Category: that joe

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Trussed

I’ve had a thing about raw fowl flesh for as long as I can remember. We used to have chickens when I was little and THE worst job in the world, even worse that collecting the green horned tomato worms, was getting stuck doing the chickens. The chopping their heads off. The blood. The smell of the boiling water on their feathers and the plucking, plucking, plucking. Makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it.

Every time Thanksgiving rolls around, I have a few uncomfortable moments while I think about how gross it is to touch the turkey and then Joe looks at my face and says he’ll take care of it. Phew. Ok. Crisis averted.

This year, I watched non-stop cooking shows on TV for about a month leading up to Thanksgiving and I kept watching how it was no big deal, this touching the raw turkey thing. Those television people just toss it around like it’s no big thing and salt it and butter it and put their fingers under the top layer of skin and put herbs in it and stuff the butt cavity with whatever and I almost had myself convinced that I could do it this year. Almost.

And then it was 9am on Tday morning and Joe was upstairs sleeping and I didn’t want to wake him and the turkey needed to get in the oven and I grabbed that organic, free-range 22 pound turkey from Whole Foods out of the fridge and tossed it in the sink. I looked at it. Considered it. Poked it.

And then the most amazing thing happened. It was like I was watching the TV. My Primal Cook skills came out and I rinsed, dried, seasoned and trussed that sucker like nobody’s business. Then I popped it in the oven and by the time Joe got downstairs it had already been cooking for an hour.

Amazingly, it turned quite delicious. I’ve decided the answer is to always watch more television.

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Dating In Your Thirties

Joe and I don’t go on many dates. I mean the kind where you have a destination, like the opera, and you spend time primping yourself and curling your hair and wear lipstick. Our dates usually consist of jumping in the car and spending time getting ready by taking a shower, if we feel like getting really crazy.

This is fine. I’m not one for exerting all that energy too often to look a certain way. I prefer my jeans and a sweatshirt while we drive around and talk. Sometimes we stop and get a coffee. Sometimes we don’t. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy a nice dinner out with friends or something, because I do. Just not every week.

This short recipe for our dates is one of my favorite parts of our week. So much time is already taken with day jobs and freelance work. With mundane things like grocery shopping and the post office. And trying to plan some elaborate date for Friday night was just not happening. So somewhere along the line, we instituted The Drive.

“Wanna go for a drive?” Joe will ask. I’ll smile and say, “Sure.” And we grab the keys and go. And for the next hour, all the things that we haven’t found time to talk about for the last few days will come tumbling out, possibly out of order, but the jumbled nature doesn’t matter. We talk. And we talk a lot while we hold hands and listen to jazz on the radio in the dark.

Last night, as we drove around all the parts of our town and never reached any burned or charred fields or scarred skeletons of where a home used to stand, I felt so incredibly lucky. So fortunate. My heart aches for all those families that have found themselves homeless and who are hoping for the best case scenario to be that they had good insurance that will actually cover the fire damage, although so many things were lost that can never be replaced. I hope along with them. And I was thankful that we had a car and a bed at home. And that the air was clear and we could roll down the windows and not choke on scorched wind while we drove around and counted neon signs that were broken and missing letters.

By the time we’re done talking, the road will bring us home and scoot us into the driveway. We’ll kiss and grab the trash and head into the house. Dating in your thirties might not be the same as dating in your twenties. There is definitely less hairspray. But I like it.

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So, You Want To Make A Podcast

And I did. Now you can get both (ALL TWO of them) of the old columns in a podcast feed, thanks to Joe. Go ahead and subscribe. You know you want to. If you just want the MP3 file, click here. The song at the end of this one is called Chicken Bone Pizza, written by my sister Celia and sung by the very same Nate as last time. Man, I come from a talented family.

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Accepting Hell

So, this is it? Really? I can’t quite believe it. I keep asking myself over and over…is this it?

There have been a few days where I got really close to replying to that question with, ‘No, this will not be it.’ and it’s those days that are the worst, as I look for a way out.

The past few months have been insane. Literally. I feel like such a failure as a mother. As a wife. As a proponent of mental health. As a human being. I’ve struggled so hard and fierce, using every, single muscle trying to hold on to reality and then given up, fallen back and tried to accept what reality is and let it fold over what I keep trying to make it.

Reality is that for the rest of my life I’ll be on some kind of medication. Reality is that even though I went through therapy for years and years and then integrated and then brushed the dust off my hands, thinking I was done with the diagnosing and drugs and really hard parts, I will never be done. There is no such thing as done for me when it comes to brain disorders. I will continually have new and fun streaks and variations come out that will need attending to. Drug cocktails that will need adjustment. More weight to gain. More side effects to wade through.

Reality is that I should never, ever try to have any more children. It would be irresponsible to do so. Reality is that my kids have it so much better than they even know. Maybe they do know. After all, they chose the life they have now, not living with me. They must have had some internal compass that told them to stay the course at their dad’s. And, good, because life with me is not much of a life. Reality is that my feelings about that, about them and towards them are so huge that they threaten to splinter my mind again and I have a gray area lurking in the background that needs addressing and months and months of work to repair.

Reality is that my husband will be working with me and trying to help keep me stable for the rest of our life together. I have good spots, to be sure. I do some things that are fun, creative, and not always crazy. But more likely than not, those things do intersect with the crazy. And sometimes getting out the Dyson for a long-overdue vacuuming party is preferred to a new project’s birth.

Reality is that my life is hell and I make it hell for those close to me.

I don’t think I’m conveying how disappointed I am accurately. Your emails and letters have been sweet and I do appreciate them. Very much. But not one comes in that I don’t think, ‘They don’t really know who I am.’ If you did, you wouldn’t say the things you do. I am not the person that I thought I was and that I led you all to believe I was. I’m not healed. I’m not better. I’m no authority on anything, least of all mental health. I’m just one more person trying to figure out how to make it another day. One more person just like everyone else in the entire world that struggles with mental disorders. And to all of you? Wow. You inspire me with your getting up every day and trying again. Because I don’t know how long I can do this.

I’ve gone to the psychiatrist and a couple of therapists in the past few weeks and tomorrow I have another one. At one point three weeks ago, I was ready to go to Seattle. That is where Dr. Clancy lives. Dr. Clancy was the one who integrated me and the thought of trying to find someone else here was too daunting. My sister told me to get on a plane immediately. I made plans with a company up there to take a position. But Dr. Clancy’s first opening was mid-November and somehow, no one thought it was a good idea for me to go up there and wait that long. I mean, what good is a job at a great company if you’re crazy? So then it was off to our couple-counselor who suggested some people here in the area and made me promise to call if I started feeling suicidal. As did the other therapist, the psychiatrist and Joe. Which is kind of a joke since if I was really going to kill myself, I wouldn’t call them or anyone. But I couldn’t kill myself, anyway, because no matter how you slice it, it would hurt the kids and that is the last thing I want to do. There is no accident I could contrive that at some point wouldn’t fall apart and prove to be self-inflicted. I’ve thought it through. And, I’ve seen way too many episodes of Law and Order and Without A Trace to think otherwise.

I’m baking. And cooking. This weekend alone I’ve made fish chowder, beef stew, corn bread, butternut and spaghetti squash, apple crisp and Boston Cream pie besides all the normal meals. I’ve made thousands of lists in my head with all the things I need to do. These lists include things like wipe the downstairs bathroom counter, change out the mousetraps, find the canvases in the garage and make tomato sauce and that is four things on a list of a few hundred things. I’ve drawn a million shapes from the television, over and over and over while sitting in front of it, to the lines on the road and the clouds and the mailboxes and the trees when I make a trip to the store for butter. I’ve crocheted hats. Many hats.

One night, I had a dream about the egg sandwiches I was going to make the next day at lunch. It was very vivid and included the print on the paper towel that I used to hold the shells until I threw them out. I dreamed I peeled all the eggs, rinsed them and then separated the yolks from the whites, placing them in two bowls on the counter. Then I carefully took the whites, two at a time, and put them in the small canister for the Bullet. I pushed the cup down quickly, twice, and then dumped the perfectly chopped whites into the bowl with the yolks. I didn’t comment out loud in my dream, but in my mind I was remarking on how perfectly shaped the whites were and how two was the perfect number for everything.

The next afternoon, in real life, Joe was helping me peel the eggs. I got out the Bullet canister and two bowls and started separating the whites and the yolks just like in my dream. He looked at me, first sidelong and then full-on. As he asked what I was doing, I was ashamed. So embarrassed. But I couldn’t stop doing it the way I saw it. I pushed the canister down twice and then dumped the contents in the bowl. They were not chopped perfectly. Far from it. Half of them were mush and the other half were hardly chopped at all. But I kept doing it. And Joe kept trying to be helpful by suggesting ways to load the whites and how about we don’t use that thing at all and just do it the way we always do it? I finally told him that I dreamed about doing it this way and so I was trying it. I did two more whites and then realized it was not going to get any better and that I had to STOP. So I took a spoon and scraped out the mushy whites at the bottom. I turned to Joe and said, ‘You know what’s funny? What’s funny is that I thought doing something the way I dreamed it would be the right way to do it! I listened to something in my dreams!‘ And then I laughed. Hard. Manic. Harsh. And then I started bawling and it took everything I had to pull it together, not get tears or snot in the egg salad and keep making the sandwiches.

The kids were here for the weekend. Their dad went out of town and for some reason, they agreed to come over here instead of having someone in their dad’s family come up and stay with them at their home like they’ve done in the past. It was wonderful to have them here. Truly wonderful. And just around every corner I was about to lose it. I hope they didn’t know, but hell, I think it’s been established that my kids know much more than I give them credit for. It’s not at all impossible that they were very aware that mom was barely there some times. That mom’s face is red because she just got done crying in the bathroom. That mom is so busy in the kitchen because she has no idea what to say to anyone and sitting down for 2 minutes in the living room was just not in the realm of practical. That mom accidentally fell asleep on the couch in the afternoon and is sleeping in until 11am every morning because she is on new drugs that make her so, so tired.

I’m taking Invega for now. The Effexor, which was the sixth mood stabilizer I tried and the only one to work, and Wellbutrin, an antidepressant, are soon to follow. Do you know what Invega is? It’s for schizophrenia. It’s a paliperidone derivative and when the dose is halved, it’s supposedly good for Bipolar. It’s an anti-psychotic drug.

I’ve been diagnosed with Bipolar twice before and once I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. The former I never took seriously because the first time it was called Manic-Depressive Disorder and I knew I was not depressed all the time! So it could not be true! Oh, how much I sometimes miss my former mental health naiveté. The latter diagnosis scared the hell out of me and was given to me mere days before my first mental hospital stay. However, once I was diagnosed with DDNOS, there was no more reason to even look at that one because the dissociative disorder was well enough to keep everyone very, very busy.

Now I don’t even care. Honestly, who cares what the diagnosis is? I’m fucked up and always will be. The End. And that is what I have to accept. But I can’t.

The first night I took my new drugs was so hard. I thought about it all afternoon and evening and the closer it got to bedtime the more out of control I became. I couldn’t stop crying. I cleaned up dinner and bawled. I showered and bawled. I brushed my teeth and bawled. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so awful. And by the time I crawled in bed next to Joe I was a complete mess. I tried to tell him what was so awful about taking the new meds but I don’t think he could understand much of what I said between my gulps for air and wiping the snot off my face. And really, it’s not anything I can explain very well. It is just really, really hard. It represents the rest of my life. It says that I understand that there is no other way, that this is the ONLY WAY to get my brain under control. No amount of coping skills, positive talk, shaping my Universe, affirmations and prayer will change anything. This is it. This is me. This is the rest of my life and I don’t want to be here.

I was also crying because I was petrified. Anti-psychotics are well known for some really tantalizing side-effects like confusion, dizziness, weight gain and ticks/muscle spams, just to name a few. Being known as my kids’ crazy mom is one thing. Being known as their drooling, morbidly obese, dumb as a stick, spasmatic mom who is house-bound and afraid to drive in case she forgets how to get home is something else.

So far, I can tell I’m gaining weight around the middle. All my shirts are tight. I’m slightly dizzy most of the day and so, so tired. I get headaches about once per day. I see odd things out of the corner of my eyes. I’m absent minded and do things like load the coffee maker with the very last coffee in the house which I have just lovingly ground, turn it on and then forget to put the carafe under the spout. Guess what happens when you do that? You get an overflow and coffee grounds all over the counter, down the side of the oven where you can’t really reach and mud all over the floor. And no coffee that morning. I still cry. I still want to do a million things at once. Pretty much the only thing that has changed is that my mind races a little bit less and I’m too apathetic to kill myself. Or, too lazy because I can’t think of a good plan. (DO YOU HAVE A PLAN??) (That’s a joke for anyone who’s ever had suicidal ideation and talked to an authority figure.)

Wow, this post got really long.

Belinda’s husband Alex left a comment on my post on Real Mental the other night where I talked about getting back on drugs. Insights like his, from people who struggle with mental disorders, like all the good people that write me emails and send me letters and frequent Real Mental, are so inspiring. And I know at different times in my life I’ve given some not-too-horrible advice to people. But at the moment? I can’t find any of it. I can’t hear it. I can’t remember it. I feel frustrated and angry and like something was stolen from me. And I know what it was. It was the dream of being well. The story I told myself for so long where I was well, happy and a great mother to my kids. That has been irrevocably taken away from me and there is no way to get it back. All there is left is to accept it.

These past five years have been great and awful. Great because I had this dream to keep me alive and to work towards. It made everything hard worthwhile. I woke up telling myself how great it would be at some point in the future when the kids lived with me half the time or some of the time and how I would get to be their mom. I went to bed telling myself the same story. And every afternoon I told it again. And every hour in between. I feel like I should expound on this for a few more paragraphs just so it’s clear how much this was a part of my life. But, basically, that is all there is – I wanted to be a great mom. And the awful? well, the awful is, because that was my complete focus, I have nothing as a backup plan. My universe literally cracked in half and I don’t know what is next. And this is where the disordered thinking comes in – not only should I have had at least one back up plan, but I should have had some kind of maintenance program going with interval therapy going on and reality checks. But, I’ve been to so much therapy! I know what they’d say! I’ll just tell myself and it’s the same thing, right? Right?? Wrong. If you think you know everything, there is nothing left to learn and no one can tell you anything. If I had been on some kind of program, monthly, bi-monthly, hell, even quarterly and there would have been someone there to tell me WHAT IF then maybe I wouldn’t find myself in dire straits. And if I wouldn’t have taken off right after I was integrated and stayed with Dr. Clancy for a few more months like he wanted me to five years ago, maybe things would be different. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Or maybe things would be just the same. I’ve put off looking at this closely because it was easy to blame all this stuff on other things, like my thyroid. Avoidance and confusion.

I haven’t self-harmed in years. Since right before my last mental hospital stay. But it crosses my mind every five minutes. I won’t do it but it’s there. Instead of allowing myself to think of it, I obsess about getting a new tattoo. Where will I put it? What will it look like? Can I just cover up one that I have with a new design? What would that look like after? And then I draw it in my mind for hours.

I obsess about smoking again. About not smoking again. The last time I smoked was at a friend’s home during the summer and my kids saw and that was just a few days before my kids told me that they didn’t want to live with me ever. Never. What if that was the reason they don’t want to? What if I do smoke again and they say to themselves, yep! We knew it. Good thing we picked our dad. But I’ve got to keep my hands busy and I can make only so many hats before I have yarn coming out of my ears and I throw it at the wall and then can’t stop pacing like a caged animal that can’t get out. But, there is no where to go that is away from me.

The mania is so stealthy sometimes. I’ll be feeling so good, like I finally have it together for the morning and I can breathe a little easier and then I realize that I’ve been standing still, staring at the toothpaste in the little basket for who knows how long and wondering why it isn’t moved two inches to the left because THAT IS WHERE IT GOES. And if the toothpaste isn’t right, nothing can be right. And then when I get downstairs, there is a load of laundry from last night still in the washer. This of course means that Joe doesn’t love me because if he did love me, he would have moved it to the dryer so it didn’t go sour and then make me smell it when I go to check it. The sour actually assaults my nose and makes me cry. It’s that harsh to my nose. And it’s so awful, so HUGE that I can’t even think it or explain it. I just cry and then try to figure out how to make it through this god-awful day. Somewhere around lunchtime I’ve decided I have no friends. None. Not a single one. The people I know from high school are nice when I call them but let’s be honest, if I’m always the one calling them first to talk and catch up, if I’m always the one to make first contact and they never do, and they could just keep going years without hearing from me, then who’s friends with who? And who cares and who doesn’t? And why should I call them first anyhow? If they don’t care about me at all. And the same goes for anyone I’ve know in the past five years since I’ve been Healed (just thought I’d capitalize it now that I’m making fun of it) because none of them ever call me first. Why am I always making the extra effort to check in or stop in? Am I that needy? Why am I that needy? No one likes me. And by the time Joe gets home from work I’ve thought of about a million reasons why our relationship will never work out and how we should get divorced immediately and how I’m friendless and no one will ever consider me their best friend in the world. I might as well be dead. Now THAT is fun to come home to. Quite a treat.

A few weeks later, I’ll feel completely opposite. Everyone loves me, or would, if they knew me. I start awesome new projects like writing groups and reading groups and artist groups and mental health groups. Time sometimes eludes me. I’ll feel like it’s been 3 hours but it’s only been long enough for one song on the radio to finish. I’ve just thought of THAT MANY THINGS. Because I’m so awesome. See? Can’t you see how awesome I am? I could travel the world and interview everyone that interests me. I could go overseas and write a travel log. It would sell. Of course it would sell. Why wouldn’t it? I am AWESOME. Sadly, by the time some of the groups come around to needing me to actually do something like be in charge of a meeting, I’ve cycled back down to not feeling worthy of grime on the side of a quarter and I can’t function. I just can’t do it. Everyone will be looking at me and wanting me to say something. You know, because I am in charge.

Finding a job is never easy but in this new reality that I’m living in, I’m well aware that my options are limited. The regular 9-5 job does not work for me. In the years I’ve done it, it’s all I can do. I don’t do anything else besides commute, work and sleep because I can’t factor anything else into the equation. And then after about a year straight of it, I’m burned up and sick and have to quit. I can only ignore it for so long before it demands that I pay attention. And this sucks for many reasons, not the least of which is financial and probably making Joe feel alone and stressed and working 3 jobs so we can survive. I’ve written so much down in this blog over the years that any potential employer will find it and immediately throw my resume in the garbage. I couldn’t change that if I wanted to. But I don’t think I want to. I just have to have some kind of hope that a flexible position exists out there where I will fit in. Where I can make enough money to contribute to my well-being and take some weight off my partner. And if I can’t and that doesn’t happen, that is so unfair. And here we go on the downward slope again on the unfairness of life and how Joe is trapped and will never have a good life.

So, I don’t know how to answer all of your heartfelt questions. I’m fine? Maybe? But not really and never will be? But thanks for caring enough to send me your warm thoughts and wishes and I wish I was fine and could be different for you. And be the person you thought I was. But I’m not. And I don’t know how much I’ll be updating this blog for awhile still. It’s so hard to write the truth right now and I just can’t get into lying on purpose and saying I’m fine or alternately, revealing all the grisly details of the suckage. Instead, go here to see a photo of my bird, Bird, that Alison has made insanely, fiercely awesome to show the true spirit inside him.

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Get Out Of Debt Free Expensive Card

Joe and I have deemed this next 18 months or so our Get Out Of Debt season. We try not to be too hard on ourselves on how we’ve managed to get this way. We’ve both known that this moment would come, we’ve been anticipating it, but there wasn’t a lot we could do about accruing our debt, with the exception of not living where we live. Living near my ex so the kids have the ease of going to one home or the other has been the goal for 5 years. And we’ve done it. But we’ve paid a price to be sure. The trade off was slowly going into more debt a little at a time with occasional spurts of doing it fast when we ran into any issue outside of our very tight budget. Like a new tire for the car or a delayed paycheck.

There was a time a few years ago, when we even had to go to one of those short-loan places to pay the rent. You know the kind – where they charge you about 2745% interest for a week? We had to keep that going for a few months before we were able to break free, and man, that was a rough and expensive patch of time.

Because we’ve been careful to not get credit cards and max them out trying to stay afloat, it’s mostly family, friends and cars that we owe. Without family this past 2 years especially, we never would have made it. I don’t know what people do if they don’t have family. I suppose get into high credit card debt and then become homeless? So, things could be much worse and we’re thankful that they aren’t. But, they are bad enough for us both to be highly motivated to put every cent we can towards paying everything back and off as soon as possible.

I went over the numbers this past weekend and got very brave and actually figured out how much we’ve paid in overdraft fees to the bank in the past year. Add that amount to the money we paid the thieves that run the short-loans and you’ve got a number so high that it makes me want to throw up. It’s over 2k.

It’s expensive to not have enough money. If you have to make that payment so the electricity won’t get turned off and the bank allows it to go through, Thank God, but then charges you a fee for going under your actual balance, you just start accepting that it’s a part of the deal. You add an additional $30 dollars to anything going through that you figure the bank will cover, even though you know your don’t have that much. We got pretty good at identifying what the bank would accept and what they would turn away. Of course, you always run the risk of them turning everything away, which is within their right, and then you feel like an idiot and worse, have to pay additional fees if there was another bank involved and worst, let people down and tempt fraud charges if it happens too often.

WELL, we got tired of this game. And we’re on our way to being debt free. It feels great. It feels great to have a plan and know how to get there. But it’s only possible because we have enough income now. Six months ago, we didn’t and no matter how much we didn’t want to be in such bad shape, there was nothing to be done about it except move to Alabama or somewhere else where the cost of living was low. Which wasn’t something we were willing to do.

I swear it costs a lot to be broke. You miss out on cash-only incentives and lower prices and interest rates on loans. You are forced to take what you can get because you feel so desperate and just want to be able to eat next week. We held many a garage sale on a desperate Saturday.

We’re very thankful. Things are looking up. And it would be even more awesome if I started bringing in more regular money. Hello? Universe?

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Somethin' Funky Up In Here

After every time-consuming or effort-extracting event, I go through a letdown. I’m not sure if it’s organic, chemical, physical or psychological or probably a combination of them all, but it’s as if my body says, ‘Whew! Ok, let’s hibernate and possibly get sick for a bit!’ after which I cry for a few days and endure a cold or other illness. Is it possible I actually DO catch a cold or other illness? Or am I just incredibly spent and want to sleep so my body invents an ailment? Inquiring minds wanna know.

Warning – this may be one of the most painful entries ever as far the segue goes. My brain is cloudy and I can barely remember how to speak ACTUAL WORDS such as CAR and PAINT and CLOSE WINDOW when someone comes to the door. Leave now or forever hold your peace.

In the airport coming home, when for some strange reason I decided my hands were invisible and therefore not functional, I neglected to take out my camera so you could all see Miss Arizona USA (not to be confused with the ol’ regular Miss Arizona) sitting and waiting for the flight to, you guessed it, Arizona. Do you know how I know? She had her sash on. Her required sash for all the free airline travel she gets. And if I heard her say it once, I heard her say it a million times (or at least the actual 6 times I DID hear her say it), she is NOT dating Bill M., Preston C., James F., Tony S., Tony L. or Tony Z. I don’t care what those silly men say, she is NOT. (smiling SMILING smiling)

There was a youngish man, guitar out on his lap, sitting next to her and, I kid you not, playing and picking those strings for the entire 90 minutes we waited for the flight. 90 minutes of Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings songs, a few of which he hummed along with, not so badly. He was so earnest. So very, very earnest and I wanted to stop reading my book for a minute (yes, my hands reappeared and functioned for my book) just to tell him I would enjoy his music more if he would only play a little Dave Matthews or even Patsy Cline, but he would never have heard me, so completely wrapped up in her he was. His adoring eyes never left her face, not even for the Gypsy Kings segment.

The friend referred book I was reading is called God Is Not Great. I’ve struggled with religion since I was a child and it’s only now that I’m realizing it’s alright to say out loud that I might not believe in God. At least not the type of God I was instructed to love and obey as a child. In the scriptures is says ‘By their fruits ye shall know them’ and my problem has always been that what I mostly see is hypocrisy and ways to keep people out in every religion I’ve studied. But not in all my 36 years and not until I read this book did it dawn on me that I didn’t have to keep searching to find the one I wanted to belong to. Because I don’t want to belong to any of them. And man, I’ve had such a sense of peace and relief with that realization.

Speaking of politics (weren’t we? I did warn you…), I’m trying to figure out how to support any candidate that is Christian. After all the wars done in the name of different Gods, the number of people persecuted for being different and the (what I consider to be) faulty reasoning behind it, voting for someone that I know holds those beliefs would be just plain wrong, wouldn’t it?

A number of people I know are having babies, just had a baby or actively trying to have a baby. (Still with me?) I’ve been trying to have a baby. So much so that it took medical intervention to get me to give it a break already. So many miscarriages in so little time are not a good thing and there have been a few not mentioned on this blog. Today, after reading Schmutzie, who I realize had a totally different reason for writing what she did, I had the sudden realization that maybe The Universe has been trying to tell me that maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t be trying to have another child but I couldn’t hear it yet. And then I thought maybe I’d get my tubes tied. And then I almost cried because it sounded like such a wonderful idea. I’ve not ever considered this option before and I’m not in any hurry to go and get it done, but it’s an interesting turn of events, is it not? Life is so fascinating.

My sister comes out with her husband in a few weeks for an entire glorious weekend of nothing to do put poke our toes in the sand. If I tell her I don’t believe in God, will she still love me?

My daughter is 16. (Did your brain just crickety-crack trying to keep up?) Completely and utterly 16 and everything it entails. I would not go back and be 16 for every, single, solitary fat-free and guiltless cheeseburger in all of China, of which there are none, but even if there were. She routinely hurts my feelings to the very depths of my soul as only your daughter can and it’s continually my job as her mother to love her just like she is, right where she’s at, and not make her feel ashamed. Being a parent is one of the frackinist jobs of all time. And yet, I wouldn’t trade it for anything and actually went through hell just to be in this position but I’ve got to learn to give myself permission to have a bad day without self recrimination. Wow, that was an awfully and probably unnecessarily wordy paragraph. Sorry, Mrs. Beasley.

This freelancing and doing the stray article now and again has not brought in the amount of cold, hard cash one might expect. Or, maybe it’s exactly as much as one might expect. All that to say – not much. And I’m feeling the itching in my fingers and in my brain to do something more substantial. There was a job a few months ago that I was excited about but ended up not getting and ever since then, I’ve just not really looked. But I think it’s that time, friends. It’s THAT time. So, Hello Universe – I’d like a winner job, please. Oh, and thanks.

My husband is awesomer than I ever imagined or dared hope.

And also, mashed potatoes with tiny bitso cheddar cheese just might be the best thing since Kindereggs. (Thanks, Jen.)

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And All Before I Had Coffee

Let’s just say I’m neurotic in an endearing way. Is that fine with everyone? It may not be true but we can all pretend.

This morning I started doing the dishes because our maid seems to have forgotten to come to work for the last 36 years and as I rinsed one of the plethora of dirty glasses that somehow procreate offspring faster than you can say GO OUTSIDE AND USE THE FRIGGIN HOSE NEXT TIME! I caught the scent of mildew. Mildew, again! I’m not even kidding when I tell you for the past week I’ve been on a tear when it comes to isolating and obliterating the mildew. Mildew must die! And every morning when I start to do the dishes I’m sniffing like a crack whore looking for her next fix trying to find the source. We have at least 145 dishrags and they’ve all gone through the washer this week at least twice because they don’t pass The Sniff Test. I sniff them before I put them in the dryer. I sniff them when they come out. All fine. And then I pick one up to use it and it smells musty and mildewy! (not a word? bite me, spellchecker.) So I stand there, sniffing and tossing just washed dishrags back into the washer for their 4th rotation.

Which brings us to this morning, standing over the sink and once again, smelling the mildew. I picked up the rag I had just retrieved from the cupboard and sniffed it. Mildew! I angrily threw it in the general direction of the garage and got another. Mildew! My hands smelled! I scooped a little water in my hand and smelled it. Mildew. How can water smell like mildew?!

After huffing and puffing and telling Joe for eons about how whack this house is and how the kitchen sucks and everything smells like mildew and now EVEN! THE! WATER! smells like mildew he looked at me and said, ‘Well, that would be bad if the water really smelled like mildew. It would make us sick.’ And then he just looked at me.

As I started to question myself, I took one of the many, many glasses from the counter, filled it will water from the tap and inhaled deeply as if it were a fine wine – A hearty bouquet with a hint of oak. No mildew. Not even a bit. I had no choice but to dump out the water and admit I may have been overreacting.

And then I couldn’t smell it on any of the rags. I think someone is playing a trick on me. Like the time in Junior High when the tip of my nose smelled sour for over a month. It did! I couldn’t get it to stop no matter how many times I wiped it, washed it and dabbed on perfume. I walked up to people, some I knew, some I didn’t, and asked them to PLEASE smell my nose because it was driving me crazy. I needed someone to verify that I wasn’t crazy.

Funny story – I was crazy.

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Photabulous, The Recap

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I threw clam chowder up once and I couldn’t eat it for about 6 years and that was a onetime vomit deal. Nothing like the incredible amounts of awesome pain I’ve been in with our old friend Blue Cheese. You’d think I got ran over by a truck and then wrung out like an old dishrag. Picture me lying prone, moisture-less and wrinkled up like an old prune, arm extended slightly up and meekly calling for water. Additionally, I’ve had about 10 narcoleptic naps the past few days and as Joe will tell you, normally I can’t fall asleep anywhere except in the bed with about 15 pillows moated around me, the lights out and the fan on low to lull me into unconsciousness. Sometimes there is chanting going on in the background and incense rolling out in tufts over the headboard. If he so much as breaths wrong, I stiffen and have to start the whole relaxation process* over again, starting with my toes. Man, I’m a party in the sack.

The first and only time I ate blue cheese prior to this past weekend was in high school. Someone dared me to taste it so I tongued a chunk, gagged, and then spent my hard-earned 5 dollars on a new Duran Duran cassette tape. I probably had an eating disorder and I threw up on purpose so I could fit into my super tight button fly stonewashed 501s, so I don’t think you can count it as a really sad episode in my life. Plus, Double Duran? I scored. (Simon! I waited for you for so long!)

Joe will routinely get salad with blue cheese. I still kiss him but I have to admit that it’s not high on my list of Things Joe Eats That Make Me Lust. It’s higher than onion and garlic but lower, much lower, than say, strawberries or chocolate.

Last weekend I took Alex to San Diego with me for a get together with the photabulous women I shoot photos with occasionally. (I can say occasionally now that it’s happened twice, right?) Anyhoo, we started the wonderful day eating brunch and then walking downtown looking for things to take photos of. We only annoyed a couple of people. Quite a successful feat for us. I must say that what Ocean Beach was lacking in silicone it more than made up for in body odor. BO in OB. GET IT?? And also? Unfortunate clothing choices.

While we waited for our food at Hodad’s, I heard my name called through the open window. And lo and behold, there was Joe’s Aunt Joan! Fun surprise. We chatted through the window until the angry man (ASShole!) sitting in between us “asked” us to stop.

At the beach we saw a dude with friendly parrots who used a very unique call to get them to come back. I believe it went something like, “Hey! Get back here!! NOW!!” And the weird thing is that they did.

Margot, Susan, Alex and I went to Old Town to the Living Room to eat fish tacos for dinner. And then Margot went home. (sadface)(hello, matt!)

On the way to Susan’s home, we stopped at Aaryn’s home. The minute I walked into the door her husband Sam put me to work folding towels. Just kidding. I love to fold clothes so I pushed my way into the Folding Circle. I just don’t like putting them away or hanging them up. Their home is quite lovely and we had great conversation but we missed seeing Ruby in the flesh. What? Kids don’t stay up past 11?

We finally made it to Susan’s where we found hand written notes scattered along the kitchen counter intermixed with plates and bowls of food. Twas a veritable smörgasbord and all fixed lovingly by Mr. Susan, Doug Myrland. Yes, Doug had given up on us ever really making it to the house and had long since gone to bed, but he left behind him the very best parts of himself and we consumed the delectable chicken wings and veggies and fried zucchini and fried olives. (Olives? Really?? Yes. They were yummy.) And herein is where we meet our old friend Blue Cheese because what would you dip all the wonderful crudités in if not blue cheese dressing? And it wasn’t just an ordinary blue cheese dressing. This was a Doug Myrlandized blue cheese dressing with additions that I can only imagine. Probably magic and fairy dust because it was the most delicious thing I’d ever had on raw carrots and celery sticks.

About a half gallon later, I went straight to bed where my stomach proceeded to not digest a single, solitary iota of any particle of food. One of the fun effects of stupid hypothyroid is slow digestion, which makes me never really feel hungry and I forget to eat because the food just sits there. It also means I’m pooping out chicken and blue cheese today from 3 days ago even though I emptied my stomach through the top vent by throwing up the entire drive home. Yes, I loved the blue cheese the first time but not the next 17 times. But, Doug! Thanks for being so sweet and next time we’ll get there sooner and eat with you. But I’m afraid I must bid the blue cheese adieu.**

I saw my old/new doc the other day and she upped my dose by about a kazzillion percent, was astonished at the lack of care I’d received during the year and a half I had been away from her and was righteously angry on my behalf as I told her all about how ridiculous and obtuse that dumb doctor was. I felt validated and safe. And then I cried real puppy dog tears and thanked her from the bottom of my heart for being so informed and saying all the things I needed to hear. After feeling my throat for what seemed like ages, she determined that the nodules are actually getting smaller. Instead of going crazy with some kind of invasive procedure, we’re going to wait and see. I like that. She even hugged me on the way out and gave me a two-month supply of Synthroid at the new, higher dose to save me money. You can’t beat that. As bad as the old place was, the new/old place is that great in contrast and I’m so glad to be back with them. There is a reason they don’t accept HMOs. It allows them to keep their level of care so much higher.

*My relaxation technique was given to me by one of my therapists where you start with either your head or your toes and consciously think about each body part relaxing while steadying and deepening your breathing. It usually works for me but it takes a dang long time.

**Alex just came home and told me that her stomach feels terrible and that she might start ralphing. I wonder if we caught a bug and that it had nothing to do with blue cheese at all? If that is the case, I’d like to apologize to Doug’s Blue Cheese Dip. Aaryn, did you say you got sick, too?

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Whaaas Up?

Guess what tomorrow is? No, forget it. I’ll just tell you. It’s the first ever LA Bloggers Live!

Readers list:

Joe from Artlung

Lynda from One Day at a Time

Deezee from Confessional Highway

Neil from Citizen of the Month

Jenn from Aka Jesais

Abigail from My Life According to Me

Will from Wildbell

Kevin from Kevin Charnas

Peter from The Buddha Diaries

Tim from LA Daddy

Join us tomorrow, Thursday, June 28th at 6:30pm at the Tangier Lounge.($4 cover charge at the door)

In other news, once upon a time, a long, long time ago, Grace and I were talking and she was all ‘You should see if Amy Sedaris would be on your craft panel at Blogher.’ and I was all ‘Oh, ya. Right. Like that would happen.’ and Grace was all ‘No. Seriously. You should because it would be so great.’ and I was all ‘Dude. If I could make that happen I think I might crap my pants.’ and she was all ‘I’m sure you can figure it out. Go forth! Make it happen!’ (Insert pretty illustrations here showing me pounding the pavement.) And so I did. And Amy Sedaris is going to be on my craft panel at Blogher along with Kathy Cano Murillo, Kristin Roach, and the fabulous Natalie Zee Drieu. And then we all lived happily ever after.