Chasing Happy

I can’t think of any good way to move from the sad stuff of the last post so let’s try bullets (points, not the killy things).

• I am totally down with Bruce Springsteen having his own XM station, but is the call in Springsteen discussion show with the super-invested-superfans really necessary? I’m not convinced.
• In the last three days I have encountered unprecedented levels of crazy. A coworker went, basically, postal, although with no bloodshed. I have been threatened with a lawsuit by a twelve year old (who really meant it…a lot), been followed on my lunch break by a bipolar cuckoo who looks like Eddie Murphy when he was wearing that fatsuit for whatever crappy movie that was, and been asked, for the second time by the same person, if I’ve had my baby yet. My baby. Who is about to be six months old. That made me feel pretty.
• I cannot be convinced of the merits of this Parenthood show. Let’s just put everyone back on the shows they came from: Gilmore Girls. Six Feet Under. Coach.
• A long time ago my sister broke up with pretzels. Now, I think I’m done with hummus. What is going to come next? I’m ready.
• I don’t know how to ride a bike. I tried to learn, but couldn’t get it and my dad (rightfully so) gave up. And now, I am old. The question is, what exact location is there where I can learn to do it without exposing myself to (further, additional) humiliation? I need to get this done in the next, what? five years until J hops on her first two-wheeler?
• The book I got about working at home includes a section about being a “phone actress/adult texter.” Helpful.
• I am done with vampires. The Twilight books are crap (granted I could only make it through the first one) and I don’t get HBO but I have had enough exposure to Anna Paquin to know she bugs.
• I had an action packed, generally delightful first Mother’s Day that involved my new favorite phrase, “bottomless mimosa.” But, genius bar gimmicks aside, taking my own nap, then having baby J take hers next to me while I did nothing but read, was the first time I have felt at peace in weeks. I felt like I hadn’t seen her little face in weeks, and I am as grateful to Doug for those few hours alone with her as I am for the awesome candleholders he bought me and dinner he made me. He is a nice boy, but is surprisingly unwilling to share his toilet paper.

A million years ago, when I started this blog that I never update, I was living in my parents’ house with a newly minted master’s degree in my hand. I was unemployed, out of shape, and more than a little unhappy…hence the title. Fast forward six years and I live in my own house with my own (tall) husband, my own (cute) baby, my own (whack) dog, and I drive my own SUV (shut up, I love it.) I’m not in particularly good shape (see above re: baby) but I’m getting there and I have figured out a few things about being happy (more wine, less whine). I still tend to overuse parentheses (duh) but I feel like I’m at a place where I can maybe write more often, and thus, hopefully, suck a little less at it. All good news, yes?

This must be why I’m about to lose my job.

I’m still spiraling a little bit about it, to be honest and I restart every sentence I write about it because my train of thought these days goes a little something like this: job, gone, crap, tears!, no tears, think, look ahead, plan, plot, save, conserve, sell, coupons, baby, health insurance, none, baby, shots!, baby, formula, shouldn’t stop nursing, must go back to work full time, should stop nursing, what next?, part time?, day care, too expensive, nanny share, can’t do it, in-laws, savings account, retirement, dog, dog food, cheaper brand, Easter, need baskets, plastic eggs?, health insurance, car payment, car insurance, electric bill, no plastic eggs, no new clothes, baby, baby, husband, becoming a drain, tension, divorce, divorce, plastic eggs.

Not exactly the picture of cohesive thought, I’m afraid. I don’t know how I so completely did not see this coming. I suspect the little wiglet in the next room may have something to do with that but part of it was probably just arrogance. I would NEVER get laid off, not ME…dummy. And while I don’t think I am ever in any danger of getting divorced and don’t actually have particularly strong feelings about plastic eggs (I feel like they are mainly a jelly bean receptacle and I do not enjoy jelly beans) I am basically paralyzed with fear and indecision about most everything.

There’s also the guilt, and that has been fun: We get our benefits through my work because they are better. We have a car payment now because I thought we needed a new one. We have a dog because I insisted. We live in this house because I picked it. I took this job. I put us in this position, and now I can’t think how to get out of it. It’s my fault.

Which…I know it is not my fault. I know it is not really anyone’s fault, although I have found plenty of people to complain about (coughcoughcountyexecutivecough). And, overall, I could of course be a lot worse off: I could be sick, or the baby or Doug could be. We could be homeless. We could be (insert bad things of your own choosing here). And that would all be terrible. But Doug does have a job, I do have a Master’s degree and an unfortunately strong work ethic instilled by my parents. I will get a job. I will get one I don’t like if I have to. We will survive. We are Gloria Gaynor (Is that her name?).

But. (This next part is a little whiny…sorry.)

I already have the job I want. I have the exact job I went to graduate school to get. I am awesome at it. I like everyone I work with. I like where I work and the fact that I am awesome at my job is actually recognized by others. When I was home on maternity leave I did actually miss work a little. There is no opportunity right now in the library world and if I was the type of person who thrived in an office environment I would not have run screaming from one six years ago. I just can’t fathom going back to being someone who goes to their job because they have to, when I am right now someone who goes because they want to. And the books! Thinking about how far removed I am probably going to end up being from the books almost sent me into another whirlwind freak-out last night.

But. (This is where I pull it back together, albeit briefly)

I can do this. I can and will get any job. But I’m a librarian, and the fact that I won’t be is something I grieve.

What was I saying? Oh right, I was fat, barren, and addicted to Lego Star Wars. Well… this sort of took care of all of that.

Hi!

It turns out that little bucket of cute was already on her way when last we spoke, unbeknownst to me. I could have written more (or any)  while I was pregnant but pretty much every entry would have gone something like: “Today I felt like puking all day long. But I didn’t. But I wish I did. But…I didn’t. I wish I could. I miss alcohol. I love you, alcohol…we will meet again in 2010.”

Basically, pregnancy was awful. Yes, I was super excited the little mama (or papa for all I knew at the time) was in there hiccuping and kicking (and I think also punching and poking) but I pretty much felt like lukewarm cat food every day. And then I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and couldn’t eat crap.  Which…why be pregnant if you can’t eat entire cakes on your own? So, be happy I spared you those months of my thoughts. They were heavy on the complaints and light on the fun.

And so, I’m back. But not right now, I have a baby(!) to put to bed.

So, I haven’t been honest with you.

There is something going on with me.

Something, really, going on in my marriage.

The real reason I haven’t been working out, or thinking about healthy meals, or cleaning my house, or shaving my legs, or spending time here with you all is something I haven’t had the strength to talk about until now, largely because I am ashamed of what you’ll think of me.

Just, promise we can still be friends, ok?

(deep breath)

Addiction has struck our marriage.

D’oh and I both, for the last sixteen days have been habitual users of this:

It started out innocently enough. It was Valentine’s Day and I had no gift for D’oh. I was at Target, it was getting late and I was out of ideas.

“A game,” I thought, “A harmless game. Valentine’s Day is such a sham holiday anyway, what’ll it matter if I get him something this dork-o?”

Oh Internet, if I had only known then what I know now.

It’s true what they say, just one taste and you’re hooked. You can’t leave it alone. You think about it day and night and night and day. Once you start playing you think, “yeah, this is alright.”

But then.

Then, Internet, you find a red brick, or a minikit, or you unlock a new character or a new door or you kill a new droid, or you finally FINALLY kill Darth Maul (and then you get to be him…AND IT IS AWESOME!!! HE KILLS EVERYONE!!!) and next thing you know it’s four hours later, the DS is out of power and you are weeping like a baby in the corner because except for opening little doors, Young Anakin is pretty useless as a character. (Seriously! He does not even HAVE A WEAPON….LOSER!!!)

I thought I would be at a disadvantage in the game because I haven’t seen the new movies that are supposed to take place before the old ones (when I confessed this fact to D’oh I literally saw him reconsider our whole relationship right then and there) but the fact that I am so ridiculously awesome at this game has negated all those concerns.

It is all we talk about. When we are lying in bed (or sitting on the couch),driving to work (or to church or the grocery store or ANYWHERE), or eating dinner (or breakfast or lunch or snack or dessert), we talk about Star Wars. Comparing which one of us has found which item, which character can do which task, who has a higher completion percentage (D’oh, but NOT FOR LONG!!!!!!), where we think certain items/characters might be hidden. It has taken over our lives.

And I would tell you more about this Internet, I swear I would. But I just realized D’oh is distracted, and if I move very quietly, I can snag the DS without alerting him to my plan.

It’s been nice knowing you.

About that last one. I really feel terrible that I managed to bring down my friend who has conquered morning sickness only to be brought to dry heaves by my website.

And then I was going to update but the only thing that happened was that D’oh declared he was no longer going to take stuff out of Pocket’s mouth that she shouldn’t be eating while we are walking her, so of course the next day I had to do it and of course I pulled out…well, I don’t want to gross you out again but let’s just say someone should have rethought their decision not to fly south for the winter. See, look what I have spared you. You’re welcome.

***

In other news, Project Pull Myself Together has been moving forward in fits and starts. One casualty of my  crazy self has been my house. Basically I lost interest in it about 9 months after we moved in and have let just about everything in it slide since then. Now, it is a little hard to concentrate on decompressing, de-fatting, and de-depressing if your environment is a craphole, so I have been endeavoring to improve my own little corner of the world.

First I rearranged my kitchen counters in such a way that makes so much more sense that I am mad at every person who has been to my house and did not suggest I rearrange them this way. I finally cleared off our dining room table, our coffee table, and various other tables of crap and have sort of managed to keep them crap-free. One such table is the one I am using right now. Would you like to see? Tough, here it is.

I’ve had this table forever and I love it, but it has always, since the day my parents gave it to me, been covered in piles of mail and newspapers. Now, though, I am finally going to use my cute little writing desk for actual writing. Before, I used it to hold all this stuff:

Now, of course, I need to find a place for all of that crap.

I have to say I am getting better about working out, although I am not at all better about whining to D’oh about how much I don’t want to. We finally FINALLY have worked out a daily schedule that actually works for each member of our little unit, including the whackdog and I have given up TV for Lent…sort of. (Basically, I have given up watching TV by myself. I am not sure that is interesting enough for its own post, but I’m sort of thinking about it so let’s just leave it for now, ‘kay? Besides, now you have something to look forward to!)

I am still working on the food thing. I am a good cook, but a lazy one and lately, an unimaginative one. I keep falling back on things I’ve been making forever and while they’re not awful for us, I know they’re not as good as I could/should be doing. And also I cannot cook brown rice in such a way that it doesn’t taste like hard bits of boiled water. Seriously, how are you all doing it? I tried the chicken broth thing once and could not tell the difference. What are you people eating? I need some new ideas here. (Preferably ones that do not involve expensive additions to my spice cabinet, this  little family is trying desperately to stick to under $100 per week for our grocery bill.)

While I’m asking your advice, perhaps you could tackle this one for me. (The following is way boring, feel free to skip!)

I am currently undergoing a bit of a water shortage. At my old job I drank water constantly from giant plastic gallon jugs I bought and kept in my office which was about ten feet from my desk and about 100 feet from my car, thus even though they were heavy, I didn’t have to carry them that far. Now, I work in a building three times the size of my old one, am rarely near my desk and never near my car which is now across the street in a garage. Also, I am completely conflicted about buying bottled water these days due to the whole “lifetime in a landfill” thing. We don’t have a water cooler at work, and although I have read all that stuff about tap water being the same as bottled, I work in a public library and even though it shouldn’t, the idea of drinking out of that tap sort of squicks me out. Any ideas? I bought a reusable water bottle that I knew was going to irritate me when I bought it and it completely has. For some reason it is designed to not stay closed. (Genius! I love to spill things! Who doesn’t?) But the main problem about those is that they do not come in a big enough size that I wouldn’t have to refill them at some point during the day.

Thus, I am flummoxed. Please fix this for me, because basically what I am doing now is wasting money on one little 20 oz. bottle of water a day that isn’t enough to feed my water addiction and isn’t helping my savings plan. Then I come hope completely dehydrated which makes me grumpy and then I drink a lot of water at night, then I have to pee in the middle of the night and sometimes that makes me think I’m pregnant which I never am and I am having enough anxiety in that particular area so just please, golly, give me an idea already!!!

***

In completely unrelated news, I think this site is in need of some love, so I’m going to be getting rid of some pages, adding some others, and basically just tinkering with some stuff from now on. So, if I completely break the darn thing, it’s been nice having y’all around!

About how gross this is going to be.

A few months ago, I attended the very fun 40th Bday Surprise Weekend of my oldest sister, you can find her over here. It was in St. Louis. I guess you could say I Met Her in St. Louis (HA HA HA HAAAAA) but you probably wouldn’t because odds are you are way cooler than me.

Anyhoo, one thing I learned there is that one way to sweat out the 96 oz. of Sauvignon Blanc you have inhaled the night before is to visit the St. Louis City Museum and spend a million hours climbing around their outdoor recycled metal Habitrail. It is way fun, and also gets rid of all nausea, oddly enough.

However, there is one part, in the inside Habitrail part, where if you are not paying attention, as you are coming down the metal railing curlique slide, your big toe can all of a sudden get stuck between two metal-y thingys that will not release your toe. This is bad news, and causes a few moments of consternation, yes, mainly because all the other visitors to the Habitrail are kind of unpleasant and have mullets and are behind you and are using like really inappropriate language even though you do that thing where you look at them and then look at your little tiny itty bitty nieces and nephews (who are, in reality, enormous (in terms of age and grown uppedness, not girth, of course)) and then look back at them to be like, “Hey there buddy, how about we dial down the use of the c-word around the eleventy million children,” and they look back at you like, “Get out of my way, c-word.”

So, finally I got my toe and my self the heck out of that particular slide.

Months pass, leaves change, occasionally I complain to D’oh that my toenail appears to be a little discolored. No big thing.

***

Now, my mom firmly believes that if you live where I live, you should not leave your house and drive an automobile within 24 hrs. of rush hour. And if you do, what you should not do above all else, is drive on the Beltway of all places! It’s not you she’s worried about, it’s the other drivers, you see.

Imagine what her chagrin would have been then, had I ever told her the following story.

Let me bring up my mom here one last time, if I might, even though I think I’m giving her a complex whenever I write about her. My mom never has her cell phone turned on. Ever. If she turns it on to call you, don’t try to call her back, she has already turned it back off. She is reaching for the power button even as she finishes her message to you. You will not get her. I always always complain about this tendency because it means that if she has an emergency, yes, she can call you. But if you have one, no, you cannot call her.

Here is why I should stop busting her chops about this.

One Saturday I was leaving work and realized I didn’t have my cell phone on me because I was charging it at my desk.

My coworker very kindly offered to wait for me to go get it, and I said, “No, no one ever calls me.”(See where this is going?)

The following Monday, I was running late. Not super late, but late enough that I thought, “I should just take the Beltway, it’ll be faster.” As I was driving toward the Beltway, I did, I admit, hear a funny noise. Kind of like if BamBam was trapped in the trunk and was whapping his big club around in an attempt to escape.

But then, the noise stopped.

But then then, as I was on the ramp getting to the Beltway, the car behind me started flashing its lights at me. I of course, immediately thought, “G*&^^%$n, a*&&%^$#$le, I’m going as fast as I can!” But what I should have thought was, “I say, the banging noise appears to have returned, perhaps this kind gentleman is alerting me to a vehicular malfunction.” (Because I am British apparently?)

Long story long, I had a flat tire. On the Beltway. I didn’t know it at the time, but apparently being broken down on the side of the road on the Beltway was my worst nightmare. And it had just come true. These were two out of three of the unfortunate revelations I had just then.

The third revelation? Well, you can probably guess that it was about this time I had realized that leaving my phone at work was not fantastic.

I didn’t want to flag down help because with my luck, the only car that would have stopped would be the fake policeman who pretends to help you and then sells your skin on eBay, you know? So I made the probably unwise choice to drive my car to the next exit and regroup.

There, oddly enough, once I turned off, was a cop! He was the nicest cop ever and he helped me call D’oh and as he was pulling over people to give tickets I shook my fist at them to let him know I was firmly on the side of right and good, if also on the side of dumb.

Anyway, D’oh showed up and pulled off the old, bad, flat tire.

Then he looked at me and said, “Here.” And rolled the tire toward dumb me who was

1. not paying attention
2. wearing Old Navy flats which are not really built for you know, tough stuff

Surprise, surprise the big old tire landed…on my big old toe which had recently been extracted from between two metal-y thingys at the end of a metal curlique slide.

Over the next few months, rather than turning blue or black as a bruised toenail may have, I realized that that toenail was, in fact, turning white.

Did you know that that is not good? DID YOU KNOW THAT THAT MEANS SOMETHING IS ABOUT TO FALL OFF?????????????????????!!!!!!!!! (I’m sorry)

Yes, my toenail, it appeared, was about to come off…the whole thing. (I really am sorry)

Not just the tip. It wasn’t broken. No, the whole ding dong nail was going to go. (Really, I really feel bad about this. Just look away now.)

This turn of events resulted in several conversations between D’oh and I that went a little something like this:

Me, to D’oh: Please, will you just pull my toenail off.

D’oh (wisely): No!

Me: Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaassssssseeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

D’oh: It’ll fall off when it’s ready.

Me: Aren’t you my husband? Don’t you love me? Isn’t this your job?

D’oh: I’ll pull it off, but I don’t want you to be mad at me if it hurts.

Me: I can’t believe you want to pull off my toenail!!!! WHAT KIND OF MONSTER ARE YOU??????????!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I am delightful.

Anyway, for a few weeks now I’ve been trying to sort of, help, I guess, the toenail depart. (I said sorry!) I’ve been prodding it with my other big toe, sort of half-heartedly pulling at it, yelling at it (ineffective, FYI), just generally trying to Get It OFF!!!! Not because I wanted to be nailless, of course, but because the feeling of the flailing nail getting stuck in my socks was like super-gross (SORRY!!)

Yesterday though, I had just had it. I gave one good tug (AAAAAHHH, I KNOW!!!!) and off it came (I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry). I was a nine-nailer.

Gross, right?

But then.

I sort of, um, well….misplaced it.

Not my fault actually, the room I pulled it off in (sorry!) does not have a trash can so I left the room with it to dispose of it. Then I got distracted by a conversation with D’oh that went something like:

Me, to D’oh: nail gone me ow sad like ew gross throw up yuck did you make my lunch?

D’oh: ???

Me, to myself: Didn’t I just have something in my hand?

I immediately set about searching the most likely places: The trashcan and Pocket’s mouth (I KNOW!! I AM SORRY, OK?!?) No luck.

Next up: The bathroom, my bed (EW!), my shoes, Pocket’s mouth again (I KNOW!!! YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH I KNOW!!!), and the floor.

Nothing.

It finally turned up when I went to grab my mascara out of my makeup bag and felt…well, you know, don’t you? I don’t know what that was about. Was I saving it? I hope not. Was this the grossest thing to happen me ever in life? Yes. Have I grossed you out yet? Most likely. Did I need to tell you this? Probably not.

AM I SORRY? YES, JESUS, YES!!!!

Until this past Christmas, there was not a full length mirror in this house.

Since my wedding, I have gone out of my way to duck, flee, avoid, or just plain get the heck out of the way of, every camera that’s been aimed my way.*

Let’s rip off the band aid here. I’m fat now.

I have never before weighed what I weigh now, I’ve never worn the sizes I’m wearing, I’ve never looked the way I look. (Ironically though, my hair looks bananas, I don’t know why I waited so long to get highlights.)

Like I said before here, I got lost somewhere in 2008 (and I suspect I’ve been sliding away since 2007, if we’re being honest…which we should always be because lying = stress = stress eating = fat! Argh!) I don’t know if it was depression (although it wouldn’t surprise me), or stress or what but I basically took 2008 off from my life and myself and now I am paying the price and it is expensive.

Weighing this much has cost me my energy, my fun, my cool. All of which I really think I used to have so much of. It has made me pick more than one fight with D’oh and odds are it is at least part of the reason Project Baby Very Top Secret Project is taking so long to get off the ground.

It has cost me time with the people I love because all I can think is how they are thinking that I have gained so much weight. But the problem is not that they think that, it is that I have.

It has made me ridiculous. For example, people who write blogs I like also write here. But I waited weeks to click on it because I knew that it would wake me up to what’s been going on around here and I didn’t want to deal with it.

It has kept me away from my blog. Which I love. Because all I think about it seems, is this mess I’ve made of myself and it’s hard to not write about the one thing you don’t want to talk about so it’s safer to stay away. (I think it’s pretty obvious by that last sentence that not writing regularly has had a less than stellar impact on my ability to make sense, huh? Monkey acrobat eats carrot jackets…see?)

Enough.

Even though I feel like crying right now** , the point here is not to bring down the party, Internet. The point is to tell you that I think I’m on my way back. This year is only 27 days old and I’ve already worked out more this year than I did in probably all of last year. I don’t have my/our food under control but I’m working on it. I don’t get up early every morning and work out like I should but I don’t persecute myself for that anymore, I just do my best to make up for it at night…unless something really good is on TV.

And I forced myself to finally Finally FINALLY spill these feelings out all over D’oh. Which was yuck…but good, because he is awesome and helpful and supportive and patient and blahdiddy blah blah blah. I like him, okay?

We have a mirror now because I asked for it for Christmas, we have a camera because I went out and bought one (I would have bought the mirror, but the camera was, you know, expensive). I forced myself to take a picture of myself to get a real look at what’s been going on and while it wasn’t horrendous, it wasn’t my favorite. I know what I weigh and while a part of me toyed with the idea of posting that here, a much larger part said, “Fool girl, you better not!” And then it beat me up.

So, I don’t know how to wrap this up. I’m glad I wrote this because it’s been sitting on my shoulders for days and now I can maybe move on to more important topics like how everybody looked like crap at the Golden Globes (not so timely, huh?) or how something is about to FALL OFF ME!!!! (It is way gross, let’s not even talk about it ever again, mmmmmkay?

I know how much you must be looking forward to those posts, so let’s just say:

It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if you were rooting for me, just a little.

*Odds are, I have also been avoiding cameras because Jesus Lord I had the most irritating wedding photographer on earth.

**But I won’t because my face just now recovered from the 12-hour cryfest that was the day two weeks ago that I lost my wedding rings and had to take sick leave and made a darn fool of myself all over work only to have D’oh come home and find them in five minutes…Irish face = Frustrating!

Well, Internet, I have totally whiffed on this. I am seriously annoyed with myself about it, but I lay most of the blame at the feet of the sleeping sickness I appear to have come down with that makes me decree that it is Time. For. Bed!!! at earlier and earlier times of the day.

In other bad news, I got a Nintendo DS for Christmas (that’s not the bad news). Today, I went out and bought BrainAge (still, not terrible news yet). Unfortunately, my Brain Age is 71 (that was the bad news right there, in case you missed it).

My only, only consolation is that D’oh’s Brain Age is 75. But that doesn’t erase the fact that when I saw the high number I got psyched because I thought 20 was the lowest. Except, well, you can probably figure out why I was sad about that because I suspect your Brain Age is higher (dang it!) lower than mine.

Off to bed now, campers, it’s almost 9:00!

But I need to tell you all this.

Read this.

I read the first one and yes, I thought it was good and yes, I recommended and I think even bought it for some of my short people, but I could not for the life of me give you a more than cursory summary of what it was about.

The sequel, however, is so good. It is so good that I am up right now telling you to read it when I should be 100% asleep because this has been the longest day ever.

Nothing fantastic or wizard-y happens, no worlds are saved or enemies defeated, but it is a good story. A great one, really. A simple, not icky, not inappropriate, not condescending, well edited story.

So, if you have an 8-12 year old girl in your life these days, buy them this book. Ah, heck, buy it for yourself. Haven’t you bought enough gifts for other people these days?

I totally know that this entry was super-boring, but I am going to sleep now for fourteen hours now and I am pretty sure that tomorrow’s entry is going to rock your world.

Yes, too much family frolicking and imbibing yesterday ruined my perfect blogging streak. Oh well.

To make myself feel better about my lapse, today I commandeered the Wii that my nieces and nephews got for Christmas and gave my husband the beating of his life in Wii boxing. And internet? Even if it shouldn’t, that felt pretty good.

Now I have to go finish rehydrating because I keep having unexpected swells of nausea today and my liver feels like it’s kicking to get out and I have to work tomorrow. I think the patrons would be a little disconcerted by my curling up in a ball and wailing for greasy food and Tums, so I should probably go take care of this now.

I hope your holidays are full of merry and jolly, just like mine have been!