The glamorous life of a childless housewife

30

2011-11-30T07:32:00.001-07:00

I have set a new-decade resolution to cease and desist with all gossip. Saying something critical about someone, particularly when I would not say it to the person directly, is cowardly, tasteless, and insane.

I need a form of self-flagellation if I mess up. Something that stings, is relatively simple to execute, but not corporeal. I am open to suggestions.

In the meantime, if you hear me say something about someone that I wouldn't say to them, feel free to give me a quick slap.

Happy new decade!

The real deal

2011-11-25T15:52:00.002-07:00

I turn thirty next week. I love my birthday and have always been committed to celebrating thoroughly. Last year on my birthday I was pregnant (miserable, and too large to fit into my birthday suit! Horrors!) and had to work for twelve hours. It was a real dud.

So this year I have been contemplating how to commemorate my glorious thirtieth birthday. What I came up with proves that my youth is already long gone.

1. Force Ryan to run errands with me. This includes babies r us (to buy an ergo), ikea, and JC Penney portrait studios (to pick up the holiday card envelopes they forgot to include with my order).

2. Force Ryan to help me clean the den and/or basement.

3. Maybe go out to lunch or something.

That's what I got. I'm glad I had so much unmitigated fun in my teens and twenties. These days, I'm apparently all business*. I hope I don't want to clean the bathroom when I turn forty.

At least I'll be running errands in my birthday suit. That thing makes a party out of anything.

*Upon a re-reading of this post, I realize that it's not so much business I'm into as forcing Ryan to do my bidding. I can't help it. I'm an oldest child.

Milestones

2011-11-19T07:34:00.001-07:00

It seems that some parents rejoice when their child, especially a firstborn child, passes important milestones. Not me. This child has started practically begging me to eat solids, and I just keep trying to nurse him. It's so easy, so convenient, so inexpensive, so metabolically favorable.

And now the little sucker has started crawling. Mobility is proving just as problematic as I anticipated. He just wants to eat electrical cords.

When he walks, I quit.

Grievances about my lower half

2011-11-11T20:15:00.001-07:00

I'm posting this from my phone and have no idea where the photos will show up. Forgive me if it doesn't make sense. I'm in the process of learning to use my phone as my only link to the outside world.

I take issue with the following:

According to standard distribution charts for white, American females, I am a of approximately average height and weight. Why, then, are all pants minimally five inches too long? I recently purchased six pair or jeans at Unique Thrift, sweet purveyor of nearly-free clothing, and every one requires either a seamstress or impractical shoes. If I am average, it seems there could be at least one pair that would be in the ballpark. Perhaps I should wear only capris. Better cold ankles than tripping. This reminds me of canned pumpkin, sold in 29 oz. cans when everyone knows that all pumpkin recipes call for one cup (8oz.) or maybe two, if you're lucky, but never 3 and 5/8. But that grievance has nothing to do with my lower half, so, moving on...

to my next point. The aforementioned pants represented sizes four through ten. This is four different sizes, for any readers unfamiliar with women's sizes. The size four pants are roomier than the size eights. This is simply madness. Men's pants are sized in a sane way, according to their measurements. Even a difficult to size man, like my long-legger spouse, can hope to find pants if the numbers are right. Women have to take an entire store into the dressing room. I am renewed in my zeal for my fondest dream, that all the world wear zip-up jumpsuits, like auto mechanics. Practical. Comfortable. Easy to size. Why is nobody on board for this idea? Probably because they are too busy trying on pants and freezing leftover pumpkin.

And finally, I went to the gym today and did a routine of exercises specific to my glutes. Only. Just butt exercises. Because mine is a full six inches south from where I left it when I got pregnant. To my knowledge, the baby does not gestate in ones derrière. Why, then, does mine look as though someone let the air out of it? If anyone needs me, I'll be doing hack squats.

Those are all my complaints. In other news, the kid has a tooth. He does not care to show it off, and thus must be forced. He likes his dad. So do I.

Over and out.

Happy Halloween

2011-11-01T17:24:00.003-06:00

Last year we celebrated Halloween with a 400 lb. pumpkin. It was a real big pumpkin.

This year we only had a twenty pounder. Just a little pumpkin.

Happy Halloween :)

Emergency preparedness

2011-09-25T15:12:00.001-06:00

I am newly, blissfully addicted to Pinterest. It gives a person the distinct sense of having accomplished something when, in fact, all she has done is lain in bed so her kid will stay asleep.

Pinterest has given me some anxiety. I fear I will fail to thrive as a mother and human being if I do not purchase a sewing machine and a laminator. I am now aware it is possible to fashion upwards of twenty different homemade wreaths for even the most mediocre holidays. And I am more keenly attuned every moment to the impending apocalypse. We need food storage. Survival training.

And all I do is watch my kid sleep.

But sometimes a person realizes she may be unduly complicating things. In fact, the ability to complicate simple things may not only describe a pastime, but a defining personality trait.

Think with me on this. Is there anything I need in a 72 hour kit besides a jar of peanut butter, a bottle of gatorade, and a small firearm.

I eagerly await your input.

My identity

2011-09-09T11:34:00.001-06:00

This morning, I woke up in the bed where I co-sleep with my exclusively breastfed child, changed his hemp cloth diaper, and set about my primary objective for the day, which is cleaning my carpet with this non-toxic, homemade method. I ran out of salt, so I went to our locally-sourcing natural foods market, traipsed around with my kid in a sling while wearing vibram fivefingers, and took home my salt, plus some chocolate almond milk, for a treat, in my reusable canvas bags.

But I'm no hippie.

In college, I was frequently teased for being a fake hippie, because I was. I listened to phish CDs I bought at barnes and noble, rather than bootlegged myself on tour, in the Toyota previa I purchased, rather than a vintage VW bus. I ate vegetarian food I bought at target and Costco. I wore Birkenstocks purchased via amazon and had shipped to my air-conditioned house.

It has been a life of conflict and hypocrisy.

This is why I am grateful for the green mommy movement. Never before have my interests in Eco- and health-friendly lifestyle choices been so beautifully blended with my uptight and neurotic personality. Now I can keep orderly and extensive boards of recipes, DIY projects, and unschooling ideas on Pinterest. I can follow vegan cooking blogs on my google reader and read then on my iPhone while I'm nursing. It's AWESOME.

I am not alone.

Relatedly, if obliquely, I have had a few observant friends mention the obsolescence of my blog title. Touché, I am indeed no longer childless (though I have also not been a housewife for four years and nobody noticed; perhaps therein lies a commentary on female identity perception in the US). However, I am contemplating new options. The blog does need a new name. A couple that now spring to mind are:

1. Amy's breastaurant: all-you-can-eat, open 24/7

2. No Regrets: Trading a life of ease, luxury, and lunch dates for a life of domestic servitude without a moment's regret

As you can see, I'm having trouble coming up with something I find as punchy as Childless Housewife, but I'll keep working on it.

The more things change

2011-08-09T14:17:00.001-06:00

The more they still have a fat head and a concerned look on their face.

First photo taken 6/11/11, second photo taken 8/9/11.

Baby's firsts

2011-07-25T13:19:00.008-06:00

I think The Kid had his first successful rollover yesterday. I did not capture the event, as I was not excited about it. Mobility=hassle. I've seen parents of toddlers. They're busy trying to keep their kids from killing themselves.

There have been a couple other firsts, however, about which I was thrilled. The first was his first playdate. He is going to have to learn to love hanging out with other kids so I can hang out with their moms.
I think they enjoyed it, too. They seemed to share some perspective. Like they were looking at life from the same angle, if you will.

Both boys are robust. However my child is only two weeks older than the other boy and looked substantially bigger to me. This is not surprising. He weighs 17 lbs 5 oz. Now I know why he kept hollering for more food in utero. He had plans for those calories.

The other first is that this morning, I discovered baby's first dreadlock. It is small, but unmistakable.
This was acquired in the night. A person has to be serious about their tossing and turning to dread their barely-existing hair while they are asleep.

I am here to verify the tossing and turning.

He does sleep occasionally. Here is proof:

I still prefer him awake, though. The kid knows how to party.

That is all. Forgive the lack of funny stories or flowery prose. We're a little tired around here. Tired, but good. Actually, great. We are all just great.

The Kid is a good idea.

Should've named him Winston

2011-07-02T10:16:00.004-06:00

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:
I suppose all we can hope is that his command of language is sufficient to obscure the effects of his whiskey habit.

He isn't always grumpily impersonating world leaders of the twentieth century, though. Here. He smiles.

More cute photos by Kat Audette here. (If you want more crappy iPhone photos, you'll have to keep checking here.) She is a talented and delightful person; if you need photos taken in SLC, I'd recommend her!

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Housewife

2011-06-12T18:08:00.008-06:00

The above photograph is of Kate Winslet starring in her role as Clementine is the surrealistic film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. One fun motif in the film is Clementine's frequently-changing technicolor hair.

The above picture is of Muriel, the Disney princess more readily identified by her bright red hair than the fact that her lower body is piscene. She is a cartoon.

What do these characters have in common? The same thing they share with me: surrealistic, cartoonish, unnaturally red hair.

The above photo is of me yesterday. I bought henna because, based on my consultation of the internet, I thought it would be good for my hair and might infuse it with a reddish cast. It sounded like good, clean, herbal fun.

I should have known to take herbs seriously after the cohosh incident.

The instructions indicated that the henna could be left on the hair for 2-4 hours, which affirmed my belief that it must not be too potent (otherwise, they would give a more specific timeframe, I assumed).

Thankfully, the box also provided some assurance. "The hair may appear to be a very bright color at first, but will fade to a natural shade of red in 3-4 days."

I hope they're serious, but I'm trying to be cheerful. See?

In other news, in trying to avoid an allergic reaction to latex, I forewent the gloves included in the henna kit and gave myself an oompa loompa hand. My hand has faded now to an almost-normal shade, so hope springs eternal for my hair. The baby is included in the shot for contrast as well as to make this post more enjoyable for my mother.

Counting my blessings

2011-05-13T16:47:00.003-06:00

Babies make the best faces before they have muscle control. It's awesome.

I have many blessings to be thankful for. Too many to name or even conceptualize. I am probably not aware of 99% of them.

But there is one of which I am keenly aware. I AM NO LONGER PREGNANT.

I may not have slept more than three consecutive hours in six weeks, I may have needed bonus stitches in my sitting parts three weeks postpartum, I may have a case of mystery eczema that might preclude eating dairy (mixed blessing, I know), I may not be able to wear non-maternity pants for another several months, I may be insuranceless when my Medicaid runs out in two weeks, I may be unable to return any of the phone calls from loving friends wanting to check in because any minute a squalling baby may demand milk from its original source, but I DON'T CARE. Because I, my lovelies, am not pregnant.

There is no bliss to match the bliss of not being pregnant anymore. Some women feel lovely and fecund and mysterious when they are pregnant, but for me it was just a series of new kinds of pain and discomfort, compounding one another's effects over a forty week span and ending in pain that defies description. So I'm happy it's over. Real happy!

In other news, Forrest and I had our six week postpartum visit yesterday. He weighed in at an impressive 12 lb, 4 oz, meaning his weight has increased by 50% while mine has decreased by 25%. When our midwife announced Forrest's weight, I looked surprised and she, gesturing to the visible fruits of lactation, said, "Well, he is feeding at one of the seven wonders of the world!"

My boobs rival Giza's pyramids. Literally and figuratively.

Life is good. I'm not pregnant, I have a sleepy, hungry little nursling, and spring is springing just as I am regaining hope of eventual mobility. Things are looking up around here.

Visitors welcome :) I only work 6 hours a week!

40 weeks

2011-03-31T04:58:00.004-06:00

As of five hours ago, I am forty weeks pregnant. I think my water may have broken at 3:00, but no contractions yet. Unfortunately, I can't seem to go back to sleep. Ryan fell back asleep as soon as I told him to. Men have it easy.

I would find it very satisfying if this child is born on his due date.

3:00 water trickle, call midwife and mom. try to sleep. fail.

Get up and play around online. Read funny blog. Have a few intermittent contractions.

7:00 puke.

Nineteen days later, I'm back to edit the post I began the day before I gave birth. Sorry. Newborn=timewarp. It's all for the best. I already have amnesia setting in, which should spare you some gore.

So, as you can see from the above post, begun but never finished, I went into labor on my due date, March 31. Kind of. It was slow, disorganized labor, with lots of several-hours-long breaks and easily managed contractions. I enjoyed this early labor stage until 1:00 pm the next day, April 1, when my midwife invited me to her office to talk about options, since my water may or may not have broken (in retrospect, I think it was a break in the forebag, for those who like details about other peoples' amniotic sacs). She did the obligatory exam and reported that I have a "favorable" cervix (3 cm dilated, 80% effaced, "nice and soft and stretchy") and that I might benefit from her "labor blend", an herbal tincture featuring the wondrous cohoshes, black and blue. She explained that the labor blend would act like a push-start to a car: if my body wasn't ready for active labor, nothing would happen, but if we were on the brink of something real, it might help things get into gear.

I threw it back like a shot of tequila with nary an afterthought and delivered a baby four hours later.

When I think of myself swilling it down now, it is as though I see myself smilingly compliant as I am strapped to the front of a train. Sure, I'll take that cohosh! I didn't want to breathe for the next four hours anyway!

I began having more intense contractions shortly after taking the dreaded labor blend and by the time I got home I was in active labor. Ryan called the midwife.

Ryan: "Uhm, I think this is getting kind of serious"

Midwife: "Well have her get in the shower. Sometimes that can space the contractions out a little bit."

Ryan: "Ok"

Me [on all fours on the bed with my face buried in the mattress]: "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

It was evident to Ryan that I wasn't going to make it to the shower. He called the midwife back a few contractions later and we headed back to have a baby.

Thankfully, my little brother drives a Crown Victoria, aka living room on wheels, aka Birth Chariot. I did not deliver the baby in the car; that is not where this is going. I did, however, ride the six miles to the birth center on my hands and knees in the back seat, wailing my pretty little head off. Little brother said he felt like he was in a movie. I did not feel like I was in a movie. I felt like I was in another place, a place where snowballs don't fare well.

We arrived at around 3:30 and I somehow pitched and roared myself inside. It was nothing graceful, I assure you. As soon as the midwife saw me, she exclaimed "Oh! Now this is a woman who is working!" and started the water in the giant tub.

Ryan began explaining the situation.

Ryan: "The contractions started getting bad when we got back home..."

Midwife: "You mean they started getting good when you got home!"

Sadist.

I got in the tub as soon as it was ready for me, planted myself on my shins and hands, a la The Little Mermaid (who, incidentally, Ryan identified the other day as Muriel, to my unending amusement and delight), and didn't move for two hours. I labored, loudly. I knew from reading a bazillion birth books that low noises are more helpful in labor than high-pitched shrieks, so I compromised by making the loudest low noises known to man. I was so loud I couldn't hear what people were saying to me. It was sort of shocking how loud I could be.

And sort of satisfying.

They say some women like labor and some women like pushing. I only liked when it was over.

I will say only this about the sensation of labor pains. If you had hit me on the hand with a hammer as hard as you could, I would have considered it a minor distraction.

Forrest Michael Lee was born at 5:30. He was very small when compared to other human beings, and very large when compared to the size of the body parts from which he recently emerged: 8 lb 10 oz.

Ryan, my friend Jami, my mother, and my midwife attended the birth. Other than the fact that it was mind-meltingly, horrifically, painful, it was perfect. There are not words to describe what it meant to have each of them there, so I won't try. It's not blog material anyway. Blogs are for writing that your husband thought the Little Mermaid's name was Muriel, at least that's what this blog is for.

After my whirlwind delivery I felt like exhasuted, broken, garbagey garbage. To say I was spent doesn't begin to capture it. I was still in pain. And I soon discovered that the price of a quick, efficient labor is that a person better learn to nurse lying on her side because she isn't going to be sitting for awhile. I'll leave it at that.

I still can't sit.

The baby was, of course, the foil for all the misery. He was a peaceful little beauty and neither Ryan nor I slept all night because we couldn't stop staring at his little face. I congratulated myself on a job well done, as I had created a close to perfect baby (he has a tongue tie, but we like him anyway, even if he is a little chompy about the nursing) out of pizza and Berry Berry Kix. Not bad.

The first ten days after the birth were idyllic, minus the not sitting and getting chomped. My mom stayed with us while Ryan and I got our sea legs and she fell for the boy, hard. We're going to have to figure out a fiscally responsible way to get her to move to Utah because if we don't I think she might not make it. We all just stayed in the house staring at the new little face. It still hasn't gotten old.

When I was in the throes of pregnant misery, working 40-50 hours a week as I gained seventy pounds (in spite of frequent vomiting, making the accomplishment all the more impressive) I told myself that when the baby was born all I would do was lay in bed for the first two months and nurse him. At the time I thought I was kidding, or at least exaggerating, but here I am, nineteen days out, and that's all I've done so far. I barely check my email. I haven't called Medicaid to tell them the baby was born. I have only left the house three times, for appointments with doctors. I have been exclusively wearing a black track suit. And I'm not fixin' to change my schedule any time soon.

So that's the story. There aren't too many details because it was pretty cut and dry. And fast. It was really fast.

With a happy ending.

Limericks

2011-03-28T10:42:00.003-06:00

I once lived a semester in London
With some co-eds; one was a most fun one.
"Just keep eating!" she'd cry,
with a gleam in her eye
When we finished I looked like a rum bun.

And now, though I weep, scream, and shout,
my fetal, tyrranical lout
Will recant the same cry
That my friend once lived by
Forcing me to eat 'til I pass out.

Who wouldn't choose cheese over heaving?
Pie and pancakes, their looks are deceiving.
Though they bode for ill-health
To me they suggest wealth
For soon salad's all I'll be receiving.

A good sign, I think, that I have moved from haiku to limerick. Indicates more sleep is happening.

Forty weeks Thursday. Two and a half weeks max until I expel the venemous placenta of destruction.

In case we are not friends on Facebook, I should mention here that Ryan and I went to Babies R' Us on Saturday and the woman standing behind us in line, a mother of two, asked if we are expecting twins. Some may take this as an insult, but I choose to frame it as an acknowledgment of a good job done resplendently. With the help of cheese and pancakes.

The Truth About Pregnancy

2011-03-16T21:24:00.003-06:00

Everyone I know is pregnant.

Ok, not everyone, but I have been co-gestating with over ten people. Two weeks ago, the first gave birth. The second, yesterday, and today, the third.

I would like to be next, please. I have to write about 15 more pages, and then it's baby time.

Before becoming pregnant, I marveled at the great desire of women at full-term to go into labor, the most notoriously painful of all human experiences. How bad could pregnancy be, that women would drink castor oil while riding horseback on a trampoline in hopes of instigating the most painful thing they would likely experience in their lifetimes?

It's becoming clearer with each passing day.

I have been neglectful of documenting my expansion. It's hard to photograph oneself when one feels as though most disease states would be preferable to one's current condition. However, Ryan has captured a couple of moments on his phone which I will now share with you.

If I were the sort of person with dignity, I would post only this picture, taken at 37 weeks and three days:But, I am here to tell you the truth. The whole truth and nothing but. I am here to be honest with you, even at the expense of my very dignity. Also, I am not above a self-deprecating joke. For these reasons, I share the following, taken the same day as the photo above:

There. Now you know what pregnancy really looks like. That face. That outfit. That abdomen.

I would post a picture of my profile, the kind where you get the gut from the side-view for maximum effect, but standing is too hard.

38 weeks tomorrow, and my last day of work. Next week, come hell or high water, I will finish writing and then have a baby. Even if I have to do it on the back of a trampolining horse while swilling castor oil.

Designed by Mother Nature?

2011-03-12T10:08:00.003-07:00

When I searched for Nursing Tops on Amazon, they recommended THIS. Amazing.

A Birthday and a Bed-room

2011-03-06T21:56:00.007-07:00

Over the holiday break I acquired a new addition to my birthday paraphernalia, as I mentioned in January. May I remind you about the birthday headpiece:
My brother's birthday is this coming Thursday, so Ryan and I invited him, as well as my sister and her man, up to the house for dinner. Naturally, as soon as he walked in the door, he was greeted by the birthday headpiece. I suppose the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, because he unflinchingly put it on his head and wore it the rest of the evening.

Is it just me, or should I be surprised by everyone uncomplainingly walking around with a stuffed cupcake perched on their noggins?

I was thrilled. I don't know which I love most: birthday paraphernalia, costumes in general, or bossing people around, but this deal with the headpiece fires on all cylinders.

We had a lovely evening. I made my brother a red velvet cake, as this is his favorite, except I made a healthier version, wanting to spare my unborn the evils of egregious red food coloring. This was something of a mistake, as the cake tasted distinctly of beets, which are among the few foods my brother finds unpalatable. Oops. I'll remember that next year. I hope it really is the thought that counts. Beet cake is kind of an unforgivable birthday blunder.

The greatest victory of the evening, for me, was having several men with substantial heavy lifting abilities in the house at one time, as I had a fiendish plan I was physically unable to execute.

When I was in college, a friend of mine had a sibling born into her family. I remember visiting her parents' home and noticing that they had a king sized mattress on the floor with a twin mattress right next to it. They told me that they had a "family bed" so that their little one could sleep by them instead of in a separate crib or room. I was immediately taken with the idea and considered the possibility of taking the family bed to the next level. A bedroom, I thought, could be exactly that: a room for bed.

Wall to wall bed. All bed all the time.

I didn't give it much thought in the following years as there were no little people whose sleep options required consideration. However, a recent combination of events have brought the notion of a bed-room back to the forefront of my mind.

1. I got pregnant.
2. We inherited a bed from Ryan's parents, who upgraded, and found ourselves with two king-sized mattresses and one bedroom.
3. I started thrashing like a dying carp all night long.

Consequently, I began a one-woman brainstorm. How could we accommodate all this bed? I tried selling our original mattress, but haven't had any takers yet, and mattress #2 was impeding any sense of functionality in the second room (which is where we are keeping the baby gear; it serves as a glorified closet) by taking up every single square inch of floor space, rendering baby clothes, our filing cabinets, and my clothes closet completely inaccessible.

I hatched a plan to move our dressers into the perimeter of the closet-room and bring mattress #2 into the bed-room, resulting in a room comprised exclusively of bed. Tonight, with three men over 200 lbs. in the house to do my bidding, the dream became a reality. You can pencil roll across the entire bed-room. Check it out, and while you're at it, notice the birthday headpiece:
He is demonstrating the pencil roll. I wish I could have gotten a picture that captured the extent to which the room is a giant bed, but it was a cell phone picture.

I don't know how I got so lucky to have people in my life who indulge my desires for them to wear silly things on their heads and create fortresses of bedding while I sit around and make lousy cakes out of root vegetables, but that seems to be my lot. I'm one lucky duck.

Who needs a crib when you can have a bed-room?

My preferred medium

2011-02-19T13:50:00.002-07:00

Something about pregnancy makes me think in haiku. Perhaps it is that seventeen syllables is the full extent of my attention span. Here are a few I conceived during lunch.

Without melted cheese
I could not survive nine months
Sorry bovine friends

I am enormous
More than I thought possible
Like a Volkswagen

Stretch-marked abdomen
Five weeks til you resemble
Crumpled newspaper

I am still alive.

Five weeks to go!

Dilemma

2011-02-11T13:12:00.003-07:00

I have a problem on my hands that seems without solution.

In the first year of my graduate program, I was feeling uncharacteristically ambitious and, wooed by the prospect of working under the tutelage of a woman who is hands-down the most appealing academic (and possibly the most appealing human being) I have ever met, I decided that I would ask her to be my advisor in writing an optional Master's thesis.

Optional is the only word in that very long sentence that matters.

It translates to: I am an idiot.

So I took my shiny little self to meet with her, convinced her to take me on, and registered for her course on Qualitative Research Methods. The week before the course began I was stricken with a cough (perhaps you recall the rumple syrup?) that never ended. It made it impossible for me to complete the primary requirement of the rigorous class: writing the Research Precis. I told the teacher, my hero, about my plight and she seemed unfazed. Every year, she assured me, someone couldn't finish for whatever reason. I could simply take an incomplete and finish it sometime before I graduated. The 'I' grade would be replaced with whatever grade I received, with no penalty for having taken a sabbatical.

So I took that incomplete. I shoved the precis to the back of my mind. None of my Masters level cohorts were involved in research, so I just never had much occasion to think about it.

But I need the grade to graduate. In May.

I am, as you know, due to deliver a baby in less than seven weeks. This is great. What is not great is that it means that I should really get this grade taken care of before then. Which means I have to write a big thing.

Which, as it turns out, I hate doing.

I have spent some significant time this week trying to write the introduction, and every time I start I get Jello-brain even worse than my usual pregnant mental functioning. I start to fall asleep. I feel depressed. I just want it to go away.

I would almost go so far as to say that I can't write it, but I realize that this is probably just hormones talking.

I suggested to Ryan that I just ask my advisor what it would take to simply pass the class, and he looked horrified. Apparently he thinks that this would be a breach of integrity, which I am willing to consider, and also to accept at this point. My next idea was to pay someone to write it for me, or to hang out and write it with me, but then I remembered I don't have any money. I just want it to go away.

I will never try something ambitious again.

Anyone want a baby?

Sweatpants

2011-01-29T20:19:00.002-07:00

Who decided that sweatpants are inappropriate office attire? I have no other pants that are not actively painful. I may have to choose between wearing sweatpants to work from mid-February until mid-March and quitting work a month ahead of schedule.

I had no idea the amount of time I could spend fantasizing about sweatpants. Weekends are sweatpants heaven.

In other news, I have a pan of brownies in the oven featuring prunes and black beans. Sorry, kid. Your mom is that mom.

Jiggity Jig

2011-01-14T10:11:00.006-07:00

Home again!

Ryan and I spent the first two weeks of our vacation in the Bay Area visiting his family, listening to the rain, and enjoying the freedom to breathe without fear. I decided that it would be nice to live in a place where it is possible to be outside for a significant amount of time each day without threat of bodily harm. Whether this wish will always be a fantasy remains to be seen.

Our Christmas was lovely, and we received many generous, thoughtful, and wonderful gifts. One gift, marked "To: Ryan and Amy" was an iPad, upon which I have not lain one finger since its receipt. Ryan, who maintains even still his hate of Apple products and programs, is losing face fast as it becomes increasingly impossible to pry from his eager little hands. I figure, he can have it. I would just use it to look up brownie recipes anyway, and that's the last thing anyone needs.

In the end, all's fair in Christmas gifting. Ryan may have received a Very Fancy Electronic, but I received a Very Useful Toileting Alternative. Evidently, human elimination ought to be done from a deep squatting posture and, in the interest of my intestinal wellness, Ryan's brother-in-law, at the behest of his clever wife, built for us a contraption called a squat platform, nearly identical to what you see pictured below. As soon as I can squat without fear (honestly, I'm even finding standing still a little hazardous these days), I will let you know how it works.

Or perhaps not, now that I think about it.

After driving back from California, we flew to Maryland to see my side of the family. I don't know whose pelvis I thought I was working with when I scheduled 24 hours of car travel and ten plus hours on a plane, but I've never been known for my prudence or good judgment. The trip was worth the discomfort, edema, and risk of embolism, however. I was the lucky recipient of a cast iron skillet and baby shower gifts including soft, blue things for Dweezil and a recliner for me. And pleather maternity pants.

Sometimes I like to reward those of you who keep reading when I'm feeling boring and long-winded with tidbits like this.

It's true! My grandmother, mother, sister, and I went to Unique Thrift, a Value Village subsidiary and our most beloved destination, to search out clothing for my expanding bod. This was the source of many additional soft blue things (baby bodies are far easier to dress than the bodies that produce them, I'm learning), and several maternity items, one of which is a pair of pleather pants with a stretchy panel over the belly.

Trying on clothes at Unique Thrift is an acrobatic event in any condition, but trying on pants with no dressing room at seven months gestation nearly gave me a coronary. Still, I felt I had no option. This was clearly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I had to at least see if they fit.

My eighty-seven-year-old grandmother, who goes by Mutie, took one look at me in those pants and proclaimed "Amy! They're darling!" I couldn't believe the funniness of my life as she continued, "Really, they look very nice! Especially from the back--" At which point I had to interrupt her. A woman in my condition can only take so much commentary on her derriere.

The end of the story is that Mutie couldn't bear the thought of my leaving that store without those pants and so she forked out the four dollars and bought them herself. She then proceeded to harass me for the next two days about how I ought to wear them to the lovely, classy baby shower my mother's friends had organized for me. How do you tell your grandmother that, no matter how minimizing of one's hindquarters, pleather pants simply don't feel like baby shower wear?

I mean, look at her. You wouldn't want to mess with her, admit it.
I wore regular clothes to the shower. Don't worry about Mutie, she'll get over it, she's tough. In fact, she shared a little poem with us the morning we left for the airport:

The harder you fall
The higher you bounce
Come up with a smiling face
It's nothing against you to be knocked down
But to lie there,
That's the disgrace

Pretty much sums her up right there.

The day after the shower was my mother's birthday, so I forced her to wear a birthday hat and we all ate pancakes.

It was a lovely holiday, so lovely that it provided me with ample material for the five posts I penned in my head but never quite got to the presses. Oh, well. At least I have some pants to wear if I go to a motorcycle rally before April.

Irresponsible

2010-12-17T04:49:00.002-07:00

One of the graduate assistants at my work is a budding photographer and asked me weeks ago if she could photograph my burgeoning gut. I told her that would be great, knowing there was zero chance of my documenting my pregnancy myself and figuring that when I'm nine months pregnant, I will remember being five months pregnant with fondness. "You thought you knew what sciatica felt like then!" I'll think to myself. "You fool!"

Being myself, I figured the most sensible time to arrange a photo shoot would be the day after the semester was over, which is also the day Ryan and I are supposed to be getting ready to leave town for several weeks. Do other people's brains work better than this?

So, this week I logged all my hours, finished a Medicaid application, saw eleven clients, facilitated three groups, went to class, wrote a client conceptualization, entered the last two months worth of client notes including three infamously time-consuming intakes, gathered the documents required to reinstate my driver's license, gained two pounds, and slept through the night once. When I crashed through the door last night at 7:30 and announced I would be showering, Ryan looked relieved.

Since I hadn't showered since Monday. Seriously, who has the time?

What he didn't know was that the reason I was showering is that I am to be photographed in public today and my haircut is so bad that last week when I showed my own sister and cherished oldest friend what it looked like pre-curling iron, they both looked genuinely concerned. Like how you would look if your sister or cherished oldest friend came before you after having had a run-in with a four year old and a pair of scissors. Because that's what my uncurled hair looks like. The curled version doesn't look good, mind you, but it does somewhat diminish the weed-whacker effect.

At least that's what I tell myself.

Where was I? I'm really tired, people.

Ah, yes, showering. So I emerged from the shower ready for Ryan to take a swing at cutting my hair. I had not received his consent to proceed with this plan, as I imagined it would be difficult to obtain. I strategized that dripping-wet, urgency-infused coercion would more likely achieve compliance. You see, we had tried this before, and it didn't go great, but, I figured, when your hair looks as bad as mine currently does, probably having less hair will be an improvement. Also, I have unwarranted faith in the ability of a curling iron to mask pretty much the entire spectrum of bad haircuts. I was uninvested. When I announced the plan, he looked panicked.

He should have known better than to attempt to resist. I am incorrigible.

After a few different methods of haranguing, he took our dull scissors and gave it his best shot. After one trip around my head he decided he had had enough, and left me there, sopping wet lunatic that I am, to finish the job.

I didn't mind. He had already cut the back.

My hair doesn't look worse, though I can't say it looks better. Again, sans curling, the effect is comical at best. But, there is less hair, and that was the only goal, which makes the event a success!

Good thing I will have my driver's license picture taken in two hours and then spend a couple hours this afternoon being photographed in public. It's nice to know you can count on yourself to be someone with consistently good judgment and plenty of dignity.

I must be missing something

2010-12-13T22:15:00.002-07:00

Do you use Flickr to store and share photos? Or Picasa? If so, why? Aren't there equally user friendly sites that offer unlimited storage, like Snapfish or Shutterfly?

Sincerely,

Perplexed

A Moment of Triumph

2010-12-11T16:40:00.004-07:00

Sometimes you get a moment that helps to redeem all those other moments and this here moment is one of them.

Today I spent most of the morning amassing the paperwork that we need for our Medicaid application. I spent most of the afternoon logging my internship hours so I can get them signed off before winter break and to make sure I can get my hours completed before Dweezil shows up. As tallying hours is one of The Logistics of Life, I should have been entering them weekly, but haven't entered a single one since the last week of August.

I finished entering the hours a few minutes ago, so I went to the summary sheet to see how my progress was coming along. I discovered I have enough hours to graduate.

Now.

Meaning, I have been working way more than necessary, but I can stop worrying, leave town for the holidays without a care in the world, and have time next semester to meet my obligations to my internship sites without any concern about getting my requirements met.

Because they are met.

Now.

I recognize that this could also be a tragic tale of how I pushed my pregnant self way too hard, losing undue sleep, and being irresponsible in a backward sort of ill-planned way, but I'm in a half-full sort of mood because...

the Medicaid stuff is all in a pile, ready to fax in on Monday...

And Ryan just emailed me this:

At the time, I was so sad that I didn't have the energy to make Pumpkinfest happen, but I did insist that Ryan's 399 lb. champion be carved. At 6:00 pm on Halloween. And I made us set up the self-timer so there would be proof that even though we were tired, stressed, and almost dead, we still had the biggest Jack O' Lantern in the neighborhood, and we grew it ourselves.

It can be hard to predict which days will be the good ones. Today definitely wasn't slated that way, but as I sit here awash in triumph, I'm happy it snuck up on me.

Maybe this is kind of how it feels when after a long, crappy pregnancy, you realize you get a baby at the end because you're holding one in your arms.

Sorry for comparing you to a nearly-completed Medicaid application, Dweezil. You'll understand when you're older.

Please Advise

2010-12-11T09:48:00.002-07:00

Hello friends.

As previously declared, The Logistic of Life are not my strong suit. I am working hard to rectify the situation in the next four months before it starts to impact the innocent.

I am creating a baby registry. It seems like the responsible thing to do. Trouble is, I don't have a baby, so I'm not too hip on baby needs. Do you need 5 onesies or 500? Do you need a swing or will one turn my child into a sociopath? Are Moby wraps really as easy to use as people say, because to me it looks like they require the complex skill of self-mummification?

If you have recommendations for things you have really found useful in the care and rearing of your small people, please leave them in the comments. Think broadly here, or I will have a newborn wrapped in newspaper come Spring.

Thank you.

As payment, I hope you enjoy reading this. I thought it was quite funny and also accurate.

Incredible

2010-12-06T08:55:00.003-07:00

It is already clear to me what will be my greatest parenting weakness, other than putting my children in doggy crates. It will be The Logistics of Life.

A few examples include my driver's license (expired one year as of my birthday), a tuition reimbursement I need to petition for (which would amount to $600), a class in which I have an "incomplete" (which, if I don't complete by May will preclude my graduation), the cars whose expired registrations only come to my awareness when, annually, they are ticketed in front of my home, and...

Ryan and I are pretty much uninsured. I have catastrophic insurance that will pay to sew my leg back on if it falls off, but only after they have collected all of our assets, including our firstborn. Ryan has a preexisting condition that makes him ineligible. I have been able to ride the cognitive discomfort of knowing that if anything bad happens we are screwed because everyone involved who has the potential to get screwed is an adult who should know better. However, having taken on the task of creating a separate-yet-dependent human being, I feel keenly my sense of responsibility for making sure that he, and his incompetent parents, don't die needlessly.

Which brings me to this moment in time. This moment, where I sit where I have been sitting for TWO! hours on hold with the Utah Medicaid office from whom I have been disconnected TWO! times. I am ready to kill someone but, as is so often the case with bureaucracy, my only hindrance is that I don't know who to kill. What a pickle!

I am practicing my deep breathing.

I know that this step isn't optional; there is no other forseeable way to insure the kid I decided to conceive. His existence wasn't his idea. I took him on, and now I will sit on hold until I am eighty five, entertaining homicidal fantasies and considering the possibility that it might actually be better to die than to complete this process. Paperwork makes my brain melt. This is not a maternally advantageous trait.

I think I have the potential to be a fun mom. I'm pretty sure I can cook food that will sustain life and I can teach my progeny appropriate table manners and grammar. Pumpkinfest alone should earn me some mom-points. What I foresee is being the mom who spends weeks planning the most fun, elaborate field trips ever devised but then forgetting to sign the permission slip so the kids stay home and watch Dora.

I can see how parenting is a refiner's fire. I'm not even a full-blown parent and already, my weaknesses! How much more difficult they are to deny!

With a little help from my friends

2010-12-03T13:18:00.002-07:00

To those who take pictures, I salute you.

I do not take pictures. Maybe if I have a baby and a nice camera and a good night's sleep simultaneously, I will take one someday. But for now, I rely on the kindness and cameras of others.

Behold, 21 weeks:

Don't believe a second of that cheesy grin. Homegirl is a faker.

Now, at 23 weeks, I have doubled in size. By the end of this, I will require a crane to get off the couch.

Many thanks to Kate and Neil, whose combined resources made this picture happen. If you want future updates, you will have to come take them yourself or wait until I see Kate again, hopefully in January.

Also, you people need to start telling me when I need a haircut. I can't see these things until I see a photo, and, as I may have mentioned, this doesn't happen often.

Wishful thinking

2010-11-23T13:00:00.009-07:00

Someone remind me that I found this insightful enough to post here when you catch me putting my toddler in a doggy crate and threatening never to feed him again if he makes another mess.

What? Self-reflexivity is a parenting strength.

I just need to say this

2010-11-23T02:47:00.002-07:00

Since I'm awake and bored, I decided I would peruse the Internet for Thanksgiving recipes I won't be making. Sometimes, just for kicks, I check out what The Pioneer Woman has been up to, or, in other words, how many pounds of butter she has crammed into otherwise innocent foodstuffs. As I gawked at this mornings obscenity, French Onion Soup Stuffed Mushrooms, I whispered to myself "Good LORD, woman!" and realized that I make this same exact utterance every time I allow my gaze to fall upon her newest incarnation of heart disease. She is a funny woman, and so shameless with her use of dairy. It just makes me want to call out for divine support.

Sometimes, as I revel in my recently recovered ability to eat spinach smoothies and salads dressed with vinaigrette, I find my mind wandering to the women I know, or know of, who have abandoned even the vaguest pretense of restraint in their use of ingredients I only buy once a quarter. People who throw a cup of cream into the recipe, you know, for good measure. People who say, with singularity of purpose, "I just always use butter, because the flavor is so much better!" as though I hadn't realized that butter is generally a tastier addition to a soup than lentils.

I like my virtuous foods, don't get me wrong, and I certainly eat foods that don't boast a disease-preventing nutrient profile, but from time to time, I just wonder how life must be on the other side, the land of no guilt. It's kind of how I felt as I watched, googly-eyed, from the sidelines as my friends in high school and college were getting to know boys in the biblical sense. I knew it wasn't for me, but there was something captivating happening and I knew that, too. Those boys were like a pound of cream cheese; I didn't know what to do with them, but I had to respect the women who did.

It's probably a good thing I still don't know what to do with a pound of cream cheese. I'll take my chances with lentils.

A morning treasure

2010-11-22T08:24:00.002-07:00

As I crouched vomiting for the second time on this morning, the twenty first week and fourth day of my pregnancy, a haiku sprang to my mind. This is the only place I can share it, so here you go:

To be pregnant is
to vomit gut foam as you
pee on your own feet

In other things that resemble updates (there are no actual updates here, in case you hadn't noticed), if you were thinking you might ask Ryan or I what we plan to name our unborn, you won't get a straight answer. I'm giving you fair warning. When I was newly pregnant, Ryan announced that he doesn't think names matter much because regardless the name itself, within twenty four hours it just becomes the kid's name and everyone gets on with their lives. I tend to agree, and I also maintain that if my kid is going to get teased for his name, he would probably get teased about something meaner otherwise and would probably benefit more from boxing lessons than a new moniker. Still, on occasion we do halfheartedly attempt to have an adult discussion about this increasingly relevant topic, and it deteriorates so quickly it even makes our own heads swim.

Me: "Ryan, we are having a child and it is our responsibility to name him. We also need to get him insurance, but I'd rather talk about names."

Ryan: [stares blankly]

Me: "What about Oliver?"

Ryan: "Ok."

Me: "What about Ebenezer?"

Ryan: "EBEN EBEN!!!"

Me: "Iago? Carlos? Ichabod!!"

Ryan: "ASSMAN CLOBBERFINCH! SPORKEN JORSENHEIMER!"

Me: "Assman might be a good choice. It's at least likely to be a good description of any child with our combined genetics."

Assman it is, folks. Don't bother asking until Child Protective Services demands an name. There won't be one.

The roof is leaking.

2010-11-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

I blame pregnancy.

My professional life

2010-11-07T18:26:00.003-07:00

Perhaps it takes a person who does fifty hours per week of unpaid work as a clinical intern to fully appreciate this, but I thought I'd share, just in case it's as funny to the general populace as it is to me.

Even though I really am enjoying the work I've been doing, I'm excited to move on to a different kind of unpaid work taking care of people who need extra help when April rolls around.

The Wee Lee appears to be a boy :)

Pregnant bodies only do one thing right...

2010-11-05T04:10:00.004-06:00

and that is make babies.

They wake up when they're still tired, throw up when their tummies are empty, and hurt when they're not injured. It's easy to see how such a process, normal though it may be, has been pathologized over the years.

Good morning! I've been up since two!

I will now share a story that Ryan advised me against posting, in the interest of my readers' delicate dispositions. Apparently, he has never met any of you. That said, this is your chance. Overshare ahead. Abort mission. Code Red. I'm going to talk about pee again.

I've had early-waking insomnia most nights this week (makes the thirteen hour workdays a real picnic), and normally I just enjoy a routine of thrashing and thinking murderous thoughts. The other night, as I punctuated my thrashing with drinks of water, email checking (more people should email me from 2:00-7:00 a.m.; they would get timely responses), and making pitiful noises of misery, I got notice that it was my favorite time, vomiting bile time! So I hiked it to the bathroom to give it my best.

As I don't anticipate my continence improving over the next months (or, who am I kidding, years), I have begun keeping a bowl beside the toilet so that when my heaves become strong enough to completely overwhelm my urinary sphincters I am prepared. I have found the sound of full-blown peeing on the floor is shocking enough to interrupt even the most violent vomit, so the bowl has been helpful. Vomiting half-way is worse than not vomiting at all.

Or something.

Still reading?

Back to the other night. So, long story short, I threw up like a champ and peed in my bowl, and finished feeling somewhat relieved but also horrified and a bit disgusted. Keeping a bowl beside the toilet, you must admit, is a pretty significant admission of defeat.

I brushed my teeth in hopes of still having a few to chew with at the end of the pregnancy, and decided that, as it had been four days since my last, I might feel better if I took a shower. I have been using a non-toxic tea tree soap lately; I love the tingle. As I warmed up, sudsed my ever more voluminous hair, and worked up a nice, cooling lather, I peeked my eyes open to discover I was sharing the shower with a spider about the size of a nickel. Maybe even a quarter.

Problem-solving in these types of situations is not naturally one of my strong suits. Compound my innate deficit with a pregnant brain and chronic insomnia and you have a person barely capable of walking straight; spider removal is a goal impossibly out of range.

So there I was, shampoo running into my eyes, tea tree tingle turning to injurious burn, without a brain in my head or a shred of dignity in my heart. I considered my options. Finish quickly and hope for the best? Emerge from the shower, dripping and frothy, to obtain...what? Toilet paper? Too flimsy for this task, especially once the toilet paper is soaked wet. As I pondered and burned, eyes transfixed on my enemy, it began to do some kind of spider dance that nearly put me over the top. How do you know which spiders will kill you? Which spiders will leap onto your naked self? Are spiders attracted to tea tree oil?

Finally, devastated by the morning's events and out of energy for my obviously incompetent attempts at thinking, I simply began shouting for rescue. In retrospect, a woman eighteen weeks pregnant should probably use discretion when shouting "Help!!" from the bathroom at five a.m. Her spouse may think there is an actual emergency, not merely a tiny enemy invader. A tiny enemy invader with no central nervous system.

"Help!!"

And there he was, in a flash. The poor man looked so confused. He took a shampoo bottle, executed our arachnid friend with a few quick taps, guided it down the drain, simply stated, "Well, I'm awake", and returned to the bedroom.

I don't love being a pregnant spouse, but having a pregnant spouse is no bowl of cherries. They pee on the floor, wake you up for no reason at all, and then they tell the whole Internet about it.

Happy Halloween

2010-10-31T13:42:00.002-06:00

Or, in other words, a lamentation.

Pumpkinfest, a day heralded above all other days, was not to be this year. Between my work schedule and my sick schedule, life is too unpredictable to invite everyone I know to dress as pumpkins and come eat pumpkin pie with me. Tragedy.

Next year, though, it's on.

The sacrifices we make!

Glamorous

2010-10-18T19:42:00.002-06:00

My glamorous life has taken a turn for the less-glamorous in several ways that may entertain you. In the past three months I have:

not done one single dish.
vomited over fifty times (in case you were jealous about the dish situation).
gained twenty pounds.
eaten fifteen slices of pizza from Costco.
tried Taco Bell for the first time.
not slept through the night once.
missed all of tomato season.
read eight books about babies, give or take.
begun having freaky nightmares every night.
convinced myself that I will give birth to an intersex child and move to an intersex-friendly community (maybe Portland?).
tested the limits of Ryan's time-management skills and overall obedience.
shaved my legs and underarms for the first time in about five years. Strangely, it helped.
heard a heart beating in my body that isn't my heart.
realized I have to find a pediatrician.
felt grateful that I had an upper respiratory infection because it meant I had to call in sick to work.
felt astonished that I could get an upper respiratory infection when I had drunk a Coldbuster at Jamba Juice every day for the past six weeks. False advertising; they should have a pregnancy clause.
noticed that people want to tell me either why parenting is wonderful heaven or miserable hell, though I suspect a combination might be most accurate.
peed on the bathroom floor due to the forcefulness of my dry heaves. I was kind of proud.
had sore abs from vomiting. Again, pride.
contracted a bladder infection.

The scope of this blog's misnomer title seems to be expanding by the minute.

A few things

2010-10-16T14:52:00.005-06:00

First of all, you're welcome.

Second of all, I'm pregnant.

Third of all, this was my father's response:

Just a suggestion-

1. If it is a boy, don't name him "Lee".

2. If it's a girl, don't name her "Lea".

Also, hippie-era names such as "Moon Unit" have not stood the test of time well.
It's your choice, of course.
Keep me posted.

Love, Dad

Roger that, Dad. We're pretty sure we're going with Dweezil anyway.

I regret the time that has elapsed since I last posted. We took a most wonderful and memorable road trip through the pacific northwest and had such a marvelous time that I came home in a state of incubation. I spent the entirety of August and September rolling on the floor in agony, vomiting intermittently, marveling at the masochism of women who host more than one bloodthirsty blastocyst in their lifetimes. Adding insult to injury, our house was burglarized (all computers stolen) cementing the impossibility of blogging.

Your patience is appreciated.

I have made the unfortunate discovery that cheese pizza from Costco buys me several hours without the gags. Hopefully I'll feel better soon enough that this kid doesn't emerge composed entirely of cheese.

Comin' atcha April 2011...

On the road again

2010-06-28T21:00:00.002-06:00

As previously indicated, I have a pretty severe thing for the open road. It sparks my creativity and makes me feel alive.

I have a spouse who, left to his devices, would spend the rest of his days sitting in our living room reading, only occasionally venturing outside to check on his giant pumpkin.

If I were more independent (read: less codependent), I could just hit the road by myself, but I'm not. The result is that for every fifty trips I mentally plan, Ryan agrees to just one, so I have to make it good. The one has been determined. We leave Thursday.

In celebration of four years since our nuptials, we will be driving across Nevada to the west coast, driving up on the 101, and spending a few days each in Portland and Seattle. We drive home through Montana and Idaho. I couldn't be happier.

So, friends, I have a request of you. If you have been to any of these places, do you have recommendations for things to do, visit, eat, etc.? I have only been to Portland once, I was attending a conference so I didn't get out too much, and I've never set foot in Seattle. Lay it on me.

Goodbye Utah, land of the hot heat. Please don't kill Ryan's pumpkin while we are away or he may never agree to leave again.

I used to be so funny

2010-06-22T23:11:00.001-06:00

Behold!

Best part is, we stole that Vanilla Ice portrait out of a not-quite-friend's house and then sent each of the featured photos as a postcard from each location. Every day dude got a postcard in the mail from his own poster of Vanilla Ice. I can't believe I was ever that funny.

Now I just do dishes.

My People

2010-05-29T06:50:00.004-06:00

I periodically decide that I am going to deviate even more sharply from our culture's hygienic norms, and typically regret it.

For example, several months ago, I, newly and perhaps irrationally wary of sodium lauryl sulfate, decided I would stop shampooing my hair at my thrice weekly rate--hardly a burden, some would argue--opting instead for the baking soda and vinegar treatments I had investigated online. After about three weeks of smelling like salad (bad salad) and enjoying hair that increasingly resembled dreadlocks despite having been blown dry and curled with an iron, I marched to Costco and bought a six months supply of generic brand, lethal-yet-effective shampoo.

I daresay my spouse was somewhat relieved. The acrid stench of my noggin had begun to make it difficult for him to sleep. And he was complaining of headaches.

But, as with most irrational behaviors to which I am prone, I just can't seem to stop myself. A few weeks ago I came across this and determined that I would like to make my own deodorant.

I am a fortunate soul who, despite forgetting to wear deodorant for days, weeks, and even months at a time, never quite manages to establish a solid stink. I use it occasionally anyway, mainly for amusement, but, upon realizing that my deodorizing habits were an area of my life I had not yet complicated into oblivion, I set about to solve a problem I don't have. I sent out an SOS email to some friends I thought might be game to go in on the ingredients with me and got a great response. Turns out I was not the only person I knew pondering her armpit wellness.

We arranged who would purchase the ingredients, discussed all the details, decided to potluck. Yesterday as I hovered over a pot of soup in preparation, Ryan hollered to me from the other room, "What does draconian mean?"

Draconian. I should know this one. Something about being mean? Harsh? In a medieval kind of way? I remembered a professor using it in my capstone class in college and I had looked it up then and committed it to memory. I like the word, but I couldn't readily define it.

I thought to myself, I wish my friends were already here. They would ALL be able to define Draconian, I'd bet my life on it.

Then I paused to reconsider. The friends coming to the party--which friends were they? It was the deodorant-making party; they were the quasi-hippie friends. The ones who sprout things and massage kale. The friends who email back and forth with me about the pros and cons of elimination communication and send me links to social justice projects I'll want to support (more on that one soon...). Cognitive dissonance, but just for a moment, and then a smile crept across my face and right down into my little heart.

They were the quasi-hippie/NERD friends. Hallelujah. It's a fine thing indeed to realize you have found your people.

My face stinks

2010-04-01T21:14:00.004-06:00

I have worse acne now than I did as a teenager. In fact, as a teenager, I enjoyed (read: took for granted) a nearly perfect complexion. Although I do not have a serious problem now, it is enough to have made its way onto my self-consciousness radar which, for a woman who cuts the back of her own hair without using a mirror, should be regarded as at least somewhat significant.

I have been fighting the good fight with benzoyl peroxide and have in the process created many, many bleachy spots on towels, shirts, and various other things that contact my face. Miraculously, the fuscia pillowcase from Ikea has been spared. Ryan likes to point out that slathering my face in a carcinogenic goo every night may be sabotaging my efforts to prevent all disease using primarily blended spinach as prophylaxis. Perhaps, he suggests, I should increase my chances at disease-free success by not dipping my face in toxic, bleaching, burny solutions.

He may have a point.

Thus, last week at the supermarket, I decided to take a gander at the offerings of the "natural" products aisle (I scoff at and enquotiate the word natural because uranium is natural, people, and we need to be conscientious enough to read our labels, but I digress). I found a vial of tea tree zit prevention somethingorother and determined that all of its ingredients were edible, so I bought it. I anointed my face with it. It is more effective than the benzoyl peroxide ever was, and the linens will thank me.

But it makes me smell like a hippie. I don't care how many times I have been accused of actually being a hippie for reasons including my distaste for meat, political views, or thoughts about western medicine in general, though I do think it strange to be a called a hippie when I don't smoke pot. I do, however, mind that my own face smells like the love child of a health food store and a Phish show.

But I don't mind it enough to stop, at least for now. Sorry if you have to smell me; at least your eyes won't be offended by my blemishes. Blemishes!

His and Hers

2010-03-18T22:30:00.002-06:00

Hers:
1 spinach smoothie
1 giant salad with strawberries, red onions, and homemade fat-free dressing
1 small bowl of cooked vegetables

His:
4 plates corned beef and cabbage with potatoes
2 large protein shakes, double thick
1 large spinach salad with roasted vegetables
1 acorn squash stuffed with quinoa
1 tabbouleh side salad
1 southwestern bean salad
1/2 of an artichoke
1 garden burger with all the fixin's
1 pint strawberries
1 fruit punch gatorade
1 giant oatmeal raisin cookie
2 bowls chocolate cheerios
1 orange
1 handful sunflower seeds
1 peanut butter sandwich

If there is a famine, I win.

International Women's Day

2010-03-08T13:30:00.001-07:00

An interesting discussion of the relationship between feminism and animal rights activism here.

Now go hug your mom :)

Guest

2010-03-04T10:53:00.002-07:00

Hello everyone.

A delightful friend of mine, Ann, is doing a series on her blog about woman-love and asked me to participate. The post is up, and you can read it here. While you're over there, I recommend you check out her photos which are beyond beautiful. The whole blog is beautiful.

Also, if you are so inspired to write a list of your own, please send it to Ann at lady.of.lorien9@gmail.com. I know she'd love to read them all!

Beloved Community

2010-02-23T19:28:00.004-07:00

Ryan is out of town.

But it's ok.

I have my blogs.

For the last couple weeks, Ryan and I have managed to eat dinner together every night. This habit has been facilitated by his unprecedented and much-reinforced willingness to make the dinner. While I am out fretting around town, cursing the day I applied to my Masters program instead of getting knocked up like a normal person, he is home making vegan split pea. I come home in a panic; he washes the salad. We sit down to eat and I light candles because this, this is special, and who knows how long it will last.

Having a wife rocks.

Tonight I am sitting at the table alone. I made my own salad, and I candied the nuts to make up for the hug that wasn't there when I walked in the door. I sat down to my dinner, and lit the candles. And then I busted out my computer. I'm not one to eat alone.

In high school and college I had things just as I liked them. It was All Friends All the Time. I love friends. I love facebook, superficiality be damned. I love reading blogs. I like to know where you people are. Some of the time, I even like updates on how the toilet-training is going, although I maintain you should keep those posts to a minimum. I read your blogs, even though you most likely don't read mine. I read about your Valentine's Day traditions, your job frustrations, your recipes. I read what you're reading about and why. I read about Ryan's cousins, hobbies I'll never take up, people I hardly know. I read all of it and I read it every day. I love it.

It is only now, in this moment, as I chew my spinach and miss my man, that I realize very nearly all the blogs I follow are written by women. I'm not surpised. I do so love the women.

One day I hope to live in what bell hooks calls beloved community. I want to live intentionally, and I want to live with all of you. In a giant cul-de-sac. We can have potlucks. Ryan will bring the split pea soup.

Until then, ladies, keep blogging.

Helping Others

2010-02-09T06:13:00.008-07:00

I have been awake since 3:00 this morning.

This is not unusual. I decided today at 5:15 am that 3:00 am- 6:00 am are my least favorite hours of the twenty four I have access to, and yet I experience them more than hours I find likable, like 6:00 am- 9:00 am, for example.

I only slept for four hours last night, too.

I generally wake up, spend several hours thinking of Very Important Things, compose a list of Action Steps, finally get out of bed to Take Action, and get on facebook instead. After exhausting facebook's entertainment potential, I go back to sleep for just long enough to ensure I will be a complete zombie for the rest of the day.

As soon as I am done with this inane post, I will read the assigned chapters for my class tonight. I will read about theories of career counseling, an assignment designed to help me help others.

At 3:00 this afternoon I will see a client. For some sick reason, I never seem to sleep more than four hours on nights when I have a client scheduled the following day. I don't think the waking is caused by anxiety about the appointment; it feels more like a sick twist of fate to me. Either way, the consequence is that instead of listening to my client and providing helpful feedback or asking relevant questions most likely my focus will remain on willing my body to stop yawning. Can you imagine anything worse than seeing a counselor who keeps yawning through the session? I can't.

I got an A in stats, a class required for graduation. On the other hand, I fail to maintain basic life functioning fairly often. Lucky for me, this is not a graduation requirement. I question the legitimacy of giving a degree in helping others to a person who can't even sleep through the night herself, but I didn't make the rules.

Not a universal solution

2010-01-25T14:12:00.002-07:00

Sometimes leftovers taste better on top of a pile of lettuce. The greens have a way of bringing new life to an old grain, or roasted vegetable dish.

Some leftovers just ruin an otherwise perfectly good salad.

I made raw carrot falafel out of carrot pulp leftover from making carrot juice. They looked good and tasted horrible. Consequently, I have a huge bag of them frozen, waiting for inspiration to come along and revive them. Today I tried slamming four of them on top of a pile of mixed greens with tahini dressing. It was completely sick. Out of laziness, I still ate all of it.

Laziness is the trump card in my culinary hand, as it turns out. Bummer. I wish the trump card were a grilled cheese sandwich.

To Do

2009-12-04T18:42:00.003-07:00

Tis the Season. Bah Humbug.

1. Hang four strands of Christmas lights purchased a week ago
1a. Troubleshoot hanging lights on aluminum siding with no available wood to receive staples or other fasteners
2. Read Diaper Free Baby
2a. Have a nervous breakdown at the prospect of having a baby, diaper-free or otherwise
2b. Have second nervous breakdown at the prospect of NOT having a baby, diaper-free or otherwise
3. Publicly admit a newfound addiction to The Office (check)
3a. Flagellate self for choosing such a popular and often offensive recipient for my affections
3b. Flagellate self further for watching an entire season in one day
3c. Watch seasons 3-5 before Monday
4. Clean the house
4a. Go to IKEA to buy relevant shelving
4b. Beg little sister to do it for me
4c. Buy little sister lunch as payment for doing it for me.
5. Make dinner on Sunday. Feed to siblings.
5a. Contemplate creating an entirely raw meal
5b. Have panic attack at the prospect of going to the supermarket
5c. Fail to make raw meal. Make soup.
5d. Flagellate self for failing to make raw meal and making soup.
5e. Eat cookies.
6. Read book on therapeutic fasting and determine if therapeutic fasting can cure an allergy to avocados.
7. Find a month in which I am only required to sit on the couch. Drink only water during that month and eat no food. Self-test for allergy by scoring inner arm flesh with paring knife and rubbing open wound with avocado. Hope to avoid anaphylaxis.
8. See brother perform new songs. Could have checked this off tonight, but am functionally nailed to the couch. See #3 a-c.
9. Realize that finals are next week.
10. Read all articles and book chapters on syllabus for Substance Abuse Counseling class.
11. Purchase prints from Smitten Kitchen's Deb, frame, and hang in a visual celebration of produce.
12. Eat only produce.
13. Consider going raw.
14. Reject the idea in favor of eating only cinnamon rolls.
15. Find a pot of gold.
15 a. Buy a yoga pass.
15b. Go to yoga.
15c. Buy a food processor.
15d. Eat only produce with ease thanks to new food processor.
15e. Buy Christmas gifts for loved ones.
16. Complete all assignments for Group Counseling class.
17. Prepare presentation on Feminist Multicultural Therapy for Group Counseling Class
18. Prepare presentation of new anti-rape presentation for staff meeting
18a. graciously receive feedback on anti-rape presentation.
18b. Refrain from mentioning that 85% of presenting in a high school is classroom management and high school students won't notice semantic minutia.
18c. Obsess over semantic minutia.
19. Die hair with henna which arrived in the mail today.
20. Or not.
21. Take down birthday tree.
22. Put in basement or shed.
23. Clean out basement and shed.
24. Create food storage in basement in case of apocalypse.
25. Consider moving to California.
26. Or not.
27. Deal with sisal rug currently on front porch.
28. Make preparations for AWP conference in February.
29. Return defunct pumpkinphernelia to Target.
30. Contemplate the task of hosting Christmas in my tiny house.
30a. Hyperventilate. Possibly have nervous breakdown. Lay on floor and cry.
31. Despair about the tasks associated with adulthood.
32. Revamp filing system into something functional.
33. Learn to do a pull up.
34. Buy Vibram fivefingers
35. Learn to run with ease thanks to Vibram fivefingers.
36. Plant bulbs. Possibly missed the boat on this one. Tundra already in effect.
37. Change insurance.
38. Advise thesis adviser that according to current projections there will be no thesis.
38a. Investigate Participatory Action Research as a potential solution to thesislessness.
39. Mourn failed attempt to academicise.
39. Take comfort in wombos.
40. Validate self based on feminist socio-political analysis.
41. Discover win-win solution to an introvert-extrovert marriage.
42. Attend Beehive Bazaar in Provo.
43. Attend Salt Lake City Festival of Trees
44. Find decent Christmas Concert and attend it.
45. Attend Spring City Main Street Holiday Art Stroll
45a. Maybe buy Christmas presents there?
46. Update resume
47. Transfer photos to new computer.
47a. Print some and frame some.
47b. Develop new system for photos that works.
48. Apply for Costco AmEx card.
49. Deposit paychecks.
50. Write 50 page research precis for the Qualitative Research Methods class I took last year and got an incomplete in.
51. Take truck and car for 90k visits.
52. Figure out how to print from new computer.
53. Learn about vermicomposting.
54. Set up vermicomposting system in kitchen.
55. Learn to use new computer.
56. Rob a bank.
57. Transfer music to computer and phone
58. Learn to knit
59. Cross stitch pillow. Make mental note to learn embroidery, which is more appealing.
60. Call work answering service to figure out what's up with our bill from last month.
61. Create agenda for Hospital Response Team meeting.
62. Fix or replace our bed.
63. Send Christmas gift to grandmother.
64. Buy a purple pen.
65. Schedule anti-rape presentations for high schools.

Reviews

2009-11-29T06:21:00.004-07:00

Ryan and I have a small TV/VCR combo apparatus that we keep in the closet and pull out only to watch How The Grinch Stole Christmas, which we have on videotape, every year. This often leaves me pretty out of the loop on what Mass Media has to offer.

The benefit of this is, of course, that I am spared a lot of wasted time watching TV. The cost is that I retain the level of TV-watching restraint that I possessed when I was eleven. That means that when I start, it's rather hard to stop. My green, soft brain just sucks up the entertainment like a sponge.

In my group counseling class this semester we watched a clip from The Office. Although I have heard fervent testimony of how funny the show is, the only clip I had ever seen on Hulu was wildly offensive, far too much so to be amusing, and I thought my inability to enjoy The Office was just another way my personal tastes depart from the norm. However, the clip my professor showed in class had me singing another tune. Being essentially unacquainted with the show, after just seven minutes I had laughed myself into an endorphin rush and become eternally invested in the eventual matrimony of Pam and Jim.

I have started obsessively watching the show on NetFlix. Several episodes a day, starting with Season One. Ryan has already seen many of them and has attempted to forcibly screen those episodes which he predicts will offend me beyond my ability to cope. The rest of the episodes are mine to enjoy with addictive abandon. As I said, I possess no restraint.

Yesterday, in addition to several episodes of The Office, I also watched The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was charming and delightful and a film called Crips and Bloods: Made in America, which was informative and thought-provoking and just depressing enough to make me want to work harder.

It was a real media success story kind of a day.

Someone please tell me to do my homework. I possess no restraint.

Big Lots

2009-11-28T19:40:00.003-07:00

When Pumpkinfest came around, I needed a lot of pumpkin decorations and I didn't have any money to spend. Thankfully, my sister spent an entire evening with me, combing the streets on the prowl for pumpkinesque paraphernalia. Big Lots paid the highest dividend, being the only place in town with orange lights, and for two dollars a strand. I remembered the jackpot and have held it close to my heart in anticipation of the coming holidays.

I just got back from Big Lots again, with an equally excellent haul. I got a tree for twenty bucks (it looks emaciated, but serves its iconic function), four strands of Christmas lights, some red taper candles, a tree skirt and a package of ornaments for sixty three dollars. If I hadn't sworn to Ryan I would do my best to keep it under fifty, I would have also bought the miniature lavender tree with lavender lights, too.

In fact, I may go back and get it. Ten dollars isn't much to pay for a PURPLE CHRISTMAS TREE.

I love Big Lots.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T08:49:00.002-07:00

I had a rough night last night, woke up feeling queasy, and have a fridge full of ingredients that I am supposed to recipize. Naturally, I decided to use my blogger dashboard to check out of reality for a few minutes and several of you had posted things you are genuinely thankful for. I figure it won't hurt me to do the same.

I am thankful for:

a home that is only 800 square feet so the possibility exists that I will be able to keep it clean

a spouse who merely raises an eyebrow when I announce I will no longer be requiring shampoo

parents who I want to call, and not only on the holidays when I am expected to

siblings who know all my flaws and find most of them wildly entertaining

in-laws who make me wonder what is going on in other families where in-law jokes make sense

ingredients and enough know-how to reasonably expect the recipes to end up successful

a yard big enough for a garden

old friends I love so much that thinking about how they are reunionating this weekend without me causes actual physical pain

newer friends who the promise of spending time with gets me out of bed sometimes

the means to keep in touch with so many more friends than I could without a phone and internet

a body whose health makes me intolerant of even a belly ache

a job where I get paid to do something I would happily do for free

the books I've read and the people I've known without which I wouldn't be any fun at all

Thanks!

The Solution: Eavesdropping

2009-11-20T12:58:00.004-07:00

It seems there is a general cultural consensus that solution-focused is the way to be. Tragically, I am not solution-focused. I am process-focused, which means that I prefer talking about my problems rather than fixing them. In fact, when I meet people who are all solutioney, I end up thinking they are fun-haters. The whole point of having problems is so you can talk about them and make jokes about them and bond with other people. Duh.

That said, there are a few problems I wouldn't mind solving, and most of them involve changing things that are arguably out of my sphere of influence, such as other peoples' behavior and laws of physics.

Today I have stumbled upon a solution.

Ryan is, at this very moment, chatting on the phone with a cousin. I have no idea what precipitated a conversation about the Emerald Isle, but I heard him say "I saw online that the largest zucchini in the world is in Ireland, and it made me want to go there."

One of my grievances with Ryan is that he is less keen to fritter away our savings on world travel than I. He seems to think that money will be worth more in a brokerage account than BUYING ME A TICKET TO TIBET. While I submit he has a point, my caged-bird syndrome persists. Today, by a simple act of eavesdropping, I have discovered that all I need to do to con my financial comrade into travel abroad is promise him Very Large Vegetables. Awesome. I hear that Madagascar has Radishes of Unusual Size. Right?

Perhaps I will devote more blog posts to being solution-focused and see what all the hype is about.

Who needs it?

2009-11-13T19:07:00.000-07:00

I am obsessed with this website, which makes me think I am only moments away from joining the John Birch Society.

The Pudding*

2009-11-02T12:00:00.010-07:00

Pumpkinbefore:
Pumpkinafter:
Pumpkinwhack:
Pumpkinleaves:
Pumpkinfriends:
Pumpkinlove:

*I hear that's where the proof is.

Ode to Pumpkinfest

2009-10-31T13:08:00.007-06:00

Ode to Pumpkinfest

When the season's coming cold
And you're starting to feel old
Cast your gaze into the West
Pumpkinfest

For there's fun yet to be had
There's a costume to be clad
Come and don your Pumpkin best
Pumpkinfest

In a circle of dear friends
There's a love that all wounds mends
Feel the swelling in your chest
Pumpkinfest

Feel the laughter, feel the love
Feels like angels from above
With each guest I am more blessed
Pumpkinfest

Each new friend a new gift shares
Stories, hugs, and pumpkin wares
And my joy swells to a crest
Pumpkinfest

Spending all night eating pie
Carving squash 'till dawn is nigh
I've nary felt more successed
Pumpkinfest

Still, the rub of every party,
Even when the fun is hearty
Is how bad the house gets messed
Pumpkinfest

If you saw the present state
of our home (it is not great)
I assure you'd be impressed
Pumpkinfest

So perhaps I should require
Ere you head home to retire
That you clean at my behest
Pumpkinfest

Many pumpkins to remove
From each cranny nook and groove
Of my well-beloved nest
Pumpkinfest

By tomorrow's coming eve
I shall have my clean reprieve
Every dirty wound redressed
Pumpkinfest

Now the holiday is done
And I've had a lot of fun
Soon I'll clean but now I'll rest
Pumpkinfest

So to bed I'll shortly go
And relax from head to toe
Till I've fully decompressed
Pumpkinfest

So when next year comes around
If you find you're in my town
I'll for sure keep you abreast
Pumpkinfest

Though so many more words rhyme
I feel that I've run out of time
I don't want to be a pest,
I refuse to say incest,
As I've made it my sole quest
Not to importunely jest,
But I mustn't lack for zest
Even though I'm feeling stressed,
So accept this palimpsest
Pumpkinfest

One person's trash bag

2009-10-23T23:50:00.002-06:00

Is my traysure.

If you think I didn't drive around for hours tonight stealing orange trash bags full of leaves from the curbs in my neighborhood, think again.

If you think I won't be using said stolen garbage to decorate for Pumpkinfest, think again.

If you think Ryan will be anything but thrilled about what this newfound abundance of decomposing leaves will mean for our compost pile, think again.

If you think 90% of said compost will be going anywhere in the garden other than right where his giant pumpkin will be planted in the spring, think again.

If you are thinking of missing Pumpkinfest, think again. So far, I have four guests traveling in from other states for this party. I stole trash for it. It's gonna rock.

Anyone know where I can get an inflatable pumpkin lawn ornament? I used to have one, but it was stolen from me by my neurotic relatives who convinced me it was frivolous, and that the limited closet space in my then-apartment should be vacated of inflatable lawn ornaments to make room for my spouse-to-be's belongings. As you can see, said neurotic relatives LACK VISION.

I'm going to bed now.

You're Invited!!!

2009-10-19T08:10:00.006-06:00

Hear ye, hear ye and TIS THE SEASON!

To start, a riddle.

What do you get when you marry this man:
To this woman:
And add fabulous, festive friends?:
You get a little fest, is what you get. You get a PUMPKINFEST.

I have a friend; her name is Katie. She lives in the Midwest. For our purposes here, her most resounding traits are her unmatched sense of humor and her unbridled love of pumpkin-flavored treats. Pumpkin pie was served at her wedding. In May. Girl don't mess around.

It was my incredible, undeserved good fortune to be her roommate in college. Pumpkinfest was her idea. And I have stolen it.

She doesn't seem to mind.

I had lots of fabulous roommates in college, but only two named Katie, and only two integral to making Pumpkinfest what it is today. Thankfully, for the sake of minimizing confusion, they are the same two Pumpkin-loving Kates.

Kate #2 is pictured above. With green hair.

K2 taught me to take things to the next level, to go big or go home. We hosted a Pumpkinfest together that involved her teenaged brother wrestling with his friends on a tarp covered with pumpkin guts. She hand-crafted a Pumpkin Princess costume. As you can see, I really like girls who don't mess around. This year, she's coming back.

AND YOU'RE INVITED.

Come celebrate the reason for the season!

October 30. 6 o'clock-tired o'clock (we start early so we have daylight by which to carve pumpkins)

Bring:
1) A Pumpkin to carve
2) A Pumpkin flavored/themed treat to share
3) Yourself, ideally dressed as a pumpkin, but at least paying tribute in the form of an orange T shirt or something
4) Your friends and families, similarly clad.
5) I hope my 800 square foot domicile is up to this kind of festivating.

Plan to:
1) Carve your pumpkin
2) Eat pumpkin flavored/themed treats
3) Get fawned over excessively for your compliance with the costume rule
4) Stop me from forcibly kissing your pumpkin-costumed loved ones on the mouth*

I hope you'll be there! K2 is flying in from DC, so you really have no excuse. If you need more info, like the address of said fest, please email me or send me a message on facebook.

*Just kidding, I left that habit behind when I graduated from BYU

Indecision

2009-10-18T17:44:00.002-06:00

I have several crippling character flaws, but lately the one that has been stuck most unrelentingly in my craw is my tendency to indecision.

This does not mean I lack for opinions; on the contrary, the indecision is borne of very strongly held, yet frustratingly contradictory, opinions. Let me illustrate with a few examples, many of which were provided by Facebook updates and my blogger dashboard.

1. Eat cookies vs. run a marathon. If you are thinking that these two options are not mutually exclusive, and that you might like to post in the comments about how you feast on snickerdoodles all day long and run six marathons a year, save your time. We are fundamentally different. When I decide I'm in the mood for health, I go to the gym like a rat for hours a day and eat only salad. When these paroxysms of vitality start to get old, typically after six to eight weeks of unmitigated raw vegetation, I go back over all the recipes my diabolical friends have been posting on their blogs and decide I really ought to learn to make cinnamon rolls because it's a life skill. Tragically, I never remain in either phase long enough to satisfyingly complete any of the related goals. And I usually only have one pair of decently-fitting pants.

2. Have fun vs. grow up. Again, if you are pushing thirty and don't, in any tiny recess of your nostalgic imagination, feel that sixteen was a more entertaining time of life, you have the right to remain silent. I, for one, earnestly enjoyed spending my parents money and getting drunk on the love only an adolescent girl can have for her 47 BFFs. Don't tell me you wouldn't rather sit by the river all day talking about your best friend's boy troubles and then stay up all night trying to figure out if your crush likes you back and occasionally behaving illicitly than doing whatever laundry and making whatever dinner captured your energy today. On the other hand, adulthood has its advantages. I am smarter than I was ten years ago, and more interesting. I have a deeper perspective on myself, the world, etc., which might make me a better conversationalist. I have an increased sense of self-efficacy. But I laugh far less.

3. Invest in myself vs. procreate. I know that having children can be a wonderful experience, and optimally results in personal growth. I also know that some people manage to produce offspring while remaining fundamentally interesting human beings, as many of you have managed, fair readers. But I am pretty sure that my current schedule of working, bring a grad student, and having lots of friends, hobbies, and time to read bizarre things that catch my eye in the public library would be significantly hampered by children. And yet, my fertility, it wanes with each lunar cycle. I want to apply to PhD programs, but then who will I annoy when I am old and my body systems start to go? Who will owe me one when I am one day incontinent? Will I be irrevocably left in the dust of those who choose the sticky path of children?

4. Stay vs. leave. I have lived in Utah since I graduated high school, quite by accident. I never meant to stay, but I never had a reason to leave. Now, much to my chagrin, I am somewhat attached. I like that people always seem to be coming through town so I can stay in touch better. I like knowing my way around well enough that I don't have to figure out what I like and what to avoid. But middle America ain't my thing, and I keep fixin' to hit the road, but then I realize I am halfway through grad school and have no reason to pull me away. I bought a house, but I didn't think that meant I'd get stuck. But, sometimes, I feel as though perhaps I have. I had a genius idea, that Ryan and I could each choose five locations we had always wanted to see in the lower 48 and then plan a connect-the-dots road trip. On our way, we could take noted and photos to chronicle our journey and inform a decision about where to go next. But such trips are costly, which brings me to the next burr in my saddle.

5. Spend vs. save. A penny saved is a penny earned. Live like nobody else will so you can live like nobody else can. I've heard it. But what about this? And this? And a couple of these? How can this be a luxury when I am so convinced it's a necessity? And don't even get me started on this. I think I could decimate the IRA with a few swift clicks. This seems like it would be enriching. And I'll need this to go with this. You get the point.

6. Speak up vs. shut up. The other night, I was having a discussion with some friends. Wonderful friends. Open-minded friends, gifted with keen social skills and the ability to tolerate my presence despite my wildly flailing emotions. As I get older and my opinions grow stronger and better informed, I sense myself periodically, and increasingly, missing the forest for the trees. When a topic arises that I identify myself with, all bets for civility are off. My head threatens to explode. I can't listen. I leave feeling exposed and violated by MY OWN behavior, no matter how kind and gracious the witnesses. And, on the other hand, I like being a person of strong opinion, a person who cares about things. I like that I will say uncomfortable things sometimes for the sake of integrity and honesty. But I sense myself alienating myself from people after bursts of thinly, or un-, veiled rage over some topic, and this trend is neither advantageous to me, nor the causes which I have invited to become part of my identity.

7. Now vs. later. I'm a list-maker. I have post-its all over the place enumerating the tasks that need doing, groceries that need buying, projects I'd like to complete, activities I'd like to try. They remind me to visit the baby elephant at the Hogle zoo and to learn conversational Spanish. The trouble with my system is that it does not discriminate nor prioritize among tasks. There is nothing to indicate that sending out an invitation to Pumpkinfest (Oct. 30! Invite pending! Hope you'll be there! Bring a pumpkin to carve and a pumpkin-based/themed food item to share! Tell your friends as long as I like them!) is more urgent than learning how to create a strawberry barrel, and that studying for my Substance Abuse Counseling midterm requires attention sooner than my desire to learn to knit.

I thought identity crises were supposed to be an adolescent thing.

Growing up

2009-09-08T15:24:00.002-06:00

Fall is my favorite season. Summer this year has been less heinous than most, but still, I can't wait for fall. Labor day is always a happy day.

This Labor Day was particularly happy. I had an Illumination session with a Shamanic healer-in-training and then came home needing access to an open flame for my homework assignment. Lacking a gas stove or fireplace, I did what any reasonable person would do and dug a fire pit in my backyard.

Being as it was Labor Day, and being as I had a newly-dug fire pit, I decided that I had no option but to host a bonfire for the two of us and christen the pit. I went to the store and bought stuff for foil dinners and s'mores, and a pineapple to grill. We built a fire, cooked our food, and it was lovely.

I love campfires. Always have. My freshman year of college, building fires became something of a ritual, and a saving ritual at that. When the homesickness got too much, as it so often did, a group of girlfriends and I would often drive up into a canyon and build a fire. We'd stay up late, talking and laughing about how great all of our homes were. It was a rough year, but those nights out in the cold night around a fire kept me feeling alive, if only barely.

I remember one night in particular. It was late; we were tired. We had talked and laughed ourselves exhausted. Our spirits flagged, unfortunately, before our fire did and we had come unprepared with not a bottle of water among us. It's not responsible to leave a fire pit full of smoldering embers, this much we knew, but, for a moment, we were flummoxed as to how we could leave without potentially burning down all of Utah County.

Never one to shirk an opportunity for heroism, I stepped up to the plate or, in this case, the fire pit. I dropped my pants. And I peed that fire right out. It seemed the only solution.

Little did I know the impact this would have on my comrades. The hysteria that ensued was beyond anything I could have anticipated, to my great delight. The girls whipped themselves into a complete frenzy of gut-splitting laughter and, the greatest moment of all, one girl wet her pants. She just kept squawking about how the firelight was glinting off of the downy fuzz on my behind, and laughing even harder. Gales of laughter. Sobs of laughter. We went home completely rejuvenated, in a way only possible after a fit of hysterics intense enough to nearly hospitalize you.

Last night, as we watched the coals glowing, I thought back on the good old days. I stood up. I gathered my skirt. I looked at Ryan. And I let loose all over that fire.

Ryan didn't laugh until he wet his pants. He just looked on, mystified, and then stood up and gave me a high five.

I guess we are growing up.

Again with the neighborhood

2009-08-26T09:15:00.002-06:00

In my last post, I attempted an illustration of our new (neighbor) 'hood. Thankfully, this morning, Providence provided me with better illustration than I ever could have dreamed.

This weekend, Ryan's family is in California and they tasked us with taking their Very Fancy Car to be repaired while they were away. They dropped it off about three days ago and we left it parked across the street until we had a chance to take it to the shop, which turned out to be this morning. Imagine our delight to find this note, which I have transcribed as closely as possible for your enjoyment, written on the back of an envelope, tucked under the windshield wiper:

Please If ur visisting Across The Street please park there we don't take other peoples parking & we would Appreciate If u done the same (thanx) Our brother Died & we need all our parking space for family members That our coming In. From out of town. Please do not park Here. We do not park in There Front yard if we Did they would be complaining About our cars Its only Right u park were u live or visit we Have Family that live In these 2 Houses & the Red Apartment Building next 2 us & we don't Take each others parking
PS we Took ur licence Plate (number If we need it)

Pity they don't know that street parking is public parking. And ur welcome.

Won't you be my neighbor

2009-08-17T13:52:00.003-06:00

Unwittingly, Ryan and I moved into the home that acts as a clear divider between a cute little neighborhood for Young Urban Professional types (the ones with macs and priuses) and a neighborhood that has a higher than average number of meth labs per square mile.

Our neighbors on the east side have lived there for eight years. They have two Schnauzer-mix mutts that they rescued from the pound and a three year old son with a squeaky little voice. They just had a baby. The first day we moved in, the husband came cheerily peeking around the fence to greet us and introduce himself. He was so nice it made me feel almost awkward, but mostly just really warm and cozy. He filled us in on some neighborhood gossip and offered to help if we ever needed anything.

When we discovered that our swamp cooler was non-functional, this dear man lent us his ladder and spent hours diagnosing the problem. He checked in with us the next day to make sure everything went ok. He is not messing around. The man is taking his neighbor-duties to the next level.

Two doors down to the west of our house, in stark contrast, there live eight hundred children between the ages of zero and ten. I can't tell them apart. They all look like Mowgli and run around, half-clad, waiting to be hit by cars.

One afternoon, we spied one of the littler Mowglis sauntering down our driveway, coming from the direction of the backyard, wearing nothing but a diaper. She is a cute little one, so we just said hi and didn't think much of it.

Two mornings later, there were some serious thunderstorms, so I went out in the morning to see what kind of toll had been taken on the vegetable garden. Things looked blown around a bit, so I set out picking up the wind-blown refuse, or so I thought. "Boy," I mused. "I wonder how this plastic vegetable start container managed to get itself wedged up here in the tomato plant! Furthermore, I've never seen a wind, myself, that could blow hedge trimmers to the other side of the patio!" As I continued my investigation, I discovered that the poppies Ryan had been painstakingly nurturing had been uprooted, as had a sugar snap pea plant.

When I alerted Ryan to the mayhem, first he spent twenty minutes spitting expletives over the lost poppies, and then proclaimed "That kid! That little girl! She must have been in the yard!"

The next evening we set up the sprinkler in the front yard and went for a little walk. When we returned we found the sprinkler moved and the grass mangled like a dog had been having a good roll around. More tragically, our potted tomato on the front porch had suffered an amputation of the limb with all the baby tomatoes on it. Still more tragic, the perpetrator had left behind a full diaper in the middle of the lawn, as a token to remember her by.

It was the final straw. We were banking on those tomatoes--they were our first of the season! So we picked up the broken tomato branch, the full diaper, and marched down two doors.

An eleven-year-old Mowgli opened the door.

"Can I talk to your mom or dad?"

Mowgli looked perplexed, but went and alerted the woman sitting at the kitchen table in front of the computer that there were visitors.

I started things off. "Hi! We're your neighbors!"

Her sullen face beckoned me on.

"Um. We have noticed that your daughter likes to play in our backyard..."

Sullen-face perked up. "You need to talk to the mom. I'm the Grandma."

"Oh, ok. Can we talk to the mom then?"

Sullen face retreated and returned with a woman who was her exact replica, save a few gray hairs.

"Hi, are you the mom?"

Sullen face Jr. just stared at me.

"Well, we have noticed that your daughter [gestures to diapered child in the next room] has been getting into our backyard..." I proffered the branch, Ryan the diaper, as evidence.

Sullen face retorted, "He's a BOY."

Evidently she didn't know how difficult it can be to accurately ascertain the gender of a child who never wears clothing and has never had a haircut.

"Oh, sorry. My mistake. Your son, then. I think he ripped this branch off of our tomato plant. And he left this [gestures to full diaper in hand of unlucky spouse] in the middle of the yard."

"He don't wear diapers."

I was flummoxed. The child before me was wearing a diaper.

She continued, "Mowgli, do you go into their yard?"

Mowgli piped up, "Yeah! Into the garden!"

Finally, victory was in sight.

I, with all the gentleness I could muster, said, "Could you ask Mowgli to stop playing in our yard? He has done quite a bit of damage already."

Sullen face stared back. We just backed away slowly and decided to take matters into our own hands.

We have started keeping the trash cans in front of the gate, but if we catch that kid in our yard once more, I'm getting an electric fence.

The New Me

2009-08-16T14:42:00.003-06:00

The title of this post and accompanying picture may have you thinking that "The New Me" plans to eat a lot of what you see above. On the contrary. Allow me to explain.

Saturday evening, I returned from a nine day sojourn to the land of my birth and childhood, The District, The Nation's Capital, Washington DC, loveliest city I know. I had a visit with my parents and wish I lived nearer to them. How strange to be separated by thousands of miles from our families, as many of us are. I wonder if it is right sometimes.

But this is not a post about my visit home. It is about the first few hours I was back in Utah. I flew in, discovered my unsurpassable friend Jami and her children were in town, and got into the car to go visit them before I even got the suitcases into the bedroom. When I arrived at her parents' place, they were having a Peachfest, all of them eagerly diving into a box of peaces purchased from a roadside stand. Never having been one to decline any sort of Fest, especially one centered around the High Empress of summer produce, I dove right in and ate a couple of peaches. I love peaches the most.

We all sat around visiting and catching up, the kids singing and dancing around like they were in a movie, eating peaches, blueberries, chips and guacamole and any number of other summer delights, when I noticed my throat felt itchy. Moments later, my eyes did, too, and my eustachian tubes. My stomach began churning, and my face turned red and I started to sweat. I decided to go into the bathroom and hang out in there until I felt better.

The bathroom proved no relief, but was at least useful. Let's say, for the sake of decency, that my primary decision was whether to sit on the toilet or bow in front of it, and I did a fair amount of both. It was by far the most pain I have ever experienced. If any of you have ever felt that I sympathized inadequately with you in any of your abdominal crises, please accept my apologies. I now know the meaning of the word cramp.

When I emerged (crawled) out of the bathroom, Jami and her mom were waiting for me and looked horrified. Evidently, I looked pretty horrible. I proceeded to moan and write around on the floor until I noticed I was having trouble breathing and my hands and arms were tingling. They called 911.

The paramedics came and did helpful things like ask me if I knew why I was having trouble breathing. I managed to muster a look of at least mild incredulity between moans. They also took my blood pressure, I suppose to make sure I was not bound for anaphylactic shock. I wasn't, and I don't have health insurance, so they left. I continued to thrash around like a caught carp on the driveway for another half hour or so, and then the pain began to subside. Another half hour later, I was completely back to normal, just exhausted.

I have one thing to say: I will more vigorously than ever refuse to judge any woman who finds herself requesting an epidural in labor. Potential drawbacks though there may be, I would never begrudge a woman experiencing anything remotely akin to what I experienced relief. In fact, if I had been able to articulate a sentence, I may have asked the paramedics if they had an anesthesiologist on hand. Jami, mother of two, assured me that labor was different. All I'm sayin' is if I want to escape epiduralized births, I now know I will have to deliver a minimum of one thousand miles from where one is accessible.

The other thing to say is that I am now pretty scared to eat anything, and even scareder about the impending reality that my life may soon be decidedly sans peaches (awful!), avocados (worse!), or both (no longer worth living). Maybe it was the pesticides?

If anyone is an expert on diagnosing severe allergies, your advice is welcome. In the meantime, I'll be clutching an epipen and eating only rice.

Lucky Duck

2009-08-05T18:00:00.003-06:00

We let our vehicle registration expire. Happens every time. The only way I ever discover this unfortunate annual act of negligence is that I receive a gift under my windshield wiper from the city police, requesting a sum to the tune of thirty dollars. That's sixty bucks a year I pay for being irresponsible.

The truck got ticketed in May. I went to contest the ticket (I've got this system down to a science) and they knocked off ten conciliatory dollars--better than nothing. Yesterday the car got ticketed. I felt like an idiot but commenced the routine. Go to the court, contest the ticket. Take a number.

The woman who helped me was a sour-face. She wouldn't make eye-contact, or laugh at my jokes--can you imagine? My jokes are so funny! Anyway, imagine my shock when she told me she had waived my ticket. I gave Ryan a high-five and kind of hopped a little. I didn't know they could just dismiss the tickets, because in the past, they have merely reduced the fee. Wahoo!

The traffic court was not the only piper to pay today, however. There was another score to be settled. Two words: library.

Ryan has a little habit of checking out large amounts of library materials. He gets really excited. The CDs! Audiobooks! DVDs! AND BOOKSBOOKSBOOKS! The man can't be stopped and, really, it't not a bad problem to have. Some husbands watch ESPN.

It would be a perfectly fine habit if it weren't occasionally challenging to keep track of bulk library checked-outs. From time to time they get forgotten, lost in the trunk, or simply remain on the to-read shelf past their expiration date. To get to the point, the man has racked up a serious fine.

Not that I can't relate. Ever since we got married, we have used only Ryan's card because I used to have a little fine-racking habit of my own. His fines were lower, so we used his card. But then, somehow (maybe the lost library books stole it) Ryan misplaced his wallet. With his library card in it. Meaning the only remaining card was mine. The card with the epic fee, the fee so large we forgot what it was and spoke of it only in hushed tones. So, we figured, we got to play with that money for a few years, and we need library books for the plane tomorrow. It's time to pay up.

We went to the library, picked up our loot, and, tails betwixt legs, went to the counter, muttering excuses for the fine so long unpaid. "There is no fine on this card," said the woman behind the counter. For a minute my brain choked. How could there be no fine? The fine was so monstrous, so overwhelming, that I have not used my own library card in three years! Seriously?

"When you don't use your library card for several years, eventually, they just erase the fine. You'll have to apply for a new card."

Hallelujah.

It takes some special moments to make a person feel like she won the lottery when all she did was spend two hundred bucks on safety and emissions testing and run some errands.

Underemployed

2009-08-03T20:52:00.002-06:00

In a recent post I claimed I was unemployed. An observant friend reminded me that I am actually just underemployed, which is very true. The issue, now, is whether to remain underemployed.

Today I received an email from my boss that Salt Lake County's police department has a position open for a part time Victim Advocate (domenstic and sexual abuse, I think). I currently work as a victim advocate for a local non-profit, but it is an on-call position so the schedule is very unpredictable and the hours are few (except for this weekend when I did five cases in eighteen hours. Sheesh, Salt Lake.) Beginning the first of September, I will become the Hospital Response Team Leader, meaning I will take on some additional responsibilities and hours, but nothing overwhelming. When I saw the position at the police department available, I was intrigued because I have only seen the realities of sexual violence through the Feminist paradigm employed at Rape Recovery Center. I have a feeling that participating in this system through the avenue of Law Enforcement would be pretty interesting and informative. I think I could learn a lot, and that having multiple perspectives would ultimately benefit my clients both places.

Even though this position doesn't exactly command a princely wage, ever since BOTH Ryan and I quit our jobs the thought of a steady anything seems appealing. Especially with all the recent IHOP visits to pay for.

However, last year I worked two jobs and was EXHAUSTED. My brain couldn't keep up. I stopped working out, I didn't cook food, my house was a mess, I neglected all my relationships. I was completely overwhelmed. And profoundly cranky.

This year, I will be taking fewer classes, but I will also be working on my thesis. I want to say that I can find twenty extra hours in there, but I'm scared that I will hate my life again. This summer has been so happy and carefree. Ryan and I have been the BFFs we were meant to be, and I have reconnected other important relationships, too. And I ate some peaches.

What would you do?

A letter

2009-08-03T20:44:00.002-06:00

Dear Summer,

You have always been my least favorite season because you are so freaking hot. However, this year I think I have finally come to love you more than I hate you. I consider this an act of heroism on my part.

You have been redeemed by the food you make possible. Last night I served a plate of tomatoes as a side dish and it was the most delicious thing ever. All I had to do was slice the tomatoes. That's all. It took five seconds. It was amazing. Today I ate a strawberry that grew in my back yard. Summer, you took sunlight and dirt and concocted something so delicious it was worth the million dollars we spent getting that garden working. I also ate three peaches today, maybe four. I lost count. They were so good. So, thanks, Summer.

Placated by a functioning swamp cooler,

Amy

Unemployment

2009-07-31T09:15:00.000-06:00

Hello dear friends, stalwarts of the blogosphere. If you are reading this, clearly you are committed to staying on top of your friends' blogs, no matter how delinquent your friends may be. I compliment you.

Last year, I claimed I was too busy to blog. I think I was just too cranky. Now, as I bask in Summer Vacation (you're never too old!!!), busyness is no longer an excuse, so I present you with another: Unemployment.

I have decided not to return to working two jobs next year as I finish my graduate coursework (see above paragraph regarding crankiness). Consequently, I am working one very part-time job and waiting for school to start. Those of you who fantastize about having free time, perhaps a few hours absent the din of your squalling rugrats or crushing pressure of imminent work-related deadlines, may think that this is a prime opportunity to Get Things Done. You might be organizing your photos! Calling your Grandmother! Planning vacations with a humanitarian focus! Researching how to maximize your strawberry yield and perhaps make jam!

Let me tell you what I have been doing: eating out. And let me tell you why.

Ryan is also unemployed. He quit his job about a month ago and, although he spends considerable time brainstorming the next chapter in his professional development, he also spends considerable time suggesting we go out for pancakes.

At first it was innocent enough. He just quit his job, we figured, and deserved a little R&R. What says R&R like going out for breakfast after staying in bed until ten? Admittedly, it was blissful at first. But eating out is only fun once or twice--like anything, we quickly habituate to the new behavior and before long it seems as routine as its predecessor. Now, we are eating out like it's an acceptable way to feed ourselves. Like we're on vacation forever.

I tremble to think of looking at our credit card statement. Surely hundreds have been spent. In self-preservation, I have also hidden the scale in the linen closet.

Today Ryan is golfing and I am on call, which means I am sitting around in case my pager goes off. I really ought to go organize those pictures.

If you need me, I'll be at IHOP.

I hope school starts soon.

Gender Bender

2009-07-10T13:13:00.002-06:00

I read this post and thought I would come clean to the world myself. I'm not the girl you might have thought...

1) I LOVE lifting weights. Until I'm gonna puke. Or pass out.
2) I don't shave my legs or armpits.
3) I hate shopping.
4) I like watching mixed martial arts a.k.a. "Ultimate Fighting".
5) I hate Jane Austen. Hate.
6)I can sing the tenor line better than the soprano.
7) Babies creep me out quite a bit.
8) I think the best hair cut is a buzz and, if there weren't serious social consequences, I would buy some clippers and get on with my life.
9) I like how women look naked.
10) I think bridal and baby showers are bor-ing.
11) I never remember to send Thank You notes.

I do plenty of womanly things, too, but, sometimes, it's fun to tabulate all the ways one is just a little different. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go find some brownies and chat on the phone while listening to Joni Mitchell.

This week

2009-06-10T19:48:00.007-06:00

This week...

I decided to copy this man, whose life is exciting and worth reading about every single week. He is a funny man.

We went to a wedding here. Ryan was the best man. The lady running the reception place said his was the best toast she had ever heard. I think his secret weapon was wearing these:

If I had a brain, I would have pictures of the event. Sadly, I DO NOT HAVE A BRAIN. Picture takers, what's your secret?

When we got home, we went to Ikea immediately and bought this:
It has saved my sanity and possibly my life. The purchase of this item has set my settling process in motion and soon all will be done. Still need to hang the pictures and the mirror.

Discovered these. Ate four, all delicious. Need to figure out how to make them at home. Planning to try these. Embracing a future as a social outcast, but with flexible arteries and low blood pressure.

Couldn't believe this. Rejoiced much. Still rejoicing. When it ends, all I have to look forward to is this:
which feels like this:which is what Google Image Search thinks hell looks like, apparently.

Once it feels like that, I will need to do this. Home ownership involves a lot of doing things. Also on the list is this, this, and possibly this. In my dreams, this would also happen.

Participated in a Safe Zone training, which you can read about here, and studied about this theory for a test. Preferred the Safe Zone training by a landslide.

Read this. Felt sad for all women everywhere.

Watched the beginnings of one of these emerge from our garden. Come visit in October. We're having pie.

Survival Mode

2009-06-03T21:26:00.004-06:00

Moving isn't really my thing. My basic disposition is pretty uptight and I tend to overwhelm easily. Change makes me panic, and projects take me forever. For the last two weeks I have been sitting in our new house eating snap peas out of a bag and staring blankly at our mountains of belongings. Help?

We don't have a dishwasher, a commodity upon which I have grown dependent. In fact, I think I've completely forgotten how to live without one. For the last almost three week Ryan and I have subsisted on smoothies, canned soup, nuts and fruit. Oh, and the snap peas. Oh, and Thai food. I don't dare make a mess of the kitchen for fear I won't be able to clean it up. The recent demise of our microwave has made this packaged-food-lifestyle more of a challenge, but we press on.

The bedroom is the most put-together of all the rooms, except that nothing has been hung on the walls, including our only mirror. The resulting lack of feedback on my appearance has only caused minor trouble as far as I know. For example, last weekend, Ryan and I went to a wedding and I figured I would curl my hair for the event (I am convinced that curling my hair makes up for a pretty wide range of hair neglect consequences. I curl my hair less often than you might expect for someone whose hair looks like it was cut with a weed-wacker). I ended up scorching my neck pretty badly. Thankfully, since we have no mirror, I couldn't see the disgusting, leaky, dime-sized lesion that developed on a highly-visible spot on my neck. My heart goes out to those I've encountered during the healing process who felt like they should pretend they didn't notice. Sorry, guys. That must have been awkward.

The day after we moved Ryan and my brother spent all day tilling up a huge patch of the yard for a garden. Tragically, we discovered that most of the yard is shaded for much of the day. Anyone know a tree surgeon? Because we have a Box Elder that is getting offed. In general, Ryan has been taking great initiative with the yardwork which delights me to no end. As part of his initiative, he pruned the large rosebush in the front yard. Unfortunately, he was not aware that this bush, the most beautiful of all plants I have ever laid eyes on, brought me peace in my moving-trauma. I would stand outside and look at all the beautiful, fat, red roses and smell them and feel like we had bought the right house after all. When I came home after a long night at work to discover my precious roses had been, shall we say, aggressively pruned I had a meltdown. I have since recovered but I still wish I had at least gotten a picture of the thing in full resplendence to show you people. I have been assured repeatedly that it will be back, so I guess we shall all have to wait until then. With the exception of the Rose Incident, I am thrilled with the grounds and love them nearly as much as the groundskeeper. The garden, seems to be getting off to a reasonably good start and in the fall, with a little luck, we should have one of these to show you, also courtesy of Ryan's great enthusiasm. He's really, really excited about it.

Beyond the slow, painstaking process of finding places to stash all our stuff, and the general increased workload, home ownership is also downright scary. What if the grass dies? What if we get a termite infestation? Why does the dyer only work occasionally? How does one install a dishwasher? What about swamp coolers? What's up with those? What if the garden dies and we wasted our money? What if the whole thing burns down? Then what? Huh? Then what?

It is easy to believe that one can shop one's way out of one's misery. By some miracle of illogic, I am convinced that I can ameliorate the stress of owning more than I know what to do with only by purchasing MORE stuff. Here, for example, is the current object of my affections. But, Amy! You already own THIS bookshelf! But, you see, I need another. The larger one lives in the living room next to the reading chair. It is where I put books for reading. The new desk/shelf configuration would provide a place to put textbooks, file boxes, binders, photos, CDS, etc. Books NOT for reading. See? I need a new shelf. My hands are tied.

Moving is expensive and stressful. I'd love to have you all over for a barbeque, but for the time being all I can really offer is eating snap peas on the nearly-dead lawn. Any takers?

To school or not to school?

2009-04-28T20:22:00.000-06:00

Or to unschool?

Discuss.

To Do X 60

2009-04-24T15:52:00.003-06:00

1. Launder all the clothing in the house
2. Study for a psychometric measurements exam
3. Accompany Somali refugee family on a bus tour of Salt Lake City
4. Find others who may want to accompany refugee families on bus tours of Salt Lake City
5. Purchase a bicycle and see if I still know how to ride it
6. Attend fundraiser
7. Learn about permaculture
8. Help Jacki move
9. Collect boxes
10. Purge unnecessary belongings
11. Pack necessary belongings
12. Give 30 days notice to the ousting land-people
13. Tidy the house
14. Sell a pile of comic books Ryan purchased with his paper route money in the early nineties
15. Write self-reflections about various issues pertinent to my multicultural competency level
16. Evaluate my performance in multicultural counseling class. Choose the high road of honesty. 17. Cry.
18. Meet with real estate agent and do as I am told
19. Take car to the shop for repairs required after being smashed into while parked in a driveway
20. Get gas in the truck
21. Buy soymilk
22. Plan Sunday dinner
23. Return (unworn) underwear to Target
24. Clean out files
25. Figure out what books I need for summer term
26. Purchase books for Summer term
27. Read Chapters 1-17 in my multicultural counseling textbook so I can say I did it on my self-evaluation
28. Review Qualitative article on traumatic birth
29. Turn in article review to professor
30. Write paper about a fake psychopathology of my invention (suggestions welcome)
31. Fantasize about Ikea
32. Ruminate on the possibility of earthquake
33. Make mental game plans for how to survive earthquake
34. Print new fertility chart
35. Write a report on panel discussion I attended about Black Masculinity
36. Wax legs and underarms. Maybe.
37. Investigate stacked washer/dryer units
38. Sell non-stacked washer and dryer on craigslist
39. Learn to make bread
40. Fix brakes on the truck
41. Call Qwest and have a hissy fit because they have charged me $55 a month when the rate we agreed upon was $15, be on hold for three hours, use all cell phone minutes for lack of alternative, march angry self to Qwest location downtown and chain angry self to a pole and refuse to stop screaming until issued a refund, BASTARDS
42. Pay summer tuition
43. Cry
44. Create a summer calendar
45. Contact neglected friends because I still love them
46. Purchase one of these and one of these and rid self of all other floor-cleaning apparati
47. Learn to make household cleaner (find the recipe Adriana sent me years ago involving Borax)
48. Run a marathon
49. Convince Ryan we need a Macbook and rid self of all other spontaneously-combusting computing apparati
50. Learn about diaper-free babies
51. Buy art
52. Learn about home maintenance including but not limited to evaporative cooling systems, furnaces and the servicing thereof, water heaters, roofs and rain gutters, etc. (suggestions welcome)
53. Call Chris and ask about his shingles (roof, not viral)
54. Buy caracara oranges
55. Teach a lesson about sexual assault to teenagers, attempt to remain composed when they ask who goes to jail if both people were too drunk to consent
56. Work on lit review for thesis
57. Call doula instructor to see if she has any ideas about how I can recruit participants
58. Plan Ryan's birthday (his preference not to acknowledge it will not be honored)
59. Eat a mango
60. Wash sheets

Of Money Pits Etc.

2009-04-21T11:27:00.002-06:00

When we went back to Vlad's, he had clearly been instructed by his real estate agent to keep a lid on it. His behavior was exactly what you would expect of a Labrador who has recently learned the command 'stay' and is expected to remain still despite the hunk of cheese just inches from his nose. The man was having a hard time. He was obviously trying to leave us alone, but instead of just going out on the porch and having a much-needed cigarette, he tried to look nonchalant as he awkwardly followed eight feet behind us. A few times when he was trying to keep it real, I think he actually squeaked. Poor guy.

We placed an offer on his house.

It was accepted.

The inspection was scheduled. When we arrived, the inspector was in the basement. First thing out of his mouth was "Have you guys MET THE OWNER?" We nodded knowingly. "Yes, we have. Has he been following you around, too?"

"He was, and he was talking so much I couldn't do the inspection. Finally I had to tell him straight out that I needed him to leave me completely alone so I could do what I was hired to do." Poor Vlad. It's hard to sit on the porch with hunks of cheese walking around inside the house.

The inspector advised us of his concerns with the house. They were extensive and expensive. He used the term "money pit," which is not music to the ears of a first time home-buyer. At one point he started a sentence with, "I just know if you were my kids..." and then trailed off. I guess he decided he may have crossed one of those subtle-yet-palpable inspector/home-buyer boundaries, but we got the point. We bailed. Sorry Vlad. Might want to replace that furnace. Oh, and insulate the attic while you're at it. And shut the merciful H up.

Even after making the offer, the truth was I never felt fully comfortable with Vlad's place. I mean, the peach tree was a major selling point, but in truth it just didn't ring my bell. As a wise friend told me on g-chat, a person should buy a house that speaks to them. Vlad's didn't. But there was another one that did. This was the great tragedy.

As I stewed and festered about Vlad's, never comfortable even though I had signed the contract, there was another place I couldn't get out of my head. The yard was larger and would need more maintaining...the location wasn't quite as prime...but it had a really cool bathtub. A really, really cool bathtub. So I called our agent again. I know, we put an offer on that one house, and I know it was accepted, but I just can't get that bathtub out of my head--is it too late to go see it again?

A paragon of patience, our merciful agent called. The House of the Beautiful Bath was under contract. Someone else's contract. Our contract was with Vlad.

My heart sank, but I tried to be strong. "What's for you won't go by you," my Scottish great-grandmother used to say. But I was disappointed. Even moreso once I found out we wasted our contractual moment on the hoar frost of Vlad's.

It was back to the house hunt for us. The emailed lists of dismal properties (only dismal properties are generally available in our price range), the visiting abominable little houses waiting to blow down with one huff-and-puff. But, with no other options, a-hunting we did go. While we were touring a house that my sister-in-law called the Alice in Wonderland house for its nausea-inducing tippiness, the agent's phone rang.

"The contract on the house with the tub fell through! How much time do you have?"

My heart skipped a beat and then it sang. I pumped my fist in the air like an idiot. I told her I would risk failing my measurements class to see that bathtub just once more, and we went right over.

The tub was even lovelier than I remembered. So was everything else. The house, it spoke to me! Glory, glory! We put in our offer the next morning and it was accepted.

The inspection is tomorrow. Pray hard that the guy doesn't say "money pit" again. I can't take much more of this.

Bed

2009-04-16T21:19:00.002-06:00

Be sure and scroll down to watch the video of the woman giving birth in her bed. I loved this!

Thanks Briana for sending it my way!

Chateau Vlad

2009-04-07T09:39:00.004-06:00

Uncle Sam has decided to kick us to the curb; starting June 1 there will be no apartment subsidy for us. Goodbye $578 a month. I will never forget you. I will love you forever.

The upside of this fiasco is that the lack of reasonably priced rental properties in desirable locations has driven us into the home-buyers market. With so many incentives to buy we could honestly lose 15% of the purchase price and still come out ahead if we sell the place in two years when I finish school, per the five year plan. So it's house hunting for us.

The process has been a whirlwind. We decided just a week ago that we'd like to consider buying a home and are now in the final throes of selection and settling. It is insane. We have held it together relatively well, all things considered, though it would be unfair to fail to report that last night I broke down in a hysterical fit of laughing/crying and actually speaking in tongues. Ryan is faring better. I have mostly recovered.

The best part of buying a house is getting to break into strangers houses, with or without them present. Yesterday we went into a home that had a post-it written on a side door telling us to simply say "kennel" if we wanted to check out the laundry room on the other side. The "friendly dog", we were promised, would hasten to his kennel. Against our better judgment we tried it out and the well-trained beast did in fact obey us, his unexpected and unfamiliar masters. Still, I consider it one of life's little adventures.

Most interesting, though, are the visits where the current tenants are present for the tour. At one home, an entire family lounged around watching TV while we attempted to make ourselves scarce and still get a good look a the place. Tragically, what I most recall getting a good look at was the underpants-clad gentleman reclining on the sofa in the front room who first welcomed us. Although a concerned woman, presumably his wife, hastily covered him with a blanket, we retained a fairly good view of most of him for most of the visit.

My personal favorite, though, has been Vladimir. Bless his heart, the man wants to sell. Most of the property details online describe the sellers as "motivated" but they really ought to have added a superlative for Vlad. When we arrived he was waiting on the front porch, eager to guide us into the parking space out front. He ushered us in, advising us that his wife, who works nights, was asleep, only to then open the bedroom door and turn on the light, revealing a bedroom whose only memorable trait was a wifely lump in the bed. He spared no detail. The bed containing his wife, he assured us, could be included with the house, no problem I'm thinking sans the wife, but you can neve be sure.) Or his kids bunk beds, for that matter, we could have those, too. The circa 1988 blue sofas a la Sears could be ours if we needed them--they were old, sure, but could serve the new tenants until they could be replaced. Cooling the place should be no problem. There was an evaporative cooler, so nice in the summer because not only does it cool the air but also imparts moisture! In our dry desert clime! Relief sublime! Or, if we preferred, he also had an a/c window unit he'd be happy to leave behind. Whatever we like! The attic was in good condition, perhaps we might like to put a bedroom or two atop the little bungalow? It could be done with ease! All we would need was to place a spiral staircase in the middle of the tiny living room. It would be a piece of cake! In the back yard stood a tiny peach tree that, he delighted to tell us, would give fruit in the summer. The fruit was small, but sweet and delicious! The basement! Did we need his tools? BECAUSE WE COULD HAVE THEM!! WE COULD HAVE ANY DAMN THING WE WANTED! WOULD WE LIKE TO HAVE HIS FIRSTBORN SON? HE COULD BE OURS IF WE WOULD BUY HIS HOUSE!!!!

All the caps lock in the kingdom cannot approach justice to Vladimir's enthusiasm about his house. Bless his heart, his strategy is not well-suited to the real estate market. We ran out of there as fast as we could, and, after we recollected our exhausted brains, all we could remember about the experience was his yammering.

We decided on another house. This morning we were set to make an offer. The plan was to meet the realtor this morning at 8:15.

Last night I lay awake thinking. The house we'd picked--was it the best choice? Would Ryan be happy there? Would I? Was there lead paint? Could we rent it or resell it when the time came? Thoughts of other houses floated through my mind as I prepared to kiss the other options goodbye...but I kept thinking of Vladimir and his little peach tree.

We woke up and went to the realtor's. The first words wout of her mouth were "What about that place with the loud guy? Have you given it any more thought?" Strangely, I had! As we talked more Ryan discovered that in his last-minute farewell searches last night he had landed on Vlad's place and wondered why we hadn't visited it (understandably he didn't remember the house, only its owner.) We decided to go back.

In the final hours of our house hunt we just have to see it again, just in case. But I'm prepared to hit Vlad with a tranquilizer dart if he doesn't shut up and leave us alone. If we want his weed wacker, we will ask for it.

Ditto

2009-04-02T09:42:00.001-06:00

This is one of the best things I've read in awhile.

Bummer

2009-03-30T18:34:00.003-06:00

Today Ryan got some sushi at the grocery store. He chose the roll that had been drizzled with a benign looking brown sauce; the alternatives were all drizzled with some kind of pink mayo (Utahns love their pink mayo condiments; see here). When he got home he discovered that the brown sauce which was presumed to have been inspired by Asian cuisine was BARBEQUE sauce.

We need to move. STAT.

ironic

2009-03-12T15:55:00.002-06:00

Read this today:

"The action orientation is particularly important in offsetting claims that
some feminist theories have become so esoteric, jargonistic and elitist
(Hemmings, 2007), that they are no longer relevant and may even be harmful if
applied in colonizing and patronizing ways (McEwan, 2001; Williams & Lykes,
2003)."

The action orientation may be offsetting these claims, but this sentence sure as H isn't. I think academia needs to take itself more seriously.

NOT!!!

The time has come

2009-03-05T10:40:00.002-07:00

Ok, maybe it hasn't quite come, but if there is a more compelling reason to buy a TV than more of this, please let me know. I'm thinking about saving up my allowance to get more Jon Stewart into my life.

Everybody needs a hero

2009-03-03T15:53:00.002-07:00

In college I had several professors who made an impact on my life, but one stands above as having been transformational. I still think she is terrific. I linked awhile back to her project, WomanStats, but thought I would also include a link here to an article about the project. It is fascinating.

Early morning meeting

2009-03-01T23:32:00.004-07:00

I am a teacher. Before becoming a teacher I was not aware that people could be conscripted into professions outside the armed services, but I learned last fall that one of the rare exceptions is to ill-conceived teaching positions. I was hired without my permission and have been struggling to stay afloat ever since.

I like the students fine. And the curriculum I teach, it's ok. Nothing special. But I just can't seem to get my professional mojo working for me. When the kids ask a question, I tend to answer it rather than call my attorney. This has evidently been an error in judgment.

Coupla weeks ago I taught a lesson on nutrition. I stuck to the script for the most part, but I threw in an extra bit about eating lots of fruits and veggies, you know, for good measure. Lo and behold, a few days later my supervisor calls to tell me that two kids with eating disorders went home and promptly off the deep end. One threw away all the animal products in her house; the other announced she would henceforth be eating kidney beans. Only. Imagine my surprise. As you may suspect, even mojo-less I did not advocate either of these dietary strategies, and certainly not in class. I said eating plants was healthy, yes I did. But that was it. For once in my life I didn't say anything freaky (at least I thought I didn't; perhaps I need more regular consultation with non-freak to help me identify when I have headed off into freak-territory.)

Tomorrow morning I will meet with my supervisor, her supervisor, the vice-principal and principal, not to mention the health teacher with whom I am expected to co-teach. Each one of these individuals is at least twenty years my senior and has a graduate degree in education. I got nothin'. It doesn't look promising.

My strategy is to lay low and hope to get fired, which seems a much fairer alternative to continue teaching as a publicly-shamed pariah. If I can't manage to get canned right away, I may have to drop a few "well, those kids should have known better" or "Well, I'm not going to teach the curriculum--I'm a gonna teach the truth!" and see where they get me. I'm hoping for the unemployment office.

Turns out teaching isn't for me.

*Meeting over. Cried in front of everyone. Wasn't fired. Disappointed. Counting down until May.

Big News (not pregnant)

2009-02-22T13:24:00.008-07:00

Can you tell what my big news is based on the picture? MY HAIR FINALLY GOT LONG ENOUGH FOR A PONY TAIL! A real, live ponytail! How thrilling! It took one and one third years, but it happened.

I was feeling real proud and things were going along fine when I noticed that I was putting off showering for way too long (for the sake of my mother I will refrain from specifying how long I consider way too long.) My reason? Too much hair. Takes forever to dry it; who's got the time? So I started germinating an idea that I would cut my hair, just a little to thin it out, maybe save myself fifteen or twenty minutes in dry-time. A couple weekends ago I went to a conference and during the keynote address I was sitting behind a lady with great hair. It was long enough to tuck behind her ears and looked like she could probably skip blow-drying altogether. I scoped her out, trying to notice all the details but when it became apparent that I did not have the vocabulary to provide an adequate description to a hypothetical stylist, I decided a papparazzi approach would be simpler. Out came my phone and I faked texting while I took picture after picture. Every time she moved her head I took another one. Doesn't she have nice hair?
Looks like the other lady at the table figured out I wasn't texting, but it seems like she's cool with it.

After snapping several pictures and feeling like I doing something illegal, or at least impolite, I decided to just ask her where she got her hair cut. I followed her out of the conference and disclosed my surreptitious picture taking (It's all about disclosure.) She was very nice about it and gave me her stylist's name. I was tickled pink and scheduled an appointment as soon as I could.

After years of ownership of my hair you would think I would know that haircuts that make others look like J Crew models have a more helmet-like quality on my own head. My grandmother assures me I will be grateful for my sturdy hair when I'm in my eighties; I'm not so sure I'll care. Here's the new hair, the moment you've all been waiting for.

While I am discussing my hair (watch me act like 90% of the posts on this blog aren't about my hair...) I thought you might like to know that I found my favorite. My favorite individual hair. It's gray, see?Also, as of now I am aware that I kind of have freckles.

Back to the hair. I found it when I was twenty three and then misplaced it. I'm happy to have found it again. I have always thought gray hair was very elegant and buys one some extra credibility, so I'm all for this little silverino multiplying. When I have a whole bunch, I'll get working on that long gray braid I've had my heart set on since high school.

Whatever. YOU'RE the freak around here.

Wombo

2009-02-21T10:38:00.003-07:00

I only pretend to know what's going on most of the time. For instance, my novice participation with Facebook led me today to discover a word where I wasn't sure if it was a real word with unique meaning or a simple wombo. The word was netbook. So I went to wikipedia who not only informed me that netbook both has discrete meaning and etymology as a wombo, but also informed me that there is a nice, pretentious word for wombo. This word in portmanteau. You may repay me for this update in cash or in kind.

Study Break

2009-02-15T13:27:00.002-07:00

Due to the plague, I am behind in school, but school waits for no woman. I am supposed to give a 3-hour presentation on mood disorders and hand in a 5 page reflection paper on a conference I attended last weekend on Tuesday and also turn in the introduction and guiding paradigms sections of my research precis on Wednesday. Yikes.

At the moment I'm writing the outline for the mood disorder presentation and I came across a little tidbit that I thought the internet might appreciate. Did you know that, when referring to age cohorts, the technical term for those aged 85+ years is the old old? That's right. The old old. You heard me. As you might suspect, this got me laughing. But then it got me thinking.

Perhaps most traits, such as age, occur along some type of spectrum. Take height for example. At 5'3" I am short, but not exactly short short. At 6'1" Ryan is tall indeed, but tall tall? I think you'd have to be 6'3" or taller.

The textbook that opened my eyes to the possibility of being old old also referred to "the two genders", which is a notion I am about to contend. Me, I wear skirts a lot. And mascara almost always. I have probably skipped mascara less than once a week for the last fifteen or so years (with a couple of phases skipping it for a few weeks, or maybe a month or two, at a time, but I always come back.) I don't however, shower more than a couple times a week, and never have. Each shower takes about five minutes. While I'm in there I use no products that require a pouf or smell like gum, and I don't own a razor. So, while you could definitely say I identify as gender-female, I wouldn't say I make the cut for female female. You hear me?

As I delivered this insight to Ryan he paused for a minute and then said "...kind of like when you like 'em like 'em."

Exactly.

Feel free to list your own descriptors in the comments. I think this has potential to be pretty funny.

Trollsta

2009-02-02T20:54:00.002-07:00

Ryan has a chair in the corner of the living room where he does his reading and computering. Unfortunately, this means that the computer is always laying around on the floor looking slovenly. I decided that we should go to Ikea, the happiest place on earth, to get a tiny table to live next to the chair and be a home for the computer.

So we went today, to Ikea, and strolled around keeping our eyes peeled for a table smaller than 16"X16". And we found the Trollsta, pictured above, whose dimensions are 15 3/4" X15 3/4". Such a cute little Trollsta. Like the tabley offspring of a gangsta and a troll.

IT COST $79.99. Did Ikea forget that it's job was to make things CHEAP? Who told Ikea that it was ok for them to charge nearly a hundred smackers for a table that would fit in a doll house? What the h?

I still wish little Trollsta were mine. But I suppose I'll have to wait until I win the lotto.

The Hard Stuff

2009-01-29T20:14:00.001-07:00

For those who may have been concerned that I have neglected to post about my illness because I am sipping Jack Daniels in the closet while weeping about how much I love my high school friends, put your minds at ease.

I switched to opiates and they work even better than booze!

After spending all of Sunday night hacking up "a lung" (code for gross lungey particulate matter in colorful gak-like suspension) I called the student health center at 7:30 a.m., when they, mercifully, open for business. I plead my case. I told them they already knew everything they needed to know and that I couldn't afford to come in for another appointment (don't tell my mom, I don't have insurance.) FIX IT!, I cried. And the kind doctor lady took ten minutes to explain all about my sickness to me and all about the medicines I had been taking and all about the new medicines I would soon be taking and, well, she made me feel like a real expert. If any of all y'all get sick, call me. I am newly certified in treating upper respiratory infections on a budget.

End of story, the new (code for opiate-laden) cough syrup worked like a charm and I am on the road to recovery which I have celebrated by purchasing a single serving key lime pie from the local fake-mex place and doing my homework. Hopefully this weekend I will learn to sleep unassisted again.

But I think I'll cash in on the refill, just in case I need it.

Codeine, I love you.

Update on my lungs

2009-01-26T05:34:00.002-07:00

It is 5:30 a.m. as I write this and I have been awake for several hours. I have come to the conclusion that medicine does not work.

For the first few weeks of this bug I tried to avoid the drugs, per my usual preference, but once I started, as my brother quipped last night, "hittin' the sauce" I have been breaching all kinds of generally held rules of conduct. Last night Ryan noticed that my homemade medicinal brew was nothing more than extra-strength half-price Nyquil: two tablespoons of grain alcohol, two generic brand Benadryl, and a heaping teaspoon of Buckley's "tastes bad, works great" cough syrup. In other words alcohol, antihistamine, and cough suppressant. Check the back of your Nyquil. It's identical. I guess I'm not as inventive as I thought I was.

Also, thanks for all the comments, concerns, and advice. If anyone would like to donate a lung, I'd appreciate that, too. Mine's broke.

Scandal and a Wombo

2009-01-23T11:35:00.002-07:00

Two years ago, Ryan and I spent Christmas with his family in Northern California. While we were there we visited with a few of my friends from high school. They are hilarious folks who make me proud of where I came from and I was also proud to introduce them to Ryan, in other words, where I am going. We spent a long evening together in their bachelor pad in Oakland, talking about potential band names and the night was full of revelry. However, one subject of conversation captivated me more than the others. It was on that fateful night that I was introduced to a new favorite among creative pursuits: the WOMBO. It is a contraction of "word" and "combo" and means what you'd think. Sometimes wombos can be really funny (runny?). I encourage you to start looking for them in your day to day, or making them up when the mood strikes. It will make you giggle.

Unrelatedly, or so you might think, my difficulty sleeping has driven me to desperation. I took Nyquil for a week or two of this impertinent virus, and it worked moderately well. But this last weekend I threw out my back while attempting to physically harangue my two year old niece and this has complicated the sleep issue further. Few positions are comfortable, and when I do manage one, racking coughs send my whole backarratus into a spasm. Thus, the nights have been long and sleepless (leepless!). As exhaustion has driven me to my last shred of dignity (shignity!), I found myself searching for home remedies for coughs on the internet. I googled and googled and found in the end that there was one remedy that trumped the others: the dreaded alchobooze.

I am not a drinking woman. Probably most of you are as confident in this fact about me as I. But last night, through a fit of hacking, a facking if you will, I pitifully requested that Ryan walk to the liquor store and see if they had any alcohol I could drink. He was confused and apprehensive. Alcoholism runs in my family, he postulated, what if I found a fondness for the stuff? Perhaps, dear, but if I don't sleep again tonight I'm going to find a fondness for cutting my face with butter knives. GET ME SOME BOOZE.

And so he dutifully went and retuned home with a brown paper bag containing a three dollar plastic bottle of rum.

I filled the Nyquil measuring cup to the 1 oz. mark, tried to remember what little I knew of painlessly imbibing alcohol (something about not tasting it by "throwing it back"; I wondered how that might be best achieved), plugged my nose, and swilled it down. It burned. It tasted awful. I gagged.

BUT I DIDN'T COUGH. For the first time in a month, my bronchioles were quiet. I laid down in bed and slept for nine hours.

The next day the coughing resumed in full force. All day, the exhausting misery of involuntary, violent abdominal contractions. And then the burned pan. When Ryan got home from work at 10:15, I was at the end of my rope, standing at attention with the plastic bottle of foul-tasting relief.

Again, I faced the conundrum of making the process a little less punishing. I desired to avoid the gagging, in particular. But we don't have soda or juice. I thought and thought. I thunk, even.

And then it hit me! There was one sweet liquid in the house! MAPLE SYRUP! And so I skipped off to the kitchen to retrieve the spoonful of sugar intended to help the medicine go down. I poured the maple into the cup. I added a tablespoon of rum. I tried to mix them with my pinky finger. Tragically, the discrepant viscosities of the two fluids made them inharmonious. They were oil and water, Jekyll and Hyde. They were not made to marry.

Deeming the unmixed brew still more appetizing than the rum alone (good heavens, you'll have to trust me) I closed my eyes and I drank it.

I wouldn't be a woman of my word if I told you it wasn't gross. But it went down and made my limbs feel a little heavy and I got into bed. As I lay there, I had a stroke of genius, a stroke that made drinking maple-rum terrine worth it. This is where our conversation today comes fircle.

"Ryan?" I mumbled as I drifted into a coughless sleep "We should tell everyone we know about rumple syrup. It really, really helps you sleep when you have a bad cough..."

He laughed. And I slept for the next twelve hours.

Burn, baby, burn

2009-01-22T20:33:00.003-07:00

So I'm real sick and there is no food and things in our house are very sad. But the fun doesn't stop there. Our mountain home is in bad shape, too. Utah and Salt Lake counties currently boast the worst air quality in the nation and it is so gross outside that I am occasionally moved to tears of desperation and disgust. The pollution is so horrendous that it is as if the whole valley is sitting around a campfire, except instead of logs we are burning petroleum and coal. Yuck. It's not safe for kids to go outside and I am pretty convinced it is a contributing factor to the hacking cough that has been keeping me up at night.

If you are interested in helping get signatures for a petition sponsored by Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and Utah Moms for Clean Air in protest of building ANOTHER coal plant in Bountiful just post a comment and I will email you a copy. It is easier for swingin' singles and students to get lots of signatures fast than it is for docs and moms! Tell your friends! Your swingin' single friends!

Tonight I came home from class and made a beeline into the house, trying to breathe as little as possible. I made some just-add-water (still vegan, high in sodium) dinner for Ryan and then went to visit my sister-in-law and niece in the neighboring building. When I returned an hour later it smelled more like burning inside my building than it did outside which, in these circumstances, is not good. And I knew.

Ryan's vegan, high sodium dinner was reduced to charcoal and our apartment was filled with smoke. Thank goodness I came home earlier than expected--I can only imagine how few minutes remained until the sprinklers went off. You see, I thought I had left the pot on the still-warm-but-turned-off stove to continue cooking for the last few minutes, but instead I had left the stove set to medium.

Being sick does not improve brain function.

Now I am sitting in a sauna of carcinogens. The sliding door is open to let the dinner smoke out (and the pollution in.) I am an idiot. An idiot well on her way to emphysema.

Sign my petition. And bring me dinner. We are hungry.

The last to know

2009-01-22T12:16:00.002-07:00

I have a feeling I may be the last BYU graduate to know about this website, but if you are still out of the loop, you're in for a treat. It rilly reminds me of bean at the Y!

Kodiak Cakes

2009-01-18T17:51:00.002-07:00

Most of the time I have a pretty masochistic cooking ethic. I always say, why let someone else do it for you when you can spend a whole lot of time doing it yourself? This is why Ryan and I eat out all the time.

There is one instant indulgence I permit: Ryan's beloved Kodiak Cakes brand Big Bear Brownies. I remember clearly the day he spied the boxed mix with its rustic packaging, the picture of the Kodiak bear threatening anyone who dared add eggs and oil. I remember his excitement. He thought they were really, really cool. Made with ever-trusty whole wheat flour and sporting a picture of a vicious bear, Ryan decided that these brownies were somehow different from the varieties enjoyed by freshman fifteen bound college girls. No, these were no treat for fat kids, they were for the truly hardcore.

So we bought the brownies. He loved them. As far as I was concerned, they were identical to all the other not-from-scratch brownies I have eaten over the years, but Ryan, blinded by love for the brown box with the mad bear, claimed they were truly special.

Sometimes when I go shopping by myself I will pick up a box to have on hand should a special occasion (or a tragedy) require we have a treat at the ready. I made them the normal way the first time, but the second time I used applesauce in place of half the butter. Because I hate fun.

Today Ryan spied me back at my old tricks, trying to spoil his delicious cakes again. He saw the applesauce.

"They taste better the regular way," he informed me.

Oh, weird. They taste better with a stick of butter than they do with applesauce? WEIRD.

So I made them with butter. Now they are in the freezer, because he is sure they taste better frozen. The man is strange.

I wish I could find someone who sells spinach with a picture of an angry bear prominently displayed on the label. We'd have a Popeye on our hands.

Fun Hatin'

2009-01-15T11:46:00.004-07:00

One of the tasks that has slipped through the cracks lately has been my role as the one lady household food production team. I haven't produced. We have been getting by on smoothies and canned soup, but yesterday finally ran out. No matter, I thought. I'll just order a pizza! A HEALTHY pizza!

For those not in the know, Papa John's makes a whole wheat pizza crust these days. I figured I'd order a veggie pizza, whole wheat crust, hold the cheese.

Ryan and I have never actually ordered a pizza during our marriage- he is not a big fan. He says the cheese leaves a permanent nauseating smell on his face. I think he is insane, but I only like gluttony when it is shared with others, so that's been that. No pizza for the Lees. But yesterday, Ryan discovered a pizza he could really sink his teeth into.

"I usually hate the crust but YUM!!! This crust is so WHEATY! And TASTY! I actually quite like it! And without the cheese it doesn't have that gross smell...cow excretion...gross...mmmyummmhealthypizza..."

Bless his heart. He always likes the gross stuff and it will probably buy him an extra twelve years on this planet (he will be a widow, though, as I only like the un-gross versions of everything, like shortening in my cookies and cheese EVERYWHERE, but I digress.) I, on the other hand, had an existential crisis.

Well, Amy, I guess this is what pizza is now. You'll get used to it. You've learned to prefer whole wheat bread and whole grain pasta. You don't mind consuming two salads a day. You think smoothies count as a treat. It'll be ok. You'll get used to it...WAIT A SECOND. I like REAL pizza! The good-tasting kind! With the cheese! Am I going to be the mom whose kids' friends never want to come over because they only have gross food? Will my children even have friends or will I immunize them against those too?! Who am I?!?!?

It's cool, self. You've always been a fun-hater, not wanting to play with the neighborhood kids because you might get dirty and being afraid to jump off rope swings into rivers. It's just that now, well, you're just getting really, really good at it.

Sleepless

2009-01-14T17:59:00.003-07:00

My mother always warned me that I would one day become an insomniac. She said when she was my age she could sleep on a plane, on a train, in a house, with a mouse. Then middle-age hit and WHAM! Insomnia.

Now here I am, twenty-seven. I didn't think that counted as middle aged until I started waking up at three in the morning all the damn time. Last night I was thrashing around like a dying carp until dawn, at which point I invariably fell back asleep only to be snatched from sleep forty five minutes later by a merciless alarm. It's my new thing that I do.

The worst part is how worthless I become without sleep (and I'm talking without like nine hours of sleep. I don't mess around.) When my roiling wakes Ryan up and he lays awake all night trying to coax my inexplicably neurotic body back to slumber he always manages to follow up with a productive day. He asks me questions like "What shall we do for dinner?" and I reply by drooling down my shirt and making a noise that hastens the image of barnyard animals. I spend nine consecutive hours on Facebook and have nary a new friend to show for it. I don't do my homework or laundry. I don't do anything.

If this is what happens when I miss one measly night, may I ask, what will become of my if I produce hypothetical offspring? I am told they suck on your breasts all night long. I am also told "you'll sleep right through it." Folks, I'm all for natural parenting, and we all know breastfeeding has a friend in me. But now hear this: if I ever have to nurse ANYONE or ANYTHING sixteen times in the night, do not be surprised when I administer a full dose of Nyquil to that one or thing to make it stop squalling because...I really, really have a hard time when I don't sleep.

Cue the violins. All you moms are thinking I am a real sucker. And you may be right, but I would add that I am a WHINEY sucker. A whiney, whiney sucker. With insomnia.

A nasty wasty skunk!

2009-01-12T16:03:00.002-07:00

During December I was twice detained from blogging, first by traveling with my in-laws and to see my own parents, and also by a plague that has smitten me with a fine smit. I was getting better for a second and then decided to eat ten cookies for dinner, providing every micro-varmint the ideal opportunity to multiply and replenish my body.

I've been behind on all kinds of stuff, blogging (naturally), buying my books, eating dinners out of cans (or, when times get real tough, baking sheets) and allowing a much needed run with a vacuum to go neglected. I thought we would all be ok, you know, make it through being a little behind for a while. But then I discovered that my negligence has been impacting not only friends and family, but my neighbors.

You may recall the bad behavior of my apartment complex's management during the summer months. Well, it turns out that they become vigilantes during the winter. I offer you exhibit A, found taped to our door this afternoon:

Dear Resident,

You are getting this notice because there are some things on your balcony that need to be removed as soon as possible. The items we are referring to are:

-Christmas lights.

Thank you for your cooperation in the matter. Please call the office with any questions or concerns.

Management

They haven't minded the ridiculous dead tomato plants and large pieces of plywood that have resided on our balcony for the 20 months we have lived here. And they sure as shootin' don't mind having the place heat up like an inferno in the summer when a simple request to KEEP THE DOORS CLOSED would fix the problem in no time flat. But, I guess that my single strand of colored Christmas lights is enough to raise their managerial hackles. Bah Humbug.

Time to pull the Grinch out of your bottom, Management. Methinks I will leave the lights up and see what other ideas they can come up with to get me to remove them. HA!

The last laugh

2008-12-08T09:29:00.009-07:00

I have a final exam today at four. I have hardly begun studying. However, it is rainy and cozy and I would prefer to update this neglected blog than learn about the ACA ethical code's instructions in the case of a suicidal client. Can you blame me?

This morning I was greeted by the information that several delightful women I wish I knew better have teamed up to write a blog. Sarah and I should have been roommates in college. By that I mean both that we would have had a good time and that sheer probability favored our sharing a bathroom. She and I lived with all the same people at all different times. We share a few memories, one involving our bodies bobbing in the Great Salt Lake, immersed in brine shrimp, disgust, and giggles. I think she is great. Louise was one of my favorite teachers because she did not take herself too seriously, a trait I admire in a university professor. She has a great sense of humor. I think anyone who continues to stop by my blog from time to time would probably get a kick out of what these gals say and how they say it. Enjoy.

And now, a little story. Ryan's maternal grandmother is both aged and infirm. At 92, she has finally resigned herself to assisted living and has left behind a house filled with treasures. A few weeks ago we were invited, as her impoverished grandchildren, to loot the place. Grandma was a Tupperware lady. It was a fruitful looting.

One item I was uniquely pleased to find was a rice cooker. I do not own one, but I did in high school and have always thought I might like to own another, especially now that my ricing and steaming needs have increased. See rice cooker below:

Ain't she a beaut? I never quite got around to using it, though. I guess my ricing and steaming needs are less than I anticipated. Last night we opened the box!

A Christmas village! (I recommend you click on the picture for a more detailed view.)

A Little Bear! (In real life it is quite little.)

A Mormon church basketball trophy! Please note the Salt Lake temple behind the victor's head.

The box contained no rice cooker, but I was not disappointed.

It's nice to know Grandma got the last laugh.

Sunday birthday

2008-11-30T14:45:00.002-07:00

Every seventh year one's birthday will be on a Sunday. If you happen to descend from a religious tradition where purchasing goods or services on Sunday is forbidden, and if the majority of your local friends and family also subscribe to this tradition, your birthday will be less fun on these every-seventh-year occasions. If you have a golden quilted jumpsuit onto whose dorsal side you sewed the words "Birthday Suit" that you particularly enjoy wearing in public on your birthday while surrounded by friends and family, Sunday birthdays will be even more disappointing. It's just not the same to wear such a treasure around the house.

This year, I have a Sunday birthday. I wore a skirt and blouse instead of my birthday suit and went to church instead of well-populated public places. I felt a little despondent.

During church, one of the other church ladies snagged me in the hall wielding my sodden-bottomed niece who had requested a diaper change. Her mom was teaching a lesson upstairs and dad was nowhere to be found, the church lady told me. Could I possibly?

Sure, lady. It'll just be the icing on my birthday cake. You got a diaper?

As we proceeded through the intricacies of diaper-removal and -replacement, Adri and I were chatting. "Need new diaper!" "Yes, punkin, you sure do. We'll get it fixed right away." "Fix it!" "Mmmm hmmm. We'll fix it."

And then, a pause...

And then, drawers dropped, bottom exposed, face all aglow...

"Happy birthday Amy???"

It was, far and away, the best birthday greeting I have ever rececived. From now on, if you want to wish me a Happy Birthday, please, first remove your pants.

Clean air for breathing

2008-11-25T18:21:00.002-07:00

Here is an easy way to do a good thing. This week we can be thankful we have (somewhat) clean air for breathing--let's make sure our kids/hypotheticals will too!

Concise

2008-11-25T09:38:00.002-07:00

The other day, while teaching, I told the kids that their next lesson was going to be on sexual assault prevention. I wanted to give the a chance to get mentally prepared to take something seriously (for once in their charmed lives). One kid with scraggly hair, a t shirt advertising a punk band, and a wily look in his eye piped up for the first time ever, "You mean, like, no means no and passed out doesn't mean yes?"

Well, kid, now that you mention it, YES. Hmm. Now what am I going to teach?

Maybe he could give me lessons on being concise. I bet my blog would get more hits.

Important

2008-11-20T13:38:00.003-07:00

Thanks Missy for posting about world hunger on your wonderful blog. I recommend this post and all the others to all of you. That right there is a big ol' stamp of approval.

I want to fast the day before Thanksgiving and donate ten dollars to Oxfam. I would like to find twenty others to do this with me. If you are willing, please post a comment here. If you would also like to link to the original site on your own blog, let me know. I would be eager to see how many people we can invite to participate in this easy way to make a small difference.

Also, if Ikea is a terrible monster, tell me about it. I can take it.

A Great Tag from a Great Gal

2008-11-20T12:49:00.002-07:00

Let me preface with a story from yesterday's class.

Having read a chapter on Multicultural Counseling, my classmates and I were invited to do an activity to help us become more culturally self-aware. It involved a worksheet that looked a bit like elementary school busy work (in a good way); there was a circle in the center where we were to write our names and then satellite circles (like lollipops radiating out from our name) where we could indicate a few of the traits that we identify as being part of our self-concept. The teacher probably explained the task more succinctly; I am sorry she is not present to do so now.

My palms got sweaty. My head began to swim. There were only four bubbles in which to identify my most-defining aspects of self! I flustered around for approximately three times longer than necessary and came up with: 1) traditionalist 2) moralist 3) feminist 4) upper-middle-class female from the east coast (no need to mention that this is actually three identifying traits. I was up until three in the morning because of it.)

We then proceeded to a small group where we could discuss which of our traits were associated with power and privilege and vice versa. As the other group members began to discuss their traits, I noticed that theirs differed from mine in a fundamental way: theirs actually meant something. While it would take me seventy three hours to describe what I mean when I identify myself as a "moralist", the lady in my group who, wisely, identified that she is a fiancee had nothing to explain. Her identified traits were all self-evident and stress-free, much like the other group members' identifiers.

Although I do not typically respond to tags, this one is from a grand gal whose post was very funny, so I think you should read it.

It is in the spirit of aforementioned unnecessary complication and loquacity that I bring you this tag:

Things I value:

1) Ikea. In the name of all that is good and holy, I beg you not to tell me the reasons their prices are so low; if I have to stop going to Ikea when I've had a rough day who knows what might happen. I might end up at McDonald's! That's what! Then how would you feel?

2) People who tell me new things. Because I am woefully aware of the great many things I do not know, I really appreciate when people tell me something new, especially when it is something I care about. This valuing obviously extends to the folks who have written books that have changed my mind and, consequently, my life. Thank you all!

3) People who can do things I purposely tell myself are impossible so I won't have to do them. marathoners, quilters, gardeners, writers of books, I'm looking at you.

Things I do not value:

1) Paypal. Every time I find myself confronted with the Paypal homepage I know I am in deep yogurt. I think they have evil corporate monsters that change people's passwords, preferred credit cards, and shipping addresses when nobody is looking. Hey, Paypal! Go suck an egg!

2) One of my jobs. Although I am grateful that I get paid for more hours of work than I do, I hate never knowing if I did anything right. And while I don't mind adolescents, I now know I prefer them in groups of one.

3) Projects that make me feel guilty. Currently I still own the computer tower and monitor that I used in college. The monitor is often completely non-functional. The computer is antiquated. The only reason I still own the whole she-bang is that it is the only machine that has a floppy drive and I have one floppy disk with a significant amount of material on it (also from college), but the disk won't give up its information. The computer claims the disk needs to be reformatted. So I need to discover how to reformat the disk, download my college education onto a flash drive, and give the computer to good will. It's only three steps, but the computer sits in the corner of my bedroom making me feel like a loser, as it has for four solid years. So help me, I hate projects that take more than an hour to finish.

I tag Kelsey, because I think she will play. If any of the reast of y'all want in, feel free to self-tag.

Adjectives

2008-11-18T11:35:00.003-07:00

I am a reader of food blogs. I began when I "went vegan" a year and a half ago and I have never looked back. Food blogs have educated me about a central part of life and I have a lot of fun reading them. They have picked up where a hypothetical bunch of pie making females left off in the grand progression of my learning how to take care of myself. I didn't know what a pattypan squash was but now I do. Talk about empowerment.

But I have to say, there are two adjectives that turn up astonishingly often in the food blogosphere that really bug me. These two words are 'comforting' and 'cloyingly'. Why not just say the macaroni and cheese is fattening? And that the cookies are too damn sweet? You know? Sheesh, people. Get a thesaurus.

The feelings never die, they just go into remission

2008-11-14T16:08:00.003-07:00

I try to be friendly. In my classes, especially, I have been making an effort to make eye contact and smile at folks. I am hoping that this concerted effort will make me into a more well-rounded and appealing human being. Some people are still too annoying to manage a smile at but, for the most part, I do a pretty good job. Eye contact for everyone.

However, I have noticed that one girl in one of my classes intimidates me. I find myself avoiding her kind of awkwardly (she is not aware of this, of course. The whole drama remains mine, and now yours, to enjoy). But today, I was feeling a little more pert than usual, and looked her right in the face and smiled. She smiled back. For her, the moment was over. She is no longer thinking about it. But I was plunged into intense awkwardness. I felt myself blushing and not knowing where to look. And then I realized.

She is the spitting image of my death crush from sixth grade.