I don't much know what I'm getting into, here. What I'd give almost anything for, today, would be to have the energy to go to the Bungalow, have a bikini martini, seared ahi, steak, and that chocolate souffle that isn't too sweet. I have this awful feeling that spur-of-the-moment romantic $150 dinners have gone right out the window. And I'm ticked off.
My mother is so excited - indeed, everyone else seems more excited than I am. My mom gives me explicit instructions on how to feel for the baby's first moves, because during her first pregnancy, she thought it was gas. Every girl wants to see the ultrasound pictures, and they all collapse into squeals when they see them. It looks like black and white fuzz with a little white shrimp in the middle. I don't see the attraction.
Did I lose this mommy gene, or was I born minus one? Should I blame it on the fact that I was bottle fed?
I have tried to console myself with baby thoughts. Little outfits, or just the idea of people I love holding a baby, or the little laughter. For each of these I can list seven negative things about babies, and don't even get me started on what happens after they aren't babies anymore.
Sometimes it'll hit me, that my belly is going to get enormous and I'm going to go through all this pain and I'll never have Mr. Aran to myself again, that I'll never do anything spur-of-the-moment again, and I nearly pass out. I must be an optimist, way down. During my auto accident, while the car was spinning out of control in the direction of a concrete embankment, I remember thinking, "I won't hit anything. I never have accidents." Of course, I did hit the embankment, and it was a major pain in the ass for months, and continues to be in some ways. I feel the same way about my pregnancy. I'm spinning, I'm headed right for the concrete, but in the back of my head I always think there might be a way out.
I'm a prisoner inside my sick goddamn body. I think I've had enough of being a mother.
How To Be A Girl Who Doesn't Suck
This is an oldie. But who wants to hear about my morning sickness yet again? For your entertainment, I present:
HOW TO BE A GIRL WHO DOESN'T SUCK
Part One: STOP COMPLAINING AND DUMP HIM.
WHY YOU WHINE.
Girls love to whine. Their favorite thing to whine about is men. And their favorite men to whine about are their own.
Why do you go through all the trouble of maintaining a relationship that you hate? You spend all your time with someone whose hobbies and habits and career and religion and personal hygiene you don't agree with. Why?
Because deep down, you love to complain. This is the god's honest truth. Whenever something offensive or sad or negative happens to you, a little place in your brain actually gets excited. You get to complain!
This may have something to do with the fact that female-to-female relationships have a foundation of shopping and whining almost exclusively. "She's been there for me through all my hard times" can really be translated to, "She's listened to me bitch and moan roughly five hundred times a year since the sixth grade." This is how girls relate to each other. When there is no shopping to be done and nothing to complain about, girls resort to ruining one another's lives. So it's always best to keep a dumbshit boyfriend around, just in case you and a girlfriend have one of those uncomfortable silences. You know, one of those silences where, if one of you doesn't say something quick, you might just realize that your relationship is built on jack and shit and you're both shallow idiots.
Some girls think they're being proactive by trying to change their men. They do this by nagging, demanding lots of counseling, withholding sex and, you guessed it, whining. What I am going to say next is an unarguable commandment. It will never be amended. There will never be exceptions. Accept it as fact and move on with your life. I'm going to make it nice and big. You might want to frame this next part and put it somewhere you'll look at it often, like on the bathroom mirror. You ready?
NEVER TRY TO CHANGE A MAN.
It doesn't work. Even if you are the champion nagging queen of the planet, a man will only temporarily change in order to shut you up / get out of going to the counselor / get laid. If, by chance, you do snip off the man's balls by changing him long-term, he will resent you, and when you are forty and sagging, he will trade you in for a twenty-year-old who will giggle and coo at his belching.
HOW TO GET ON THE ROAD TO NON-SUCKAGE.
First, you need a goal. Because I'm a giving person by nature, I've provided you with one. Your goal is to not suck. Girls who suck whine a lot. Your goal is not to whine anymore. Therefore, you will have to create a life where there is nothing to whine about.
In order to do this, you'll have to find out what kinds of things you dislike. One way to do this is to tape yourself bitching to your girlfriend for an hour or so, then go back and take notes. If a sentence begins with, "I hate it when," add that tidbit to your DISLIKES list.
Once you have a thorough DISLIKES list, frame the fucker and put it on every wall in your home. You will be referring to it often.
SAMPLE DISLIKES.
Now comes the part where you get rid of the things on your DISLIKES list and become an unselfish woman of character who does not suck. Don't worry; I'll be with you every step of the way. Let's look at some sample dislikes and how to get rid of them.
Sample Dislike #1: When my boyfriend punches me in the face.
Solution: Dump him. Please note that I did not say, "Dump him after the thirtieth time because I provoked him and he's such a nice guy really." Dump him the first time. Girls who stay in abusive relationships suck.
Sample Dislike #2: When he plays video games all night.
Solution: Dump him. The part where you get yourself some valid interests will come later. Let's not even get into the fact that his hobbies at least involve some kind of hand-eye coordination and skill. He deserves a girl who can frag, and you deserve that pathetic guy who buys you lunch and listens to your problems. Girls who bitch about video games suck.
Sample Dislike #3: When he doesn't propose after we've been together X number of years.
Solution: Dump him. The guy doesn't want to marry you. I repeat: HE DOESN'T WANT TO MARRY YOU. Consider that another commandment. Chances are, all you really want is a wedding, because you're past your prime and can't get attention with your character / talent / education. If you're one of the .0001% who actually care about building a life with your boyfriend, nagging him into giving you a ring is only going to get you a rotten marriage, unhappy kids, an online affair and an ugly divorce. Girls who think their wedding day will be the best day of their life suck.
WHERE WILL THIS LEAVE YOU?
Alone. That's right. You'll be without a boyfriend. Chances are, you'll be without a bestest girlfriend, as well, because when you stopped bitching, it became really fucking annoying to listen to her bitch all day, and you decided it might be fun to sleep with her boyfriend.
This might be scary. Most of you have never had to be alone with yourselves. In the stillness of your own company, you have probably found that you are boring. Your first impulse will be to go out and find yourself a new boyfriend, to fill the silence with your own comforting nagging, but you should resist this temptation. Why? Because:
YOU ARE NO LONGER A GIRL WHO SUCKS.
Yeah, give yourself a round of applause.
WHOA WHOA WHOA. DON'T GET CARRIED AWAY, NOW.
I never said you were a girl who was cool. That comes next. It's not going to be easy, sweetie, but it just might lead to a more fulfilling life. It will involve having character and interests. It will involve knowing more about yourself than what a Cosmo quiz can tell you.
WHY SHOULD YOU GO TO THE TROUBLE?
Don't think for a moment that you're doing this just to get me off. I probably won't like you, no matter who you turn into. What's important is reaching your own potential.
Let's say you get some interests and build some character and decide you'd like to have someone around to talk to and have sex with. As a cool person, you'd only pick someone about whom you will not complain. You will choose someone who you respect. You will build a meaningful relationship, a lasting marriage, and maybe raise some kids who won't dump you in a nursing home when you can't wipe your ass anymore.
Part Two-A: GET A GODDAMN HOBBY (Introduction and Getting Game).
SO YOU DON'T SUCK. WHATEVER.
You got rid of your boyfriend and your loser from-sixth-grade girlfriend and you haven't whined in twenty-four hours. Don't start asking me for key chains yet, girls. This is kind of like taking the red pill in the Matrix. You're on the right track, but you still have to get unplugged and slide down the nasty chute and know Kung Fu and look good in leather.
I bet you've discovered that you have a lot of free time now. You used to spend most of your day yakking at your girlfriend or nagging at your boyfriend or watching Friends, but now you no longer suck, so it's time to find something to do.
First, I'll provide you with a goal to keep in mind. The goal is to not be eighty, sitting in a wheelchair in the dirty, dark hall of a nursing home in your own feces, weeping. The goal is to build a community of people that share your interests, whether that be a family or just a really awesome set of friends who don't suck. With that in mind, let's move on to:
SOME HOBBIES THAT SUCK.
This is not about my personal opinion. This is about logic. For example, if your primary hobbies are shopping and makeup, that sucks. These things do not involve other people. They are shallow and self-serving hobbies that nobody who is cool wants to discuss. The idea is to make you an interesting person of character.
Some other hobbies that suck are:
Alcoholism. This is not a family / community that will stick around to wipe your ass in your old age, no matter how much they applaud when you sing karaoke. Besides, we're trying to make you into an interesting person, and alcoholics are only mildly entertaining when watching them on Cops. Alcoholics suck.
Trying desperately to stay young. It's surprising how many women consider this their top priority. You might be one of them and not even know it. If it takes you five hours from bed to front door to get ready in the morning, this might just be your hobby. Nobody wants to talk about this hobby with you (see paragraph above regarding shopping and makeup) and, even worse, you're guaranteed to fail at this hobby. Besides, the people you would surround yourself with, namely plastic surgeons and Mac counter girls, are scary. Girls who try to be twenty when they're forty suck.
Yourself. Do not choose therapy as your hobby. It's fine to be in therapy, just like it's fine to take a multivitamin in the morning. It is not cool to get so into your inner self that you forget that there are OTHER THINGS IN THE UNIVERSE. If, by the end of a lunch date, your companion is stabbing himself in the ear with his fork so that he won't have to hear you talk about your sponsor and your sixth step for another minute, you might just be your own hobby. If your conversations always seem to end with the other person checking his watch, excusing himself to go kill his grandmother, saying "My god; I don't think you've breathed for twenty minutes," or holding up a sign that says, CHRIST ALMIGHTY, DON'T YOU EVER SHUT YOUR HOLE? You might just be your own hobby. Nobody wants to hear about your latest psychiatric drug cocktail. If you begin sentences with, "My therapist says," you suck.
NOW ON TO HOBBIES THAT RULE.
The idea is to get good at something. People who are truly good at things are fun to talk to. If you get good at something interesting, people will actually come up to you and ask questions about it. This is the goal.
There are many different kinds of hobbies. You should have one or two primary ones and a varied list of passive interests.
Warning: This step might just require you to learn something. If you are averse to learning things, please go back to your dumbass boyfriend and your sucky life.
If you're still with me, let's discuss some different kinds of hobbies. These should be jumping-off points for your own ideas and interests.
GET SOME GAME.
I'm talking about competition, whether you move your ass or sit in front of a massively multiplayer online role playing game. I don't give a shit what you choose, but everyone needs a healthy dose of antagonism in their lives, and this is the way to do it without comparing your ass to every other chick's on the street.
At the top of the game ladder are sports in which you can learn how to kick someone's ass. If your game involves eye-gouging and head-butting, you're on your way to self-respect, ladies. Martial arts are a great way to go, especially if they're the kind where you get to hit stuff like bags and mitts and pads and each other. Tae Kwon Do is allowed, but it's at the bottom of the cool ladder. This is the Twenty-First Century, for godsake. Nobody needs to kick anybody off a horse.
If you aren't much into competing, dancing is a great way to get some game. Breakdancing, Flamenco, Salsa, Ballroom, go for it. I will even accept country dancing, as long as you confine the fringe wearing to the dance floor, so I don't have to see it. Dancing often has the added benefit of needing partners. This is a phenomenon called "Meeting people who have similar interests." This is how you're supposed to begin relationships with people. Relationships that start with "Can I buy you a drink?" and "Wow, we bitch about the same things!" suck.
Although treadmills and stairstepping machines are good for you, much like multivitamins and therapy that you shut the hell up about, they're not good game because there are no communities surrounding running and going nowhere. If you want to run, join a running group or run marathons. Running marathons is cool. Telling people about how many calories you burned makes them want to dig your eyeballs out with melonball scoops. Nobody cares how many calories you burned.
There's never been a better time to be a girl gamer. Not only are there lots of interesting, addictive video games to be mastered, there are very few chicks doing it, and unless you're playing console sports games, many of the other players are men with educations and careers. These are good things for a potential life partner to have. The downside is, if you are playing online, you will not know what your potential life partner looks like. The upside is, he will not have to know what you look like, either, and if you're spending ten hours a day playing Everquest, your stinky, fat ass will prefer this veil.
During this process of transformation, you may accidentally discover that you have a brain. If you'd like to use it, I suggest games like chess and pool. I'm not talking about the kind of pool you play in a miniskirt after having had a few glasses of whatever's on tap. I'm talking about the kind of pool that requires planning and precision, skill and mathematics.
Note: We're getting into a tricky area here, so I should expound. Gambling is a hobby that sucks. There is nothing cool about taking out a second mortgage so you can pull the handle on a slot machine all day. We're looking for a community experience here, something that you will be able to do that others will respect you for. Plus, if you choose gambling as a hobby, you won't even be able to afford the nursing home. You'll be shitting yourself in a cardboard box somewhere. And talking to yourself.
FAIR WARNING
Please remember that no matter what game you choose, you're going to humiliate yourself doing it at first. Accept it, laugh at yourself, and move the fuck on. Girls who quit because their dignity is bruised suck.
Additionally, having game does not mean that you get to feel superior and turn into a raving bitch, unless you are me.
And you are not.
Me.
Part Two-B: NON-GAME THINGS TO DO WITH YOUR TIME.
GET INTERESTED IN SOMETHING.
Contrary to popular belief, there is a world out there beyond your evening TV dramas, and there are things to read besides bridal magazines and the Cosmo sex quiz. If you are starting out with no interests at all, I suggest going to your local bookstore.
Warning: Most, if not all, of the things you will have to do as a cool girl will require at least some reading. If you detest reading, please go back to your regularly scheduled Friends episode.
Start at the magazine rack. Look through the science and current events mags. Stay far away from the Women's Interest section, as those magazines hedge their bets on women having no interests outside cosmetics and having a bikini-ready tummy.
Take a walk through the nonfiction section. Grab whatever catches your eye. Go through History, Art, Religion, Health. Psychiatry is fine; Self Help is not. The idea is to find something that you can learn more about so that you'll be able to have meaningful conversations. Nobody wants to listen to you talk about your abusive childhood and what it means to your chakras.
Spend a few minutes in the fiction section, however: do not be sucked in by romance and/or chick lit. A romance novel is easy to sort out: they're the ones with the silly Fabio covers and the plots about pirates and women in distress and men who change. Chick lit, however, is not so easy. You might find yourself twenty or thirty pages into a chick lit novel before realizing you've lost a few thousand brain cells.
Chick lit novels tend to have "Diary" or "Boy Next Door" or "Groove" in their titles. The heroines of chick lit novels are chicks in their twenties or thirties, usually unmarried, usually obsessed with their weight, usually with careers in publishing or advertising (though they spend little time actually working). They're unlucky in love, have a gaggle of stylish girlfriends, usually one well-placed gay friend, and drink lots of lattes. They count calories and quote self-help books and say things like, "Maybe I should try not sleeping with him on the first date." There is always a scene where our heroine is dressed inappropriately for a party. Our heroines are rewarded with weddings.
Ew, ew, ew.
THERE'S A POINT TO ALL THIS READING.
People get together to discuss their interests. There are classes, lectures, clubs and readings surrounding intellectual interests, where you will find people with your same interests to talk to and invite over for anything but Scrabble, for god's sake.
Don't be afraid to go into debt pursuing an education. Educations can lead to a career and a community, unless you're getting a liberal arts degree, in which case you're doomed to teaching, or unemployment, and the sullen, boring life one lives inside one's own skull.
Quick recap:
Going into debt for education: Fine
Going into debt for a wedding: Dumb
OTHER USEFUL HOBBIES.
You should have some interesting skills besides tying cherry stems into knots with your tongue and getting tattooed. Use my suggestions as jumping-off points for your own crazy ideas.
COOKING.
Taco Bell is bad for you. There is no reason on God's green earth why you should still be going to McDonald's, post-Happy Meal toy childhood fun. Besides, eating out is bad for your body, thus bad for your game, so it's time to learn how to cook.
Start simple. Remember the bookstore? There's a whole section of cookbooks. Thumb through several of these. You can build up from there. Find a few that look relatively simple, with ingredients you can get all at one place for a decent price. If you have a mother who cooks, this would be a good time to call her.
You could also specialize. Wouldn't it be cool if you could make your own beer? Have elaborate dessert get-togethers, where things are lit on fire? How about getting geeked up about coffee, maybe getting one of those pump-action jobs, or an espresso machine, or something. My point is, instead of mindlessly consuming your food like a cow, put some thought into it.
CREATIVITY.
Get into music. Learn to play an instrument, buy CD's, make mixes, go to concerts. Support those cool local bands who play at cafés and bars on weekends. Don't support the guys who can't hold a tune and don't know which side of the guitar is up but think they have Something To Say about one of the following: The Environment, Government, Love. A good side hobby might be taking what you've learned in your martial arts classes (See: Get Some Game) and kicking the shit out of these people in dark alleys.
Learn to draw, paint, sculpt, make jewelry, whatever. BE CAREFUL: The men you meet while learning art may take themselves very, very seriously and not shave nearly enough and wear too much black and hair gel.
With much trepidation, I will finally suggest that you might write. Keep in mind that you will probably be very bad at it. Just because you know how to write out a check doesn't mean you can write a story. That takes time and practice and patience. Also, it seems to make perfectly normal people into the kind whose favorite hobby is themselves. Watch out for the warning signs I mentioned (See: Some Hobbies That Suck: Yourself).
RELIGION.
As long as you keep this hobby generally quiet, except within your own religious circle, this is a great thing to do. Everyone needs structure and morals and guidelines, and couples who have the same structure and morals and guidelines have a better chance of understanding one another. Stay away from any religion that requires you to:
Drink poisoned Kool-Aid
Kill/maim/hate people with beliefs differing from your own
Be a loud, obnoxious asshole about it
COMMUNITY SERVICE.
When your cat has fleas and the car is dirty and you have a zit the size of Montana, nothing makes your problems seem small like helping out people with real problems. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to break the law to help out in your community. Volunteer to help the homeless, the infirm and the sick.
YOU'RE ON YOUR WAY
to being a person of character. Now that you have interests and perhaps even a career worth talking about, it's time to move on to making friends and dating, which should be a natural progression of peeling your ass off the couch and getting out.
For my new adopted little brother
Brendan tries so hard to come off like a bad person. I think both our blogs are named after the scariest parts of ourselves.
What I might have forgotten to mention in those entries where I'm pissed at my family is, they're all in Colorado. I don't have to deal with them here in California. If I did, if they were my foremost Christmas option, I would have hightailed it to Brendan's place, eaten what I could without throwing up, and helped with the dishes.
Thankfully, there is Mr. Aran's family, without whom the holidays would be bleak. There is so much laughter, so much love and kindness with these people. I had a fantastic Christmas, involving socks with multi-colored horizontal stripes and individual toes.
Someday, though, I might just take Brendan up on his offer. Boy will he be sorry.
Control Freaky
It's amazing how the worst control freaks don't often admit it. My longest-standing friend is this fantastic guy who lives in a spotless apartment in San Francisco. He has always been just so. He did a boring kind of thing in high school, with the sweaters and the suede shoes. Then one day during senior year, he showed up in heavy, steel-toed boots. I was in the mall with him when he decided, seemingly out of the blue, to buy a motorcycle leather jacket, with the obvious zippers and such, but it was not out of the blue. He knew exactly what look he wanted.
The mohawk followed. The most carefully procured and styled mohawk ever in existence. Thank god he wore it up for my wedding photos. I wouldn't have it any other way.
He's more professional now. His shoes are Italian, expensive, and he uses his shoe horn every time. His belongings and furniture are minimal, each item bought with forethought to its placement in his apartment.
Yet, if you call him a perfectionist, or a control freak, he will argue with you. Then he will tell you he doesn't understand why people get so bent out of shape about Martha Stewart; I mean, god forbid someone do something to the best of her ability.
I don't know why the control freak is so badmouthed these days. Maybe it is synonymous with "dictator," giving it that scary Sadaam feel, like we might cleanse the world of the lazy. It reminds me of that Eddie Izzard bit where he's talking about Hitler being a painter. "I cannot get this tree right... damn! I will kill everyone in the world!"
I am not quite to the control freakout calibur of my dear longstanding friend or that scary vegetarian, Hitler, but I do lose sleep over what I cannot control. It frustrates me to no end that I cannot flip the switches in my mother's brain. She would be so much happier, believe me. I'd have her living and working in Hawaii, taking long morning walks with her svelte Samoan lawyer slash fire-eater husband, downing wheatgrass shots and adopting stray kittens. It's not quite the life for me, but I know damn well what's best for her. And wouldn't it be great if I could argue the evil aunt into submission, or even knock her lights out like I've dreamed of for years? (I would let her swing at me first, I decided, then catch her sorry wide excuse for a hook and implant my two biggest knuckles into the bridge of her nose.)
I am only now getting to the place where I don't control Mr. Aran so much. I am an insufferable bitch much of the time. Each time he takes the laundry downstairs, I'm certain he's going to fall to his death. If he does not answer his phone at work, I know he's in the broom closet with the receptionist. (Trust me, though, I don't accuse him of this. Often.)
He will soon be driving on his own, which is the worst. I control whatever car I'm in, no matter who's driving. When we back up, I swivel my head to look. I cannot imagine the horror of sitting at home while he drives somewhere on his own. Millions of crash scenarios, each resulting in a gorier death, will go through my brain, and I will try to drown them out with Family Guy DVDs.
Even now, I'm trying to figure out if it's too early for Santa to be arriving, if kids these days go to bed as early as I used to, if they even believe in him any more in these jaded times, and whether I should let our kid believe in Santa at all, in which case s/he'll be that annoying kid who tells the other kids about the falsity of all their hopes and dreams.
It also pisses me off to no end to not have any idea what in fuck all is going on in my uterus right now. If I could have a daily ultrasound, I would. I would wheel one into my living room, squirt the jelly and stick the scary dildo thing up in there, poke around a bit. I want to be the first to know if there is an extra head or leg or if perhaps it isn't a baby at all, but a weird canine/human amalgam. I have often seriously wondered if I could buy a stethoscope to at least hear the heartbeat. I just don't want to repeat the first time, where I joyfully looked at the monitor, pretending to understand what I saw there, joking and playing with the... ultrasoundologist, only to find out later that her strained silence was the result of my unknown uterine failure. I have had sick miscarriage scenarios run through my head, where I realize I'm bleeding and I jump in the shower, to catch the blood, and pull the plug thing, and root through the mess trying to find the baby. This is institutional shit, ladies and gentlemen.
The control freakiness is all borne out of fear. I know I'm scared. It's a brave thing, to let someone else steer the ship for awhile, to trust. Faith is not an inborn ability for me. It's something I've cultivated and hidden away. I don't want anyone to know I have it. How weak it appears, to believe in something unproven, to acknowledge the existence of things no one can yet make scientific and I can't even really explain. That little bit of faith has shown me, though, that my mother is much stronger than I am, because she goes headlong into dangerous territory without fear. I will never have that. I will just have to admire her for it.
I told Brendan I'm too tired to be angry, and it's true. Last night I was fueled by a lot of spagetti and I came very close to something like normal, though my fury would have manifest in more than a blog if I were at full health.
Today I'm tired, though not so sick. Maybe it was the threat of Phenergen; my baby decided to let me have a day off of the nausea. But I can't be angry today. There's too much to do and too little energy with which to do it.
So tomorrow, when I speak to my grandpa, I will tell him he has broken my heart. That's all I have energy for. And when I've reached that elusive second trimester, maybe I'll have the strength to do more.
Disposable
It was a long time coming. My heart is broken now, but I wasn't surprised.
See, I have an evil aunt, an evil grandmother, an emotionally-crippled uncle, and an easily-used grandfather. My mother is harmful, too, but only to herself. She's learning the kind of stupid lessons that women should learn in their late teens or early twenties, but she's nearing fifty. Yeah. One of those kareoke bar hoppers.
I forgot to mention: she is a goddamn saint. She forgives at the first kind word. She is a nurse, the kind who helps people die comfortably. You'd think that, after doing that awhile, you'd learn to stop loving every one of them, but my mom is retarded that way. She weeps for each one who passes, takes care of their families, and attends their funerals.
It's the grandfather who is at the cusp of all the problems. He's like my mom. They were always close, and when I was born, he and I were close, too. He gives wholly of himself always. He was a policeman.
My grandmother, aunt, and uncle were always jealous of the relationship my mother and I had with him. We're talking aunt down on her knees under the tree at Christmas, counting gifts to make sure her kids got equal treatment with my mother's kids. We're talking knock-down, drag-out fights every time we all got together.
I used to watch While You Were Sleeping a lot. People wrinkled their noses at me. Samus? Watching a chick flick? Multiple times? But I loved the scenes with the guy's family. They all laughed and commented on the food, and argued pleasantly about actors, and exclaimed at their gifts, and accepted Sandra Bullock right away, sight unseen. They were quirky and silly and tight. Wholly in love with one another.
I thought it was a pipe dream until I met my husband's family. They are just like that. The logic is astounding: Why argue? It's Christmas! Argue another day. Or: It's too hot/cold/late to argue. Or: Don't argue; we have to be careful of Mom's blood pressure. I know arguments happen. I instigated one once, and the family carried on like dogs in water: capable, paddling, wet and heavy and breathing heavily; while I, the professional arguer, swam in tight circles around them, like a speedboat.
The reason is different this year. There is always a reason. My family doesn't do well with no contention. Someone has to be on the outs, so sides can be taken and money taken out of the allotment for people's gifts. My evil aunt has a new husband and a new baby girl, a rented cabin in Estes Park and a strict church schedule. Oh, but I remember:
[1] The affair, during her first marriage, with a man who had an autistic son. The boy really loved french fries. They would put him in the front seat of the car with a side of french fries and fuck in the back seat. Mmmm, french fries.
[2] The hospital, where she ended up for 72 hours after taking some pills in her car. She didn't take quite enough to die. Just enough so she could phone someone in a blurry voice to come get her. She never was very good at following through.
[3] The boyfriend who eventually became her husband. Of course, we all had to keep it from her two sons that they were fucking. That would be unChristianlike.
[4] The dinner out with my mother and two other nurses. The evil aunt worked at the same hospital, doing a desk job that barely required a high school diploma. When guys came over to flirt, she introduced herself as a nurse. In front of actual nurses. Yeah.
[5] The abortions. Her tally, thus far, is Kids: 3. Dead Kids: 4. Had to keep up appearances, you know!
[6] The kid with HIV. The little girl's mother had died of AIDS, and the evil aunt wanted to adopt the baby. See, she always wanted a girl. She's always wanted me, especially after the attention I garnered from her father. I became a disappointment during high school, though, and she scrapped the idea, instead deciding I'd be some kind of nemesis. So anyway, kid ends up with HIV, she decides not to adopt her because of this, then shuts herself in her room and sobs loudly. For days. Sorry for herself, because she couldn't have a baby girl. Not because said baby girl was going to die in a horrible way very young.
[7] The same behavior, to a T, is repeated when a family puppy dies.
[8] When she met my soon-to-be husband, she sat him down and told him I had a "black heart." That he'd find out one day.
[9] Fast forward to a few months ago. Her sixteen-year old son didn't show up at church one night like he was supposed to. She came home, fought with him. He said the word "shit" to her. She slapped him on the face. Twice. He decided to go to his dad's; she disabled his car and took his schoolbooks. She told him he was going to go live with his father forever, but he wasn't allowed to take any of his things and, I quote, "Christmas isn't going to be so nice for you this year." The kid, who faints at the sight of blood, pulls good grades, works a part-time job several days a week, and watches his new little sister whenever it's needed, has now been blown up in the mind of evil aunt, evil grandmother, and weak grandfather as a severe drug addict. My grandmother says, "I know he's into THE HARD STUFF." My grandmother would not know THE HARD STUFF if it bit her on the ass.
In the midst of this mess, my cousin had the police called on him two times. The first time, on the night of the fight. He'd lost his wallet, evil aunt knew this, so she reported him as an unlicensed driver to the cops. Yeah.
Second time, it was evil grandmother who called the cops. He'd come over while his mom was at work to get his clothing, with a friend who they were sure had a warrant out for her arrest. In fact, one of my cousin's friends does have a warrant out for her arrest. She's reported as a runaway because she, at perfectly legal age to do so, has gone to live with her father.
Since this time, months ago, my cousin has made dozens of calls to his mother and stepfather. One he placed while outside their home, looking at their cars in the driveway. The three-year old little girl told him their parents weren't home. He has not heard from them once. He was not invited to Thanksgiving. He was not invited to Christmas.
[10] Lastly, I remember her beating my brother. He was maybe six or seven years old. He didn't want his sandwich. I was feeding evil aunt's son, who was just a baby at the time. My brother could be willful, and picky with his food.
I heard a sound from inside the house, like someone striking the ground with something. Solid slaps, hard, silence otherwise. I got up to see what was going on. Evil aunt had my brother by one arm and was beating him with a wooden spoon. I remember shaking. I went back to my baby cousin.
The wooden spoon broke. She got another one and continued. My brother refused to make a sound. She had been babysitting us.
Later that night, when my mother drove my brother to her sister's house and demanded to know why her son had bruises all up and down his little body, evil aunt explained that he was willful and deserved it, and furthermore, my mother was a horrible parent.
P.S. Her own children were not abused in this fashion. They got "time outs." Because she was a good parent.
So my grandfather told my mom last night that he, evil grandmother, evil aunt, stepuncle and spawn, would be going to the mountains for Christmas. I wonder if he said it out loud, that my mother wasn't invited, or if it was just passive-aggressively implied. I'm assuming the latter.
They're angry at my mother because she keeps in contact with my cousin. The one who's supposedly on THE HARD STUFF. He comes over, watches football. Takes a little gas money. Calls to see how she's doing.
My mother will forgive them. At the first kind word, my mother will come back, begging for love, giving all of herself.
But I have to do something. My mother may be replaceable to her family, but she is not replaceable to me. I believe the cost for breaking her heart this year will be far more expensive than they first considered. They figured they'd teach her a lesson for refusing to support her sister in this silent battle against a sixteen-year old. Then, because history repeats itself, they figured they'd show her a little attention and have her back as if nothing had happened. My mother's spirit looks like a horribly patched-over rag doll, covered in scars from her family's abuse. And that's okay with her.
But I have a new family to take care of. I have a thing inside me with its own heartbeat and absolutely no defense against evil. I have to be that defense. For the good of this baby, I cannot let this continue. My grandfather, who has let me know that this baby growing in me is his greatest hope, prayer and wish, will have to do without, for the atrocities he has committed this Christmas.
May this be the last Christmas that my heart is broken. Next year, God willing, may there be new, unspoiled life in my home to combat the terror that is my horrible extended family. And may my mother spend next Christmas here, with her new grandchild.
In short: Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all.
Somethin Wrong Here
I love it when Goofy says that. I feel like that right now. Something is definitely wrong, but I can't put my finger on it.
I don't feel dizzy. I feel disoriented. I am not particularly nauseous (in any emergency kind of way), but my stomach feels odd. I don't have a fever, but I have the moving-through-thick-hot-air feeling of fever, the living-in-a-bubble state of consciousness. Everything sounds kind of echo-y.
New low: I fell asleep in the bathroom at work. I have no idea how long I was in there. I woke up when someone else came in, scaring me to death. I should be glad I didn't keel over forwards onto the tile.
After washing my hands, I was halfway to sitting on the floor when some tiny rational voice inside said, "No Sammy, you cannot sit on the floor in the bathroom at work and just take a little breather. Go to your desk."
So I'm at my desk. This is a whole new odd scary sickness. Can't wait to figure it out.
What Kidless People See In Cats
My cat is beautiful. She is three swirly colors: chocolate, caramel and butter. She lays on her back, her paws curled and forgotten in the air, and looks at you upside-down. Her ears are soft and she doesn't mind if you touch them. She will give a warning bite if you touch her rump and will only tolerate belly petting if you are distracting her with head petting at the same time. It's worth it.
She is afraid of the balls with the bells inside, except the green one. She'll play with the green one for all of thirty seconds before, exhausted and triumphant, taking a nap.
At night, she licks herself loudly, with aplomb, obviously enjoying herself far too much.
Stevie Wonder's a Musical Genius!
Someone in my office is listening to Stevie Wonder, and that is good. It's good for my tired tummy. Joni Mitchell is, too. Early Joni, not the Joni whose six packs a day have caught up with her.
Stevie Wonder, though, needs a reality check.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20041206/en_nm/leisure_wonder_dc
You have got to be kidding me, Mr. Wonder. Poor young black kids did not make Eminem what he is today. Angry suburban white kids did. Nobody who names Dr. Dre as his kid's godfather is racist, and Michael Jackson, while we're at it, is not black or white. He's a fucking freak, possibly a pedophile. I would leave my kid with Eminem long before I'd leave my kid with Jackson.
Jungle Drums
All my best writing comes to me when I am too exhausted to write. I wrote in my head almost all night last night. I sleep so lightly now. The only thing I remember was a colorful new way of describing the pain in my breasts. It aches all the time now, but when my nipples are touched, the pain is a hot needle going straight through.
Even at my most sleepy, I can't sleep. Last night, I could only breathe through my right nostril. If I laid on my left side, which was most comfortable, my right nostril caved in and I had to sort of hold it open with my upper arm. My other arm cradled my left breast, lest the nipple accidentally brush against something. If I turned onto my other side, I could breathe, but it was less comfortable. My pillows were collapsing in on themselves and needed constant fluffing. Every time I turned, I had to readjust the pillow between my knees. Lying on my back made my back ache. I went around and around for hours last night.
All the while, I was sure my husband was going to die.
I've been reading Operating Instructions, this great little true account by Anne Lamott of her son's first year. In it, her lifelong friend Pammy finds out she has breast cancer and begins treatment. I know, from reading Lamott's later works, that Pammy dies, very young.
It's my control fixation that makes me think my husband will die somehow, will leave me alone with a baby. Before, I just assumed that if he died, I would die as well. Now, I don't have that option. It's insane to think this way, but I think it's all tied in to the pregnancy - last time, I took the whole pregnancy bit on faith, assumed all was well, and it was a miscarriage. This time, I don't want to be excited, I don't want to plan. I bother myself with statistics - one of five pregnancies end in miscarriage, so four out of five don't, but of those four, how many have other problems? So if I take it on faith that all will be well with this pregnancy - and certainly, I have to act like that's so - then I have to take it on faith that my husband and I will grow old together, healthy and happy, with a healthy and happy kid who outlives us.
This is what I do instead of sleep.
I'm just so tired, so fucking sick and exhausted for the vast majority of the day, that I can't be excited. I have zero maternal instinct. I admitted to my husband that I felt so shitty that I didn't care what happened to the kid. He was remarkably understanding.
I feel bad for most of the day, until around 4:00 pm. Then I have an hour and a half left of work. In the hours before that, I take small naps at my desk and spend as little time as possible in a standing position. I try to eat a bite every half hour. I gag while I chew. From about 6:00 pm on, I can eat in bulk, and I do. I eat everything I can get my hands on that doesn't make me need to vomit. I shovel it in, as if I could store it for later. Tonight I had Taco Bell, because it is fast and tacos are one thing I can kind of eat. I normally detest most fast food, even look down on those who eat it. I had three taco supremes and still had the sick aching throwuppy pain in my belly. Then I ate four nectarines and half a pint of frozen yogurt. I feel almost normal now, except for the sleepiness.
Now I'll go eat a biscuit with honey, and swallow my prenatal vitamin, and hope I will actually fall asleep tonight before the jungle drums start to play. For Anne Lamott, the jungle drums are forboding noises in her head. My jungle drum is my abdominal artery. I feel it pound all night. You can put your hand over my belly and feel it going crazy. With it comes the hot acid feeling in my stomach and esophagus that carries through from about midnight to 4:00 pm the next day.
Breathing
I haven't done much but lay in bed and read this weekend. I went to a Christmas party last night, filled with all the married gorgeous ladies in my life. We are all very congratulatory of one another, openly admiring one another's breasts and legs and asses, flirting like pubescent lipstick lesbians. One of them is a pastry chef. I came to an understanding, early in my diet, about food: diet is about day-in-day-out stuff, not celebrations. My evenings in front of Sex and the City DVDs and pints of ice cream were not celebrations. So I managed to go to Mrs. Pastry Chef's wedding and still lose weight.
Sometimes I am annoyed with my distinct Lack of Level in WoW. Everyone I like to play with is far ahead of me. But showers tire me out these days; competition drains me. Looking at computer screens for too long makes me queasy. So I lay in bed and read. Today I found myself trying to force yawns and realized I was having trouble breathing again.
I went to the doctor for it a few months ago. He is old and odd, maybe even a bit flirty, but he is good and does not make me wait. He listened to my breathing and asked some questions and then told me, offhand, that it was all in my head. I expected sad news coupled with a prescription for a drug that would be inserted into my body in some loud and cool way. I wanted to hear ASTHMA, I wanted to hear INHALER, I wanted to hear YOU POOR THING. I wanted to puff miserably at my inhaler during particularly stressful meetings at work.
He gave me a prescription for an x-ray, to be done at a lab someplace else. I didn't feel like going back to work, so I swung by one of the walk-in places and slapped my prescription down. The lady there said, "I'm so sorry, any other day I'd put you right in, but we've had a really busy day and there's a two-hour wait." So I went home, picked up some lunch and went back to work to give the humiliating news that I was making shit up.
My boss took me into her office. She is very motherly and a meandering converser, which bothers the living fuck out of a girl like me. Give me the bullet points, please. Even worse, she decided that it was a good time to talk Jesus with me. I went through sixteen years of severe Jesus, more severe than you might imagine. I was scary, right up there with the Scientologists and Witnesses and Mormons you avoid at the bus stop. I do not dig the Jesus talk these days. It strikes ugly chords in my psyche.
It was good, though. She told me I needed to give over control to God, that I couldn't handle everything. Indeed, that is how I live my life: controlling and planning every detail, so that when things go wrong, it's a travesty. She told me I needed to take quiet time every day to be with God. She did not force pamphlets or a particular religion on me, and it was completely inappropriate worktime conversation, but I needed it. I don't even know if I really believe in God. Ever since I met Mr. Aran, he has been God to me, in that old-school Catholic way of finding God in your family. I can't see God. The abstract doesn't mesh well with me. But I see my husband every day. He is my Divine.
After that came a tough time of letting go of some control and giving it over to my husband. Now that I'm sick and tired, I've been forced to allow him to help me out. One morning I was so exhausted and sick that I wept. He laid down next to me and fed me bits of bread and cheese until I was strong enough to get up. Now that is God.
So today I'm reading and I find myself gulping for air again. Making myself yawn and being unable to. The old panicky feeling crept up, and then the logical mind took over. Was I being a control freak? Had I taken on responsibility that wasn't mine?
Then I unhooked my bra and felt a little better. I think my boobs have just gotten too big for it.
Of Boys and Men
It got out, somehow, that I have this blog, to a few boys I play video games with. They thought my entry on indigestion was hilarious, and they think they own me by mentioning it in the least clever ways.
The truth is, if it were embarassing to me, I wouldn't have posted it. So a woman has trouble with digestion while pregnant. Their own mothers suffered the same while attempting to bring their sorry asses into the world, and any woman who has the misfortune to get pregnant by them will suffer the same.
Embarassment at my own truth faded from me years ago, when I sold my writing to a publication so well-known that I had to admit some shitty things about my psyche to my rather Christian family, who I never cared to disrespect. There were things in that story that I'd been pretty good about keeping from my family before then. If I survived that, I can certainly survive the boy's mocking of my cashew farts. He's too dim to see that I wrote it to make fun of myself, to find some silliness in the sickness and discomfort I've felt these last few weeks. I'm not surprised. I can only hope that one day he grows up into the kind of man who can claim one good partner for himself, and create or adopt whatever kind of family is appropriate for him, instead of chasing after the wives of others, a boy who should have long outgrown his Oedipal complex.
--
I should be in bed, but it feels so good to not be sick that I have a hard time allowing myself to sleep. I know I'll feel like three kinds of hell in the morning. I bought accupressure wristbands that are supposed to take away nausea - we'll see how that works tomorrow.
Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair
When I'm really sick, I usually have one bit of a song going through my head on repeat, broken-record style. Today, it's this.
Gonna wash that man right outta my hair Gonna wash that man right outta my hair Gonna wash that man right outta my hair
It's maddening.
The sickness is getting worse, and my doctor's office is, as usual, not helpful. They're condescending on the phone. I feel like I'm known as *that girl* who calls constantly asking for outrageous things. I know I am not that girl, because I fear being that girl. I am nice, polite, patient, and clear when I call my doctor's office, which isn't often. I do not complain, ever, not even when they make me wait upwards of ninety minutes after my appointment time. I am sheepish around my doctor, I don't waste his time. I am unsure what I did to deserve this treatment. I have to assume that it isn't me. The office simply has taken on too many patients.
I was hoping I'd have a more pleasant experience with my doctor this time, that I'd be with them for twenty weeks and then go to the midwife, but I'm thinking that if indeed this is a healthy pregnancy, I'll spend the extra grand and stick with the midwife from day one.
This sickness is freaking me out. I am not tired, I'm exhausted. The last time I remember being so exhausted was after my first kickboxing class. I went home and fell asleep on the floor just inside the door, still in my workout clothes. I woke in that steaming carpet sweat sludge with the seams of my clothing cutting my skin into Tron-like portions.
And it was like this last time. It started earlier, but it was just like this. I was unable to get up from bed, absolutely UNABLE. I had no energy to move. I have no idea how mankind reproduced itself when all you need is a ton of food, and the very smell of it makes you gag. It makes you want to shake your fist at god.
Gonna wash that man
Heart
Did I mention the heart? I didn't. It was there. I didn't hear it, but man could you see it. 180 beats per minute, like a bird.
When I worked in the cardiovascular research laboratory, I touched a real living heart. It belonged to a white, male bunny. He'd already been opened up once and given a heart attack, then given the medication they hoped would help. When I saw him, asleep on the operating table, he was being examined for the last time, and he was about to die.
I put on a glove and pressed my index finger to his heart. It was going wild, there inside him, though nothing else moved. I have been trying to write about this experience for years, ever since it happened, and I still cannot find the words to describe what it is to feel a beating heart under your finger. I can still feel it now. It was tough and hard, so strong, part of me and yet distinctively owned by this life. It was just like life. It was like feeling life.
That said, having something inside me with a heartbeat is so strange, and a little icky.
Bad Today
It's bad today. I do not need other people in my office to feel bad today, but they do, and my spidey senses tell me I will be staying late to do their jobs.
Felt so good to throw up this morning. It sounds strange, but everyone who's thrown up knows of what I speak: you rest your cheek on the cold porcelain and let out a wavering sigh of relief. You get up and gargle like hell, then make a cheese sandwich.
Saturday night, as befits jet-setters of our nature, was spent in the emergency room. In the first trimester, symptoms can be translated in all different ways, and a few of my symptoms meant I went in for an ultrasound, just to rule out ectopic pregnancy.
I went in with my bladder full to bursting. We'd been making jokes all night, like we do. There was no part of me that believed I'd leave the hospital, call my mother, and tell her everything was fine. Like throwing up, I believed I'd finally see what I'd been expecting: whatever was so definitely wrong this time around. At one point, the doctor went in to the curtained-off section next to mine and announced cheerily, "You have appendicitis!" The woman in the room was giggling a bit within moments. After all that pain, what a relief to hear a doctor proclaim what ails you and then give off the checklist of what must be done to fix it. That is what I expected in the ultrasound room.
Instead, I got a wry, quiet guy who squirted on the jelly, inserted the Dildo Grande into my very self, and announced all in one key: "And there's the pregnancy, in the uterus where it's supposed to be."
It is very difficult, now that I have this assurance, to remember that I am not supposed to be excited, that anything could go wrong, indeed it did last time, and all I did was excite myself and family for nothing.
I hope, in a month or two, that I will look back on this entry with a serene smile for those horrible mornings that are long past. Maybe that's why I'm documenting this.
We're pregnant! Barf!
I'm feeling a little more girl-power than usual these last few weeks, and it has been good. I'm doing something no man can do. It's hard, and it's going to get harder. There's a certain power in that, no matter the outcome.
It is hard to know what's normal when your damn doctor schedules your first appointment practically a week before your due date (a few less patients perhaps?) and all the "What To Expect" books make you sleepy. So I've been googling around a bit. I ran into a pregnancy journal of sorts that is doing nothing to dispel my morning sickness.
http://www.parentsplace.com/pregnancy/archive/0,,239162,00.html
I'm only on week four, entitled, "Could it be?" Yes, this woman is a "tryer." She's been trying, upon the writing of this journal, for four months to get pregnant. Her first baby is 18 months old. She mentions a long battle with her husband over whether they should have another baby. She was shocked and saddened when he suggested that one baby might be enough. She blames this on her husband being the youngest child in his family and not understanding what babies are like.
No, it has not been considered that perhaps this guy is a bit overwhelmed. His wife got pregnant on their honeymoon, at Disneyworld no less. He has a toddler who is still nursing and sleeping in his bed every night. His wife probably does not have her old body or energy back yet. For four months he's been dealing with the unromantic process of TRYING. We're talking taking temperatures, marking calendars, and taking every sliver of exhausted time they can while little Jacob is sleeping to put it in and fill 'er up.
Week five is entitled: "We're pregnant!"
No, honey. You are pregnant. Your husband is seriously considering banging the secretary and weighing his divorce options.
So few women put the marriage first. If you do this, the rest will fall into place.
Apparently, anger makes me feel a bit stronger, so I'm going to continue reading.
--Edit.
So I continued reading:
I love my husband dearly, but recently I've found, as I did when pregnant with Jacob, that the mere thought of intimate touching -- even a simple backrub -- sounds like work. And the thought of having someone that close to me only intensifies the nauseous feelings. Between the new stresses in our lives, the fact that I feel terrible, and the lack of sleep, the best I can hope for is a tender hug, a goodnight kiss and a warm bed. As awful as it sounds, I'm really quite indifferent to the whole thing.
When pregnant with Jacob I was fearful that making love would cause a miscarriage despite the recommendations of my doctors -- and every published piece of literature. Now, although those fears exist somewhere, they're much more subdued, and my sole concern is that I need sleep and my own space for a few weeks. Still, I feel awful about putting Rob off like this. He's given me such a wonderful gift (again) and here I am telling him to roll over and leave me alone.
Deb, you got more problems than you think. Why didn't you feel like this during the long months of TRYING?
Women neglect their husbands this way, then wonder why the divorce rate is so high. This makes me so angry, I could... jog.
Exhaustion
I had to take a short nap after my shower this morning. The act of showering exhausted me.
I am not so much sick as my nausea is an extension of my exhaustion. I wake up tired. I think my body is working harder while I sleep than while I'm awake.
Did manage to ding 25 last night. Ran into Brendan and the bitchass is a night elf.
I'm too tired to be interesting.
