Operation Die Rocky Die!

What follows is a true story told to the best of recollection. No names have been changed, no stances have been softened (which should be clear, because I come off like an asshole).

Me: Babe, what's that sound?

Hubs: What sound?

Me: That sound behind the bookcase.

Hubs: I don't hear it.

Me: The beagles are hunting my books, babe. Something's in the chimney.

Hubs: Probably just a lost squirrel.

It's not a squirrel, it's a goddamn raccoon. We learn this when our crazy-ass neighbor calls us at midnight one night to let us know that the raccoon is sitting on the top of the house near the chimney. After that it's like a game. Walk the dogs at twilight, and there's the raccoon, waiting for us to get the beagles out of the way. During the day, we hear raccoon noises. Hubs decides to put moth balls in the chimney cleanout. (We have a chimney, and a chimney cleanout, but no fireplace. We have bookshelves instead.)

The mothballs have little to no effect. My beagles are pulling the books off the shelves with their teeth and ripping off the paint job with their nails. I begin an almost daily round of questions about new tactics to remove the raccoon. This is because I'm having a set of recurring nightmares where the raccoon eats through the bookshelf and gives the baby rabies.

Hubs: I called the Humane Society. The bid is roughly 300 dollars, but they can't be sure that the traps can be checked or fit down the chimney.

Me: How much to hire a country boy with a shotgun to just shoot down the chimney?

Hubs: I think I have a plan.

Me: Does your plan end up with dead raccoon?

Hubs: So you're not planning to be helpful of humane today?

Me: The raccoon is not going to hurt my dogs or my baby.

Hubs: We can't pull the raccoon out of a cleanout, and what if it has babies.

Me: Chimney fishing. Probably executed by the same guy that does the shooting.

Hubs: (labored sighing)Would you like to hear my plan?

Me: Fine.

Hubs: I'm going to buy some Critter Ridder --

Me: That's a stupid name.

Hubs: It's supposed to encourage the raccoon to leave. I'll put it down the chimney, and then we'll wait a few days, so the raccoon gets out, and takes any babies with it.

Me: Down the chimney?

Hubs: Yes.

Me: What's to stop the raccoon from eating your face?

Hubs: I'll wear protective gear of some sort. After a few days, I'll put some duct tape on the chimney and we can check and see if the raccoon has moved out. Once we're sure it has, we can cap the chimney.

Me: You're going to go back up the chimney and check on tape?

Hubs: Yes.

Me: The raccoon is going to eat your face.

Hubs: You're ridiculous.

Me: My plan is better.

Hubs: I'm done talking to you today.

Me: Where is our ladder? Is it even big enough?

Hubs: At S&C's. I'll pick it up.

He didn't pick it up for several days. I picked it up.

Hubs then gets bronchitis, and I have to be the voice of reason that tells him that a half-dying man shouldn't be scaling a 30+ ft. ladder. His bronchitis last several weeks. In the meantime, we have to block the bookshelf with suitcases, vacuum cleaners, and decommissioned trash cans. When I'm not obsessing over how to protect the books, I'm gritting my teeth about hubby's plague and babies with rabies and trying not to stomp-stomp-slam around my house.

After several years (it seems) we finally execute the critter ridder portion of this operation. I will certainly keep you posted on how things proceed. In the interim, one of my ex-military friends has offered to be my backup raccoon-sniper, but he's still pondering whether or not he has the fishing skills to finish my plan.

The baby is currently rabies free, but I'm thinking of sleeping with a cookie sheet strapped to my belly. That's totally reasonable, right?

Weeks 11-13 ish June 17th

I’m pregnant. I’m only a few weeks along, so it’s still a ‘secret’ or something. I’m recording these thoughts so that I can remember them clearly and share them with you later.

Let's see, what have we missed?

When we left off, I was peeing into receptacles all day so I could store it in a jug.(I recently learned that this is fairly common for hypertensive pregnancies. I think any woman that experienced this and didn't share the fact with me in advance is a traitor to the sisterhood.) I can pretty much guarantee that none of you had the same rocking start to your Memorial Day weekend. Still awaiting the results of this deeply vital test where you don't get the results for over two weeks. (I know that they've been lost. I'm sure of it. I'm going to have to do this again, and probably soon. I'm just refusing to think about it now.)

I was also gearing up to meet the emergency doc. Before I did that, I had an appointment with a different, more sane doctor from my practice. I can probably work with him. He doesn't seem as prone to fainting as the previous doctor, and he actually managed to acknowledge that there is very little wrong with me (beyond my recurring nightmares about Cosmo buying the National Mall and my general cantankerous nature).

The super emergency doc was a little amused by me. (Which, let me be honest, is the best way to deal with me. If you clearly find me charming, I'll work much harder to maintain a good relationship with you. I'm a walking ego glued together by swear words, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.)

Bottom line: I have to take a bunch more tests and have a few more doctor appointments. So far everything's good. Oh wait! I also had to buy a blood pressure machine and test my blood pressure twice a day. So far we're up to 6 tests of my person a day. This making it fun to do things like function and leave the house. Love, love, love a challenge.

I also had another sonogram (part of my pre-screening stuff) and this was super fun because the little nugget would not stop dancing! Leg wiggles, arm wiggles, somersaults, I saw it all. All of the pictures are garbage, but what a fun way to spend an afternoon. My next chapter in these chronicles will cover more about theoretical babies, and not my own. Things are never quiet around here.

Things I need to figure out before the baby comes:

1. Is my whole house a choking hazard?
2. Do I need to spend the next four months doing every home improvement project that I've been putting off? Will I ever have time for that stuff again?
3. It's pretty much time to start throwing things out, isn't it? I need to free up space for things I can't yet identify.

Week 8-11 thoughts 5/10-5/29

I’m pregnant. I’m only a few weeks along, so it’s still a ‘secret’ or something. I’m recording these thoughts so that I can remember them clearly and share them with you later.

Houston, we have heartbeat! Hubs and I went to our sonogram and got our first view of our little nugget. That was easily the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Seeing the little one hanging out was pretty wild (Note: if this post doesn’t come with a picture, it’s because I can’t figure out to load and crop it… or because I was too busy napping to get it done. One of those.), and I’m officially obsessed with seeing and hearing the little nugget. That appointment was just before Mother’s Day, so we had copies to include in Mother’s Day cards for the anxious grandmas-to-be.

The subsequent doctor’s appointment was less fun. It was 90 minutes of fear with a pap smear topper. Apparently you can test for every possible genetic abnormality, which means that you can also worry yourself to death about such anomalies. I’m being tested to find out if I’m a sickle cell carrier. There’s absolutely no way my kid’s going to have sickle cell (hubs is white), but at some point I just needed the doctor to stop talking.

As a bonus, they sent me home with a jug and told me to store (ALL) my pee for 24 hours, and then drive it around the suburbs so I could drop it off at a lab. I have to do this because the words ‘diabetes’ and ‘hypertension’ give all ob/gyns the vapors, even the patient is perfectly healthy considering said conditions. I’m really glad I had today off. I’m doubly glad that tomorrow’s the weekend. I can’t imagine how mad I’d be if I had to take the subway with my pee in my bag. (Or, better yet, collect my pee at the office.) There’s no dignity in urine storage (and refrigeration. Did I fail to mention that I have to refrigerate it?).

The other great news was that I get to meet with a super-dire-emergency doctor to concoct a super-dire-emergency plan. Also, if my (so tightly controlled that I don’t even have to think about it beyond watching my diet and taking my pills) diabetes condition worsens and I need to go on an insulin pump, my doctor’s office will break up with me. I walked out of this appointment, called the hubs, and demanded that he meet me for some (carb-heavy, because I’m a scary and naughty diabetic) pizza.

I was understandably upset, as I hadn’t realized when I walked in to my appointment that the sky was falling. I knew that there were tests to help you find out if your fetus has Down’s or Trisomy 18 or something else, but I figured that I was about 10 years away from having to worry about such things. Oh no, apparently I should find out, because if I want to terminate, I need to know before it’s too late. All of a sudden, it’s a matter that I have to discuss with my husband (can’t assume to know his mind on everything), and now I’m thinking what else is there to worry about, which is good, because then we started to talk about cystic fibrosis (I think I’m getting tested for that too).

Somewhere along the way, I got a lecture on how I have to test my blood sugar 4 times a day, so we have a baseline for when it all goes kablooey. (Not if, but when, because at this point the doctor has taken to his settee with the vapors and is screeching for cool libations. It’s Gyno on a Hot Tin Roof or something.)

I’m sure that there are those that would call me naïve, but I feel better now than I have in years, and I’m just not worried. This baby is gonna be fine. We’re all gonna be just fine. (My mom told me I was Zen, which is true, but hilarious if you know me well, because I’m a total control freak.) If hubs gets the attic done on time, he won’t even get his feelings hurt by his cranky wife. There’s really nothing to worry about. My doctors don’t trust my gut, which is fine, but they’re needlessly terrified, which makes me anxious. I feel like I should be taking care of them. Am I practicing my maternal instinct? Because I'd like to save that for someone I actually like.

Somewhere in between these two appointments, the hubs and I made a speech at church. We were asked to talk about why we pledged to the capital campaign, and we had the opportunity to talk about how much we loved the church, all of the support we got from our community when John had cancer, and then we told hundreds of people that we were having a baby. Now it’s real. Really awesome.

Things I need to learn/do before the baby comes:
1. How to say no to unnecessary shenanigans, even if my doctor is on his fainting couch.
2. I need a book that tells me what babies do at what size. Like, when do they roll over and stuff?
3. I need another book that walks me through prepping my spoiled and ridiculous dogs for the baby’s arrival.
4. Figure out how to use Pinterest to stockpile baby stuff
5. Explain to John how rainforest is the coolest possible theme for the baby area.
6. Figure out the shape/dimensions of the baby area.
7. Plot the Facebook official announcement (How tacky should we go? I’m thinking a timeline picture of me doing my best food baby impression. With my belly painted up like a pumpkin.)

Week 8-9 thoughts 5/1 through 5/9

I’m pregnant. I’m only a few weeks along, so it’s still a ‘secret’ or something. I’m recording these thoughts so that I can remember them clearly and share them with you later.

I think I figured out the omelet situation. I had one successful flip over! I’ll have to keep practicing, though.

My hormones are terrible. I suspect that nicotine withdrawal is a factor here as well, but let’s just say it’s really easy to lose my temper, and my husband is not-really-but-possibly-and-by-that-I-mean-totally hiding from me. My temper has always been pretty impressive, but I’ve had some epic rants, which lead to tears, which leads to exhaustion.

Everything leads to exhaustion these days. Also everything smells, and I spent most of my day fighting back the urge to vomit.

Things that smell awful (that used to smell great):
• Bacon
• Basil
• Bourbon
• Prosecco
(I know I can’t have the last two, but I don’t know why they have to smell so bad.)

I don’t think I’ve ever slept like this. Not even when I was a baby. It is the purest, most perfect sleep I can conceive. It’s fantastic, truly fantastic. For a part-time insomniac, 10-12 hours of blessed unconsciousness is a wonderful thing. I wish I could have it forever.

This week’s big drama: I went to the bathroom in early May and saw one drop of blood. As any pregnant or previously pregnant person knows, this is either a minor thing or a miscarriage and there is no in-between. (I won’t even tell you what my beloved Internet had to say about the situation. I can’t believe I didn’t have a stroke right there.) I called my doctor’s office, and then I wandered around downtown for 45 minutes (I wasn’t sure if I’d need to go to the hospital, and I figured it would be easier to do from downtown, where there were cabs and subways, and not at my house, where there are trees and beagles, neither of which provide transportation.) Eventually I gave up and went home.

Like any sane person, I immediately went to bed and put my feet up, just in case my rigorous schedule of sitting at a desk all day somehow led to calamity. By the time my doctor called, I’d spend 30 minutes of the least fun I’d ever had on my back. For nothing. (Thank goodness.)

That’s how it works though. Excess worry (you worry about being too worried, in case your stress makes your kid left-handed or something) combined with (for me, at least) the more than occasional moment of complete wonder at the wild and crazy stuff my body is doing. I have to say that getting and being pregnant is the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me. Also I want ham.

Things we need to do before the baby arrives:
1. Renovate the attic. Hubs is working (panicking) diligently on this one.
2. Rearrange the first floor rooms (also, agree on the fate of the first floor rooms. Also, discuss the fate of the first floor rooms.)
3. Buy and install a dishwasher (finally). This one we’ve put off for ages because it seemed not that important and a bit of a hassle, but it definitely needs to happen soon.

Things I need to learn before the baby arrives:
1. The names of all the bands from the 90s that did kid’s albums
2. What this “Disney Vault” business really means
3. Is Blu-ray going to beat DVD? Should I be investing in one of those for kids movies and the like? And how do you find that out?
4. What goes in a diaper bag besides diapers and baby powder? A flask/blackberry/chewable cardboard book? What else?

Bestie and I discuss the pregnancy

I’m pregnant. I’m only a few weeks along, so it’s still a ‘secret’ or something. I’m recording these thoughts so that I can remember them clearly and share them with you later.

When it came to telling my very best friend I was pregnant, I picked the classiest possible avenue: I texted her a picture of my pee stick while she was at Blue Man Group. I've been emailing her every tiny, ridiculous, detail ever since.


From: Dindc
To: WTM
Subject: it's official!!
According to the doctor's office, I’m 4ish weeks. I have to go back next week and get another stabbing. Hooray!!!!!!

From: WTM
To: Dindc
YAY!!!!!!! That is SO Freaking Awesome!!!

From: Dindc
To: WTM
In your absence, I’ve secured a lightly-used car seat, some sort of sleeping pillow, some clothes and other “stuff”, a copy of “What to Expect” and a set of color-coded lists. (My friend Mara is as nutty as I am).

From: WTM
To: Dindc
Be aware that car seats have a safety shelf life. Generally, car seats should only be used for 5 years and make sure it was NEVER in a vehicle that was in any sort of accident.
I will have things for you as well if you want them. Even a crib with a built-in changing table and 3 drawers that converts to a toddler bed – complete with mattress - if you want it. It is about 5 years old and hardly used over the last 3 years. Otherwise it’s yard sale fodder.
I also have an exersaucer, high chair, 785,000 baby toys and books (should you want them) and I happened to find a very small box of clothes that I was saving for … I don’t know. Memories, I guess. I’ve moved past the saving-my-babies-clothes phase of my life.

From: Dindc
To: WTM

Hubs and I need to talk about the short-term redesign that needs to happen, and then we can figure out what size crib we need and such…
What’s an exersaucer?

From: WTM
To: Dindc
It’s a baby containment device with noisy, stimulating “doo-hickeys”
Flat on the bottom or bowl-shaped so baby can rock around and wobble (but not fall) and the seat spins for 360 degrees of entertainment.
Crucial for peeing, cooking and other things you want to do without a 15 pound accident-magnet on your hip.

From: Dindc
To: WTM
Ah! I have been calling that a scoot-around thingy. I have so much to learn.

From: WTM
To: Dindc
BTW – I have a new bookmark folder on my computer called “buy for baby”.


What followed was an assortment of onesie shenanigans. Then:
From: Dindc
To: WTM

The little sesame seed is going to be all decked out (current name: bill the blastula, later Margot the zygote and cleetus the fetus)!
And if they’re right, it’s looking like a Christmas baby.

From: WTM
To: Dindc
Hah!!
Apocalypse baby!!!!

From: Dindc
To: WTM
Well, I had to outdo the Y2K baby, what can I say? (Ed. Note: WTM had a Y2K baby)

From: WTM
To: Dindc
I like Paco the Apocalypse baby. We should call it baby Paco.

From: Dindc
To: WTM
I was just getting used to discussing theo the theoretical baby….

From: WTM
To: Dindc
Well, Theo moved out and Paco moved in. Besides, Paco rhymes with taco. And tacos are more awesome than a no-pants-dance.

From: Dindc
To: WTM
No more coffee for WTM.

From: WTM
To: Dindc
Right!?
It was a 2-cup kinda day thanks to not enough sleep. It does not help that between 3 and 5, my meds peak and get all twitchy.

From: Dindc
To: WTM
I already miss coffee.

From: WTM
To: Dindc
There is nothing wrong with decaf. Or a little coffee. I avoided it 100% with my first and had ½ a cup 2-3 times a week with my second. I craved it when I was pg with my second. Go figure.

From: Dindc
To: WTM
Decaf is a communist lie.
I had a cup of coffee today. But I’m going from 4-6 cups a day to 1 every other day, and it’s been rough.

From: WTM
To: Dindc
You don’t have to go hard-core to one every other day. Try just one a day or try to switch to tea. And scale back from there.
The nice thing – after 1 ½ - 2 years without much caffeine (9 months gestation and then nursing), one cup will make you bounce off the walls. And one beer will get your drunk.

From: Dindc
To: WTM
I guess. I had a cup today, and I had none yesterday. Yesterday was murder.

From: WTM
To: Dindc
Really, a little is okay. Just scale back gradually. It’ll make you feel better, too.

From: Dindc
To: WTM
How much is “1”? I think I have more ounces than most people.

From: WTM
To: Dindc
Stop being so literal... Geeze! One coffee cup. Scale back to one of “your” cups (bowls), then to one of “normal people” coffee cups.
Just go in steps so you’re not insanely grouchy and you don’t get the caffeine withdrawal migraines. Give yourself a week with each step-down.

From: Dindc
To: WTM

YOU bought me the enormous coffee cop, so YOU can’t tell me I’m being literal.
And of course I’m being nutty about this, it’s me. I like precision (and also coffee).

From: WTM
To: Dindc
Okay, okay. I’ll take the blame. But I can still tell you that you are being literal. It’s not a science. It’s not like beer or smoking where STOP YESTERDAY OR ELSE!!!!!!! is on the label. It’s something you want to work away from diligently. Like your anxiety meds. You need to get off those if you can, too. They transfer through your blood to the baby. But only stop with your doctor’s direction.

From: Dindc
To: WTM
I’m not on anxiety meds, I just should be.
Haven’t been on them in years.

From: WTM
To: Dindc
Oooohhhh. I thought you were. Never mind then

From: Dindc
To: WTM
No worries. I’m flattered that you thought that all *this* was medicated. Clearly I’m doing better than I thought.

From: WTM
To: Dindc

Congrats?

From: Dindc
To: WTM
I’ll take it!

From: WTM
To: Dindc
Lol!

Week 4(ish) Thoughts- 4/21

I’m pregnant. I’m only a few weeks along, so it’s still a ‘secret’ or something. I’m recording these thoughts so that I can remember them clearly and share them with you later.

I took a pregnancy test on Tuesday evening and got a positive result. Like any sane, reasoned, person, I grabbed my urine-soaked pregnancy test, put on my flip flops, and staggered out onto my soaking wet lawn to find my husband, who was trying to finish mowing the part we call “the back 40” with the last 20 minutes of daylight. Roughly 65 yards of uphill nonsense later, I flagged down my husband while screaming, “Stop! Come here!” I may have also been hyperventilating. He gave me that look he always gives me, that “what fresh hell is this?” look, and I waggled the pregnancy test in front of his face. I’m sure I probably got urine on him too. He was pretty happy, once he steadied my hand so he could get a good look at the urine-soaked harbinger. We had a very sweet kiss, and roughly 95 seconds of happiness before he went insane.

Anyway, after he stopped feeling faint, hubs told me that I needed to go to a doctor to get “an official record.” He started making all these strange throat-clearing noises, and urging me not to “jump to conclusions” and whatnot. Then he said, “just call the office and schedule a test, we may not know for weeks.”

I think hubs thought that pregnancy tests still involved rabbits. I had a “definitive” answer by Thursday, and then I had a proper basketcase on my hands. He wakes up in the middle of the night in a sweaty panic, mumbling about fencing lessons and the Ivy League. In the past few days, he’s attempted to restrict me from electronics, standing, and direct light. He also jumps several feet in the air anytime I
• Swear
• Stub my toe
• Crinkle bits of paper

I think he’s probably a little stressed out.

I’m OK, for the most part. I feel like I have two large bags of sharp rocks strapped to my chest. I wince in pain when I take off my shirt. I wake up at 3 or 3:30am every morning, and stay up until about 4. I’m calling it the nightly ‘read-and-pee.’ It’s helping me get through all manner of stuff on my Kindle, and that’s nice, because I can’t really focus on reading during my typical waking hours, because my brain has turned into foam.

Cigarettes are disgusting, and they make me want to puke. I still crave them, however, so I’m in this hellish limbo where I want something that simultaneously makes me nauseous. That part is super fun!

I’m trying to make sure that I’m eating right. For me, that means googling “pregnancy foods” and eating whatever the Internet tells me to eat. This is probably why I have the worst gas of my life. I’m a well-educated person, and I realize that this is a particularly stupid way to live, but I think it’s easy to be vulnerable and stupid because of the secrecy. (A friend of mine offers a thoughtful takedown of the ‘secret’ here) Thankfully, my bestie has been patiently easing me off the fiber, as the new fiber-rich diet was turning me into the smelliest thing in my fair city, and that's a major feat.

I know that I’m still in the ‘danger zone.’ I know that 5 or 10 percent of ‘diagnosed’ pregnancies don’t make it past the first trimester. (Side note: I’m reading a book that gives both figures as correct, and I’ve stepped away from the Internet on this one. Also, the phrase ‘diagnosed pregnancy’ is one of those phrases that make me hate everything about science and medicine.) I also know that I need my tribe of moms to tell me that my chest will stop hurting eventually, and that I should give the hubs a little break on his craziness, and tell me that it makes sense that I can’t sleep. I’ve reached out to a lot of people this week, and I’m already grateful for the help and support. (I also like that so many people are happy for me and full of hugs.) I’ll take my chances, I guess.

Things I need to learn before the baby comes:

1. How to make an omelet. How do you make it flip over and stuff?
2. Knitting
3. Crocheting (I can do basic stuff, but I need to get better)
4. Sewing (I can do an ugly theatre stitch, but I can't really sew)
5. Jump rope songs
6. Jacob’s Ladder
7. The words to go-to-sleep lullabies

So much to think about.

Who are we to each other, really?

As young girls, we seek out friendship based on the most basic of premises. The girl that sit next to you on the first day of school, the girl with the prettiest barrettes, any excuse to forge a deep connection with your potential best friend forever. It’s supposed to be about hopscotch and tea parties, but it’s out there from day one: Deviate from the norm and be rejected. Fail to entertain and be rejected. New girls are automatically cooler than everyday friends. Young friendship is full of pitfalls.

And that stuff hurts. It hurts when you find yourself shoved out of those fierce friendships. They’re new, but you’re holding on tight because you don’t know any better. Inevitably, though, you’re going to get ditched.
(At this point it should be clear that I’m not talking about the sort of girls that flit easily from friendship to friendship as children, and have seemingly easygoing friendships for the rest of their lives. Those girls should go read Jezebel or something.)

One of my friends was telling me that her young daughter had a terrible time with keeping friends. She would get along great with someone for 2-3 days, then the other little girl would start to drift away, and she’d get really upset and treat them badly. My friend would look at her daughter and see herself. We wondered if you could ever fix that neediness, or if you’re born with this hunger and it never goes away. Her mom was one of those girls. I was one of those girls. Neither of us had an answer.

It makes your grownup friendships interesting, I think. I’ve definitely severed friendships (or at least closed my heart and put up some boundaries) with people that seemed to care a lot less than I did. I used to worry about this a lot, but I justified it in my head by telling myself that I gave so much of myself to my good friends and I didn’t have energy for people that didn’t really care about me.
I do spend a lot of time on my friends. I take late night phone calls, I spend hours listening to people cry. I pride myself on never walking away from people when they need someone. I don’t think I’m that person anymore.

I took a phone call the other day from an old friend. She’s been struggling with some issues for many years, and she’s not in a good place. For the past few years, we’ve had this routine: I probably talk to this friend 3-5 times a week for a few months, take a few weeks off, and begin again. Helping her work through her thoughts and feelings is a significant part of my life. It makes me pretty tired, but she and I have been friends for a long time and I love her very much. When I was not at my best, she was a loyal and steadfast friend. This is who we are to each other. Of course I would take her calls, of course I would help her work through the circuitous and damaging patterns in her brain.

This phone call was different though. This was a bad call. My friend was calling to say that she was planning to commit suicide in the coming days. She was resolute in her plan, and she’d given me a list of a few people to touch base with after the fact. She was going on about her plans in great detail, and she asked me if I supported her decision.

There are limits, you know. To everything, for everyone. Asking a person to be collateral damage in your suicide is pretty fucking selfish, and it’s doubly selfish to ask that of me. I have already been collateral damage in someone else’s shit show, and I’m not shy about sharing my complete and utter lack of respect for suicide. So this conversation didn’t go well.

The kindest, most coherent thing I could say was ‘I understand that you’ve made this decision, but I don’t respect it, and I refuse to pretend that it’s OK.’ Eventually I hung up on her, and I wondered if “fuck you,” would be the last thing I ever said to her. I struggled with this. I wanted to be as loving as possible, if this was my last chance, but I felt like any capitulation to this choice was just…betraying my fundamental values in some way. I’m not willing to weep at her bedside like we’re in Little Women. Everything about that choice is bullshit.

As a rule, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my father. When I do, I try not to spend that time dwelling on what a colossal fuckup he was as a parent and a partner, but there’s something about suicide that sends me right back down memory lane.

She sent me a text later that night, but I ignored it.

She sent me one a few days later telling me she’d changed her mind and that she wanted to talk.

Am I supposed to do a happy dance now? Because I’m still pretty pissed. I feel manipulated and abused and run through the sternum, and I don’t see why. I think this may be the end of my tether. I think I may have to walk away from someone that has asked for my help. I think this is my limit. I’m out of compassion. I’m out of energy.

Plus, this shit’s not working.

I can't sleep

Things I do when I can't sleep:
1. Watch Adult Swim
2. Pace
3. Snuggle with my fur babies
4. Make neverending lists

What do you guys do?

I do this every year

Today is the first day of Lent. I'm not Catholic, but I try to give something up every year. This year is no different. I'm giving something up. Something big. Something life-changing if I succeed.

Wish me luck!

Lurking in My Library

A semi-occasional something or other on my reading list, also cross-posted at Wandering the Midwest. We both have Kindles, and we’re in love with them. This is officially a thing.

Title of book: Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, published 1891

Title of Review: Poor Tess!, or This is My Scarlet Letter moment


Synopsis: Tess is a sweet and responsible English girl (she can’t be more than 15 or so) with a pair of useless drunks as parents. She works very hard to maintain their status quo of crushing poverty and occasionally attend school and care for her siblings. Her useless drunk of a father, John, encounters the parson one day, and the parson informs him that John’s a descendant of the long-dead noble line of the d’Urbervilles, and refers to him as ‘Sir John.’ Sir John, being a useless drunk bastard, takes this occasion as an opportunity to cease working and spend money he doesn’t have. He entices his useless drunk of a wife to join him, and, long story short, he oversleeps for his important trip to sell turnips or something in a nearby town, and Tess’s useless drunk of a mother urges Tess to take the trip in the middle of the night with a small sibling that will be no help. Tess falls asleep while steering the horse, the postman collides with her carriage(?), and the horse dies. As it is the family’s only horse, Tess feels guilty enough to allow her parents to pimp her as a chicken-tender to a family of d’Urbervilles in a nearby town in the hopes that she can marry a rich distant cousin. She comes home knocked up because the distant cousin (who is not a distant cousin, but the son of a nouveau-riche family that just borrowed the name) is a pushy, rapey, psychopath and he refuses to marry her. The baby dies. And then things get fucked up. Tess is kinda a Riot Grrrl of her day.

Favorite moment: The intro conversation between the parson and John Durbeyfield sets the tone for the entire book. It’s almost Shakespearean, and it makes me wish I’d studied this book in college.

Least favorite moment: Pretty much any scene involving Tess and another person.

Line I highlighted (this may be my favorite aspect of the Kindle. Get one): “experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration.”

Arbitrary rating scale: This book gets 4 out 5 stars and 5 out of 5 feminist awakenings

What a more traditional review would talk about: Hardy’s clear affection for the pagan-esque rituals of agrarian life, and his thoughtful exploration of religious hypocrisy and the ways that it can supersede the lack of individual religious belief. There’s a religious debate that runs through this book that I don’t quite understand, but I bet that it’s fascinating if you have the proper historical context.


The Review:

The synopsis above covers roughly the first third of this incredibly fucked-up book. I refuse to give you a full synopsis because I want you to read it, and wallow in all its fucked-up glory. The ending is amazing and completely insane, it’s like one of those really pretty songs that you sang as a kid, and then you grew up and realized that the whole song is about dead people. This is the Scarborough Fair of literature. Seriously, read it.

What the hell does the title of my review mean? Well, my mother once told me a story about how my grandmother said that reading The Scarlet Letter is what made her a feminist. I read that book as a junior in high school and I was already a feminist, but I absolutely understood the outrage (which may not even be true, cuz god knows every story about my family is an elaborate version of the telephone game). So this book just reawakened all of my (not necessarily dormant) feminist fury. Why do Tess’s parents ship Tess off? She’s the oldest, but she’s also incredibly pretty. They want to sell off their prettiest asset so that they can continue to be shitty people without having to worry overmuch. A solid 25 percent of the book is about the street harassment Tess faces for the high crime of walking down the road while pretty. After her baby dies, she meets a man and falls in love. He’s smart and avant-garde and full of fresh ideas, but when he finds out about her history, he gives her 50 pounds and takes off for Brazil. Because he’s an asshole. Every speck of happiness within her reached is smashed against the rocks because she had the temerity to be raped by an asshole. When Tess finally decides to be the actor instead of the acted upon, the resulted is as desperate, pathetic, and warped as you would expect from a person that’s only allowed to exist at the mercy of a league of shitty people that never have to pay for anything that they do to her. Also, it’s violent and awesome and a little punk rock. I’m so glad I watched Sucker Punch in the middle or reading this book. They’re a great combo. It took me a long time to read this book, because I was furious at everyone in it not named Tess. I’m so very glad I read it though, and if you have a Kindle (or a Kindle app) it’s free. Go get it.

What I'm Reading

Note to self: There’s no such thing as “light” reading about working mothers.

So, after Jezebel did this piece, I decided to buy the book. If you know me, you know that this means nothing. My list of books to buy (a word document I tried to fix and upload at one point, but got too busy) sits at about 300 right now. I have eight books on my dresser waiting to be read. I’m in the middle of two books right now, and there are three other ‘unopened’ books hanging out on my Kindle, waiting for my attention. I have a book problem.

(I really don’t have a problem, and if I do it’s the fact that my brother-in-law gave me Game of Thrones and the Hunger Games early this year, and reading those 8 books threw off my schedule. I give him full credit for the backlog this year. Next year will be different.)

So I bought this because I’m reading a nonfiction book about a German pastor I learned about via the Kindle Daily deal (damn you Kindle Daily Deal!) and it is so. damn. dry. I want to finish it, but I go through these long phases where I just don’t care about his siblings, the family holiday celebrations, or the letters to grandma. I need frequent breaks.

Hubby and I went to Chicago for the funeral and I knew I didn’t want to read Holocaust-themed nonfiction, so I picked up I Don’t Know How She Does It and settled in to the trip.

Note to readers: What follows is not a review. It’s a personal, visceral, profanity-laden rant about my feelings after reading the book. If you’re looking for in-depth analysis, you’ll have to catch me on another day. Also, spoilers.

So this book made me want to open up a vein. I went into it expecting something like “Bridget Jones becomes a mom,” and I got something more like 9 to 5, except the bad guys kind of win. Apparently the only way to succeed at a parenting is to give up your high-stress high-profile career and live on your less ambitious husband’s salary. Also, single women that don’t want children should have them anyway, because the main character felt ‘awe’ when her children were born. That doesn’t make any damn sense.

I’m in a labyrinth here. The book tries desperately to paint a picture of the unfairness of judging the main character’s choices in parenting. I don’t actually want to judge her parenting choices. Thing is, every person in her life judges her parenting choices, AND SHE LETS THEM. She’s a well-paid, high-powered hedge fund manager with no backbone. Ultimately, she decides that everyone in her life that made her feel small, from the misogynists to overcompensating moms to her heinous in-laws, are somehow right. If all of these characters are right and she is wrong, then why isn’t a single one of them likable? I stayed up all night after reading this book, trying to figure out if my decision to TRY to get pregnant was going to destroy any hope of a career. I know that she’s a fictional character; I know she has more money than I do, and I know that she worked in a field with a LOT more men. Yet I found myself troubled and anxious about this book because it seemed to say that, no matter your gifts and talents, there’s only ONE WAY TO BE A MOTHER, and that way is all-consuming.

I’m not a mother (yet), but I’m obsessed with the mechanics of working motherhood. I’m less interested in the opt-out/opt-in debate, because it is presented as an argument for rich people. It’s never, “do I want to stay home?”, it’s always “am I squandering my intelligence/pedigree/greatness on kiddie time?” The real-life SAHMs I know don’t present their problems or choices in this way. A lot of them stay home because they don’t demand pay that would exceed day care. That’s an issue I can understand.

The thing is, even if I was rich, I’d still want to work. I’d want my children to see me working. I’d want to them to understand that coming home after accomplishing something is important. I think that ambition gets a bad rap in our society, and I want my kids to appreciate and nurture their ambitions. If, heaven forbid, one of my kids ends up in an abusive or otherwise nonfunctioning relationship, I’d want him or her to realize that economic independence is the way out. That’s easier to do if he or she grows up in a situation where economic independence is the norm for both spouses.

I can’t be appeased by a tacked-on ending about securing funding for a “lady business.” The ending almost makes it worse. She can only use her skills for a dollhouse factory. Because she’s a MOTHER. She can’t fight back against the environment in her office. She has to leave. Because she’s a MOTHER. It's the only option. How fucking depressing is that?

So who was he to you?

We’re sitting in Detroit, New York, DC, Philly, across Georgia, Ohio, everywhere. We’ve woken early to a missed call from the wee hours of the morning. We’re girding ourselves against the news. We’re calling back, spines stiff and cutting to the chase: “Who died?” We are absorbing the news, changing diapers, making breakfast, dusting forgotten shelves. The key for us is to keep moving. Keep moving and stay on the phone. We’re drinking coffee, we’re shredding junk mail, and we’re calling each other, over and over again. We’ve put on the music of our respective youths. In Georgia, you can hear the Dells. In DC, it’s Boyz II Men. Music, and ringtones. We have to keep calling each other. We have to tell each other stories. We have to wonder about funeral arrangements. We have to bicker and snap at each other, get briefly frustrated, hang up, and call back in a few hours. We have to guess how other family members are dealing. We have to call them after we decide how they feel… They don’t get the opportunity to disabuse us of our perceptions. We don’t actually say much, or we say everything. The silence and the noise, it’s all the same. It’s family. It’s the women of my family building a weathered, heavy chain against the grief. We don’t cry. Much. Not as long as we keep moving.

My cousin says, “All my life we’ve been searching for him.” I agree. Some years, we heard from him every week. Some years we didn’t even have a phone number for him. He was complicated. We are all complicated. My husband says, “Who is he exactly?” He cannot wrap his brain around my huge, huge, family. I say, “One of my grandmother’s brothers.” My grandmother had 10 siblings. His parents are close to my grandmother’s age. His grandparents passed years ago. He didn’t know their siblings, and they didn’t have all that many anyway. I say, “My uncle.” He stops himself from correcting me. He’s finally realized that in a family our size, we tend to simplify. Everyone older is an uncle or aunt. Everyone your age is a cousin. Even if they’re not. Everyone is family. Even if you don’t know how. My husband doesn’t know who this uncle is to me. He can’t recall if I’ve ever mentioned him. I don’t talk about my childhood much. It’s loaded for me, and I try not to dwell on things I can’t change. And there are so many aunts and uncles, so many cousins. I tell stories right before I take him to see someone. I tell stories right after someone dies.

He was a nice, nice man. One of my mother’s favorite uncles. I can tell, because he is complicated. I have inherited her love of complicated people. It is a narrow sliver of a counterculture streak, I suppose. For us, not so much. It’s never a radical act to love your family. He lived in Chicago, which was very cool. Detroit with a better reputation. We could trade barbs about our basketball teams. I grew up with the Bad Boys. He tolerated my armchair enthusiasm. He was a former athlete with a different perspective. I was a kid with a loud mouth.

He grew up in Detroit too. A very different Detroit from my own. It didn’t matter, much. Just as we are all family, our family is all Detroit. Very few of us move away. To my young brain, this made him an exception.

He would talk honestly about anything in his life. I didn’t get sent to the backyard to play in Chicago. I got a seat at the table, and he talked to me like an adult. I didn’t understand all of it. I don’t remember all of it. I know he wanted to help me avoid his mistakes. And I know his mistakes looked a lot like my father’s.

The dead father thing hangs between me and my family. Lots of silence, lots of assumptions about my feelings. We don’t talk about the thing. It’s a big reason I ran east after college. It’s a big reason I ran inside myself before I could leave for college. I want to wear it a certain way. In the Midwest I don’t get to do that, so I don’t stay for very long.

That’s not the fairest of assessments, but that is how it feels and therefore I don’t care.

My uncle didn’t care about how I wore it, or how I was supposed to be seen. (I didn’t even have words for that at the time.) He would just talk to me about the choices he made, especially the choices that overlapped with my father’s. He’d be very, very honest. He had some regrets. Most of the time, he was perfectly capable of surviving himself. My father did not survive himself. As a kid, I needed that juxtaposition. Needed to know that dad’s way wasn’t the only way. I needed to believe that with strength you can rise above. My uncle gave me that.

I haven’t seen him in years. An invitation to my wedding was returned by the post office. I would occasionally wonder about him, and about his kids. I assumed I’d hear from him, or about him. So many aunts and uncles, so many cousins. I didn’t hear anything until Saturday.

Eventually I have to stop calling and I have to stop answering the phone. I have to stare into space and hold my dog and sit still. It’s important to practice sitting still without crying. There’s an art to it. Someone will need me soon, or I will need someone else. This will all go better if we keep the emotional dreck at bay. We’re not an emotionally expressive group, as a whole. We don’t carry tissues. We carry bricks and build walls. We yo-yo each other, pushing away and then holding close. Fortifying ourselves with and against each other all at once. My husband looks at all of this and sees a lot of crazy. I look at my half-cleaned half-arranged house, I hear my music, I see myself clutching my phone, and I see my great-grandmother in her kitchen. I see my grandmother on her couch the day my father died. I see my mother in Georgia listening to the Dells. I see all their sisters and daughters too.

At my wedding, a woman is making a brief speech about marriage. She is poised and funny and full of life. My husband leans over and says, “Who is she?” I say, “She’s an auntie, related to my grandfather.” He says, “What’s her name?” I don’t know it. “How do you know she’s related to your grandfather?” he says. It’s the nose. And the charm.

With grandma’s family, it’s the stiff spine. It’s the refusal to limit mothering to your own children (or children at all). It’s the busy hands in times of tragedy. It’s the chip dip and peach cobbler and whisper fights. It’s a huge damn porch on Beniteau. It’s the tears that come eventually.

No matter how far away, it’s still family.

Read this

Hey, I'm working on a post for today, and hopefully I finish before Irene does a face punch to my fair city. In the meantime, read this awesome post from the Good Men Project.

What I’m Reading

How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
By Michael Gates Gill

1. If your office has a community bookshelf, use it as an opportunity to read something you wouldn’t normally read. I found one of my favorite books that way.
2. Keep your expectations low.

Full disclosure: I don’t care for Starbucks coffee. It tastes like they burned the beans. Also I don’t go for fancy whippacinolatta stuff, so it’s not a business that really appeals to me.

I am a speed-reader. I can’t always stop myself from blowing through books and articles (especially if the language is fairly basic), and sometimes I think I lose something. I often read books over again, so I can kick back and enjoy the way that writers play with language. I don’t need to read this one again.

Michael Gates Gill grew up rich and a child of the rich, went to an Ivy League university, used his secret-society connections to land a high-powered, high-paying advertising job, meet loads of famous people, moved whenever his company told him to, and then he got old. Then he got fired. Then his consulting business dried up. Then he knocked up a woman he met at a gym. Then his wife left him. Then he discovered he had a (minor) brain tumor that causing him to lose his hearing.

Did you get all of that? I know it’s kind of involved. This is an autobiography, and there’s little motivation to skimp on details when you’re writing an autobiography. (unless you were President.) That’s why a book about working at Starbucks also includes a story about tea with the Queen. And one about meeting Frank Sinatra. And one about running with bulls in Pamplona because he wants to impress Hemingway. And one about how his dad’s archenemy is the guy that wrote The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Still with me?

This book is bad. It’s not terrible (though the never-ending BJs to Starbucks are pretty ridic. And he can’t write dialogue to save his life, every character, regardless of age, ethnicity or educational background, sounds exactly like him, and nobody ever uses contractions), but it’s bad. I hate to say this, because Michael Gates Gill clearly needs a hug. He’s a very emotional man, and he has some legitimate regrets about the way he lived his life (Even though he did what he was raised to do. We are all screwed in some way), and he’s working really hard to repair that damage. It’s just…the man is fighting so hard for perspective and making so little progress and I kinda want to shake him. Also I don't care about his famous people encounters, and they seem really out of place in the narrative.

He’s sitting in Starbucks at the end of his rope (and in a very expensive suit), when a woman jokingly asks him if he wants a job. He says yes, without thinking. She says, “are you sure you can work for me?” and then he tells us about how much he loved his black nanny and how lonely she was when he left. Since his prospective boss is also black, this is relevant. Because this is how many black people he knows.(did I mention he lives in NYC?)

So he stumbles horribly through the interview and gets hired to work a month later. He’s not hired to work in the Starbucks he was sitting in, and this is a problem because he’s one of those people that only goes so far north and so far east or something (I don’t know New York, but I am familiar with this sort because they’re all over the Detroit suburbs). So this causes a panic, and he has to learn to ride the bus. MGG is always learning things.

He learned to clean the bathroom, and work the cash register, and talk to customers, and speak to his coworkers with respect, and carry trash bags and he’s the happiest he’s been in his life. He also realized that in his past life he’d purposely destroyed the career of woman much like his boss because she didn’t look like him. And he’s very sorry.

And I’m very irritated. It’s not that I don’t sympathize with the guy. I mean, I don’t sympathize A LOT, but I do sympathize. I just…he revels in his new life like it’s a hobby. I never read Eat, Pray, Love because I thought it would be like this. Except this is full-time.

So I recommend skipping this one, but if my review is a bit too vague, just read these lyrics instead.

Definitely NOT progress

“If women want to vote and shit, they need to do this kind of stuff. I feel the same way about girls asking out boys and women opening their own doors. If chivalry is dead, it’s women who killed it.” – comment on my husband’s Facebook status on this morning.


Every once in a while I read or hear something that sets my teeth on edge. I’ve done a lot of work to avoid the obvious traps, for good reason. Living where I live, and knowing who I know, I have come to expect that my friends will disagree with me, as we represent a wide swath of experience. If I’m too amped up on the obvious triggers, it makes it difficult for me to give the benefit of the doubt to the people I love, and that is a path that leads to screaming. It’s better to try and focus your energy on things that matter and not wrap your head in knots over hyperbolic, deranged, intellectual midgets. That suck.

Comments like the one above though… they just fill me rage. It starts with my husband (and I’m not sparing him in this) posting this:

It is 2011, yet in my office when a mouse is found in a trap all that can be heard is, "We need a boy to take care of this." #notprogress

This is obnoxious on several levels. Here are a few:
1. My husband doesn’t even use Twitter
2. The women in his office shouldn’t be obligated to present “progress,” as he sees it, every moment of their goddamn lives.
3. The incident in question involved a 4-year-old that stepped on a live rat in a glue trap. The situation was a gross nasty mess that a lot of “boys” would’ve balked at, and the kid just wanted her shoe back. (Hubby didn’t balk, because he prides himself on being a burly Eagle-Scout fixer type. They were right to seek him out, though it was an expensive solution overall.)
4. The shit show comment listed above.

The person who posted it is a friend. We have drastically diverging views, but I like to think that we can respect each other’s opinions even as we disagree. I generally treasure my friendship with him, as it is one of the many things in life that reminds me that there are real, kind, thinking people in the midst of this screaming match of ideas. I’m not trying to make him into a strawman. I want to say that, and also say up front that I’m trying to present my view as calmly as possible.

“If women want to vote and shit, they need to do this kind of stuff.” The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified 91 years ago. How is it that men still think that my rights as a citizen exist at the whim of their perceptions? I’m not talking about governmental leaders here. I’ve heard everyday men from all walks of life utter similar phrases without a moment’s doubt. They feel comfortable saying such things because they still have the lion’s share of the power in this country. The steady (but damn slow in some cases) progress that women have made is edging ever closer to something resembling equality of opportunity, and statements like this ring out ever louder in the present day. It betrays a sense of resentment on the part of modern men who’ve never enjoyed the privilege of being the “head of household” of yesteryear. (Clearly this is an exaggeration, as these structures still exist in my country and others, but bear with me here.) Even taking this into account, this statement is fucking stupid. There’s still all manner of privilege to spare for them, including the rather pervasive cultural language that equates women with “bad” and men with “locked in an endless battle not to be women.” Also, we’ve used all manner of fiery hoops to disenfranchise voters in this country, but the “release the live rat from the toddler’s flip-flop test” would likely result in next to no one getting a vote.


“I feel the same way about girls asking out boys and women opening their own doors.” Fine. Whatever. A lot of us uppity voting women already do that shit. If men don’t ask out women they like, and treat them kindly on dates (the door-opening thing, thought it was supposed to make a woman feel special? Didn’t realize it was some gendered requirement that we sacrificed with the vote, and I’m betting I’m not alone in being confused by that.), I’m sure there will be some consequences, but they’re not really my problem or my responsibility.


“If chivalry is dead, it’s women who killed it.” This part actually made me laugh.

Dictionary definition of chivalry
• The medieval knightly system with its religious, moral, and social code
• Knights, noblemen, and horsemen collectively
• The combination of qualities expected of an ideal knight, esp. courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and a readiness to help the weak
• Courteous behavior, esp. that of a man toward women

First and 30’s definition of chivalry
• A bunch of awkward and forced gestures that generally make me feel like the man I’m around thinks my arms and legs don’t work.


Chivalry (fourth bullet first list) is dead. We’re not a particularly courteous society a good chunk of the time. Blame the internet, blame the ever-shifting definition of community and failure on some fronts to enforce basic social norms, blame whatever you want. The end result is that we live in a world with less kindness than it should have (note that I didn’t say less kindness than it used to have. That’s how you know your blogger is black, people. I’m not fucking nostalgic for the “bad old days”). This is something that makes me both sad and tired. All people should be courteous to other people because it makes life easier and more pleasant. If it can only happen because of gendered assumptions, then we’re all fucked. Fuck dictionary chivalry, long live (un)common decency.

Chivalry (second list) is not dead, and I can attest to it, as it’s forced on me on a daily basis by random men that I’m usually not even paying attention to, and they take umbrage when I’m not interested. I’m totally sorry for opening my own door guys. I’m pretty sure I didn’t notice you holding open that other door because I was balancing my checkbook in my head, or drafting a meeting agenda in my head, or generally living my life, in my head and because you, as a stranger, are somewhat inconsequential to me. If I noticed, I would’ve thanked you, but now you’re acting as if my failure to register your existence is akin to murder, and I really just want you out of my face. Feel free to be mad about it though. That sounds like a good use of your energy. Fuck First and 30’s definition of chivalry, with absolutely no caveats.

My fundamental beef with both comments (my husband’s and my friend’s) is that everyone involved in this situation is an imperfect person that made imperfect choices. My husband’s coworkers heavily gendered their request, and that is problematic. I know what they meant (someone helpful, and not squeamish), and I know why they worded it that way (a lot of men really enjoy being “needed” in this way), but it’s still problematic because my stomach is in knots and I’m at like, 1300 words here. I shouldn’t have to defend their choices… but I feel like not defending these choices means not standing up for women. And if we’re going to denigrated together, then we need to hold shields together too. My husband put on his superhero cape (cuz that’s how he rolls), but then called them on the carpet because of the way they asked for help. Except…half of his damn identity is predicated on being the guy you go to for help. Just be happy about it, for fuck’s sake. Then my friend uses this conversation as a platform for his (unreasonable) belief that women should choose between their equal rights as citizens and their rights to ask for assistance in the interdependent society that we all participate in. That’s a fool’s choice.

In short, it’s 2011, and I’m still explaining to men that demanding that all women that “vote and shit” live up to their individual perceptions is sexist as hell. Definitely #notprogress.

Dreaming

Last night I had this sweet dream about going out for ice tea. I was sitting on a patio, surrounded by people from past that I've had conflicts with and everyone was fat and reconciliatory, and we laughed and rebuilt bridges and I showed them my house down the street. It was big and old and in the middle of a renovation and the porch could fit 40 people on it. I hung white Christmas lights on it and threw a party and danced hugged people and had a wonderful night. I went to find hubby to tell him about it, but he was nowhere. I went through 30 rooms before I found him asleep on a couch by a window. When I woke him up, he wrapped his arms around me, and we sat on the couch and looked out at a blue spruce and we talked for hours and fell asleep again. We woke up with the sun in our faces and we took our crazy dog for a walk and we told each other jokes and drank some more ice tea. I woke up feeling fantastic... to an empty bed, because hubby's in the hospital getting a round of chemo. I walked my crazy dog in the snow and cold and trudged back in to my house to make a cup of tea and warm up.

And now I can't decide if I feel good or bad.

What I'm reading

I finished Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman, shortly after this book, and it was a welcome change. Gaiman's short stories range from the terrifying to the simply strange, and when he doesn't tell me the big secret, I'm fairly confident that I don't want all the answers. I realize that there's been some brouhaha over his profile in the New Yorker, but I don't agree with the outrage, and every time I read one of his books, I'm just grateful for good imaginative narratives in this world.

Next book (I've already started it, and I'm loving it): Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip.

Status report

So hubby had a bad setback that landed him back in the hospital. (I referenced it here) He caught an infection in his blood from his catheter, and his blood counts were so low that he started bleeding in his eyes and experienced some vision loss. We've been to three specialists, and no one is sure how permanent this vision loss is going to me. So many maybes... Hubby went into a full-blown panic for a while, which terrified me. He doesn't panic, and I don't know how to deal with his panic. He's so solid and strong, even when he's not, and I just didn't know what to do.

We've taken some real financial hits throughout this, and our taxes provided the nasty surprise that hubby forgot to change his tax withholdings and the feds are going to be the latest vampires at the door. I'm trying not to go around the bend, and I'm not really winning at that, and I've been full of frustration and despair and other things that I can't name. Then I talked to an old friend from high school. She's been reading my posts on facebook and she decided that she wanted to do something to show her support of my family, even though we haven't seen each other in 12 years or so. So she's going to run a half-marathon to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I'm completely flabbergasted. I'm so touched that she's putting forth this kind of effort (she's never even met hubby) for someone she knew in high school. I think this is a testament to the idea that our words, our pain... it has power... Even when it's half-expressed and ill-conceived ideas. I'm glad I can still reach people... and that there are people in the world that care enough to run 13 miles because I hurt.

Please help Send Amanda to the Bayshore Marathon.

Donate if you can.

What I'm reading (maybe it's me)

So I've finished The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent. The book follows a 10-year-old girl and her family in an early American settlement. Her family is implicated in charges of witchcraft (and spreading the plague) and several members are tried in Salem. The author is a descendant of one of her characters, so clearly she has some attachment to her work.

That being said, she covers three years in about 300 pages, (100 pages per year, roughly) and most of it is about fried beaver tails and skirt hems and sewing lessons. When she wasn't covering the exacting minutiae of life in 1690, she's was alluding to some deep secret of the father of the family relating to his life back in England. The icing of the piece is the bloated, bloated, bloated writing.

Now, maybe it's me, but I shouldn't have to sit through 300 pages of skirt hems and harvest time just to get to a trial that's barely mentioned and then another 7 pages where the narrator discovers the detail of her father's secret and then declines to share it with us. It doesn't seem fair to bore the living shit out of me and then refuse to deliver. I know that there are people who dig this stuff, they prefer to read fictionalized history because they suspect that real histories are too dry. If this is the best example of that genre, I'll make sure to avoid it in the future.

I feel cheated by this. There was no story in this story, and the one secret that I was actually interested in is still left unexplained. This is Kent's first book, and I'm trying to look at it more kindly in that light (forgiving endless unnecessary metaphors and the like), but I don't think I'll ever pick up another book by this author. Now, if you click the link at the top of the post, you'll see that the amazon reviewers seem to vehemently disagree with me. So, maybe it's me.

It's not, this book sucked.

So sweet.

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