Moved!

You can now find the new, improved (still working on and will probably change themes fifty times in the next two days) Pretty Nameless on its own server and all. Thanks Mom! Now I just have to figure out how to redirect this one.

Moving!

As soon as I pick a template that I like and get it uploaded, Pretty Nameless will be moving to it's own domain. You'll be able to find it at www.prettynameless.com, and I'll actually be keeping up with it and trying to do more with it.

Binge and Purge

No, I'm not talking bulimia, although I did toy around with that a bit as a teenager. But then someone told me it would rot my teeth and I gave it up. Who wants to be rail thin but toothless? Kind of a crappy trade-off. Kind of sad though that, prior to informing me about the tooth rot issue, I was told my esophagus would get destroyed and I didn't even think twice about that. After all, who cares if I don't have a pretty esophagus and can't speak! Ah the vanity of a teenage girl. So I gave up puking and took up dropping acid and walking twenty or so miles in eight hours a few times a month. Best diet ever.

The binging and purging I'm referring to is that of my stuff. Stuff, junk, that I've collected over the years. I binged when we had money. I have enough Bath and Body Works lotion moisturize the entire alligator population in Florida for a year. Stockpiles of food I don't even like, clothes I've never worn, and votive candles I'll never light because Jake would use them to start the Great Poconos Fire to rival that of O'Leary's cow. That's just the stuff I bought. Forget about the stuff I've saved "just in case." Bottle inserts from when Jake was still using a ba, coffee cans, plastic containers, old school assignments, phone bills from over a decade ago. The list goes on and on. I live in a relatively small area, and the clutter was out of control. It never bothered me until about two weeks ago. Then I just snapped.

I started throwing out shit like you wouldn't believe. Two huge garbage bags of clothes went to goodwill and another huge bag in the garbage (I didn't think anyone wanted to wear my old underwear that were reserved for that most wonderful time of the month, or the pajamas that my naked butt slept in for years). Every single sock (of which I used to have two full drawers) that had even a hint of a hole went in the garbage. The big bin of "maybe I'll find their mates someday" socks? Gone, after I used them to scrub the floors of course, in a random effort to be more environmentally conscious, or conserve money on paper towels.

I discovered a few things. The most shocking was that there is a floor in my bedroom. The second most shocking was that I actually feel a lot better when every surface of my house isn't covered with random stuff. It's kind of liberating to get rid of crap. I still have a long way to go, but eventually I'll get down to having just the stuff I actually want, and not the stuff I feel obligated to keep because I spent money on it at some point. I'm sure that this sudden motivation to clean everything in sight will die off sooner than later, so I'm trying to make the best of it while I can.

Catching up

I've been ignoring this blog lately because I've been working on another project and trying to survive day to day with the crap hand I've been dealt. Also because no one really reads it anyway, so it's not likely to be missed. Still, I like to actually write my random thoughts out every now and then, so I'll keep up with it for a few days before I wander off again.

It's summer, which is a bad time for me because of that whole reverse SAD crap. I can't just have normal SAD like everyone else, I have to be miserable in the summer. It's the whole extra daylight crap. The sun and I have never been good friends. Just to make sure I haven't forgotten this, the rotten prick burned the hell out of my shoulders despite liberal use of sunscreen. I am painfully peeling. Not attractive at all. So of course I get more depressed when the bastard stays in the sky for an extra three to four hours. Who wouldn't? That is way too much daylight for any person to have to endure. Because of it, I get massively depressed come four PM, when it's supposed to be getting dark out. This continues until I go to bed.

But Jake seems to like summer. The carnivals, the park, his new-found love of the beach (between this and his dislike of pasta, if he didn't look so much like me, I'd have to question the hospital to ensure there wasn't some sort of baby-switching fiasco going on), staying up later because I can hardly convince him that it's time for bed if the damn sun is still shining. He loves it. Although he's suddenly decided that the pool is an evil entity, AFTER we got season passes. So while he's awake, I make an effort to hide my disdain for the season. But being broke this year, it's a lot harder to pretend I'm happy. I can't take him to half the places he wants to go. There will be no water park, no Dorney park, no daily runs for milkshakes. It makes me sad. I hate telling him "sorry baby, we don't have the money for that."

So I'll be much happier when summer is over and it's too cold to do anything. Also, once October comes, I'm that much closer to having a job again, even if only for six weeks. I went off on some random tangent here, I'm not sure what my original point was. Once again, I'll try to keep up with this blog for a week or so at least, but beyond that I make no promises. Sometimes I do just run out of things to say, or just don't care enough to say them.

Most Likely To Survive

I have anxiety/panic disorder. While it can be frustrating to start hyperventilating because the TV remote has been misplaced, or to have a full blown anxiety attack every time I look at my bank statement and realize I can't survive another two weeks, I find that there are benefits to being afflicted. One advantage is that I am far more likely to survive some sort of attack than someone who doesn't suffer from this disorder.

In one of my many psych classes, my professor discussed a theory that states those who suffer from anxiety/panic disorder exhibit the same hair trigger "fight of flight" response that helped early man survive. In a way, I take it to mean that my sympathetic nervous system is somehow less evolved than non-sufferers, which is kind of insulting. But in another way, it means I have somehow managed to retain that piece of genetic code that allowed us to make our way to the top of the food chain in the first place. What this also means is that if the wooly mammoths or dinosaurs make a comeback, I will be more likely to survive than those who don't panic over the existence of, say, fruit flies.

This hair trigger fight or flight response works well for me even in today's society where the constant threat of invading tribes or saber tooth tigers isn't looming. For example, I am terrified of things that sting. I was stung once when I was seven years old, and that was enough. Because I am so attuned to my sympathetic nervous system, I can flee from stinging insects long before anyone else around me is even aware they are present. I can distinguish the differences between the buzzing of a bee vs. that of a fly, a hornet vs. a hummingbird, a less threatening bumblebee vs. one that will aggressively destroy me if given the chance. A split second after hearing its approach, I can grab my kid and be locked safely in the house.

Of course, there are times when my "fight" response kicks in and it would be better to just keep my mouth shut. I got into a cursing match with a guy in the McDonald's parking lot who tried to tell me how to parent my child once. The other day, I screamed at a prick who ran the stop sign. Both our windows were down and he told me to shut up. Of course I cursed at him, then worried that he would chase me down. He did look like the type to take girls back to his house and eat them for dinner (and not in the good way). One of these days my brain's desire to fight the wrong battles rather than let things be and flee is going to get me into trouble.

But I can still console myself with the knowledge that, should aliens invade or mountain men try to drag me back to their cabin for supper, I will be more likely to survive than those of you oh so normal, non panicky people. So go ahead and live your happy lives, free of tachycardia, breathing into bags, and head spinning terror. Because when the shit hits the fan, and it always does, I'll still be standing while you're someone's dinner!

Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthing Day to Me

Tonight I held my three year old for the last time. When he wakes up in the morning, he'll be a four year old. Technically, not until 7:56 PM tomorrow, but I'm not going to make him wait until then to open his remaining presents. Today was his birthday party in the park. Half his little friends didn't show up. Hopefully that will change when he starts elementary school. But he still had a great time. The thunder storm held out until the very end of his party. We came home and I attempted to assemble a Hot Wheels trick track. I think there must be something in the "y" chromosome that makes this task a lot easier, because try as I might, I still didn't get it to work the way it's supposed to. I also discovered that I still suck at Operation, even in the shape of Spongebob. You'd think several decades plus a few years would have given me the fine motor skills to extract a wrench from a cardboard cutout patient. Good thing I never wanted to be a surgeon.

I can't believe how fast he's growing, or how far he's come. Enjoy some of my nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Birth

Three weeks

Four Months

First Birthday

Eighteen Months

Second Birthday

September 2007

Third Birthday


Today

Melancholy

My little boy is going to be four on Sunday. He's gone from a 3lb 5oz preemie to a 38lb preschooler. He had a traumatic birth. We both did. I wonder if that's why he's such a stubborn kid now. Preemies have to be stubborn, they have to be strong-willed, or they can't survive. To be so tiny, not even supposed to be out of the womb yet, and have to start fighting for your life, it has to have a long-term impact. Maybe when I'm ready to pull my hair out because he refuses to listen to me, refuses to eat anything other than chicken nuggets and turkey dogs, stands firm in his belief that he has radioactive blood and can swing into action at any moment, maybe I should stop for a moment and remember that the reason my son is alive today is because of that very strong will to have his own way. Maybe I should also remember that he gets a lot of his stubborness from me.

I always get a little melancholy around his birthday. I remember in vivid detail every moment of the terrifying day and a half before he was born. I remember being all alone the night before and the night of his birth, after my mom left. Night one- alone, hooked up to monitors, listening to my son kick and hiccup, unable to sleep, wondering what was going to happen. Night two- alone, sick on the mag drip, delusional belief that it was all a strange dream and Jacob was still safe in my belly, wishing that someone would tell me what was going on, wishing I wasn't so alone. No one should be alone after giving birth, especially after giving birth and having your baby taken off to a NICU, and not being able to see him for over 24 hours.

And here I am, four years later, still alone. At least I have my son sleeping in the next room and I know he's safe. I have family, I have friends. I love and I am loved. But I am still utterly alone.

Dead Things

"They" say bad things come in threes, right? Well, apparently dead things come that way too. This afternoon, I found a dead bird laying in the middle of my living room. I scooped it up, tossed it over the fence, and went upstairs. Two hours later, I went down and found a dead chipmunk laying on my floor, my dog Cooper looking really proud. I thanked him for his efforts at feeding me, assured him I could survive on the stuff in the freezer and pantry, then tossed it over the fence. This evening, I came out into my mom's kitchen (I live in the downstairs apartment) and found yet another dead bird. So that should be it, right? No more dead things for a while?

I'm wondering if it's some sort of freaky omen or something. I'm generally not all that superstitious, but things have been kind of off lately all over the place in my life. I've been feeling low, anxious, and sad quite a bit. I miss my grandparents more and more every day. I thought it would get better with time, but it's not. I'm scared about not having a job, stressing about money on a daily basis. I'm frustrated with my current situation and inability to figure out how to make it better. Life has gotten harder than I ever imagined it could, and I'm just trying to deal with it the best I can. Then dead things turn up all over the house. Does it have a deeper meaning? According to my superstitions book, a bird in the house means death. If it's dead though, does it mean the opposite? Of course I'm looking too much into this. It could just mean I have too many cats. I'm feeling rather melancholy though, and I've always been prone to random depression in the summer months. It's just too darn bright and cheery out.

Wii EA Sports Active Personal Trainer First Impressions

I took a survey a few months ago, and found out a few weeks ago that I qualified for the 30 Day Challenge through Ammo Marketing, which got me the game for free. Yay for free stuff! I've been waiting very anxiously. It came today, and I was to start using it right away because the challenge also started today.

So I ran home, opened the box, opened the box inside the box, put the game in, unplugged the DVD player and plugged in the Wii (only our front AV things work), turned on the Wii, updated the Wii, figured out how to put the leg band on, put the leg band back on after it fell off and got started. Five minutes later, I had my profile entered and was already cursing at the perky trainer. "You want me to do what? Run? Seriously? Why? Am I being chased by a cannibal?"

So far, the game is pretty awesome. I only had to do a twenty minute workout, and you're never doing the same thing more than maybe two minutes at a time, so in theory, it should go fast. To me and my non-exercising self, it seemed like an hour went by. My first medium intensity (this was my first mistake, by the way) workout consisted of walking/running (more running than walking, I don't think it's right that they tease you by implying that you'll actually get to walk for more than three seconds), squats, boxing (my favorite, it's always fun to hit stuff!), side lunges (see my issues with the game below), bicep curls with the resistence band, some horrible bent rowing thing, and inline skating (which I've never done with skates, so I don't know how to do it without). These exercises repeated two times. It's like a cheaper version of Curves, except not as fast paced.

Pros-
-It's cheaper than Wii Fit, but if you do have the balance board, you can use it.
-Constantly changing exercises, so I didn't get bored too fast
-Pretty good, in-depth videos that explain everything.
-A fairly complete workout
-Can just do whatever exercises you want if you don't want to take the 30 Day Challenge.

Cons-
- I wish I could put my own music in it, or that it at least had some way to choose just the stuff you want to hear beyond just choosing a genre. Overall, the music was by far the weakest part.
- That crazy nunchuck doesn't stay in the leg band right, or I'm not clear on how to put it in right (the one flaw in the video, she does it too fast and I can't see which way it's supposed to go), so the game kept telling me I wasn't doing the side lunges correctly.
-After a while, the leg band does fall down. Especially when running. Of course, I was wearing pajamas that are like two sizes too big, so the pant leg was crinkly. This could have contributed to the problem.

So far, I would reccomend this game. I'll update this when I've seen more of what the game has to offer.

Ticking time bomb or future King?

I just sat down to write something that I thought would be therapeutic about an event that took place when I was fourteen. Something that, as I'm finding in therapy, has affected me far more than I gave it credit for doing. I thought if I wrote it out just for myself, and wrote out an "alternate ending," I would feel better. I still plan to do that, but then a thought occurred to me. If an adult writes a fictional piece about people killing others for any reason, sometimes revenge, other times for sheer joy, no one blinks. Some adults make a rather lucrative living off violently slaughtering fictional innocents in ways far more terrifying than via a shooting spree. If Stephen King wrote about a high schooler going on a killing spree, it would be a best seller. (It is possible that he already wrote about this. Wasn't Apt Pupil about that? I'm sorry Mr. King, I haven't read all your stuff. I'm more of a Koontz girl. But I love your movies and think you're awesome. Although I'm a little bitter about that damn clown.)

However, teenagers, frustrated with the social pressures and ridiculous games played out in high schools across the country, are not permitted this same freedom of creative expression. If a senior English Lit student writes about slaughtering his classmates, he's yanked out of school, expelled at best, and arrested at worse. It is assumed that he is mentally unbalanced, plotting another Columbine. He needs to be removed, studied, possibly sent far away for the protection of the other children. He is immediately guilty of harboring a desire to turn his fiction into reality.

Where is the logic in that? Where is the logic in denying a creative student an outlet for all that teenage angst intensified by adolescent hormones? Have there been actual scientific studies stating that if a teenager writes about murdering his classmates, he'll actually go out and do it? I'd like to see some hard, unbiased data on this. I'm pretty sure all across the country, teenagers are scribbling in their journals (do they still even use paper journals anymore?) about flaying the homecoming queen or castrating the quarterback. If every kid who wrote or thought about it actually did it, we wouldn't have very many high schools now would we? So where is the logic? Preemptive strike maybe? The US seems to be very fond of preemptively striking against other countries, so it shouldn't be surprising they'd do it to even the youngest of their citizens.

When I was a senior in high school, several years before Columbine turned the school system into a place of paranoia and over-reaction, I wrote a story in which another student I did not like was brutally impaled by a hockey stick. I handed it in to my teacher (a Catholic nun). She wasn't thrilled, she told me I shouldn't harbor such feelings of hatred, but that was the end of it. I still received a good grade for the quality of the writing. I did not go on to kill anyone. I never would, except possibly in self defense. I grew up to be a pretty good person, or at least I think so. I shudder to think what would have become of me if I handed that in today.

I feel for teens today, I really do. As obnoxious as they can be (I'm sure I was just as bad), it has to be more than a little disconcerting to know that if you write or say the wrong thing, even if it's just an innocent creative writing exercise, your entire school career can be destroyed. But don't despair, just keep your mouths shut and your pens still until you graduate. Then, suddenly, you're no longer a threat to society if you write about killing the prom queen.

"I can do it!"

I am beginning to really dread those words when they come out of my almost-four-year-old. As a mother, I am certainly very proud of how independent Jacob is becoming. I'm proud that he uses the potty and never has an accident, I'm proud that he can dress himself, clean up his own messes (when he chooses, unfortunately that's the one time he says "I can't do it!"), and has mastered the mouse and keyboard so he can endlessly play at NickJR.com. Really, I'm very proud of my son. He's amazing, he learns something new every day, and he has limitless energy.

But as a human being prone to great impatience, hearing those four little words- I can do it!- in a tone that says "back off Mommy, if you try to button these pants, I'm taking out your eye!" makes me cringe on more occasions than not. The phrase usually comes as we're trying to get out the door for an appointment for which we're already late because Jake had to make sure the Wonder Pets really did save the day, or Map gave proper directions for Dora to reach her destination, or those meddling kids and their dog actually could solve the mystery. So we're already late, and my darling boy is trying to button the most impossible pair of pants, because Mommy didn't make it to the laundry mat (our washer is broken) and those are the only clean pair left. The mere suggestion that sometimes it is okay to ask for help sends him into a tantrum.

I stand there watching, waiting, alternating between thinking "I am throwing out every damn pair of pants that has buttons," "Please kiddo, please just ask Mommy for help," and "gee, I'm so proud of my little boy!' Seconds tick by, Jacob likes us to count to see how long it takes to put on his clothes. Each article starts back at zero. Eight seconds for undies, 15 for socks, twenty seconds for a shirt because he has to turn it round and round to make sure the tag is in the back. Then the pants. I stop counting at around fifty.

So intent on doing things himself is my son that he talks about it in his sleep. He woke up screaming last night. As I got him calmed down, he was crying over and over "I can do it, I want to do it, I can do it!" I asked him "What baby? What can you do?" His response- "Be Spongebob." Uh, alright kiddo, that's one thing Mama can't help you with, so go for it.

I'd rather be smart than sane

As you can tell, if you're paying attention, I lost interest in the whole "self help" experiment days ago. I tried to take it seriously, but every book I checked out of the library bored me practically to tears. It's not that I don't want to be helped, I just think there are better ways of going about it. I go to therapy every other week. My therapist is awesome. She tells me that all the things I feel, all the things I worry about, are perfectly normal. I'm not a freak, I'm not all that insane. We make progress. I figure that by making myself go every other week, I'm helping myself. So why drag myself and anyone who may actually be reading this through a tedious experiment when I think we all know what the end result would be. I am trying to change my way of thinking, but not because a book told me how to do it. I'm trying to be more positive, less doom and gloom. Although quite often, the only thing I'm "positive" about is the fact that I'm pretty screwed right now. But at least I'm positive about something! Yay for that!

Instead of self-help, I'm going back to my great love: self-education. Ever since Jake was born, I've grown lax on my goal to learn everything there is to know about everything under the stars. I did go to school and took some pretty difficult and intense classes, but that can't be classified as self-education. I used to pick a subject, absorb as much information as possible on it, then move on. I learned more about sleep in a month than most people learn in a lifetime (although none of it stuck apparently, because here I am at 2am wide awake. I'm usually just getting off the phone about now, but someone got his ass kicked by cold medicine, so I'm making do with the internet).

I think the pursuit of knowledge is one of the most important adventures a human can take. I think too many people are too content to learn only what they need to know for their chosen field, or worse, learn nothing at all and let other people figure things out for them. I want to know everything. I want to know how the human body works, how ancient civilizations survived, how a microscopic bug can wipe out millions, why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings. I don't understand how so many can be happy to just know how to eat, sleep, breathe, and fuck.

So instead of reading random, boring self-help books, I'm currently reading Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower by William Blum. I've learned a lot about the horrible things our country has done to other countries in the world. I don't understand how we, the people, did not know about these things before, and if we did, why the hell we would let it continue. It hasn't exactly been the cathartic, healing sort of experience that I would have gotten from, say, the Secret, but it's been enlightening and at least I'm learning something.  I highly recommend it. Next, I'm either going to further educate myself on censorship of the press throughout history, or read about the various parts of the human brain more in depth than I went into in nursing school. Someday, I'll have amassed as much knowledge as my hero Ken Jennings, and will be able to kick ass on Jeopardy. That's always been the goal. Sane is great and all, but I'd really rather be smart. I kind of don't think you can have it both ways.

I Hate May

May is the worst month financially for me, because it is the month I have to register my car, get car insurance, and get the car inspected. I have yet to just take my car to be inspected and leave after paying the simple $20 fee. Last year, it cost over $500 to get it inspected, because it needed tires, bushings (I think that's what they're called, I keep calling them the wrong thing, they make your car not tip over when you turn), a tune-up, transmission fluid flushed and refilled (or whatever they did with it) and a few other things. Not all of these things were required to pass, but the guy made it sound like my car would explode if I didn't get it done, so I just kept saying "fine, whatever." This year, I don't have the money for "fine, whatever." So when he came at me with a list a mile long of things I needed to do to make my car survive another year, I burst into tears and started bawling in the middle of the Midas car service area. The list was narrowed down to four things that HAVE to be done, coming out to $350. Now, apparently, I'm getting a "good" deal on the work and parts, but when you don't have a damn job, $350 is an awful lot of money.

Car insurance is another fun thing. I've never had a ticket. I had one accident five years ago involving a turtle, but that's it. Yeah, okay, so that turtle incident totaled my car, but I had State Farm at the time and the bastards didn't even give me half of what my car was worth. So why does it cost $300 for six months just for liability? I had to drop everything else in order to afford the insurance. We had two cars on our old policy, and Rich had like five tickets and four accidents in the last seven years. Everything was covered, and that only cost $688 for six months. Why is mine so high? That doesn't seem very fair.

May is just a crappy month. On the one hand, I hate living in a state that forces inspections, but on the other hand, if they didn't force it on me, I'd have no idea that my car was the death trap they claim it to be. I also think it's ridiculous to have to register your car every single year. A car should be registered once, unless you move. It's just another way for the state to steal more of the money I don't even have. May is coming to an end, and I still haven't registered the car or fixed all the crap that needs to be fixed. Screw you May.

Self-help for the self-helpless

Today, after applying for yet another job about which I'll probably never hear back, I decided to peruse the library for an hour. I love the library, filled with thousands of books (however, none of my extensive Amazon wish list books can ever be found there, much to my chagrin), people being obnoxiously quiet, and stacks high enough to hide me indefinitely from the outside world (also too high for me to actually reach anything, but they are kind enough to provide stools every three feet, so they get points for being short-person friendly). I like to go and just randomly browse a section or two in great depth. Today I somehow managed to choose the section that contains self-help books, followed by true crime and conspiracy books. Yes, I believe there is a connection between the two, but do we really want to get that far into my muddled way of thinking? Even my therapist gets a bit confused at times, and she is trained to understand crazy little minds.

I honestly do not get the appeal of the self-help book. This is a multi-million dollar market. The New York Times Bestseller's List now has, at least on Amazon, an entire list devoted to these types of books. Entire books dedicated to telling me how to transform my entire life by just changing the way I think. Books that tell me how to get rid of self-defeating behavior, how to think positive, how to think more like a man (oh the places I could go with this) , how to let go and let some form of higher power take over, and how to not "sweat the small stuff." All I have to do is read thier book, and my life will instantly be better.

Does it actually work for anyone? I really want to know. Will I read a book about the power of positive thinking and suddenly be freed from all the anxiety about my lack of gainful employment. Will I be struck with an epiphone about my true calling in life after reading a few passages from the ever famous "What Color is Your Parachute?" Can I learn to love myself and find self-worth by reading a book of the same title?

I don't think it can work. My mother is an adamant believer that it can. We have argued this point many times. I think we all know ourselves well enough to understand our own mindset. Saying to ourselves "snap out of it, think positive!" is not going to instantly change our lives. I am, by nature, pessimistically optomistic at best. When my serotonin levels are up, I think everything is going to be just dandy, and everything will work out the way it is supposed to. When they're down, I'm convinced the universe is conspiring to keep me miserable for the rest of my life. I already know exactly what is wrong with me. I know where all my problems stem from, I know what makes me the way I am. Can a few thousand words on a page actually change my entire life?

So I'm embarking on an experiment. For the next two months, I will read every self-help book that I can fit in to my already busy schedule of moping around, crying about my lack of finances, and stressing over the lack of color in my parachute. So, probably about four. I'll actually follow the advice in the books. If, at the end of that sixty days, I have found some major insight into my own way of thinking and managed to completely turn it around, won the lottery by the sheer power of positive thought, or even found a job I actually love, then I'll admit defeat. If not, well, I get nothing, because I can barely take on a multi-million dollar industry and convince them to admit they're wrong. I get the satisfaction of knowing that I'm right though, even if no one else feels the same.

So watch for the new "Pretty Nameless Self-Helpless Experiment Blog," which I'll link here as soon as I create it.

Hypocrite Mommy, and proud of it.

Before I ever got pregnant, there were a few things I swore I would never do when I had a child. I tried to keep the list very short, because I know people always say "well, my kid will never..." and that never works out well. I never swore that my kid wouldn't watch TV, because I watched more TV as a child than is recommended by every form of parenting expert out there, and I still had/have a very active imagination. I never said I would force my child to be a vegetarian, although I prefer he not eat mammals. That didn't work out of course, my dear friend Dana introduced him to pig in the form of ring bologna and he never looked back. But that's fine, I wasn't planning to force my dietary preferences on him (except when it comes to rice. I don't want my kid eating something that looks like maggots. Ewwwwww!).

But there were a few things that I swore I'd never do or let him do. The first is put a TV in his room before he was at least ten. My reasoning was that no child actually needs to have electronics in their room at age two. No two year old should be sitting alone in their room anyway. I thought having a TV before he even started real school would make him spoiled. Who am I kidding? The house already looks like an extremely fertile Toys R Us had wild, passionate sex with Amazon and delivered a healthy litter of bunnies, which then exploded all over the house. The boy is the epitome of spoiled. So Friday, after much thought (mostly because it was easier to just pretend I was mulling it over rather than actually get off my ass and rearrange the boy's entire room), I caved. My son is now the proud second-hand owner of a spare 20" flat screen TV. My darling almost-four year old can now watch his countless educational programs (see previous post) from the comfort of his very own Spiderman bed, cuddled up in his Spiderman blanket, surrounded by his Spiderman decals. The Spiderman franchise really should be paying my kid for all the advertising he gives them. Note that I do not even have a flat screen TV because I can't afford one big enough to thoroughly enjoy such educational programming as Supernatural, Ghost Whisperer, and Bones. We originally bought the crappy, not even HD, flat screen so that I could watch DVD's in my room since the soon-to-be-ex would never give up the decent-sized one in the living room.

The second thing I swore I'd never do is take my kid to the circus. Circus' are cruel. Elephants, camels, and bears do not belong in small cages, being hustled from town to town on a silly train, forced to perform in front of a live audience. Plus, even the non-animal abusing circus' have clowns. I think we all know my stance on clowns. If not, you need to read back a bit further. To recap- clowns are bad, evil lurks behind that painted grin, and I'm not entirely convinced they don't think I'd make a good supper. So the circus has two very strong, very legitimate strikes against it. Guess what I'm doing on May 20? Yup. Taking my sweet little boy and his sociopathic imaginary friend to the circus. In fact, we're combining my fear of clowns and disdain for animal torture with something else I love so much- driving to Camelback Mountain, around hairpin turns, possibly in the dark if I can't make the early show, and trying to find parking in a lot that was clearly designed for people who can actually grasp the concept of backing out of spaces less than six inches from the bumper of the next car. Have we discussed my driving issues yet?

So there it is. Two things I swore would never happen, and both are happening in the same month. I'm a hypocrite. I openly admit it. But whatever, my kid is happy, which is all that really matters to me. Also, Zee Zee the sociopath is happy, which means she may not carve me into small pieces while I sleep.

ZeeZee, the imaginary friend

Jacob has a new imaginary friend. Her name is ZeeZee. I'm fairly convinced she is a sociopath at best, a demonic entity at worse. ZeeZee arrived about a week or so ago, apparently from outer space, where she returns when she's not hanging out inspiring my son to perform wicked acts. I learned tonight that she is 18. A little old for my not-quite four year old, don't you think? She doesn't come around when I'm here.

Since her arrival, ZeeZee has taught my son the word "bullshit," told him all about cutting people during surgery, and taught him a few new games that I'm not sure I really want to know about. I swear, I didn't teach him to say "bullshit." I rarely use that word. I use a lot of other words that I wouldn't want him to repeat, but I've never been a fan of the way "bullshit" flows off the tongue. It is possible he heard it from his father months ago, while his father was still around. It's possible he heard it on TV in passing, although I'm pretty careful about limiting his television watching to such calming and educational influences as Spiderman, Power Rangers, and Scooby Doo. It is unlikely that his imaginary friend taught it to him, therefore she must be a demonic entity. It's only logical.

I'm not at all freaked about the sudden emmergence of ZeeZee. I had four imaginary friends with equally strange names. One was very mischievous. I understand that he has a lot to work out in his little brain. Daddy left, Mommy is stressed a lot, and George W. Bush is still a free man. It's a lot of confusion to comprehend for a tiny little mind. But ZeeZee is downright creepy! My therapist (doesn't that sound so metro?) claims that nothing jumps out at her as being strange, and that ZeeZee is a perfectly normal, rational response for a child his age. But my therapist doesn't have to hide the knives in case ZeeZee convinces Jacob that he is perfectly in his right to skip eight years of medical school, surgical internships and residencies (I watch Grey's Anatomy, I know what schooling you need to cut into people) and move right on to the solo surgery.

Can someone recommend a good exorcist?

Selling passion

I suck at this whole blogging thing, and keeping up with it. I gave fair warning though, I would be all into it for about a month, then start to dwindle off. I am back with a renewed dedication. That should last about a week. I had a busy month, and my internet access has been rather intermittent lately (got into a fight with a Verizon tech guy, but that's a whole other story). I filed for divorce! Yay! I'm so excited. Of course, I have no clue if I did it right. I wont know until I don't get a divorce basically. I can call, and maybe they can tell me if everything is going through, but maybe they cant. Although, I was given a covert nod that the papers looked okay, so I'm optimistic. I sent papers my husband, he promised to sign them, and I've finished typing up the remaining forms. If all goes well, I'll be divorced shortly after my birthday, which is at the end of July. Happy Birthday to me. Seriously, I'm throwing a party. I think he will too though, so at least we're finally on the same page.

The husband has a new girlfriend, one that I actually approve of. Not that it's any of my business, but I figure if eventually he's going to take Jacob for a visit, then I'd rather have him dating a nice woman with a Master's Degree rather than a girl in jail for selling meth. Yes, Meth Girl was an option, I'm not making that up. So he's moving on, I've moved on, we're all happy, or on our way to happy.

I still can't find a freaken job. Why is it so damn hard to find someone who will hire me? I can't even get a goddamn interview, and it's starting to piss me off. I'm a good employee, these people don't know what they're missing. Screw them. I'm thinking about selling sex toys with my friend. Why not? There are lots of lonely people out there in need of battery operated boyfriends, right? Heck, even the not so lonely like a few enhancements now and then. It's better than prostitution, right?

Handjobs and Hepatitis

I need a job. I am getting desperate. I'm having daily panic attacks about my inability to find a damn job. I've applied for close to 50 jobs in the last two weeks alone, and I've heard close to nothing. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. It doesn't help that I don't translate well on paper. I've had one job the last seven years, and that was a seasonal job. But it gave me managing skills, and that should help. Other than that, everything I'm able to do can't be proven on a resume. Prospective employers get hundreds of responses to ads, they're not going to give me a chance when they have someone who looks awesome on paper, even though I can guarantee that they wont be nearly as awesome as me in reality, because let's face it, I rock. Not really, but I can have a moment of ego-boosting self-confidence, right?

I had an interview a couple of weeks ago. It was a joke. It was with a guy I knew through the mall that has his own company. I knew he was a bit of a womanizer and pervert, but I thought it could still lead to a legitimate job offer. The first thing he asked me is if I want to go to Brazil with him. Then he mentioned his kinky ex-girlfriend, and sex clubs in NY, where I didn't have to participate, just watch and see if anything struck my fancy. This guy is in his 50's. Even if he was in his 30's and good looking, I have no desire to go off to a foreign country to possibly be tied up as someone's love slave and then have my kidneys sold on the black market. Yeah, I know, I"m miss "worst case scenerio" girl, but I can't imagine he wanted me there for my ability to make an omelet. I had one other job interview, with a normal company. But they needed someone to work ten hours a day on Sunday, and I have no sitter.

Pretty much every job I apply for that I am actually qualified for (basically, cashier work) frowns at my application because I can't work nights and weekends, except on rare occasions. My mom can't watch Jake for whatever reason, and his daycare is only open until 7. I'm still not getting a dime from the STBX, because he's apparently OVER-qualified for every job out in Indiana. At least he has no worries, his parents are still paying for everything. Very frustrating.

At the entrance of my development is a seedy "erotic massage" parlor. They have a "help wanted" sign in the window. I've actually thought "could I do it? Could I make a living for a short while giving guys crappy massages and hand jobs, among other things?" I have nothing against people who choose to do that. If two people consent to sex, and one wants to pay the other for it, I don't see the problem. Some people can handle being a prostitute. I couldn't though. It would creep me out. I'd cry the whole time, and that's just not sexy. Besides, most of the girls there look like 80's throwbacks, and if that's the dress code, count me out. There has to be something out there that doesn't involve handjobs and hepatitis.

Easterbunnyland

I am the boss of the Easter Bunny. I remind my son of this every time he acts up. I'm also the boss of Santa, which carries a lot more power because Jake doesn't seem to care as much about the potential loss of candy as he does about the potential loss of massive amounts of toys, but whatever, it works well enough. I've been the boss of the Bunny and Santa for about seven years now, taking only three seasons off for maternity leave and school. I love it. It's a great job. I manage an awesome handpicked staff that returns year after year, am pretty much left on my own by the corporate headquarters, and make fairly decent money a few weeks out of the year (although I'm cranky because my pay was cut this season due to the rotten, stupid economy).

I have very few complaints about my job. The stress that I have is familiar stress- bunnies and Santa's running late, stuck in traffic, panicking me into thinking they're not going to show up; figuring out camera and computer system glitches, why is the printer printing 10000 copies of the same picture (because I let Jacob within thirty feet of the system), why am I bleeding profusely while trying to plug in a fan, that sort of thing. My only major complaint about the job is parents. If it weren't for the parents, the job would be cake. I have a few major gripes that I'd like to get off my chest, because I'm bound by a contract to be polite to people in person.

Gripe one- If your child is terrified of the bunny or Santa, they're not going to "smile nice" no matter how many times I pretend to sneeze, let things fall off my head, or say "hey sweetie, smile for the camera!" It's cruel to force your children to sit with something that terrifies them. The world never ended because little Timmy didn't get his photo taken with the Easter Bunny. No child ever grew up to be a serial killer because he didn't like Santa. I'm not entirely convinced, however, that forcing them to sit with a mutant rabbit or a strange bearded man when they clearly would rather be having you pick out splinters with a sewing needle wont make them one day stand over you while you're sleeping wielding a machete and cackling about slitting your throat. But if you want to take that risk, go for it. Just don't expect us to stand there acting like idiots for twenty minutes trying to get your bawling child to "smile nice."

Gripe two- Let's talk more about that twenty minute issue. This is a small stand in the mall. It's not a magazine photo shoot. There are people behind you, and more people coming, all of whom have been waiting for their turn to drive me batty as well. Please don't make me take fifty pictures of your child while you insist on that perfect, fake memory, then tell me "you know what, the first one was the best, let's go with that." Especially when we told you in the first place that this is as good as it's going to get. We've been doing this for years. We've seen thousands of children. You may know your child best in all other respects, but we can tell you exactly how your child is going to react once they sit on that mutant rabbit or strange bearded man's lap. Just trust us. If sweet, darling Betty is giving the evil eye in the first picture, it's only going to get worse. At some point, she is going to open-fire on the entire mall if you don't get her out of there. So unless she's blinking or looking at you (because you can't follow directions and stand where we tell you to stand), go with the first shot. It's not going to get much better.

Gripe three- You've been standing in line for twenty minutes staring at our list of packages and their prices. We saw you looking at them, we heard you discussing the pros and cons of every one of them. We take an awesome picture of your child, you're thrilled, we're ready to take your money and get you off our set. But you stand there for another twenty minutes debating over how many pictures you need. Meanwhile, we can't take pictures because it'll just hold up the printing process and create a back log of customers. Take notice of how I shift from foot to foot and try to silently sigh in frustration. Be courteous to others, know what you want when you get up there.

Gripe four- This one is serious. The other stuff, I can live with, I can tolerate, and I'm a quarter joking about. But this one drives me truly mad. Please understand that there is a real live person inside the Bunny or Santa suit. They're not robots or aliens. They get hungry, they get thirsty, they have to use the bathroom, they need breaks. Most of all, they get hot. Especially the Bunny. When I say we need to go on a break, and we'll be back in 45 minutes, do not pitch a hissy fit and run down to the mall office to complain. Do not stomp your foot and proclaim that we have just ruined your child's day. Do not insist we take "one last customer." Have a heart. Understand that the person in that suit is dripping with sweat, dying of thirst, and ready to pass out. When we take a break, it's not to make your life miserable, it's to prevent a medical emergency from occuring. I know it sucks to have to wait, but get over it. If you hold us up with your complaints, we'll just take longer. We're spiteful that way.

Here are a few tips on how to be the type of customer we like- Know what you want, don't traumatize your child in front of us, be happy with a real memory photo and not some forced smile that will be worthless in ten years, and be understanding when I tell you if I don't take the bunny off right away, I'll need an ambulance. Be the type of customer we like, and we'll give you free stuff. We get really good coupons from the other places in the mall, we just hide them from you because we want them for ourselves. But if we like you, we share. We know exactly where you can get your photos copied cheap without having to worry about pesky copyright rules (actually, the company will give you a photo release if you call, but we can save you that call). We occasionally have some decent stuff that we want to get rid of. But you'll never see any of it if you're acting like a lunatic and making us want to throw the cash register at you.

Stir Crazy

I have an intense desire to get the hell out of this place for a night, a few days, forever. I don't know why it's so bad right now, maybe cabin fever or something. I just feel like I can't sit still, I can't stay in one place anymore. I want to grab my son, hop on the highway, and see where I end up. I know where I want to end up. Of course, there are several flaws with this plan that make it impossible. The first and foremost is that I don't drive on the highway. Merging scares the shit out of me. People flying by, big giant trucks ready to crush me, it's too scary for my anxiety-ridden being to take. I've driven on the highway twice in my life, both times out of absolute necessity. I hated it both times. I'm actually planning to overcome this fear shortly, but I'll never be able to make long trips that involve going through cities.

Second major issue, I'm broke, and going broker by the moment with no good prospects in sight. My car has crappy gas mileage lately, I keep hearing something about needing to put air in my tires, but that is beyond me at this point. (I'm only half kidding, it's pathetic really). I told my friend we should run away and waitress our way across the country. Again, there are flaws with that plan. I can't waitress. There is no way anyone is going to let me walk across the room carrying a tray with actual food on it. It would be dangerous to all around me. I can't even walk across the room carrying nothing without tripping over my own feet. I am the Queen of Klutz, and I wear my crown proudly, albeit crookedly.

Third, Jacob would be extremely pissed if we left all his toys and his dogs behind. I'm pretty sure he'd don a clown mask and torture me in my sleep if we left behind the Power Rangers, Spiderman, Planet Heroes, huge bin of Matchbox cars, the twenty gallons of Playdoh, Martian Matter, and all the scraps of random old toys that he refuses to relinquish.

So for now, I'm pretty much stuck here, wishing I was somewhere else and going out of my mind. Maybe I'll use some of this restlessness to actually clean my house and get rid of a bunch of crap. Doubtful though. Most likely I'll just continue to sit here bitching and moaning about things I can't do anything about right now. Divorces don't go faster because you whine, money doesn't grow on trees because you ask it to, and time doesn't past just because you cry about it.

Terror at McDonalds

Every Wednesday I take Jacob to McDonalds after speech class. He plays in the play area, I hang out with a friend or read. It is generally a peaceful, happy time despite the constant background noise of screeching children. Today we got settled in, Jacob kicked off his shoes and took off, I ate my crappy, always stale chicken tenders and cold fries and discussed the state of my bank account with my friend. Everything was normal. Until a little Bloody Mary in training unleashed her holy reign of terror over the entire play area.

My darling boy was happily waving to me from the very top of the gymnasium thingamajig. What is that thing called? You know what I'm talking about, that giant thing in which no parent of normal size can possibly reach their child if they make it to the top and get stuck. I look away. I look back and Jakey's face has crumpled and he is bawling. I throw off my shoes and shoot up the steps like a Mama lion ready to pounce. Jake tells me this little girl hit him (later, I found out she actually kicked him and I misheard him) in the face. I asked if that was true and she confirmed. I told her "don't you hit my kid!" Yes everyone, I yelled at someone else's child. Sue me, beat me, call me names. That little terror hit my child. Terror-girl promises she wont do it again, and Jake comes down to get a bite to eat.

Less than two minutes later, children are pouring out of the play structure, tears running down their little faces in horror and pain. Bloody Mary bit one child hard enough to almost break skin, hit several other children, and kicked yet more. Children all around are crying and pointing towards the purple-shirted lunatic. Grandma sits by oblivious. She suddenly glances up and asks "what child did this? What color pants is she wearing?" You could tell by the "oh shit" look in her eyes she knew exactly what little darling was responsible for the mayhem surrounding her. She pulls darling little Terror-girl aside, gives her a brief time out, and releases her back into the wild. Half the parents grabbed their kids and left. We were one of them.

Perhaps I sound cold, perhaps some are thinking "oh, that poor little girl, she clearly lacks discipline and boundaries. Maybe her home life is less than savory. How dare you compare an innocent child to the bloodiest queen of all time?" Well, I don't give a shit. She kicked my child in the face. As I said, I originally thought she hit him, but later Jake said "remember that girl who showed me her stinky feet at McDonalds and kicked me in the face? She should be put in a cage!" Jake thinks anyone who does something bad should be put in a cage. The other day, I wouldn't give him more milk (seriously child, no one drinks half a gallon of milk a day!) and he banished me to the outside where I was to live in a cage. I swear, my child has never been put in a cage, except for the times when he crawled into my brother's dog crate on his own. Okay fine, I may have shut the door on it to take a picture, but I swear, I let him out right away!

So next Wednesday we'll be back at McDonalds as usual, and I swear this- If that little girl is there and she kicks my child again, Grandma better get her out of there or I'm taking Grandma down.

Confessions of a bad morning Mommy

It is 10:30 AM fake time and I'm still trying to function. I refuse to accept any changes to the clock as being real time until several months have passed. I will walk around saying "it's 10pm, 9pm real time" until the middle of the summer. It drives my mom nuts. She likes Spring Ahead and extra daylight. I'm an equal opportunity time change hater. I used to love "Fall Back" because it meant an extra hour of sleep. Now it means my son will be waking up at 7 instead of 8. So I guess "Spring Ahead" means I get to get out of bed a pretend hour later, but it also means I have to wait an extra hour for peaceful time.

This morning I awoke to the sound of Jake singing "What do you do with a scurvy pirate?" at the top of his lungs. I brought him to bed with me, he chatted to me while I slept. He kept asking questions that I could have sworn I was answering, until his exasperated "Mommmmmeeeee!" makes me realize that I've only been answering in my head. Jacob likes to play in my bed while I sleep. In the past, he's brought blocks, trucks, superheroes, and giant stuffed animals in. This morning he brought a vacuum cleaner to bed. That was a new one. Nothing like waking up to find a cleaning implement staring you in the face. I'm wondering if it's a subtle hint that it's time to clean up all the fuzz balls that seem to leap off my dog faster than lemmings leaping off a cliff.

I am so awful at functioning in the morning that my son recently learned to change his own pull-up. He gets his own cup of milk (pre-made the night before) out of the fridge, and he finds his own breakfast. I guide him in that department. He'll bring Barbecue Pringles out, and I'll say "you can't have chips for breakfast! Get a Pop-Tart!" We lay on the couch together, and I rouse only long enough to change the episodes of Dora, Backyardigans, or Aqua Teen Hunger Force on the DVR. Yes, I let my kid watch Aqua Teen. He walks around singing "Meat Wad gets the honeys gee" all the time. The "educational programming only" Mommies everywhere would cringe at what I allow my child to watch. So far he hasn't tried to kill me. Well, there was that one time that he tried to push me down a mountain at the water park, but that doesn't count. I blame too much fresh air for that.

It's now 11am fake time. My son has been begging me to build a castle of blocks for the past half hour. He does not understand the concept of "trying to wake up." He rolls out of bed with more energy than I can muster even after fifteen cups of coffee. But his "Look at me Mommy! Help me Mommy! Play with my Mommy!" is starting to make me feel guilty, so it's time to launch into "good mommy" mode. I need more coffee.

Walmart rage

I don't know what the hell it is about Walmart that turns civilized people into savages. Maybe it's the garish lighting, the constant hum in the background, or the fact that everyone has to tack on a half hour to their trip just to pay for their crap. Apparently, even the anticipation of entering hell gets people all riled up, because the nightmare usually begins in the parking lot.

I am not lazy. I do not mind parking in the way back and walking (except at night and early morning, I generally don't look forward to getting raped, stabbed, or shot). In general, I never even enter the front section of the parking lot. I know pure misery awaits. But the last few times I've went, my mom came with me. She can't walk long distances, so I have to drop her off out front, where I'm forced to contend with vicious close-spot seekers. A kind old woman allowed me to turn left in front of her, but I was immediately nearly hit by a large van wanting to turn left out of another spot. After barely escaping that, the car in front of me stopped dead in the middle of the road to wait for someone they saw in the distance that may or may not have been considering approaching a close spot. I inch my way past this lazy prick and am almost sideswiped by some eagle-eyed bastard who noticed an open spot nearby and was in a panic that I may actually get to it first. By this point I'm screaming all sorts of dirty words that would make my grandparents cringe if they could hear me from beyond the grave. Words that rhyme with "hunt" and "socktucker." Words that I avoid at all cost yelling in front of my son, and do fairly well, but when I'm alone I don't give a shit who hears me.

Finally, I make my way to the back lot. All that is left is to cross the street seperating the two. Unfortunately, so many people are fleeing hell that it is impossible to cross. Apparently even waiting an extra three seconds to let me through would cause them horrid pain. Can't say I blame them. Again, a nice old lady lets me through. Could be the same one, the Walmart parking lot is a lot like Groundhog's Day, an endless loop of the same faces and same shit. I take my nice little spot in the way back, happy that it's daylight and I wont be stabbed, raped, or shot, and spend my walk back to the store avoiding getting hit by people who think I may be considering getting back in my car and stealing the prime spot that they're convinced will open up at any second.

I make it into the store, where my mom is nice and comfy in her motorized scooter, and spend the next half hour watching my mom nearly run people down, pissed because they can clearly see her coming and wont get out of her way. She wonders where I get this shit from. I am now hostile and ready to beat up the first person who tries to grab a box of Fruit Loops out from in front of me, thus continuing the cycle of rage ever present in Walmarts across the country. The whole time I'm thinking "I should have just went to Target."

To smash or not to smash?

I have a ganglion cyst on my left wrist. It appeared all the sudden. One minute there was nothing, the next a strange bump. I, being me, was of course convinced I had either somehow managed to break my wrist and didn't know it, or that I had a tumor. I asked the doctor to look at it, and he declared that it was merely a ganglion cyst. I could either let it go or smash it. I can't seem to do either. It's getting bigger, although not noticeable to anyone who doesn't know it is there. But it is freaking me the hell out! I am not a bumpy person. I don't get cysts, except maybe one on an ovary, but that only hurts every other month. Where the heck did this thing come from? It is driving me batty. I want so much to gain the courage to just smash it with a book, which apparently is the physician-recommended treatment. Seriously? We're still using the same method they used back in the 1600's? This is not reassuring to me. I want them to give me some sort of medicine, preferably in pill format, that will make it magically vanish.

In an attempt to educate myself on the ways of smashing this thing to oblivion, I googled directions. I refuse to accept that I can simply whack myself with a book and go on my merry way. One of the first phrases that stuck out was "There's no side effect to smashing a ganglion cyst except the horrid pain." I think horrid pain ranks pretty high on the side effect scale, just under imminent death actually. Minor pain freaks me out. Horrid pain pretty much has me running for the hills (Not the ones where cannibals eat you though. Getting eaten by cannibals ranks just under horrid pain in my book.) There is a really good reason why I don't have any tattoos, although if I'm trying to appear more brave than I am, I swear it's about the fact that I don't want anything permanent on my body that I could get sick of eventually. That actually is a blatant lie. I don't like pain. I don't get the whole "oh, it's just like getting scratched by a cat." I've been scratched by a cat, it was unpleasant. Why on earth would I want to be scratched by a thousand of them.

But back to the cyst. I want to smash the damn thing and be done with it. But I can see how this is going to go. I will make my friend do it, because she seems to really want to. She will come at me with a book, I will run and scream. This will last for about twenty minutes. She'll prevail. I'll faint. Several times. I will probably fall and hit my head, thus causing more horrid pain. Nothing good can come of this.

My grandfather

This one was harder to write than my grandmother's for some reason. I think it was because I had too much time to over-think and analyze it. I really wanted to make him proud. I hope I did.
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I'd like to start with my favorite story that my grandfather used to tell me. He was a young man on leave from the Navy out walking with a friend when he came upon a Marine walking a duck. For reasons that I don't even think Pop knew, he decided to buy the duck. He and his friend then put the duck in a duffel bag and smuggled it into a hotel room, where they filled a tub and let it swim all night. The next morning, he sold the duck to a Merchant Marine. This is just one of the many strange but true stories from a man that was always larger than life to me. My grandfather was so full of humor, and he loved to share that with others. Whether he was telling silly puns to his family or sharing funny observations with strangers in the grocery store, he always had something witty to say. I always admired his ability to strike up a conversation with anyone anywhere.

My grandfather also highly encouraged imagination. He used to quote Einstein to me- Imagination is more important than knowledge. He always told me that knowledge was important, but it took imagination to really bring things to life. His wonderful imagination gave him the "photographic eye" required to produce such fantastic videos and photos, which he took in massive quantities at every single family function. For as long as I can remember, at every Christmas, Easter, Birthday, and even just the smallest family get together, my grandfather had his camera in hand or at his eye at all times. If they could have found a way to implant one directly into his retina, he would have loved that. Of course, not until he'd read the entire manual from front to back. He was very fond of his manuals.

He loved his technology. Many of my friends talk about how they had to bring their grandparents and parents into the 21st century by teaching them how to use a computer. Pop, however, taught me much of what I know. It seemed he had a new computer every other week. A few of them were supposed to be for my grandmother, but, like the televisions, VCR's, and DVD players he bought for her, they somehow always seemed to end up in his room. I'm actually surprised he never figured out how to hardwire the entire house into a computer and control it all from his cave of electronics. He even convinced Granny to buy a technologically advanced clothes washer. She told me "Nicole, the manual is as thick as a phone book!" I said "then make Poppy read it and tell you the highlights!" I attribute all my technological prowess to his good genes. But as much as my grandfather loved jokes, photography, and technology, he loved his family a million times more, as is evidenced by the subject matter of most of his images.

In my own life, Pop played a very important starring role. My own father was not a part of my life, but Pop-Pop did his best to make sure I didn't feel that void. I remember as a child, going into his room where he was playing the guitar or mandolin, and he'd make up songs about me on the spot. When I wanted to sell the most Girl Scout Cookies so I could go to camp, he took them into work and made sure I won. When I had pneumonia, and Cabbage Patch kids were sold out all over the country, he found me one to make me feel better. He would always bring me candy from Hershey when he returned from business trips. When he would get home late and Granny would warm up his dinner, I'd sit at the table with him and eat Ring Dings, and he would make me sculptures out of the foil wrapping. He treated me as both a daughter and a granddaughter, and gave me the best of both.

My grandfather loved my grandmother with all of his heart. He gave her a table full of flowers on her birthday, Valentines Day, and their anniversary. They traveled the world together, from Isreal to Medjugorje to Calcutta. Now they are traveling together again for all eternity in the afterlife. He missed her so much, and as much as it hurts to lose him, I know that he is happy now with her.

I will close with one last quote that I feel perfectly describes how my Grandfather lived his life. “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” - Mother Theresa.

A year ago today

My grandmother died a year ago today. This was the eulogy I wrote for her the night before her funeral.

Granny’s Eulogy

I had originally planned to speak primarily about the amazing life my grandmother led, about the places she’s gone and the things she’s done. She did lead an extraordinary life. She saved lives on the Rescue Squad, traveled to the Holy Land with Pop-Pop many times. She helped Mother Theresa in Calcutta, and played music in prisons for the inmates. She and Pop-Pop were pioneers in the video industry. All these adventures were a major part of her life, but they don’t quite give the full picture of who she was, because who she was to me can be found a lot closer to home.

My grandmother was the heart of our family. She was the star around which we all revolved. The times spent in her home are some of my most cherished memories. She was generous, loving, compassionate, funny, creative, and patient. She was generous with her time, always willing to sit and talk with anyone who needed her, or who just wanted to pass the hours chatting and drinking a cup of coffee. She was a loving wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and friend. She was giving and compassionate to those in need both oceans away and in her own town. She had a wonderful sense of humor and loved to laugh. She was a talented artist, writer, seamstress and musician. There was nothing she couldn’t do well if she wanted to do it. And with a house often overflowing with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, she was always patient and always ready to welcome even more into her home.

My grandmother was also a fantastic cook. She was famous for her meatballs and spaghetti sauce, her stuffing and salad, and my favorites- her doughball soup and apple pie. I looked forward to her doughball soup all year. She could make anything taste heavenly and leave people talking about her food for years to come.

She was also fondly referred to by her family as The Gadget Queen, and her kingdom was supplied by QVC. She would often call to tell me about her latest acquisition. “Nicole, guess what I just ordered?” she’d say, and proceed to tell me about some great new item that slices, dices, stirs, fries, washes the dishes, and folds the laundry. Well, maybe not all that, but if they did make it, she’d have it. If she liked it enough, soon we would all have it too. QVC will likely be retiring her number now.

The memories that I will hold dearest are the times I spent just being with her, not really doing anything. Watching her bake beautiful cakes or sew at the table, staying up until 2am watching Katherine Hepburn movies, or just talking for hours about her childhood. Just being in her presence was the best gift she ever gave me.

My grandmother touched so many lives in her 79 years, and every one of those lives are better for it. She truly made this world a brighter place, and she will be missed every moment of every day. I was so blessed to have her as my grandmother, and I am so proud to be her granddaughter. I love you Granny, always.

Just go to the end of the longest line

Queue the tiny violins, it's pity party time! I almost punched a wall today. I was stalked by hospital security. I almost bawled in in the child care information services office. I accidentally ran two red lights (if you run the first, you pretty much have to run the second). I literally tore out some of my hair today. I screamed like a crazy woman at a motorist who refused to acknowledge the rules of ped-x'ing. Today sucks. Why can't things ever just be easy, just work the hell out?

It takes an enormous amount to get me mad enough to want to punch things, particularly brick hospital walls. But everything crappy always seems to happen at the same time. It can't just be spaced out with warning, like "hey, here's something crappy, and something else crappy is coming right around the corner, but we'll give you a few days to deal with this crappy thing before slamming you in the face with the other." No, that would make things easier, and apparently the gods decided long ago that it is just too much fun to fuck with me. I'm like their little yo-yo, or one of those paddle balls, and they're just waiting to see how much I can take before my string snaps.

But I'm eerily calm right now. Everything will be fine. It's not like I can just give up, walk away from my child, ignore all my responsibilities, have someone else buy everything for me, and drink myself stupid or anything. No good person could. So I'm good. Pity party over. Life will be fine. I'll sell parts of my soul or something to pay for daycare, I'll try not to scream out "this place is a fucking trainwreck!" in the middle of the hospital anymore, and I'll try to be more careful about red lights. I can't promise not to scream about people who don't let you cross at crosswalks, because they just royally piss me off.

Pity party over. It's almost nighttime. I really love nighttime.

Rest in Peace Mike the Fish

Alas, Mike succumbed to whatever random Betta disease he had. We spent more money trying to treat this fish than we actually spent on the fish. Mike came to us by accident sort of. Jacob had won a goldfish at the fair back in early September. He had just ridden a horse named Ike, so he named the fish Mike. Made sense I guess. That night, Mike the First died. Fair fish seem to go two ways- they live forever or die the instant your kid grows attached.

After Mike I's tragic death, I did the one thing I swore I'd never do- I replaced my kid's pet without him knowing. Here's the worst part, I replaced it with a fish that looked nothing like the original Mike, then I lied through my teeth. Jacob came home from daycare and said "hey, where's the orange fish?" I did some quick thinking and said "Oh, he turned purple over night! It must have been the water!" I am a liar. A dirty, rotten liar. My kid bought it, sort of. He continued to ask if Mike was going to return to his original orange color, but he seemed content to believe this was the fish he won.

Mike was a happy, well-adjusted fish right up until my mom broke her leg. I swear the fish missed seeing her every day. He got sicker and sicker. We tried all sorts of drops, treatments, and even frozen peas. But this morning, Mike was belly up. I chose not to lie to my kid this time. He had gone through my grandfather's death recently and sadly has a firmer grasp on what it means to die than I ever wanted my child to have at the age of 3.5. We said goodbye to Mike and flushed him down the toilet. Then Jacob turned and looked at me, with those big blue eyes, and sweetly said "Can we get an orange one now?"

Coulrophobia

I hate clowns. I'm not sure when it started, or how it started, but they scare the holy hell out of me. I don't understand how anyone finds these things amusing. Why do more people not run in fear every time they see that painted evil grin half-obscured by a bouquet of balloon animals coming towards them? Clowns freak me the hell out. Let me tell you why.

First of all, you just never know what evil lurks behind that fake smile. Anyone who needs to plaster a motionless fake smile on their face cannot be thinking good thoughts. They can distract you with that fake smile, so you don't see the pointy teeth waiting to devour you. Second, they're clearly supernatural, since so many of them can fit into a tiny VW Bug. That's not natural, and it's hardly funny sitting there thinking "Holy shit! When will it end!" It's like an army of evilness packed into a car designed by the leader of an army of evil. Does anyone really not see the correlation? Third, they have abnormally large feet, the better to stomp you into the ground with. Why are large feet considered comical?

Then there are the actual evil clowns, the ones that were intended to be that way. Stephen King's Pennywise gave me nightmares for ages. I spent years stepping over grates in terror of getting grabbed by him. Granted, most of those times I was on acid, but still! Stephen King ruined sewer grates for me for life. We also can't neglect to mention John Wayne Gacy, a real-life serial killer who used to dress as a clown, and loved painting them. If he isn't enough to give you a life-long case of coulrophobia, than what is? Killer Clowns From Outer Space, The Insane Clown Posse, the Joker, the clown doll in Poltergeist. My goodness non-clown fearers, open your eyes! Evil clowns are everywhere!

My own son, little traitor that he is, seems to like clowns. Not only this, but he finds it extremely amusing that they freak me out. He chased me around a costume shop with a clown mask laughing "clowns freak you out Mommy! Look at the clown Mommy!" He begged to be an evil clown for Halloween. It is one of the few things I have ever denied my son. Someday, he'll ask me to go to the circus. Thank goodness I can honestly say no, because they are mean to animals. Of course, if it's a non-animal show, I'm up the proverbial creek. I will sit, cringing in fear, begging the gods to not let me get eaten.

There are about three clowns in the world that don't freak me out. Crusty the Clown on the Simpsons, my friend in New Zealand who dresses as a clown, but always warns me when she's going to post pictures of it, and a clown in New Orleans who looked more like Raggedy Andy than IT. The rest of them make my heart race in terror. Sometimes I feel bad that I'm so scared though. Like the guy who came into the store where I was working years ago, during a street festival. He felt bad that I was sweating and ready to cry when all he wanted was to buy a soda. My boss, who knew I was terrified, just chuckled in the back of the store. Yeah, very funny! Good thing he was otherwise a great boss. Or the lady who does face painting near my seasonal stand, who just wanted to make casual conversation during a down time. I literally hid behind the register acting busy. Rationally, I know that many of them are just nice people who are trying to make kids happy. But when they're in disguise, I have no way of knowing which kind of clown they are, and that makes all of them creepy. I don't want them near me, and I don't want them near my kid.

Psych testing

I applied for a job at Old Navy a few months ago and they gave me a psych test. It was online, took about half an hour, and involved a series of questions about honesty, integrity, and stealing from work. I am pretty sure I failed it, because I never heard from them. I failed it because I refused to lie, it was after all, a test about honesty. The first question was something like "are you always honest?" I said of course I was. The next question was "If your sibling was stealing from their employer, would you turn them in." I said of course I wouldn't. Would anyone really do that? Why the hell would I choose a company full of people I don't even know over my brother? My brother could kill someone and I wouldn't turn him in. Not that he would of course, he's a fancy lawyer now, soon he'll be able to pay someone else to do that for him! I'm kidding of course, my brother would never risk losing his license to practice, he worked too hard to get where he is. But my sense of loyalty to family and friends is too strong to ever turn them in for anything. I'm also a hypocrite, because when strangers do certain things, I think "wow, that was really awful," but if a friend did it, I'd take their side against anyone. So why the hell would I turn my sibling in for stealing from work? Does anyone answer "yes" to that question?

Another question that I probably failed- "If a vending machine gave you a soda even though you didn't put any money in it, would you find a way to pay for it?' Seriously? Are there people so honest out there that if they got a free can of soda, they would hunt down the address and send a check for the $1.25? (Remember when soda was only .50? I miss that.) If these people exist, why aren't THEY in politics? Clearly they're much better suited.

Another failure- "If you got home and noticed that the cashier forgot to charge you for a $1 item, would you go back and pay for it?" I actually know people who do this. They think I'm a criminal because I said "hell no!" Free stuff is free stuff. Besides, it would cost me more in gas to go back and pay for it, not to mention the cost of my time. I work in retail of sorts seasonally, I've accidentally given away merchandise before, and I would never expect someone to come back and pay for it. Times are tough, and I think of the freebies as the universes random acts of kindness. The Gods of Retail are saying "hey, you look like you could use a free balloon today, I'll make that cashier forget to ring it up." I'm not want to go against the gods, if they want me to have a free balloon, I'm not throwing it back in their faces. Their revenge would be to overcharge me on something the next time!

Question after question, I answered honestly. No, I wouldn't steal merchandise from the store, but yes, I might steal pens and paperclips. Not on purpose, but if I got home and found a paperclip in my pocket, I would go turn myself in for theft. I think the question about whether or not I wanted to make cashiering at Old Navy my career kind of did me in too. I guess they were a little put off by the fact that I didn't find making $8 an hour for the rest of my life as appealing as say, finishing college and getting a job that actually allows me to eat, provides health insurance for my child, and possibly even contributes to some sort of retirement plan.

I find it very ironic that in order to get a job, you have to basically be a liar. I know how to pass those tests, everyone does. Lie, lie, lie. I cannot think of a single person who is so incredibly scrupulous that they could answer every one of those questions correct honestly. If those people don't exist, then the entire industry is staffed by liars. Kind of like politics!

Amazon Addiction

I love Amazon. No, correction, I am obsessed with Amazon. I spend hours a week meticulously going through all of my recommendations not only to find new stuff, but to laugh at the bizarre things Amazon thinks I might want. For example, because I said I own the Dream Day Wedding game, they thought I might like a Playtex 18 hour bra. Because I bought a Scooby Doo movie, I might like a power saw. I'm more than a little creeped out that, because I bought my dogs some Snausages through their grocery store, they think I should have Slim Jims. I don't even want to know the correlation between the two, but I'm kind of thankful to be a non-mammal eater right about now.

I have yet to figure out their process for recommendations, but I'm sure it's fascinating. Sometimes Amazon must really think they know better, because no matter how many times I tell them I'm not interested in the Burt Reynold's collection, they still keep throwing it up there with every click of the reload button. Amazon also assumes I need to have every item duplicated on every platform available. You said you own Thrillville off the Rails for XBOX 360, we think you should also have it for the Wii! You said you own Nightmare Before Christmas on DVD, buy it on Blu-Ray too! Don't have a Blu-Ray player? Scroll down a few lines, we've recommended twenty nice ones for you! If they don't work, destroy them with that power saw we recommended.

I am also obsessed with adding and deleting things from my six wish lists (one for Jake's books and DVD's, one for Jake's toys, one for books for me, one for DVD's, one for Games, and one for other random stuff). My child's wish list is full of six pages of stuff he doesn't even know he wants. At one point, I thought he might want every single Blues Clues book ever made. I keep adding Llama Llama books to it, even though he only liked the first one, and I have to beg him to let me read the second one. I just really like saying Llama Llama. He also shows no interest in the majority of "Caldicott Winners" books that I get him. If it doesn't have a bad guy and a superhero in it, he's pretty much not interested. He just started getting into fairy tales. Tonight I read him Rumpelstiltskin and Rapunzel. I have questions now. They're far more disturbing than I remember. Did you know the girl in Rumpelstiltskin marries the King who originally locked her in a tower to spin straw into gold, and they lived happily ever after? What kind of message is that sending? Should I be worried that my son is going to lock his pre-school girlfriend in a closet now?

But I digress. This is my tribute to the little company that could, the little book seller that turned into the largest internet retailer of all time. This is my thank-you to them for filling my boring hours with amusement and excitement. I used to order from them every other day when I had Prime. Pay $80 once a year, get unlimited two-day shipping for free. Except how is it free when I had to pay $80 to get it? I was short on cash this year, so I had to pass on the renewal. Now what will I do? Where will I be able to find six tubes of expiring bug-bite lotion for $2? Four bottles of expiring Tylenol PM for $5? What will my son do now that I can't log on and purchase a toy he doesn't even know exists for 85% off? It's a nightmare, it's depressing, and I'm going through impulse purchase withdrawal. Probably a good thing, since I can't even afford food on my own anymore.

Letting go

So this morning I got a bug up my ass to really clean my son's room. Not just vacuum and dust, put away clothes, but really clean it. There is an odor coming from somewhere in the room that I can't find. It's gross. It smells like my husband threw a urine pull-up somewhere and just left it. I've already been through the whole room three times and found nothing, so I thought perhaps it was time to tear the whole thing apart. I am forty-five minutes into this task, and here I am. I need a break already. The entire room is filled with junk from end to end. I tore apart his closet, I went through bins of clothes "for when he gets older" and found that I missed an entire season of brand new clothes that he could have worn last year. Now with the new consumer protection acts, I'll probably never be able to get rid of them. His closet is filled with stuff from when he was a newborn- bouncy seats, receiving blankets, crib bumpers, those little wedges you shove under the mattress so they can breathe when they're sick. Baby monitors, baby toys, a tummy-time mat, you name it, I've saved it.

Why do I save all this stuff if I've sworn over and over that I'll never have another baby? My son's birth and my complications were too much for anyone to deal with twice, and I'm happy with the child I have. I seriously have no intention of ever having another child. So why do I need all this stuff? I am incapable of letting go. It took a lot for me to let go of the six bins of clothing that he no longer fit into. I pared it down to one bin of stuff that is just too sentimental, like the preemie clothes sent to me from all over the country by wonderful friends who had never actually met me. I remember when those clothes were too big for him, and how I had to watch him grow into the tiniest of t-shirts, and I can't let go.

Today is the day I finally dismantle his changing table, which I've been using as a shelf. It is falling apart. The top is destroyed. It's banged up, missing bolts, and probably can't be used again. Guess where it's going? Storage. Why? Because my grandmother gave it to him, and she's gone now. I can't let go of her, or anything she ever gave us. She was an amazing woman, the light of the family. I lost her almost a year ago today, and I lost my grandfather last month. These are the people who helped raise me, who encouraged my imagination and spoiled me rotten. They sang to me, they baked me cakes and brought me gifts from business trips. Now, I am incapable of letting go of them. I am devastated every time I think that I'll never talk to them again, never hear my Granny talk about the ghosts she's seen or my Pop-Pop tell a corny joke. So I'll take up valuable storage space to save a changing table that will never be used again, just like my mom is taking up valuable freezer space for a container of my grandmother's sauce that will never be eaten.

Just like I can never let go of them, I can't let go of my son's past. The items in his closet are a reminder of how far he's come. I still have leads left over from his apnea monitor. I remember the first time I heard it beep, how terrifying it was. I remember running into his room, flinging on the light, and yelling "breath baby," and the relief when it stopped beeping. Seven beeps, seven seconds. It doesn't seem like a long time, does it?

But now he's nearly four. He has no residual effects of prematurity. Aside from a language delay, he caught up and surpassed the other children his age. People look at me in shock when I tell them he was 3lbs, 5oz when he was born, and dropped down to under 3lbs before he started gaining. I should let go now. But instead, I've got a car full of bins ready to take over to the storage unit full of stuff he'll never use again. I'll go back downstairs and shove more mementos of his life into the closet. Then I'll find the source of that damn disgusting odor and put the whole room back together. He'll come home and say "Mommy, you cleaned!" then proceed to tear the whole thing apart again. Life will go on as normal on the surface. But inside, I'll still be holding on to everything, holding on to everyone I've ever lost or nearly lost. Eventually I'll let go, but for today, I'll settle for just re-organizing the mess in both my son's room and my heart.

Green means go, ashbowl!!

I have horrible road rage. I just can't help it. I live in an area populated primarily by displaced or vacationing New Yorkers and New Jersey drivers who learned to drive in big cities where they had to be aggressive to get anywhere, or where they had to suffer through endless loops of driving circles to make a single left turn, so they've grown used to driving like morons and acting like the own the entire road. Driving makes me nervous enough as it is without having to deal with idiots like that.

So I scream and yell a lot in the car. Every idiot that cuts me off, every jerk that doesn't yield to my right of way, every inconsiderate prick that wont let me out when traffic is heavy and doing so would hold them up an additional three seconds. I scream at all of them. I flip them off. I think bad karmic thoughts about them. I want to chase them down and slash their tires, but that would be going way too far, and I do have an ounce of common sense left in my overwhelmed brain.

I only recently discovered how bad I really am in the car when my son started talking. I try to watch my mouth very carefully around my son. I was a Sailor's wife, twice. I am a Sailor's niece and a Sailor's granddaughter. I swear like a Sailor. Not very becoming of a lady, I know. But I really tried to clean up my language around my son. If I could manage not to swear at work around small children, then surely I could do fine around my own. And I was doing pretty well, except in the car.

It started with innocent enough proclamations from the back seat. Every time the light turned green, Jake would yell "go already! Green means go!" When we'd get behind a turtle, he'd shout "move it!" But then came the day a guy with, what else, a Jersey plate, almost hit me. He was flying down the road in my lane, coming right towards me. I screamed "you stupid asshole!" That was it. All the times I accidentally said "shit" or worse and got a free pass from the "Keep Your Kid From Repeating After You" god, it took one time for my son to latch on to that phrase. Suddenly every car on the road was filled with stupid assholes. I ignored him, I begged him not to say it in public (thankfully he never said it at school, or if he did they didn't tell me, which I doubt because they couldn't wait to tell me about the penis flasher incident), and finally I got him to lay off a bit, after several months. Now, he just says "Mommy, I'm not calling them a stupid assword, I'm not!" Yeah, I'm not getting the Parent of the Year award, am I?

I'm trying to mellow out, I really am. I was doing pretty good for a while. But I got cut off yet again the other night, and a string of expletives came flying out of my mouth. Jake asked "what did you say?" I told him "I said 'you doofus trucking ash bowl' baby!" He must have been tired because he just said "oh," and went back to singing the Ramones version of Spiderman. If he does start repeating some of my worse language, I'm prepared to say "oh, that's just how he says truck and ship!" It's plausible.

Disclaimer- I have many friends from NYC and New Jersey. They are aware that I think they drive like idiots and have no hard feelings about this. They think I drive too slow and like a sissy, so we're even. So if you're from NY or NJ and are offended, get over it. Even the insurance companies think you drive like a maniac. Oh, and thanks for that by the way, our insurance premiums are higher just because we share a border with you!

You're really pretty Mommy

I thought I would have a crappy Valentines Day this year. My husband and I are split up, not that we've ever really celebrated in a major way anyway, but I thought this year it would just be a reminder of the fact that I'm dangerously close to single. But my three and a half year old son actually made it the best one yet.

First, on Wednesday, he made me the cutest card in speech class, complete with flowers and little heart stickers that he picked out himself. Then, on Friday, he gave me a bouquet of tissue paper flowers that he made at school. Today, he behaved almost perfectly the whole day (no three year old can behave perfect all day, so I'll take close). We made Valentine cupcakes, we went shopping and he didn't ask for a single thing, and we painted with glitter glue without destroying the entire house (any day where he only destroys half the house is a good day). As if that wasn't all perfect enough, tonight we were reading books and he looked at me and said "you're really pretty Mommy!" That made my day extraordinary.

My son makes my life extraordinary. I've never really accomplished much in this world. I've dropped out of college more times than I care to admit. As my husband would tell you, I've never had a "real" job aside from a seasonal managing stint every Christmas and Easter. I've only been published once, and I have never completed a single one of the twenty-some novels I've started. But I did manage to have one awesome kid. It took me six years to produce him, and he had a bit of a rocky birth, but he's here, he's healthy, happy, and smart. He is my one major accomplishment, the one thing I can look at and say "hey, I did that!" He makes me proud every day, and if I'm proud of him, I can be proud of myself because I gave him what he needed to become the smart, well-rounded, happy little boy that he is. He's beautiful, perfect, and amazing, and he thinks I'm really pretty. You just can't beat that.