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December 30, 2005
Friday Shuffle - The Shuffle Your 2005 Bitch-Ass Outta Here Edition
I'm going to rant a bit after the shuffle. Stay tuned.
1. Not Pretty Enough - Kasey Chambers
2. Song 2 - Blur
3. Problems - Robert Randolph & the Family Band
4. This Love Affair - Rufus Wainwright
5. John, I'm Only Dancing - David Bowie
6. Best Friend - English Beat
7. Warm Beer & Women - Tom Waits
8. No Money Down - Soulard Blues Band
9. Can''t Get There From Here - REM
10. Shame - Morphine
For such a shit-ass year, that's a mighty fine shuffle right there. I can't balk when my favorite Bowie song appears. That's gotta be a sign of hope, right?
It seems whore-bitch 2005 is insisting on going out with the same fucking miserable bravado she's exhibited all year. Yesterday sucked. Really. We got some not-good financial news. Nothing life-shattering, but it puts a bunch of our plans that much further out of reach. Then I got some not-great health news during my doctor visit. Again, nothing life-shattering; just not what I wanted to hear even though I knew it was inevitable.
Basically, my PCOS is, as my doc said, "progressing". What does this mean? More drugs, for starters. The medication I've been taking for 3.5 years is pretty harsh on the liver, and I'm looking at having to take more. Hmmm, which would I rather have: the diabetes, uterine tumors, and cardiovascular disease that go with rampant PCOS, or liver disease from years of downing 2000+ milligrams of metformin? Decisions, decisions. Lemme think on that one and I'll get back to you.
There's the fertility issue, too. While I'm leaning towards not getting pregnant again, the progressing PCOS, along with my age, means that my chances of getting pregnant again are damn near non-existant. This isn't devastating news, but I don't like the fact that I don't get to be the one to decide if I have another pregnancy or not. Hell, a little over three years ago I thought I had no desire to be a parent. Then I had a major problem with the PCOS in which the word "hysterectomy" suddenly started making more appearances during doctor visits. That's what made me realize that, deep down, I wanted to have a child and to not be able to do so would be devastating. And we all know how that turned out, so I can't complain much. I'm lucky to have had one successful pregnancy, and to have my daughter. And my uterus. And I'm lucky that I have a great doctor who really does a great job of helping me manage this condition. It just feels like an uphill losing battle sometimes. Like now.
I'd hoped that this week would be fun and relaxing. B.'s off work, and I had hoped that we could have some good, fun family time. That hasn't happened. Clara Jane's been out of whack from all the holiday excitement. Then there was all the time spent hopping from doctor to doctor, which really did need to happen. But we've done very little as a family this week, and the things we have done have been dictated by one uber-cranky child. I'm just exhausted and disappointed, which, now that I think about it, pretty much describes this damn year on the whole: exhausting and disappointing.
I need to be at least a little positive, try to find some good in all of this. Good things did happen this year:
I'm not going to make a list of all the bad things that happened this year. What purpose would it serve? Pissing and moaning about the things I've already pissed and moaned about would be a waste. But I can see if I've actually learned anything.
With all the shit that went down this year - my dad's bypass surgery and subsequent retirement, my near-suicidal state during the end of the anxiety and panic therapy, the loss of Kara's mom and the horrible mass tragedies that seemed to happen one after another, I'll remember 2005 as the year I finally became an adult. Every single one of those events illustrated something I had never fully grasped before - how important every single human being truly is.
Facing the possible loss of one of my parents, the actual loss of a friend's parent, and the huge human losses in the wake of the tsunami, the hurricanes and the earthquakes was the slap in the face I needed to realize just how important being a parent really is. And not just perfect parents who seem to do everything right; any parent.
This year I learned that humanity's foundation is the nurturing we give each other, and that parental nurturing is the deepest, most fundamental nurturing of all. It's the most important thing in the world, even when it's done by someone who stays in her pajamas all day and all too often turns on a Tivo'd "Sesame Street" when she's sure that reading Everyone Poops for the ninth time today will force her to do a swan dive from the roof.
Where to go from here? I've been envisioning 2006 as being a year of great things, of putting into action the lessons learned in 2005. I keep seeing it as the year I sell my book and fulfill the one goal, the one dream that I've had for as long as I've known that books are written by people. Before 2005, I had plenty to write about, but didn't have the insight required to make it worth reading. Now, I think I have that. Paid a steep price for it, so I'll be damned if I let it go to waste.
Now, c'mere and gimme a hug. I think we all could use one.
Posted by Robin at 02:02 PM | Comments (11)
December 28, 2005
Why the Eye Doctor Dibalated My Eyes
Because, 1)he's a goddamn asshole and ... that's about it.
(With apologies to Eric Cartman)
B.'s job affords many benefits, one of them being the lovely medical flexible spending account. They take money out of his check before taxes, and when we spend money on health-related stuff, we send them receipts and money magically appears in our bank account. It's sweet, getting money back when we buy Tums, pregnancy tests, brain pills to fix the damage from the last positive pregnancy test, items to prevent a second pregnancy ... you get the picture.
The first(and only) pregnacy turned out to be a lot more expensive than expected. Since I entered into the whole labor and delivery thing pretty sure I wouldn't require a C-section, an additional three days in the hospital, two months of antibiotics, five months of hospital-grade breast pump rental, and several months of weekly psychotherapy. I was wrong, and because of this, last year's flexible spending budget was long-gone by October.
Never ones to make the same mistake twice, we opted to put a shitload of money into the '05 flexible spending account. Which means a few weeks ago we realized that there's enough money left in the account to rent that breast pump for another seven months. Not that there's any need for that. With flexible spending, it's use-it-or-lose-it, which is why I'm spending my winter break having every long-neglected orifice in my body inspected by professionals before the money gets tossed out with the medical waste.
Today was a two-fer double whammy. I got my carcass drug out of bed at the ghastly hour of 7:30 a.m. so that my entire family could pay a visit to the dentist, who last saw me the week I found out I was pregnant. I have no problems with the dentist, seeing as I've never had a dental problem in my life, save for four impacted wisdom teeth. Which is funny - basically my mouth was too small for all my teeth. Go figure. Otherwise, I've never had so much as a cavity or any orthodontia.
Today's dentist visit was unexceptional, as always, but I did have to ponder one thing, which has been pondered by many funnier people than me. Why in the hell does the hygentist wish to converse with me while she's scraping/hosing/vaccuming the inside of my mouth? Granted, she's been in this profession for a long time. Perhaps when she asks me, "What's your favorite Indian dish? Have you had the chicken tikka masala at the place across the street?" she translates this: "Guuuuuuurggggggggggblaaaaaaaspspspspspspsspspsttttttttttphtttttt," to mean "While the chicken tikka masala at House of India is lovely, I prefer their chicken ginger kebobs. The crispy charred Tandoori-roasted exterior coupled with the succulent, delicately spiced breast meat is a good alternative to the oft-oversauced traditional Indian fare," that I intended it to be. Or maybe she just gets her kicks watching patients slurp and blubber.
Once my dirty, filthy mouth was scrubbed clean, it was off to the optomotrist with a certain codependent former optician. Her presence was two-fold: 1) help me pick out new glasses, and 2) drive my ass home if I happened to require dialation. Which I did.
Have you ever picked out eyeglass frames with your pupils dialated? It's not fun. I just hope Kara was kind, and not using my wide-eyed helplessness as a means of getting even for the whole bra-fitting nightmare I put her through last week. All I know is, if I pick up my two pairs of glasses and one pair of prescription sunglasses next week and I look like Peggy Hill, Barney Martin or Carrie Donovan, I'm so going to kick her ass.
As for why the eye doctor dibalated my eyes, it was just because I got a rather high pressure reading on the little glaucoma poof test. So he dialate me because, "Although it's probably a problem with the poof machine, we want to make sure it's not a problem with your eyes." And yes, the problem was with the machine; my eyes are fine. Dialated, but fine. Goddamn asshole.
Tomorrow, it's off for the dreaded annual exam. You know which one. While no one enjoys this particular activity, for me it's sort of like going to the dentist; not fun, but nothing that freaks me out. For one thing, pregnancy and childbirth destroyed any last shred of modesty and dignity I ever possessed. These days, I'll pretty much show anything to anyone as long as they ask nicely and sterilize their hands first. And second, because I've already had the most surreal Well Woman Exam in history.
It was three years ago, and I was paying my first visit to the midwife who would eventually go on to be my midwife through my pregnancy. I was in the stirrups, and as she began then exam, she started making the usual get-to-know-you chit-chat, starting with the usual, "So, what do you do for a living?" question.
"I write a column for insert name of local magazine here," I replied, wincing as she gave a sturdy tug on what I'm assuming was one of my fallopian tubes.
Her head popped up from between my knees - her hands right where they had been when she asked the question, if you know what I mean - and squealed, "I knew I recognized your name when I saw your file! I love your column! It's the first thing I read every month when I get insert name of local magazine here!"
That's right. My virgin encounter with a fan of my writing occured when said fan had her hand in my vagina.
I'm sure I won't return from tomorrow's appointmet with any stories like that, as they now know me at the doctor's office, what with having passed my uterus around the delivery room awhile back. And I trust that there will be no dibalating this time.
Posted by Robin at 07:46 PM | Comments (3)
December 27, 2005
Holiday Post Script of the Damned
Hello. My name is Robin. I want to go to sleep. Unlike my daughter, who has decided that her holiday gift to the world will be two-fold:
1) She will never, ever nap again, lest she rob the world of her delightful presence.
-and-
2)She will single-handledly end world hunger by refusing to ever eat a meal again, subsisting solely on stale dinner rolls, chocolate-covered pretzels (which she will also feed to the 1,847 animatronic Santas at her grandmother's house) and her great-granny's spicy party mix.
This does not feel like a vacation.
We arrived in my hometown Christmas Eve afternoon, which was blessedly uneventful. Gift-opening, dinner with my grandparents, and such. This year's Christmas miracle: during our Christmas eve dinner of mushroom omelets, sausage, hash browns, biscuits, and fruit salad, Clara Jane loudly counted to five and acknowledged the number four!! God bless us everyone one two three four five!
It was quite peaceful. Well, as peaceful as can be expected considering this:
Hello. My name is Chigger. You might remember me as Robin's dads 2004 Christmas surprise. I'm a dingo. Don't tell the government.
Why does he have that large stick shoved in his mouth? Because I was sick to death of him chewing on my arm, leg, boobs and face.
Much to my chagrin, Chigger has decided that he likes, nay, loves me. And let me tell you, it's a love that hurts, what with all the nipping, biting, pawing and being herded like a goat.
Christmas day brought the morning phone call from my in-laws in Michigan where the phone gets passed to everyone in the house. My in-laws say a few pleasantries, then patiently wait for us to talk. Which isn't much different than their non-holiday phone calls. They dial, then wait expectantly, like they're calling us just so we can get any pent-up talking out of our systems.
The big news really didn't surprise me much. B.'s brother, who has lived on an island off the coast of Portugal for four years, is moving to Vienna. With a girl. She's from Portugal and her name has been bandied around for most of the time M. has lived there. So I'm not sure why everyone seems so surprised that M. and A. are more than friends. Come on. M.'s a heterosexual man in his 30s. Heterosexual men in their 30s aren't looking for women to be their friends. They already have friends by that point in their lives.
So, 2005 will be the year that I got a quasi-sister-in-law that I will probably never meet for Christmas.
It's also been pointed out that, even though I moved to another city to be with B., A. is moving to an entirely different country to be with M. Which means they win. I guess.
While all conversations with my in-laws are awkward at best, I particularly hate the Christmas conversation. While I'm not exactly of beacon of Jesus, I do feel particularly bad about the fact that, every Christmas, I'm forced to lie through my teeth to my in-laws. Somewhere, there's a baby Jesus in a nativity scene who weeps for my soul every Christmas morning as I partake in this conversation:
MIL: So, how did you like your gift from us?
Me: Oh! That! I was just going to bring that up. (Here's where Baby Jesus begins to well slightly.) It's lovely! Just ... wonderful (And here's where the first teardrop falls.) I'd been meaning to get myself a velour bathrobe that covers me from chin to floor/a set of polyester Linda Evans-style scarves/a pair of beady-eyed ceramic seagull wallhangings whose heads project from the wall! (Right here? This is when the sobbing begins.) I just love them. Really. They're perfect. (And here's where Baby Jesus becomes so racked with hysterical sobbing that he shoots spit-up through his nose, sealing my soul's eternal damnation.)
I don't mean for this to sound ungrateful. Truth is, I think holiday gift-giving is entirely out of control. I know my mother-in-law gets really stressed, trying to find things to buy for me, and that's the last thing I want. Gift-giving should be fun and fulfilling, not something that makes the giver feel like crap.
That being said, I do love that, every year when I open my gift, the first words out of B.'s mouth are always - always - "Boy, they really don't know you at all." I've also reached a point where I hope for really awful gifts from them.
But I digress.
Christmas day was spent with these people:
That's the extended maternal lineage. From the bottom left we have my uncle and aunt, my mom (Yes, I posted the family photo that was the least flattering of her, just as a bit of punishment for her insistance on reading my blog. Hi Ma!), and The Cuz. From the back left, we have The Cuz's little brother (commonly known as the younger male cuz), my dad, Granny, Grandpa, B., Clara Jane and me.
There were a few others, like the older couple that lives across the road from my parents. They're lovely people, really, and I always enjoy seeing them. However, I think the male half of the couple purposefully touched my boob when he hugged me goodbye. I intended to take a photo of him to share with you because, sweet Jesus, that man has the most impressively swirly comb-over in the history of bad hairstyles. On a good day, his head looks like a soft-serve Dairy Queen cone. But I refrained. Had I known he was going to get a cheap thrill, I wouldn't have exercised such restraint.
The other visitors: an aunt and uncle from my dad's side, their daughter (10 years my senior), her husband (my dad's age) and their daughters (ages 14 and 12). I do love my aunt; I really do. She's generous to a fault and works her ass off to keep our family together. The rest of 'em, I can do without. I wrote a bit about that cousin last year, which really explains a lot.
Anyway, every single person in that family has name issues. I have been with B. (whose name is Brian) for almost eight years. We've been married for over six of those years. Clara Jane, whose name was made public long before her birth, has been with us for almost two years. Despite the lengthy amounts of time my husband and child have been in my family, if you ask my aunt, uncle or cousin who those people in my family are, they will tell you, "Why, that's Claire and Byron!"
It's not a simple mispronounciation, either. We get cards addressed to Claire and Byron. To my aunt's credit, she did get Clara Jane's name correct on her Christmas card this year, which constitutes Christmas Miracle #2.
I'm not sure why my Neil Diamond-obsessed cousin and her two teen daughters have dyed their hair Goth black. Nor do I really want to know.
Of course, Christmas is all about the kiddies. Clara Jane got a mountain of presents to which she responded with a great big "Eh. More presents. Right. Can I go to the dining room and listen to my 'Sesame Street' CD?"
We did have a bit of unwanted excitement. During the frenzied gift distribution part of the day, my nearly-80-year-old granny tripped over a gift and fell. She's fine, save for a little bruise, but it scared the shit out of everyone. And just so you don't think my own issues with panic and anxiety are an anomoly in my family, this was my mother's reaction:
"I just knew when she fell that she had broken her hip, and I read somewhere that once a woman breaks a hip she almost always dies within a year and I kept thinking, 'Oh no! This is her last Christmas!'."
I don't know where I get my penchant for over-reaction. I really don't. (Hi Ma!)
Hello. My name is Bubba. I'm a stallion. Wanna ride me?
Ride, we did. Bubba's trained to pull carts and carriages, so we went riding on Monday afternoon before departing for home.
Cart riding's fun, until Bubba decides to unload the contents of his intestines mere inches from my child's face. Not that it bothered her much. She just pointed and said, "Ooooooh, look at that! It's good!" Considering that Clara Jane has spent her entire life constipated, I can understand why she was impressed.
Hello. My name is still Chigger. I find that after a day of grazing in horse pies, nothing cleans the system quite like a tasty bottle of Suave shampoo.
And with that we hit the road home, and I think our current state can best be described with this parting shot from the three-hour drive home:
(Why yes, I got a new camera for Christmas. However did you guess?)
Posted by Robin at 02:02 PM | Comments (11)
December 24, 2005
How Kara & I Came to Blows: Anatomy of a Beating in Photos
Poor Clara Jane. She's a little drummer girl without a drum. All she has is a kick-ass mullet and some wooden spoons to bang on her high chair tray.
Sometimes, when she's not in her instrument-free house, Clara Jane is able to find an outlet for her musical urges, even if it means annoying an entire coffeehouse with her running scales.
If only someone would help erradicate her music-free existance! If only someone would swoop in with a big ol' box of noise! O Kara Claus! Please save Christmas!
Bring me monkey maracas!
And a jangly pandourine!
And then - then! Bring on the rattly, thumpy, bead-filled drum! Beat the turtle drum, Clara Jane!
A merry KISSmas to all! And to all an Anthrax goodnight!
(Kara's getting a box of bees for her birthday next year, mark my word.)
Posted by Robin at 12:44 PM | Comments (8)
December 23, 2005
Welcome to Happy Boobieland!
There was once a rumor going around the internets that I love bra-shopping. It's not so much as I love bra-shopping; I just happen to frequent a really great bra shop. And I should know a good bra shop when I find one because I gots me some boobs.
My first trip to Ann's Bra Shop was two years ago this month. It was six weeks before Clara Jane's birth. A little background: I have a strict no-sweatpants policy. I don't go into public in sweatpants, yoga pants, or any other form of pajama-type clothing. There's nothing quite as sad as a fat girl in public in clothes that say, "Yes, I'm fat and I just don't give a shit anymore." The day I go into public wearing sweats and an oversized Tweety Bird t-shirt is the day I want a bullet in my head. But at that stage in my pregnancy, once I got past all the holiday festivities I officially said, "Fuck it. I'm fat and eight months pregnant and I just don't give a shit anymore." Besides, since my maternity clothes were pretty damn tight at that point I relaxed my rule and surrendered to the sweat's siren song.
It was around this time that I was forced to accept the very, very obvious: my breasts had grown to the size of small European cars, and would only get more frighteningly gigantic once the breastfeeding commenced. I had a hard enough time finding bras that fit when my boobs aren't of Mini Cooper proportions.
So, I got the crane, loaded my 800 pounds of mammery and child material into my vehicle and went to Ann's. Let me tell you, if they can fit me, with my 44H* leaking boobs, into bras, they can fit anyone. I'll never buy another bra off the rack, and I drive everyone crazy, telling them this is the way to buy bras. And I'm telling you. This is the way to buy bras.
Of course, it goes without saying that I've been nagging my partner in buxon codependence for two years to get herself a fitting. Today, she relented.
*They have since returned to a more manageable, albeit still somewhat alarming, size.
The bra shop has their deal worked out to military precision. You walk in, put your name on the sign-in sheet, browse for a few minutes and are then whisked into a dressing room, where a helpful bragirl promptly removes your shirt and shoves her hand into your existing bra. They don't waste time, those bragirls. Once you've been thoroughly fondled, felt, jiggled, measured and jostled, they bring on the brassieres, inspect the trajectory and velocity of the bosoms, make sure your nipples are pointing in the same direction, take your money, burn your old bra and send you on your merry, violated way.
For boobs that sit closer to my chin than my navel, it's a small price to pay. Today, Kara paid that price as well.
"Welcome to Happy Boobieland!" I announced as we pulled into the parking lot.
During the browsing phase of the visit, I realized that Kara and I have some rather sizist attitudes that we should probably be ashamed of, but aren't. For one thing, laughing at the 36Bs because they look like something a little girl might put on a dolly (to our eyes, which have been jaded by years of looking at our own buxomicity) is a bit rude. On the flipside, the abject horror we expressed at the 40GGs is probably because in seeing those bras, we are seeing our future. And the future scares the fuck out of us.
Because I respect my friends (somewhat), I won't go into the details of Kara's fitting. I'll just say that, while I was relaxing in the waiting area with a periodical, Kara's bragirl came stomping over, yelling, "Robin! We need you back here!"
That's right. You read it here. I was officially called upon to inspect Kara's breasts, thus hurtling us into the codependent stratosphere.
And I've got to say, she looked a little lumpy. We didn't get that bra.
Kara was overly concerned that she might end up with ugly bras, as the selection of cute bras in our size can be rather small.
"There's only two people who are going to see your underwear," I said. "One of them is you, and the other doesn't care. I mean, really. How much attention do you pay to the wrapping paper before you tear into your Christmas presents?"
(For the record, I just sat here - damn near on bended knee, screaming, "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease, Kara! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease let me leave the part about the wrapping paper!" She, of course, enjoyed hearing me plead.)
"Why do they put bows on bras? Dear God, why??" she screamed, so tortured was she by the fondling.
"It's so we can tell the girl bras from the boy bras," I explained.
At that time I was examining this particular foundation garment. Let me just say that the photos don't quite capture the details. Like the fishnettiness of it. Or the ropiness of the bows between the cups and on the straps. Feminine, yet maritime. "If they have this one in our size, we could finally capture the Great White Whale!" I yelled into Kara's dressing room as a bragirl walked past, shooting me a look that said, "Shut your mouth, Busty, or I'll jam my cold, bony hand into your bra and give you something to yell about."
She got bras. I got a few good laughs. I got to discuss my boobs in public in a place where it's socially acceptable, which always makes me happy. Everyone was happy. Well, Kara's not quite happy just yet. She's still feeling a bit violated. But she'll be fine, once she gets used to resting her chin on her tits.
Posted by Robin at 04:55 PM | Comments (11)
Friday Shuffle - The Obligatory Holiday Edition
For the three people who are still reading and not doing what they should be doing: drinking eggnog to the point of blackout while hiding under the dining room table:
1. Red Nosed Reindeer Blues - Asylum Street Spankers
2. White Christmas - Bing Crosby
3. Gee Whiz, It's Christmas - Carla Thomas
4. The Chipmunk Song - The Chipmunks (although this year I like this version much better than the original.)
5. Five-Pound Box of Money - Pearl Bailey
6. Run Rudolph Run - Chuck Berry
7. I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm - Billie Holiday
8. Merry Christmas, Baby - Lou Rawls
9. Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt
10. (And my personal favorite, which had me singing and dancing in the cheese aisle at Trader Joe's last week) It's Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - U2
Posted by Robin at 08:42 AM | Comments (2)
December 22, 2005
Happy Head Injury Holiday!
I spent some time riding the short bus when I was in elementary school. However, it was the short bus to the weekly gifted program. B. was also of advanced intelligence at an early age, but if I remember correctly his school system didn't have a program for singling out and drawing attention to the smart kids like mine did. With our genes (and egos) combined, we're somewhat expecting Clara Jane to follow in our big-brained/little-bus footsteps.
However, after last night, I'm concerned that she might be on that bus for other reasons entirely.
6:45 PM - While playing in B.'s office, she walked backwards into a chair, clunking the back of her head hard enough to merit a meltdown.
7:20 PM - Clara Jane has learned the joy of standing in the middle of a room, arms flung wide, and spinning until she pukes. Well, not that she's puked yet, but you know it's just a matter of time. Anyway, she spun and squealed, then attempted to walk across the kitchen. You would have thought she'd been dipping into the pomegranate cocktails from the staggering. She made it halfway across the room before falling directly into the doorframe on her right. But she was fine! She can walk! What are you insinuating, that she's drunk? She's fine!
She righted herself, started to walk again, and promptly fell to her left, conking her head on the doorframe. Screaming commences.
7:50 PM - The previous head injuries forgotten (because, let's face it, that's the perk of head injuries; you forget them rather quickly), Clara Jane partakes in her usual post-bath activity: she sprints from the bathroom, stark naked, finds me, throws her hands in the air and screams, "I'm naked! Mama! I'm naked!" It's a delightful routine.
Last night, while announcing her nudity, Clara Jane sprinted across the kitchen and dining room, right towards my desk. I've got a little pull-out lapdesk that was not in its loaded upright position. It was sticking straight out, and my kid was headed for it, and so engrossed in her nakedness (she gets that from her father) that she showed no signs of stopping.
But stop, she did, when her forehead made contact with the lapdesk with such force and speed that it knocked her backwards onto her little naked ass. I swooped her up in my arms, snuggling her while she sobbed, trying to see if her eyes were pointing in the same direction when I felt something on my foot.
How many blows to the head does it take to literally knock the piss out of someone? Three, apparently.
None of the head injuries were severe. Otherwise, I wouldn't be writing this; I'm not that heartless. And yes, I checked on her in the night, so concerned was I about the state of her jostled little brain. But she's fine. In fact, in the time it took me to take off my urine-soaked clothing, run into the kitchen and yell, "I'm naked!", she was completely over Head Injury #3. She'd moved on to Naked Gift Unwrapping.
Nonetheless, I'm taking back all of her Christmas gifts and exchanging them for a helmet. She'll thank me someday when she's on that teeny little bus.
Posted by Robin at 11:11 AM | Comments (4)
December 21, 2005
The Bad Trip
Clara Jane has returned and, as usual, I find myself racking my brain. How do I parent, again? I can't remember. You mean I can't just let her have free reign of the Teletubbies library on our DVR and leave an open box of Cheerios on the floor for her to graze from? I'm supposed to do stuff with her? Like what? Does she like drinking espresso and beer? Because that's the kind of stuff I like to do. No? Shit.
Last Friday, when we were in the truck on our way to meet my parents, out of the blue Clara Jane said, "Butterfly House! Let's go to the Butterfly House!" When I explained that no, we weren't going to the Butterfly House, she interpreted it as, "No Clara Jane. We're not going to the Butterfly House. The Butterfly House was torched in a fiery inferno. All the butterflies are dead and it's all your fault!" Which would explain the wailing that followed.
So today, we went to the Butterfly House.
Now, we've been to the Butterfly House quite a few times. We know how it works. Don't touch the butterflies. Don't touch the flowers. If you can manage it, don't touch the walkways with your feet. I understand these rules, and I fully understand the need for them. I work hard to make sure my kid follows these rules as closely as possible.
Within minutes of walking into the conservatory, Clara Jane picked up a fuzzy pink bloom on the ground which had fallen off a plant. One of the botonists was instantly on top of us: "She needs to put that down."
"Right," I said, chasing Clara Jane while trying to snatch the fallen bloom from her grip.
"She needs to put that down and not touch any of the flowers," he repeated. "We don't know the toxicity of any of these plants!"
Well.
That fills me with confidence. Dude. You're a botonist. In an indoor garden. Every single thing in here was planted on purpose. Every single plant has a little sign. You know the toxicity; you're just trying to scare us.
And it worked. A group of parents with toddlers overheard and an audible gasp arose. A few of them looked at me like I was feeding Clara Jane a spoonful of arsenic.
Obviously, the flower was, indeed, toxic. Looks like it was a mild psychotropic.
Clara Jane enjoyed the buzz, but now she's lying in her crib, fighting the images of six-headed botonists with lizard's feet. I hear babies never forget their first bad trip.
She also hallucinated some giant caterpillars:
On Wednesday he ate one tripped-out toddler, but he was still hungry. For her increased toxicity levels gave him a wicked case of the munchies.
In other news of idiots saying stupid things to me today ...
Once Clara Jane came down from The Pink Haze, she demanded a chicken taco, along with a package of Nutter Butters, some Orange Crush and a box of Cocoa Puffs. As we were eating, I noticed a woman watching Clara Jane with that blissed-out look that ovarian types tend to get while watching small children. Either that, or she'd been fondling the fluffy pink flowers, too. As she was leaving the restaurant she stopped at our table and said, "Your little girl is so cute. She must look exactly like your husband."
All I can say is, that bitch best have been smoking crack.
Posted by Robin at 01:58 PM | Comments (6)
December 20, 2005
My Flying Saucer
My flying saucer, where can you be
Since that sad night that you sailed away from me?
My flying saucer, I pray this night
You will sail back before the day gets bright
My flying saucer, fly back for home
You will get lost in the universe alone
My flying saucer, end all my fears
Sail back tonight, love and kiss away my tears
My flying saucer, I pray this night
You will sail back before the day gets bright
I've been thoroughly addicted to this little song - "My Flying Saucer" - for the past 24 hours. Words by Woody Guthrie, recording by Billy Bragg and Wilco. I've been listening to this CD - Mermaid Avenue, Volume II - for years, but for some reason this song lept at me yesterday and it won't let go. Which is fine with me.
I love nothing more than a good song about missing someone.
Of course, when Clara Jane's visiting her grandparents, I miss her, but it's rarely the painful, gonna-wilt-if-I-don't-see-her kind of missing. It's more of a vague, something's-not-right feeling. The former feeling always makes a few surprise appearances, though, always when I least expect it. Like last night. I had spent an hour knitting with Angela, then hit the grocery store.
It was after 8 PM and the store was fairly deserted. Normally, I love this. I don't remember a time when I didn't love going into a grocery store, alone, late in the evening. When I was in college and living with far too many roommates, I often did my grocery shopping in the middle of the night. I liked the solitude it provided. These days, being in a grocery store at a time without other customers, and without a tagalong parked (often whining) in the cart just doesn't happen. So I reveled a little.
About 3/4 of the way through my shopping I thought, "Wow. This is great. But I'm really looking forward to going home, getting into my pajamas, and snuggling on the couch with Clara Jane before she goes to bed."
And then I remembered. She's not there.
There was no reveling during the last 1/4 of the shopping trip. Instead, I thought about missing. I thought about the song I'd been listening to all day, and the longing and sadness in its words. Sweet little words that I won't hesitate to teach Clara Jane sometime soon, if only to make her stop singing Walt Whitman's Neice". Musically, it's jaunty and jangly; sadness disguised.
I've always thought that missing someone is the most powerful emotion. Not the most important; the most powerful. It's not love that makes us do crazy things for another person. More often than not, it's missing someone - or the fear of missing someone - that leads us to do the crazy and brave.
When I wrote about anxiety and panic last week, I wrote about the intense fear of loss that dictated so much of my life. It wasn't the loss that scared me the most; it was the belief that I might miss the lost one so terribly that it might do me in.
Once, I missed someone so much that I left my career, a town I loved, my friends, and my entire life to pack up and move to an unfamiliar city with no job and no money, just because I couldn't live with that feeling of missing someone anymore. The fear, uncertainly and sadness that came with leaving everything I knew was intense, but not nearly as intense as that feeling of missing someone.
In the ten months that B. and I lived in different cities, there were only two weekends when we weren't together. The first was during the first month. The second, Christmas, but we followed it by spending a week together. During that week we took measures to make sure we'd never miss each other again; we bought our house.
I think a lot about those ten months, of falling in love with 120 miles of interstate between us, of counting days every single week until we were together. There's an intensity that comes with that degree of missing someone. This week, it's been seven years since that last weekend we spent apart, but I can still feel that intensity. The feeling of finally arriving at his apartment every other Friday night, after the work week, the drive and traffic. Walking in the door and into the arms of what I'd spent five days missing. It's so intense that I can still remember the smell of his apartment and the smell of his skin. I can feel the relief that would wash across the muscles in my shoulders as soon as I arrived.
The sickening way missing him made me feel was matched only by the comfort of that first moment of reunion.
Every Sunday night, before we'd part, we'd spend an hour or two in bed. Not necessarily doing anything (although that wasn't uncommon) other than spooning together, trying to stockpile a bit of each other to counteract the anticipation of missing. When we moved in together, we swore that we would continue this little Sunday night routine. We'd turn off the TV, drop whatever chores needed to be done, and just stockpile that affection and contact. I think we did that the first week we lived together, and that was it. It just wasn't necessary anymore, not when we were finally able to spread the affection over seven days a week instead of two and a half.
While there was a lot I hated about being apart those ten months, I wouldn't trade it. Missing B. made me see very early in the relationship how important he was, and how living my life without him just wasn't as good as living it with him. We didn't get the chance to take each other for granted. It forced us to really get to know each other in a way that we probably wouldn't have if we'd been in the same city.
But truth be told, sometimes I miss the missing, just a little.
Posted by Robin at 09:25 AM | Comments (12)
December 19, 2005
How I'm Spending My Day
Since Clara Jane's still with the grandparents, I've been afforded a day to work. Here's what I've accomplished:
1. Crabby letter regarding a lack of payment for some work I've done.
2. Caught up on neglected emails.
3. Dug for change in my couch cushions (the real reason why I host parties).
4. Danced around my kitchen to the Ben Folds version of "Video Killed the Radio Star". Forgot I wasn't wearing a bra and bruised my face during one particularly gazelle-like leap.
5. Bitched about the lack of holiday cards in my life. Got a bunch of non-card-sending lazy motherfuckers in my life.
6. Inadvertantly got some sweet, sweet revenge. Last week my mom taught Clara Jane to call me, B. and my dad by our first names. Today, she called to report that this morning, with no prompting, Clara Jane yelled, "Hey! Maxine! More milk! Maxine! Milk!" at her.
7. Started revising my book proposal, but stopped when I realized I was writing it as a numbered list, which seems to be all I can write these days.
8. Attempted to find the perfect balance of books similar to mine that illustrate that there's a market for what I'm writing without mentioning so many that it makes the market appear over-saturated. Stand a better chance of finding the check book I misplaced in 1997.
9. Ate some really horrible leftover salad bar chicken soup.
10. Listened to the deluxe edition of Dusty in Memphis in its entirity. Battled wicked urge to grab some copendent friends for Germantown Comissary banana pudding eaten by the Mississippi River.
11. Spent 20 minutes searching hard drive for photo of codependents eating banana pudding by the Mississippi River in Memphis with no luck. Too bad. You would have enjoyed it, I'm sure.
12. Pondering that it's been entirely too long since I've been folded up in a hide-a-bed. That, I found a photo of. Trust me, you don't want to see it, even though it's some funny shit.
13. Laughed over this long-ago exchange:
Me (Slightly slurred, mostly from exhaustion. Certainly not from the roll I played in eradicating a certain Memphis bar of its entire stock of Rolling Rock beer): I love y'all so much. I really do.
Sara (Really slurred, definitely from the roll she played in eradicating a certain Memphis bar of its entire stock of Rolling Rock beer. Staring into a large bowl of gumbo.): Dude. I have no idea what I'm eating.
14. Make plans for another lost weekend in Memphis with all my friends when I'm a rich and famous published writer. Maybe with one of those tours companies that plans trips for senior citizens.
Posted by Robin at 01:51 PM | Comments (20)
December 18, 2005
Apres-Apres Party
1. I don't feel like someone who drank six pomegranate cocktails* last night. I feel fantastic! Not fantastic enough to compose real paragraphs, but pretty damn fantastic considering the amount of vodka and brandy that beat the hell out of my liver last night.
*A drink of my own concoting, and quite divine, I might add. Feel free to make them at your own holiday gathering. Or for breakfast. I'd be honored if you'd refer to it as the Poppy:
1 shot vodka (I prefer Ketel 1)
1 shot pomegranate juice
1 shot Kirsch (cherry brandy)
1 wedge lemon
Put ice in a martini shaker. Add shots. Give the lemon a squeeze and toss it in. Shake. Pour. Imbibe. Dance on the dining room table with your pants around your ankles. Take photos and share them with me.
2. I like cooking again. I knew I would, once I quit catering. I just didn't expect to like it again so soon. Last night's menu:
- Pan-Seared Flank Steak with Mushrooms in Butter and Garlic
- Roasted Salmon with Tangerine, Chili and Ginger with Arugula, Tangerine and Dried Cherry Salad
- Really Terribly Goopy Fondue That Would Have Made Excellent Wallpaper Paste, but Everyone Ate it Regardless.
- Blue Cheese with Toasted Pecans and Sage
- Pumpkin Spice Donut Pudding (which is my granny's bread pudding recipe, made with Krispy Kreme pumpkin spice cake donuts instead of bread)
All my recipes. And it was fun. Cooking is fun again! This makes me insanely happy.
3. I really don't know what possesses me to throw holiday parties. There are just too many other things going on and it's hard to get everyone I'd like to see together at the same time. From now on, I think I need to forgo the holiday stuff and do something in, say, mid-January, when everyone's bored senseless. This isn't to say that last night wasn't great. It was. I should host more small gatherings. It was nice to be able to sit and actually converse, instead of mingling.
4. Mindy makes the most fabulous things with paper and photos. She surprised me with an amazing Clara Jane photo book. Seriously. Damn near made me cry, it was so perfect. I wish I could show it to you, I really do.
5. Although Angie couldn't make it to the party, she did leave a Starbucks gift card in the amount of a venti eggnog latte on my porch yesterday morning. I think that means I owe her a blow job. Feel free insert the "fluid pudding" joke of your liking in this space.
6. Speaking of being horrible, I was actually very well-behaved in the presence of Mr. Greenlight. He was the one who brought up sodomy. Not me.
7. My 8.5-year-old Basset hound, Chloe, finally succeeded in leaping over the back of the couch after months of trying. While I avoid giving her table scraps, I felt like she earned a bit of fresh-from-the-oven salmon for that feat. So not only is her old body feeling the brunt of the jump, but she also has a burnt tongue.
So overwhelming was Chloe's night that she slept where she dropped:
Yes, she's asleep. Yes, I'm headless. Yes, Mindy has the cutest headband and boots in the world. And yes, B.'s totally drunk.
8. This morning, my codependent little elf and I had our own little Christmas morning gift exchange. Because we're all about the schmoop, we surprised our men-folk with stockings of goodies. They both got Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas on DVD. Why yes, Kara and I are both involved with 11-year-olds.
9. Kara gives good codependent loot. There's the Vertigo 2005//U2 Live From Chicago DVD, partially filmed at one of the U2 shows we attended (new link - I originally posted the wrong one). Since Greenlight gave her the same thing, we've discussed synching the DVDs and watching them at the same time, at our respective homes, and looking for ourselves. Codependency: the gift that keeps giving.
She also gave me a big pile of porn in the form of sweet, sweet sweaty Tyler Florence's new book. You do know how much I lah-uve Tyler, right? His new book, Eat This Book (yes, SIR!), should be sold in a brown paper wrapper, because it's pure porn! I love it. I love it so. And I apologize to everyone in my house this morning who had to witness how much I love it.
As if that wasn't enough, Kara also loaded me up with goodies from Lush. I haven't tried the two bath bombs yet, but I've become intimately acquainted with their lovely Candy Fluff and Silky Underwear dusting powders. A word to the wise: when desperately trying to open the can of dusting powder, don't pound on it with the antennea of your cell phone, no matter how good of an idea it may seem. Because when the antennea finally penetrates the plastic with the use of much force, the geyser of sugar-scented powder that erupts will leave you looking like you've spent an evening in a toilet stall at Studio 54 with Liza, Bianca and a Colombian named Hernando who wants cash from you now.
10. Clara "Thank God I Missed This Soiree" Jane is visiting her grandparents and having a lovely time gorging herself on Bugles. B. is punishing himself today by hauling his hungover ass to the stores to Christmas shop for me. I'd love to see this, this, these, or this, which doesn't smell nearly as slutty as you might think. But really, I'll be thrilled with whatever he gets me. The fact that I'm home, in my pajamas, alone all day today is just about the best gift in the world.
Posted by Robin at 11:54 AM | Comments (9)
December 17, 2005
Apres-Partay
Apres means before, right?
This is a first. Whenever I throw a party, I'm usually running like a madwoman until the second the guests arrive. But here I am, an hour and a half before any guests arrive, and I'm done. Fin.
Well, except for the actual cooking. But that just involves throwing food onto heat. Everything else is done.
And getting out of my pajamas. Maybe putting on makeup.
Really, that's less work than it seems.
I could use the time to do something about my neighbors. Remember them? Yeah, they're still around. We've heard nary a peep out of them since last spring, when our friendly township police officers told them that, if they phoned in one more bogus complaint about my dogs, there would be hell to pay.
This afternoon, B. returned from throwing the dogs outside and said, "Guess what the drunk idiot's kids are doing."
I can't even begin to answer that question.
"They're in the backyard, throwing knives at their shed."
Well then. Of course. That was my first guess.
I'm not sure what I should do about this sitution. There will be some strapping young men at tonight's party; I could commission them to help me move. But there's that problem of not having anyplace to move to just yet.
But really, when you think about it, knife-throwing kids with traces of fetal alcohol syndrome, educated by a bad school system, is probably a self-correcting problem.
Posted by Robin at 04:34 PM | Comments (3)
December 16, 2005
Friday Shuffle - The RSVP'd Off Edition
I've been too busy with party prep to shuffle. I've officially hit that point where I'm wondering why in the hell I throw parties. But that happens the night before every party, and I always get over it. I'm sure this will be no different. It'll be lovely. Intimate. Right. Shuffle.
1. Time is on My Side - Irma Thomas
2. Folsom Prison Blues (Live at San Quintin) - Johnny Cash
3. Life Like Weeds - Modest Mouse
4. Seven Year Ache - Roseanne Cash
5. Angels Walk - Paul Westerberg
6. The Lifting - REM
7. Charlie Don't Surf - The Clash
8. The Cool, Cool River - Paul Simon
9. September in the Rain - Julie London
10. Come as You Are - Peter Wolf
What a lovely shuffle. I think it's refreshed me enough that I can pick my tired ass up off the floor and clean the toilet. That's some powerful shufflage right there.
Posted by Robin at 05:34 PM | Comments (4)
December 15, 2005
Let Me Throw Some of the Punches at You Tonight
Dear Kara,
I'm sorry for punching you during one of Bono's pleas for love and peace during tonight's U2 concert. It was wrong of me and I had no idea you would be such a pussy about it sustain such extensive injuries.
Not that this excuses my behavior, but I would like to explain what was happening in my mind prior to the beat-down. It was during Where the Streets Have No Name, my all-time favorite song ever in the history of the world. I was caught up in my thoughts about how this song Bono wrote during his 1985 stint of doing famine relief in Ethopia has morphed into a song that will forever in my mind be connected to my daughter. And yes, I was a little over-excited, which is why I broke Cardinal Rule of Cooldom #73 - I made the mistake of waving to The Edge when he looked our way. Waved at him like he was an old pal walking towards me in a parking lot.
Yes, I know that's a manditory reduction of 20 cool points from my already low reserves. And I know it's your duty as my codependent barnacle dear friend to reduce the cool points as necessary. You just happened to catch me in a vulnerable moment of weakness and I struck. For that, I apologize.
But look on the bright side: since I nailed you in the upper arm with the pinkie edge of my fist, the resulting bruise will be in the shape of Africa. Maybe Bono will take pity on you think you're a badass for sporting an Africa bruise and will ask you to help the cause.
Again, I'm terribly sorry for the pain and suffering I caused you. I appreciate that you're a much better person than me. Otherwise, I'd probably still be puking up my guts from the pummeling I surely deserved. You're a good friend and I'm sorry I'm such a vicious behemouth.
Your troubled pal,
Jake La Motta
PS - Tell Greenlight I'm sorry I broke his toy.
Posted by Robin at 12:27 AM | Comments (8)
December 14, 2005
Let's Never Speak of the Panic Again, Okay?
Well, that's the last time I brag about my anxiety-free state. I open my big mouth and the universe says, "Oh, you think you're so laid-back, don't you? Well ... try this on for size!". Then the universe begins assembling her crossbow while cackling.
I'm fine. Really. It's just been a rough couple of days.
I'm being held captive in my own home by Queen Bitch Molars. The teething is never going to end, is it? Clara "Fang" Jane is just going to keep gnashing out new teeth until her head is covered with pearly little spikes. Like Hellraiser, but with teeth instead of needles.
I think it goes without saying that, if we had wallpaper in our house, the incessant whining that has transpired over the past few days would have peeled it right off the sheetrock.
I don't handle the whining well. Because I'm spoiled. I have the most easy-going child in the world, so I'm not used to her being irritated and whiny. Parents with chronically whiny childredn, please feel free to smack me in the back of the head for that. But damn if I'm not completely shredded from the whining, the shrieking, the clinging to my person and the throwing of chairs like she's a disgruntled fan at a Guns n' Roses concert. By the time B. got home from work yesterday I was composing this ad for Craiglist:
Hey gypsies! Looking for that perfect holiday gift that won't break the bank? Buy this kid! Cheap! Molars not included.
After two hours of quiet time while B. and The Beast went to the library and grocery store, I was regaining my equilibrium. So was Clara Jane. When she opted to walk across the kitchen backwards in the nude while shouting, "I'm naked! Back-a-lards! I'm naked!", I called my mom to share the funny. As usual, I just launched into the story.
"Hey, can I call you back? We're at the emergency room," she said, once I finished my story.
Well, then.
I'd gotten a rather odd phone call from my dad about an hour before that. Odd in that it was my dad, calling me about something other than conspiring on what to get my mom for her birthday or Christmas. Long story short, he's been feeling bad for a few days and it got much worse yesterday. The verdict: anxiety. He's doing much better today.
No, I didn't go through a full freak-out. This didn't bring my panic tendancies back to the front and center. If I was able to get through his bypass surgery last February without losing my shit, I can handle this. But damn if I wasn't tense, between that and being trapped with Fang all day. My back is one solid muscle knot from the base of my skull to my ass. I woke up at 6 a.m. this morning with a pulsing headache, as I'd been grinding my teeth in my sleep.
Today didn't start out much better. Second teething verse, same as the first. But I knew we had to get out of the house for a bit. I just didn't know how. I was exhausted and hurting. She was cranky and flailing. The only think propelling me forward was the thought that, if we managed to get the hell out of the house, it would just be minutes before I had a Venti eggnog latte in my shaky little paws.
I'm pretty sure you could lure me onto the railroad tracks and tie me up if there's the promise of a Venti eggnog latte in it.
If nothing else, I learned a little something about myself today: I'm an exceptionally cheap date and pretty damn easy to please. Because the first sip of that latte? Totally threw my happy switch. Life was good again. I hadn't realized until then just how low my caffeine reserves had gotten. Yesterday, I had one can of Diet Coke. No coffee. Because the whining was so extreme I couldn't find 30 fucking seconds to make a cup of coffee. That's some bad shit right there.
We made it through Target without any meltdowns. Apparently, the eggnog latte makes Clara Jane happy, too. After I finished my drink, she nabbed the cup and spent her entire Target time pretending to take slugs from it, complete with the sigh/satisfied moan that always follows when I take a slug. Sure, we got some funny looks, what with my toddler looking like she was happily sucking down a coffee beverage taller than her. Not that anyone said anything. I mean, would you have the guts to say something disparaging to a mom and toddler who are obviously on a molar-and-espresso-fueled bender? I thought not.
I almost brought her home for lunch, as Clara Jane's restaurant manners have been atrocious lately. And by atrocious I mean "I-can't-eat-my-lunch-because-I-have-a-30-pound-shrieking-barnacle-clinging-to-my -feeding-arm". But I threw caution to the wind and we hit Qdoba, which has become my lunchtime savior. As fast as fast food, but much healthier and tastier. I can actually get food with *gasp* vegetables. Hey - vegetables in salsa form are still vegetables. And then there's the matter of the sweet, sweet smack they put in the salsa verde that keeps me coming back for more. Just put that shit in a syringe and shoot me up with that tomatillo fix, Doc.
Several things occured at lunch that not only made my day better, but reinforced my faith in humanity:
1. Cute Qdoba manager insisted on carrying our food to the table, which has never happened. My only Qdoba complaint (and it's really minor) is that it's a bit tough to juggle the food and the child during the brief walk from the counter to the table.
2. Cute Qdoba manager came back part way through our lunch and presented Clara Jane with a large chocolate chunk cookie. She now thinks Santa Claus is an attractive cookie-bearing Latino with a large keyring on his belt. And I think I agree with her.
3. Lady #1 who stopped at our table and fawned over how pretty Clara Jane is, which she followed with a sweet holiday greeting for me.
4. Lady #2 who, upon hearing Clara Jane chattering, said, "Her voice is pure music". I was just glad that today her voice was musical in the children's choir sense, instead of the Ministry-Meets-Morrissey tunage she's been spewing.
And the best part of all ...
5. Clara Jane had finished her chicken taco and a big bite of the cookie. She looked up at me and, apropos of nothing said, "I love you, Mama". Plain as day. And I melted into a puddle that looked a little too much like that salsa verde.
Then we came home and she requested a nap.
And hey! I'm going to see U2 tonight! And it doesn't require getting on an airplane!
All is right in the world once again.
Posted by Robin at 01:10 PM | Comments (2)
December 12, 2005
One Year Later
I've been thinking about writing this for several weeks now. I haven't known where to begin, or even if I want to write about it. But I do.
I've been thinking about how different my life is now than it was one year ago. I've mentioned here and there that I've dealt with some pretty serious panic and anxiety issues. They began in childhood and continued to escalate. A year ago this week, they hit their apex. From the Sunday following Thanksgiving, 2004, until December 17th, I honestly didn't know how I could survive the bombs that were going off in my brain.
I know, I've been lazy about getting the archives for the first year of my blog back up. But I have them, and I've been reading them a lot lately. A few weeks ago I came across the things I wrote in that time span last year. I was floored. Completely flabbergasted. I didn't recognize myself at all. And let me tell you, that's the best feeling in the world.
To wit:
From November 30, 2004,
Panic Day:
Instead, I'm awake way too early. Clara Jane's awake way too early. The only way to deal with this disorder is to take things minute by minute. Otherwise, I become overwhelmed, worrying about things that can't or won't happen for days, months, years, ever. But when it's 7:24 a.m. and I'm going to be alone with my child until 5 p.m., even the minutes become insurmountable.
I'd forgotten just how that used to feel until I re-read this. That feeling of being constantly filled with dread. Not for what the future holds, but for what the next minute holds. I used to obsessively watch the clock and tell myself things like, "Okay, if nothing bad happens in the next ten minutes, I'll be fine." My entire life was lived in minutes, but never in the current minute; always in the next minute.
Some people with this disorder can't leave their homes. I can't stand to be in mine. If I can't be coccooned with B., I want to be out and away. It's not fair to Clara Jane, to be hustled out of the house, trying to escape the dark nooks of my mind. But it's not fair for her to be trapped in this house with a mother who can't stop worrying.
I'd spend hours reasoning with myself, "I leave the house and come home all the time, and nothing is ever wrong. The odds are in my favor that I'll go home and everything will be fine. Really. The house hasn't burned down. The animals aren't dead. It'll be okay. But what if it's not? Fuck. I'm going to drive around for another hour until it's time to pick up B.".
I haven't had to do that in a year. Instead, I'm spending that time writing. Oh my God. I'm spending that time writing my book. Finally.
From December 6, 2004, Treatment Bound:
My panic and anxiety always center on death and loss. Always. Never my own death, though. In fact, I could probably benefit from developing a bit more self-preservation. My nagging, obsessive fears focus on losing those I love. We all have that, but I take it too far. Here's an example: Last week I was having a phone conversation with my mom when she got another call from her neighbor. She took that call with a promise to call me back. When she didn't call back in ten minutes, my first thought - completely irrational and driven by fear - was that the neighbor had found my father, injured or dead, in the yard. Panic button: activated.
In the past year I got a crash-course in loss. It started less than two weeks after I made this post, when my 17-year-old cat died. I'd had so many panic attacks about that event and in the end, I was fine. Sad, but 100% fine.
But this summer ... it wasn't my own losses, but those of others. The weekend of August 27th, I helplessly sat and waited for New Orleans to drown while Kara's mom suffered a stroke that would take her life three weeks later. For weeks I watched, trying to wrap my head around how in the hell people who've lost so much can possibly survive. What keeps them from just curling up and becoming lost, too? A lot of my panic problems stemmed from a loss I experienced in early childhood, which dictated so much of everything that followed. It wasn't until those days in late summer that I saw first-hand that not everyone deals with loss the way a four-year-old deals with loss. The humans, they are resiliant. More resiliant than I ever knew before August 27th.
From December 13, 2004, The Crisis Line:
I spent hours last night lying flat on my back in bed, crying, while B. searched for the various help lines offered through our insurance company. I talked to a counselor briefly, who did what counselors are supposed to do - listen, validate my feelings, and suggest I take a hot bath and drink some chamomile tea.
...This morning, I was so worn and shredded that I got halfway through buttoning my shirt and finishing became too much.
I feel like I'm living my life under a microscope and it's slowly burning everything.
I also think - and hope - that last night was The Bottom. The place where it cannot get any worse and everything moves up from here. I can't imagine survivng anything worse than the way I felt last night.
That happened one year ago today. And I can't fathom being that paralyzed by anything now. I honestly can't. This was the bottom. This was as bad as it got. This was the absolute worst and everything moved up from there. I moved up from that. I decided that there was no way I could live a life where I was too paralyzed to even finish buttoning my shirt. There were two options: figure out how to not get to that point, or bail. And bailing is not an option.
From December 18, 2004, Shock Treatment:
In a few years I hope I can remember the week before Christmas 2004 as the week my life changed for the better. The week when I began the process of running my panic disorder out of town on the proverbial rail.
A year later, I'm looking back on that as the week my life changed for the better. I can tangibly look at the calendar and say, "This is when I lost my shit. And now I've found it." The change is astounding, but came around so gradually that it wasn't until just now that I've really seen how extreme it is.
I don't remember much of the details of last December, which is unusual. I don't remember details or what I did, what I wore, what I ate - the things I always remember. But I remember those feelings. I haven't had a panic attack since the second week of January, but I remember exactly what they used to feel like. It's a lot like labor pains; a year later, I can recall the feelings, and I definitely remember the intensity. But the details are getting fuzzy and to that I say, good riddance.
It's been around ten months since I last took an antidepressant or an anti-anxiety drug of any sort*. This isn't to say that I haven't felt anxiety. My God, I have. The only difference is, I deal with it differently. The anxiety no longer knocks me flat and leaves me a sobbing wreck with my shirt half-buttoned. Instead, it drives me to deal with whatever is causing the anxiety, to acknowledge it, push through it, and live my life.
There are so many things I never would have done a year ago that I don't hesitate to do now. If the anxiety was still in control in August and September, I don't know that I could have been there for Kara in a way she deserved. I probably would have tucked tail and run, driven away by my own fears of loss.
If the anxiety was still in control, there are so many situations where I wouldn't have risked making an ass of myself, speaking up, pushing, demanding ... doing and saying things I knew in my heart I should do and say. I would have been too afraid.
If the anxiety was still in control, I wouldn't be the kind of mother Clara Jane deserves. I'd be too preoccupied with my own feelings and discomfort, which isn't an option with a toddler.
If the anxiety was still in control, I'd never be telling this to you.
If the anxiety was still in control, I wouldn't be writing my book.
If the anxiety was still in control, I wouldn't be the person I am right now, in this moment, content with everything in my life and thrilled to see what's going to happen next.
*Not that there's anything inherantly wrong with these drugs. They helped me keep my shit together for a time. But I was dealing with problems that went beyond a situational condition or a chemical imbalance.
Posted by Robin at 03:25 PM | Comments (10)
December 11, 2005
There's No Man Like a Snowman
Last night, as my codependent girl life-partner has already discussed, we did the big ol' tree trimming, so completely devoured with holiday jollies are we. We haven't done the tree up right since 2002.
Last year I was too sick through the holiday season (which I'll hopefull talk about later this week) to give a shit. My mom insisted, "That baby needs a Christmas tree!". She showed up in St. Louis with my grandmother's artificial tree, which was purchased the year I was born. She and B. spent an evening decorating it while I sat with my dying 17-year-old cat. That's some festive shit right there.
In 2003 I was entirely too pregnant. There was no room in the house for my giganormous uterus and a tree. Instead, I requested that I be wrapped in strands of lights with an ornament nestled in my cavernous navel.
The tree almost didn't happen in 2002, either, now that I think about it. I was throwing a holiday shindig and was so wrapped up in the food prep that, an hour before the party, there was still a big naked tree in my living room. The life-partner, Kristina and I slopped the shit on the tree at warp speed, but only after completely binding ourselves together in strands of lights and forcing B. to photograph us. Of course, I can't find the damn pictures, but I'm sure you can imagine. Festive and kinky!
Kara found the photo from that night:
We had this thing ... any candid photo taken of us, we always seemed to be giving the thumbs-up. Because we're dorks. Decked in tinsel and cheaply-made electric wire.
I really haven't dug through our boxes of Christmas crap since '01, choosing instead to randomly shove everything, new and old, into plastic tubs, cardboard boxes, or whatever containers happen to be nearby on Dec. 27th, my official "If I See One More Christmas-Related Item I'm Gonna Shoot a Reindeer" Day. So this year I find myself digging through an ever-growing collection of Christmas crap that hasn't been examined for a few years, and I'm asking myself, "Where the hell did all this shit come from?"
Some of these moments are good. Despite my need to have all signs of the holidays eradicated from my home within 48 hours of the end of the Christmas day, I do so love the holiday clearance sales. I get my cute holiday swag for cheap, fling it into an attic-bound box, and a year later, it's like an early little gift because you know I always forget what I've bought during the post-Christmas clearance frenzy.
Then there's the other surprises. The ugly surprises.
I fully admit that my sense of style is a bit different, and I'm a bit of a snob about it. My house ... it's hard to describe. Most of the decor has been culled from years of digging through thrift shops and estate sales. My walls are all deep, bright colors with bright white trim and curtains. The walls are covered with 1950s prints, tole painted trays (I'll be your friend forever if you buy that one for me, although I don't have wall space for it), antique wood-framed mirrors, vintage linens, ironwork pieces, and antique Art Deco lamps. And I'm not even going into the details of the mid-century pink hair dryers, curlers, electric razors and the good ol' pink Handy Hannah that clutter adorn my bathroom. I don't expect anyone to ever be able to find things for me that match my house, because it's weirdly-decorated little place.
B. has a massive extended family in Michigan. His mom is one of nine kids, all of them still living, and until two years ago we were expected to exchange gifts with several of them. While I do like these people, I always dreaded these gift exchanges. I think exchanging gifts with people you see once every three years is just ridiculous. Really, we don't know each other. Gifts in these situations are generally given out of obligation and are more of a hassle than a pleasure. I'd much rather save the giving and receiving for people close to us. When I was pregnant, we used it as an excuse to bow out of these exchanges for good. One of these years, Clara Jane will be getting a pony for Christmas as thanks.
Yesterday, when we drug our holiday decorations out of storage, I was quickly reminded why ending these holiday exchanges was a good idea. In the mountains of boxes that are currently cluttering my house, there's a small collection of ornaments B. and I have bought along the way, and the collection I'm making for Clara Jane. There's the coordinated glass bulbs in shades of purple and silver, the round purple and white lights, garlands of silver and irredescent beads and the clear bubble lights that decorate our tree every year (or when I deem the year to be tree-worthy). But the vast majority of the boxes were filled with ... snowmen.
I don't think I have ever purchased a snowman in my entire life. And yet ... Snowman-encrusted vinyl placemats and doormats. Stuffed snowmen. Snowmen lying on their backs with their bellies hollowed to hold candy. And ... this ...
Snowman ... ornaments? Snowman partial face transplant candidates? I'm not sure. All I know is, they were still in the box B.'s aunt mailed them to us in (which still reeked of her cigarettes three years after the fact).
But these snowmen, with their partial faces, empty eyes and cinnamon stick perches, they were something else last night. They were the impetus for my first 2005 Christmas-Related Meltdown. "What the hell do I do with this?" I asked Kara, stomping around the room with the box in my hand, shaking it at her. I paced around the kitchen/dining room/living room, clutching the box, looking at least for a surface that didn't already harbor some homeless snowman misfit because, Jesus God, every surface of my house was covered with ugly snowmen!!!! "I know! I'm just going to walk around the house with this box in my hand until the snowman and the rest of my house fucking match!"
I'm gonna be walking for the rest of my life.
Today my mom looked at the little faceless snowpeople and said, "Oh, where did you get these? They're cute." To which I replied, "PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY, TAKE THEM HOME WITH YOU!!!!" as yet another snowman's face rejected yet another fake carrot nose. "No thanks!" she said.
I'm not one to hold onto crap I don't want or need, but when it's a gift, I hit a wall. Even if it's an ugly gift that bears absolutely no thought whatsoever from a person I haven't talked to in four years, I still have issues getting rid of it. Obviously, I can't even give these away, because who wants sad little mostly-faceless snowmen to remind them of just how cold the holidays can be? In the true spirit of the season, I'll spend another hour pacing around the house with a box of disfigured snowmen in hand, muttering, "Match the house and grow some noses, Motherfuckers! MATCH AND GROW!!!" until someone pushes me out the door, pries them from my hand, and tosses them into the trash.
Posted by Robin at 10:59 AM | Comments (6)
December 10, 2005
Happy Birthday, Ma. Quit Reading My Blog
This is my ma, taking a little doze with Clara "Mimi's Girl" Jane way back when. Today's my mom's 58th birthday. And in true fashion, we're going to let Christmas totally usurp her day. Since we're still ate up with the Christmas spirit around here, I'll be spending my day deocorating our tree instead of writing something loving, yet witty in tribute. I'll also be frantically cleaning my house in preparation for her arrival. Otherwise, you know she'll spend her birthday scrubbing my stove and playing the martyr. I'm serious. She's done it before.
So, in honor of my holiday distraction, I'm recycling one of my favorite stories about my mom. Originally posted last May, please enjoy the tale of the time my mom got shat on by a condor, then really embarrassed herself in a public restroom. We love you, Mom!
The original post is right here, but in case you only want to read the juicy parts about my mom:
My family, accompanied by my best friend drove to the Grand Canyon, spending a few days in Albuquerque, New Mexico.At 14, my friends and I weren't exactly girly-girls. Eighth grade turned us into a pack of sailors, and we had taken up habits such as excessive profanity usage and blatant passing of bodily gases. My dad was 40 going on 14 at the time, so we had a lot in common.
When planning the trip I guess my mom didn't take into consideration the overabundance of Tex-Mex cuisine in the region. If Clara Jane goes through this sailor phase - and she will, for she is of my loins - we'll be vacationing somewhere with very, very bland food. Like Upper Michigan, where they have three seasonings: salt, pepper, and ketchup.
After a few days of being trapped in the Fartmobile, my mom made a new rule: if we belched outloud, we had to give her a quarter. Public farts would cost us fifty cents apiece.
The next day, we paid a visit to the Rio Grande Zoo. While standing under a large tree, my mom said, "Is it raining?"
It wasn't.
Well, not in the scientific sense. Moisture was falling from the sky in the form of bird shit. From a bird the size of a condor, perched in the tree directly above my mom's head, which was soon covered in about a pint of fresh bird dookie.
You can only imagine the reaction from The Mighty Fart Brigade on that one.
"Don't worry! It's just a little sap!" an onlooker told my mom as she went into a full-blown palsey of a freak-out attack. Yeah, it's ass-sap!
My mom high-tailed it to the bathroom, where she hoped to regain her composure and take a quick bath in one of the sinks. While she was convulsing and washing her hair, my friend and I took a little potty break, since we were both on the verge of pissing our pants with hysteria.
Mom finished her little clean-up and entered a stall before my friend and I exited our stalls. In her trauma-deminished capacity, my mom hadn't noticed that we had left the stalls and were sitting on the counter ('cause we were cool 14-year-olds), waiting for her. All she knew was there was a someone in the stall next to hers, wearing shoes just like mine, and cutting the most tremendous fart in the history of mankind.
Now, my poor Mom - incapacitated and absolutely furious, did the one thing she could to try to regain control of the day. She pounded on the wall between her stall and the farter and bellowed, "That'll be fifty cents!"
My friend and I didn't even have to say a word to each other; we just knew that it was time to get the hell out of that restroom.
Mom, with her soaking wet hair dripping down her shirt, came marching out of the bathroom shortly after us, with the farter right behind her. She spotted us under the tree - the same tree, 'cause we were cool 14-year-olds - and turned roughly the shade of a baboon's ass as she realized she had demanded fart money from a stranger.
Posted by Robin at 01:11 PM | Comments (4)
December 09, 2005
Friday Shuffle - The Anti-Urbanite Edition
Somedays I just want to move to a nice little small town like this one (mainly because Star's Hollow only exists on Gilmore Girls)
Then there are days like today, when I just want to move to a cave in the woods and turn feral.
I think I'm over city-living. Here's your shuffle, which I should have culled from my country folder, but didn't. I'm not that far gone. Not yet, anyway.
1. Hands Off, She's Mine - English Beat
2. I'm Your Villan - Franz Ferdinand
3. Since You're Gone - The Cars
4. Now That You're Gone - Ryan Adams
5. Funky Broadway - Wilson Pickett
6. Chance - REM
7. Mama's Boy - The Ramones
8. Evenflow - Pearl Jam
9. Working on the Highway - Bruce Springsteen
10. Wreck of the Old 97 (San Quinten recording) - Johnny Cash
Posted by Robin at 01:03 PM | Comments (1)
December 08, 2005
Magical, Mystifying Snow
I do so love the snow. I'm sure that the anti-snow fascists would love nothing more than to run up behind me and grab me by the ankles, laughing as I face-plant in a drift without knowing what the hell hit me. I don't care. Fuck you. I love snow.
Yeah, I know, if I lived somewhere with really bad snow, I wouldn't feel this way. B. grew up in a town with lake-effect snow, and went to college in a town that got 166 inches of snow the year he graduated. He's constantly reminding me that I don't know what real snow is. Coming from a guy who, as a child, used to jump off his roof into snowbanks, I believe him.
A little secret: I also love rain and I absolutely hate the sun. Even if my pale mole-people skin didn't burst into flames when the sun touches it, I have a feeling I'd still dislike it.
For the first time in my life, today I was praying - and I'm not a praying-type girl - that we'd get snow, but not enough to call it a snow day. Lord knows I love nothing more than a snow day. One of my favorite memories from my dating days with B. involved several snow days in a row. I was living in Columbia and he was living an hour and a half away in St. Louis. We'd been together seven months and hadn't spent a single weekend apart until Christmas, when he had to go home for Christmas. That part sucked, and we were miserable. But when he returned to Missouri, he came to Columbia for a five-day stretch. Two days into it, we got snowed in. Long story short, by the time the snow melted, we immediately started shopping for a house.
So I have a special fondness for snow days. But if the schools are closed, so is Clara "Snowbunny" Jane's daycare. Frankly, I really needed my Thursday writing day this week. And Clara Jane needed her daycare day. She's been so cooped up this week that she's been scrawling something that looks a bit like "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" all over the walls. One more day, and I"m pretty sure she'd find the pick axe and then we'd really be in trouble.
If there's anything better than spending five and a half hours in a warm, dimly-lit coffeehouse and watching the snow fall through the windows, I'm not sure what it would be. Because that's damn near perfection, which is why I'm happy today. The seventeen pages I managed to write? Snowy, sparkly icing on the cake, my friends.
Others, apparently, did not share my joy. Like the woman in line ahead of me while ordering breakfast. After she placed her order she flounced into the nearest chair, grabbed her cell phone, and dialed. "CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?!?!?!" she shrieked into the phone. "I'd just pulled out of my garage and ... and ... and ... it started SNOWING!!! Oh my God. Can you believe this?"
Well, I surely can't believe this. I mean, snow?!?! In December?!?! In Missouri?!?! Sweet holy fuck! I mean, I can understand snow in December in, say, Lapland. Or maybe even Des Moines. But in Missouri? Surely this has something to do with global warming because there's obviously no other explaination!!!
I heard no fewer than three similar conversations during the course of the day and it was all I could do to not giggle myself to the point of soiled underpants each time.
Unfortunately, the street crews seemed to be just as shocked and chagrined by the two inches - TWO INCHES!!!!!!!!!! - of snowfall, as I didn't see a single plow or salt truck until well after noon, long after the snow started. I guess they don't get The Weather Channel in their offices.
Regardless, it's snowy. I'm happy. I have nowhere to go, a big pot of homemade cream of chicken soup on the stove. All is right with the world.
Posted by Robin at 06:20 PM | Comments (9)
December 07, 2005
Christmastime is Here
I positively despise making cut-out cookies. Hate hate hate it. I'd rather cook an entire wild boar by myself over a campfire (a feat I've never tried, really don't want to try, but would be willing to try if it got me out of cookie duty) than deal with sticky cookie dough, cookie cutters, icing and sprinkles.
During my professional cooking career, there was only one job that went poorly. A client begged me to do flower-shaped iced sugar cookies. I told her no-go, that she really didn't want any sugar cookies that have been in the same room as me. My mere presence is enough to burn the edges and smear the icing. She begged. Insisted. So I gave her a low-ball price and agreed, figuring she'd get what she paid for - not a hell of a lot.
I busted my ass on those cookies, and I'm pretty sure I went way over my allotted annual uses of the C-word that day. And by C-word, I'm talking about another kind of cookie entirely. And as expected, the cookies looked like the work of a first-grader in need of a higher daily Ritalin dose.
Sure enough, the client wasn't happy. She wound up buying grocery store cookies to replace my abominations and was entirely too pissy with me, considering I told her, "Yes, I will make your cookies, and I'm going to charge you next-to-nothing for them because I promise you, they will look like shit."
My cookie-hatred is an adulthood development. As a kid, I would beg and plead my mom to play bakery. And even though she, too, has the cookie hatred, she would oblige me once a week. On Fridays we'd fling flour around the kitchen. My grandfathers would call and I'd climb the footstool to reach the phone. "W______'s Bakery. Can I take your order?" I'd ask. They'd place their orders and would come visit later in the day.
Not the face of someone who would grow up to hate cookie-making as much as I do, is it?
I'm not exactly sure what made me think that making cookies with Clara Jane would be a good idea. I think I'm just desperate for anything that might combat 1)the borderline personality disorder she's developed, thanks to the molars she's cutting, and 2)being cooped up in the house because it's so damn cold outside. When we ventured out yesterday, I bought something that goes against every anti-processed-food tirade that's ever issued from my lips; I bought a giant tube of pre-made sugar cookie dough. Mainly because I'd rather feed my child yummy preservatives than take a chance with the raw eggs in homemade dough.
That was a good call, considering that the nanosecond I placed 1/4 of the dough-log before Clara "Lovin' in the Oven" Jane, she had her mouth wrapped around it, attempting to cram the entire thing down her gullet.
We won't be sharing the cookies made from that dough with anyone on our Christmas list. Well, except for people we don't like.
As we patted and cut the dough, flung green sanding sugar around the house, and took turns trying to swallow whole portions of tube-dough, I turned on "A Charlie Brown Christmas", just for a little atmosphere. I didn't expect Clara Jane to pay much attention to it, as she prefers creepy people in weird costumes to cartoons. So is it any wonder that, when the show opened with all the ice skating children and Clara Jane started waving and squealing, "Hello, Kids! Hello!", that I dropped my star cookie cutter and cried. My kid, with a high chair tray covered in raw cookie dough and green sprinkles, bursting with excitement at something that has been a part of my holidays since I was her age. I didn't know which way to go - to be the mom and relish seeing my daughter so excited and happy, or to be a little girl again, awash in my own cookie Charlie Brown memories.
I wound up making most of the cookies, of course, while Clara Jane ate dough and shook the bottles of sprinkles with wild abandon, shouting, "Sprinkles! Sprinkles!" At least I had the forethought to only open one of the bottles, which means only two rooms in my house are now green and sticky. But it was worth it. Even if the cookies were prepackaged, collided with each other as they baked, and were swimming in green sugar. And even if some of the dough was a little slobbery. It was all just fine, because we traded lines from "Jingle Bells" in our sugar-delirium. And that's what Christmas is all about, right?
(Photos of the decorating frenzy located on the Flickr bar to your right.)
Posted by Robin at 07:11 PM | Comments (12)
December 06, 2005
Solutions to Problems
Y'know, drinking hot cocoa with marshmallows and three shots of Kahlua while watching My Name is Earl might not erase a shitty day, but what kind of person would I be if I didn't at least give it the ol' college try?
I'm thinking about throwing a New Year's Eve party just so I can offer the following pre-dinner toast: "To 2005! Get out of here, your horrible, infected cunt*."
*I only allow myself one usage of this particular word per year. Otherwise, it would probably be every other word out of my mouth. However, considering how 2005 has been, I think an exception to the rule is necessary.
Posted by Robin at 09:43 PM | Comments (11)
December 05, 2005
Writer's Angst, Pt. II
It doesn't seem like that long ago since we had Heatwave Lockdown, Day 1 and Heatwave Lockdown, Day 2, and yet today we had the cold-weather version. Which, all told, isn't quite as bad. The cold doesn't agitate me the way the heat does. I like being housebound when it's cold, probably because I know that if I do, indeed, need to leave the house, I won't spontaneously combust. With wind chills not rising above 20 degrees today, it seemed like a good day to stay inside.
I had big plans. In the morning Clara "Frosty the Snowman" Jane and I would play and play and play. There would be cocoa! And marshmallows! And fingerpaints! Woo-hoo!
Then I came to my senses and realized that fingerpaints + toddler = big scary mess. And she seemed perfectly content to color, read, and perform a few song-and-dance routines, which was fine. Fun. Good, snuggly fun.
Promptly at 1 PM, when she ended the fun by slamming her finger in a kitchen cabinet, she went down for a nap and slept until I went to her room at 5 PM to check her pulse.
Now, with this gloriously long nap, I could have spent my day doing any myriad of things I complain about not having time to do. I could clean my house. Knit. Or, God forbid, do some writing. Did I do any of these things? Well, a little. No cleaning, but I did tinker with some editing and finished a scarf for one of Clara Jane's daycare teachers.
I'm still struggling with the writing. For everyone who offered encouragement last week, thank you so much. It helped. It really did. I made a chunk of progress on the book during the weekend and was feeling great about the whole thing. But today I started reading what I've written and wound up feeling just as shitty as I did on Thursday.
When I left catering, I had promised myself that I'd spend a chunk of the time that I used to spend catering, working on the book. Tonight being my first non-catering Monday, that means my ass had a date with a damn book. B. practically had to kick me out of the house. My enthusiasm, it was overwhelming. But since he was nice enough to bring his work laptop home for me to use, I could hardly say no.
I headed to a local outpost of the ginormous chain of coffee shops (I think you know which one) and made my first venture into the world of Wi-Fi so I could retrieve my work.
Slight problem: I forgot that this particular coffee chain doesn't offer free Wi-Fi, and I didn't feel like dishing out $10 to spend ten seconds grabbing a file. While I may be a Wi-Fi newbie, I'm not stupid. It took me about two minutes to locate a connection with the local outpost of the ginormous chain of donut shops located across the street. Hey - they were closed and obviously they're not too worried about people stealing their signal, since they didn't have much protecting it.
This is why I'm not a crook. Well, aside from being too ethical and nice. I'm far too stupid to be a crook and would wind up on one of those stupid-criminal specials on Court TV in no time. Case in point:
I was working, and although I wasn't using the Wi-Fi, I had left it connected, mainly for codependent reasons. I was furiously pecking away, and happened to look up to find another patron , about three feet in front of me, watching. We made eye contact and he smiled.
"Are you Wi-Fi-ing it?" he asked.
"Um, yes," I said, and giggled. "Sort of. From across the street. Hehehehehehehehehehehehe."
I wasn't even drinking caffiene, and I was this stupid.
"You naughty, naughty girl!" he admonished, grinning as he started to leave.
Before he walked out the door, he turned to me, winked, and in a loud stage whisper said, "I won't tell on you!".
I immediately disconnected and cried a little for two reasons:
1) I'm going to Wi-Fi Prison.
2) I attract freaks.
I did get some work done, though, which is good. And there's a small chance I might not vomit when I reread it in a few days, but I'm not making any promises.
I got home a few minutes after Clara Jane went to bed. This isn't unusual. She and B. have fairly regular solo anti-Mom nights and she's never had any issues with that. But tonight ... as soon as I walked in she started crying, "Mama! Mama! Maaaaaaaaaaaamaaaaaaaaaa!" I went to her room and she reached for me from her crib. I lifted her out and her crying was replaced with happy chatter before she pointed to the rocking chair and asked me to rock her.
Now, this is highly unusual, as she has had no use for that rocking chair in months. But we rocked. I hadn't even had a chance to remove my coat; she nuzzled into the collar, drooling on the suede as she fell asleep. I placed her in bed and went to find B. to tell him of this unusual turn of events.
"I think she really missed you tonight," he said. "She kept saying 'Mama went bye-bye. Mama went bye-bye.' all night." But the clencher - after her bath, she usually sprints from the bathroom, screaming, "I'm naked! I'm naked!" at the top of her lungs. Tonight, she didn't. Apparently because I wasn't there to yell, "You're naked! You're naked!" back at her.
And thus the flip-flopping continues. I felt terrible about writing on Thursday. By Saturday, I knew it was right. Earlier today, not so sure. This evening at the coffeehouse, it was right. But now ... the mama guilt is just about as thick as the codependence.
In a perfect world, I'll get this book written without getting hauled away by the Wi-Fi Police and without emotionally scarring my daughter or driving a wedge into our relationship. Someday she'll read it and will be able to see that I wrote it not only for myself, but for her. And I hope she thinks that it was worth not having me there to chase her as her bare feet slap the hardwood floors every night. And if she does think that, I hope she can convince me to think the same because right now, I'm not.
Posted by Robin at 10:02 PM | Comments (7)
December 04, 2005
A Case Study in Codependency
A few weeks ago I jokingly referred to myself and my constant girl cohort, Kara as hot codependent chubby chicks. It started as a smart-ass retort when someone (Joe Greenlight, I'm looking at you) suggested that, should a pillow fight erupt between Kara and me, we needed to send him a video. I told him he could find it at www.hotcodependentchubbychicks.com, and it went downhill from there. Fast.
It's become a running joke between Kara and me, this codependency of ours. But it's starting to get out of hand. Like today.
Kara's having Mac issues and had to make yet another potentially long trip to the Apple store. Of course, I joined her. That's what the codeps do; they Velcro themselves together. She stopped by the Apple store to get on the waiting list, which is usually followed by a substantial wait, so we went to lunch.
(On a completely unrelated note, if you click on that link to California Pizza Kitchen, let the graphics roll through to the one with the pepper mill guy. My lord, is that not the dirtiest thing you've ever seen?)
As we perused the menu, Kara asked, "Is it wrong that I want the spinach artichoke dip?" To which I replied, "Why, no. There's nothing wrong with that. For we are humans, and humans like the spinach artichoke dip." A bit of a pause. "Shall we split an order?" I asked. To which Kara agreed.
Thirty seconds later: "Is it wrong that the Hawaiian pizza sounds really good?" Kara asked. To which I replied, "Why, no. Hawaiian pizza is divine. Pineapple and Canadian bacon were meant to go together. You should get it."
And everything seemed fine and normal and ordered in our codependent little world. We had our iced tea and our dip. We were talking about ... God, I don't even know what we were talking about ... when the unthinkable happened.
Her Apple store pager vibrated. And she had to leave.
So there I was. Alone. With dip and, eventually, two pizzas.
Now, I've had many meals by myself. I think I'm one of the few people in our culture who actually likes doing things alone. I miss that now that I've got a toddler in tow. It's not like I've got any hangups about being in a restaurant alone. In this area, I'm 100% well-adjusted.
Or so I thought.
As the minutes drug, I found myself watching out the window, leaping a bit each time someone in a red sweater would pass, hoping it was Kara. I considered calling her. I even - I'm not proud to confess - thought about getting our food boxed to-go and high-tailing it to the Apple store! Because she was gone! And I was alone! And I wasn't quite sure how to eat my lunch without having her there to guide me! I'm not 100% sure how to eat without talking, and the people at the next table don't really look like they want to talk to the alone girl who's all sweaty and panicky.
Can someone tell me where, exactly, the line between close friendship and mental illness is located? Because I think we might have passed it five miles back.
I'm not convinced this is a bad thing. Yes, it's probably a bit excessive that we exchange upwards of, oh this is embarrassing, 100 emails a day. But they're short emails! Really. And they're not exchanged from the moment we wake up until the moment we go to bed, often peppered with phone calls when we're away from our computers.*
I'd also like it noted that I would never, ever call Kara when she's in the middle of what might be a compromising position and chastise her for not yet having a particular discussion with the other person in that compromising position.**
And not once did I ever get upset because she didn't respond to an email quickly enough - and email I'd sent a mere hour earlier. I certainly didn't assume that she was angry with me, and then spend a day pouting and feeling sorry for myself, which made her all weepy and sad. All because our email service neglected to tell her that she had a new message from me. Nope. We would never fall into that degree of intense melodrama.***
*I'm lying. They totally are.
**Yeah, that's a lie, too. I did that last weekend. "Is Robin's family driving her crazy?" the other person involved asked Kara after hearing my bellowing through the phone. "Um, yeah. Sure. That works. It's definitely her family that's making her crazy," Kara replied.
***Actually, we would fall into that level of melodrama. Quite easily, even.
Honestly, it's just a matter of time until we start calling each other at 7:30 AM to ask questions like, "Do you think I should wear my monkey underpants or my boyshorts today?", so thick and rich is the codependent batter we've been concocting.
Give us a break. We've both had really intense years. I think we've earned the right to lean on each other a bit heavily. The thing is, Kara and I are both only children, which means we never learned how to act right. It's not like we got a lot of practice with peers at home when we were kids. But in recent months, Kara and I have gone into territory I don't think either of us has ever gone with another friend. I know I'd never had an alone-in-a-restuarant tailspin before the one I experienced today. And I'm not even going to discuss some of the other things that Kara and I have discussed and/or done recently.
Shut up. We did not have that pillowfight. And even if we did, we'd make you pay through the nose to see it. We may be codependent, but we're not stupid.
Posted by Robin at 05:04 PM | Comments (19)
December 03, 2005
The Knights in Satan's Service Visit Santy Claus
We've been ate up with the holiday spirit at Chez Poppymom this weekend. For starters, we managed to have ourselves in real clothes and out the door by 9:30 this morning for breakfast at Crooked Tree. All I want for Christmas is a latte with eggnog and buttered rum syrup, please. Then we headed to the Foundry Art Centre. They hosted a Christmas tree showing for Habitat for Humanity. Clara Jane's all about trees. And, apparently, model trains, so it was pretty much a trip to toddler nirvana for her. Add some Elmer's glue-and-glitter craft projects, and you've got the happiest kid in the world.
Here we are, making construction paper and glitter ornaments. But I'm not posting this photo just so you can admire this lovely mother-daughter moment. Nor am I posting it to show off one of my favorite scars. See it, right there on my elbow? I got it during a catering job when I accidentally stuck my elbow into a flaming pan of green beans.
(Little-known factoid about me: I love scars and, given the opportunity, I will tell you the stories about every scar on my body and then demand to know the stories behind all of your scars. That's the real reason why I decided to become a chef; chefs love to compare their wounds. They are my people. Ugly, disfigured people.)
No, the real reason I'm posting this photo is so you can see my daughter. Yes, she's wearing a pastel blue sweater. It's not evident in the photo, but it's pastel blue with a great deal of silver sparklies blended into the yarn. But surely you can see the fluffy, fanciful poofy white chenille trim on the sweater, right? I mean, it's a bit hard to miss, especially after she drug one of the cuffs through glue and multicolored glitter. And just look at her mullet hair - it's well past her shoulders in the back.
Can someone tell me why damn near every person we encountered today thought she was really a he? And it wasn't just today. We had the same problem during our trip to the Galleria on Wednesday.
I implore you, how many toddler boys wear bright purple suede shoes? Aside from Prince, when he was a baby?
Questions regarading my daughter's gender orientation aside, it was a lovely day that left me all Christmasy, so we went on a little light-viewing adventure after dinner.
A few nights ago, I think it was during Thursday's breakdown, B. and Clara Jane went out for a bit. When they returned, B. told me of the most wonderous holiday light display he'd ever seen. Granted, it's not nearly as fabulous as that of MRS' neighbor elsewhere in the St. Louis area. But it sounded like it might be a close second.
According to B., there is a house in our neighborhood, completely decked out in holiday hoo-ha. The usual stuff - icicle lights, wreaths, a few animatronic woodland creatures. But at the top of the house, in multiple strands of lights, a huge sign that reads, "Merry KISSmas.
As in, the band.
As in, let's all go sit on Gene Simmons' lap and tell him what we want for KISSmas!
Wait. On second thought, sitting on Gene Simmons' lap will almost certainly give you a hell of a lot more than you bargained for this holiday season. But if you insist, you might want to take a toilet seat protector with you, just in case.
So, we bundled Clara "Strutter" Jane in her coat and a blanket (and a toilet seat protector) to shield her against the 30-degree weather and icy sleet that was coming down. We headed to the KISSmas wonderland, only to find the worst disappointment: no one was home and they hadn't bothered to turn the lights on! I'd even taken my camera for the occasion, just for you.
"Why would someone go to all that work and not turn the goddamn lights on?" I pouted. Pouted! I was not happy about this situation. I felt like I'd learned that Ace Frehly isn't real.
"I know!" B. replied, also outraged. "They were probably too drunk to remember to turn them on before they went out to get more drunk."
"That's even worse! Without their KISSmas lights, how will they know which house is theirs when they come staggering home?" I asked.
"Easy. Theirs is the house with the most piles of dried vomit in the yard."
To make me feel better, B. drove us past this house. Granted, those aren't Christmas decorations; it looks like that year-round. The owners are probably sick of me stopping my car in front of their house and taking photos, but it still made me feel better.
From there we went in search of eggnog milkshakes. To prevent ice cream from being slung all over the truck's interior, we were going to wait until we got home to give Clara Jane a bite. Which failed miserably. The child has had nibbles of shakes twice in her entire life and yet knew - she knew - and immediately started clamouring for ice cream. "She gets it from your family," B. said. Which is true. My dad has a serious ice cream problem, exasperated by the fact that he was a truck driver for a dairy for many years.
For God's sake, do you know how he met my mom? She worked in an office across the street from the dairy's loading dock. After scoping her out for awhile, he waited until she was walking to her car on a hot August day and ran up to her with a box of Eskimo Pies. Obviously, we have ice cream issues.
In the true spirit of holiday giving, B. continued, "You know,if your dad was an old dog that needed to be put down, before taking him to the vet I'd give him a quart of ice cream covered with half a jar of peanut butter."
Merry KISSmas to all!
(On a completely unrelated note, can I just say that for the past two days I have been cracking myself up repeatedly, simply by uttering the words, "311, I am ready to fight." Seriously. Like, bladder control issue-level laughter every single time I say it. And I've been saying it a lot. I'm pretty sure that line will never stop being funny.)
Posted by Robin at 09:09 PM | Comments (4)
December 02, 2005
...and on days like today ...
...when I pick up the binder that houses the first 1/3 of my book's rough draft and the first 1/4 of the rewrite, and I realize it weighs a ton, I feel a whole lot better about everything.
Posted by Robin at 03:22 PM | Comments (5)
Friday Shuffle - The Shit, Don't You People Know How to Comment Edition
Except for those of you who do, of course. You, I love, for you provide the ego-fondling I so desperately need.
1. I Won't Back Down - Tom Petty
2. Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk - Rufus Wainwright
3. Cold Day in July - Dixie Chicks
4. The Staggering Genius - Superdrag
5. I Remember California - REM
6. Earthquake Weather - Beck
7. Just a Kid - Wilco
8. Trouble on the Line - Loretta Lynn
9. Stormy Weather - The Pixies
10. Smackwater Jack - Carole King
Tracks 5, 6 and 9 make me a little nervous. If something happens this weekend and California falls into the ocean, I'm going to feel responsible.
Posted by Robin at 02:22 PM | Comments (6)
December 01, 2005
On Days Like Today
You've been warned: there's a huge trainwreck ahead. There was a pity party on the train that got entirely out of hand and caused a huge derailment.
When I was a little girl, I was a total magpie. There was one sure-fire way to break my heart in those days: ask me to be quiet or, worse, utter that horrible, awful "ssssshhhhhhhhhhhh". It would set me into a crying jag of epic proportions every single time, no matter how happy I was as I chattered before being asked to pipe down.
All my life, that's been my biggest fear: feeling like I'm not being listened to or heard. Most of the fights and arguments, the broken relationships in my life have come down to this - if I feel like I'm not being heard, or someone's not listening, I fucking lose my shit.
I'm not even sure where this is going, so bear with me.
Every Thursday Clara Jane spends six hours at daycare while I go to the coffeehouse and write. I'm in the process of taking the first 15 months of my blog, most of which was filled with post-partum depression and anxiety, and I'm editing, rewriting and extending it into a book. When I hit a wall in that process, I shift gears and work on the proposal to sell this book.
Overall, I love my Thursdays. As much as I love my daughter and delight in her verbalness, I love getting a break from it. Six hours where I don't have one ear cocked at all times? Pure bliss. For the most part, I enjoy the writing, too, although it's really hard. In a lot of cases I'm returning to the worst time of my life and reliving it. It's sort of like digging at a deep scar with a blunt object. While it's not the searing pain of digging into a fresh wound, it's a different pain, a dull ache that doesn't go away once the poking stops at 2:45 PM, when it's time to fetch Clara Jane.
As much as I enjoy Thursdays, I despise Thursday afternoons and evenings. Clara Jane never takes enough of a nap at daycare and refuses to sleep when we get home. She's always cranky and whiny. And I am too, quite frankly. Shifting gears from writing to mothering is a lot harder than I expected. While I'm always glad to see her, my mind is never 100% here when we come home. It's still rewriting, editing and second-guessing everything I did during the day.
Since I only get this concentrated writing time once a week (and I missed last week because of the holiday, which is probably what's fueling this diatribe), I spend a lot of my writing time backtracking and trying to remember where I was, what I was doing, and attempting to decipher the caffeine-fueled chicken scratches in the margins of my notebook. I go back and read what I wrote the week before, things that felt so good and right when I wrote them, that inevitably sound stilted and trite a week later. So I rewrite the rewrite, feeling my wheels sink deeper into the mud.
Then there's the noise. I get relative quiet during my writing time, only to come home to a whiny, chatting, singing, babbling toddler who, bless her, never shuts up, just like her mother. Add a couple of noisy dogs who've been alone all day, and it's pure cacophony. The external noise of my life collides with the internal noise of my writing world, and lays me out flat on the floor every single time.
By the time B. got home from work today, I had my head on my desk, crying. The noise was simply too much.
Today I'm asking myself, is it worth it? A few weeks ago there was a comment on my blog along the lines of how blogging is going to put real writers out of business because why will people buy books when they can read it online for free. Very discouraging. But I also think of the first time I met Joe, and he said the opposite: that there will always be a place for books because there will always be a demand for good writing ... or something along those lines. I was too busy making an ass of myself at the time (since that's what I tend to do in Joe's presence) to memorize exactly what he said. Ultimately, I know he's correct, even if I can't remember what he said. I know in my case, the blog is nothing but a rough draft, a sketch of ideas that can be elaborated and polished into something worth the paper its printed on. Something that's worth its tangibility, which is lacking in the blog world.
But on days like today, I seriously question whether I'm capable of that. I work on this project one day a week. I mire myself in it. I dig myself graves with it. And I find myself asking: if a book is written in a coffeehouse in St. Charles, Missouri, by a loud-mouthed girl who never shuts up, will anyone read it?
I write for myself, first and foremost. Down to the magazine columns I've written - I write things I would like to read. That's why I left the magazine last sumemr: I was being asked to write things that I had no interest in, and I can't do that. I won't do that. But there's a limit. If a person dreams of being a doctor, does anyone say, "Practice medicine for yourself. It doesn't matter if anyone gets healed."? Of course not! But it's de rigour to tell writers, "Write for yourself. It doesn't mattter if anyone reads it." I do understand where that comes from, and lord knows I've said it plenty of times myself. But right now, if I'm going to be 100% honest, it does matter. To this girl who, from birth, has demanded to be heard, it matters a lot.
Writing is the only thing I've ever wanted to do with my life. I never had a driving urge to be a wife, a mom, a video producer, a chef, a teacher, a student - any of the other titles I've held in my adult life. I only ever wanted to write. But on days like today, when I'm questioning my abilities, and whether I've got enough to give, can invest enough of myself, I can see that I'm putting myself in danger of experiencing my worst fear: I write the book - the one thing I have always believed with every fiber of my being I was put on this earth to do - I send it into the world (okay, to publishing houses and editors), and ... nothing. It doesn't register. No one listens. "Yeah, Robin, that one thing you have always thought you were put on this earth to do? We don't like it so much. Next!"
That's a great big sssssssssssshhhhh that I'm suddenly not sure I'm willing to risk hearing.
Posted by Robin at 05:26 PM | Comments (13)