch-a-Sketch and start over. Wanna be Goth now? No problem. Ran out of eyeliner? That's OK, you can always join the patchouli hacky-sackers outside the cafeteria. Whoever you are (at whatever moment), you can find a group.

What's weird is that I'm actually less shy now than I was when I was in my 20s. But for some reason, I find myself doubting my own, well, for lack of a better term, coolness. This results in a strange equation, wherein I am more outgoing, thus creating more opportunities for me to doubt my Every Thought And Deed. Whee!

Hmph. I wrote this earlier, and then there was baby-tending, lunch-making, dinner-eating, and dog-feet-wiping, and now I fear I've lost the thread. I'd love to say that I'll sit here until I remember what my big, fancy, perfect ending was, but let's be real: the babe is asleep and I have the opportunity to go to bed early. Good night!

The Law of Inertia

You know that satisfied feeling you get when you cross something off a to-do list? I am so enamored of that feeling that I will occasionally--OK, frequently--add already-completed tasks to a list, just for the sheer smug pleasure of crossing them off.

Today I accomplished the following: walked the dog (while wearing a 25-pound Tankbaby, so I count it as exercise) to the library so I could return a CD (are you paying attention? That's three things right there), did two loads of laundry, swept and mopped the kitchen floor, vacuumed, made baby food, and wrote a card to my aunt. I also learned that, while imitating Tina Turner doing "Proud Mary" will greatly amuse a baby the first time you do it, repeated shimmies lose their power and the best you'll get will be a slightly condescending gummy smile.

So by five, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I cleaned up the dishes from the baby food while Tank sat on the newly-cleaned floor, pulling plastic storage containers out of a drawer and spreading them out around him, a tiny King of Tupperware, surveying his domain. He squawked and banged and had a delightful little burgeoning-object-permanence time.

By 5:15, I was surprised to find myself feeling a bit at sea. Jumpy. Wondering what else I could get done. Then, by 5:30, feeling anxious about what else I could/should do.

I am, whether through genetics or experience, terribly predisposed to fits of inertia. You know, a body in motion, etc. Before having a baby, I definitely tended to, um, "stay at rest." Which is code for "be a lazy, unmotivated ass." On a day off, if I had no plans, I could easily sleep in until 11, start a book at breakfast and sit on the couch with it until I fell back asleep. Rinse and repeat. Even in the moment, I realized how much I was wasting, what I could be doing, but it just seemed so...(whining) hard to get started.

And, of course, that was all the more true when I was trying to avoid something. I spent I'm too annoyed to think about how many hours staring blankly at a TV or book, just to avoid thinking about Mom being sick, halfway across the country. To avoid thinking about how far away I was feeling--well, not just feeling, moving--from my husband, who was embracing his new life here and never seemed to care about what we'd left behind. To avoid questioning the impulsive decision to move here in the first place. Of course, looking back now, I can see some of the hallmark signs of depression, but my, well, slacker baseline made it hard for me to see the difference at the time. I just knew that all of my thoughts at the time were unpleasant, so I was doing what I could not to have them. Besides, that couch was so comfy! And, ooh, a Law & Order episode I'd only seen four times!

Now, I've run a theatre company, studied voice and guitar, and gotten a master's degree, so clearly I can get motivated. The problem is that, the flip side of the inertia coin is that, once I get going on tasks, I get so revved up (Accomplishing! Things!) that I get hyper and tend to, as my husband puts it, jump on his head. I get annoyed at any obstacle to my efficiency, and woe betide you if you cross my Donna Reed On Crack path.

And, as I've noted, having a baby has forced me to be efficient if I have any hopes of accomplishing anything. And things suddenly seem more important. Before, if my kitchen floor wasn't clean (and, make no mistake, it wasn't), it didn't matter, unless you were a fervent believer in the Five Second Rule. But now, I have this creeping, mouthing little amoeba whose sole purpose in life is to try to reverse Darwinism, so a clean floor is at the top of my list. And the time I have to accomplish things is limited to naps or contented baby moments where he will tolerate not being in direct bodily contact with mama.

And so this evening, having accomplished everything on my list and then some, I found myself stupidly, pointlessly antsy, wondering if I could bake some cookies, back up my hard drive, and repaint any chipped lead-oozing doorframes before bed. Not because I wanted to do those things (well, maybe the cookies), but because I was in the mode and couldn't shake the must-do jitters.

But I try to remember that he's only going to be this age once, that I don't have to do this all myself, and that dirt builds the immune system. I took a deep breath, sat down, and watched my son learn about gravity. And that, while I'm all for him exploring his environment, I draw the line at licking the dog bowl.