Bedtime for Bonzo...

I really wish I could say that something of note happened today. I could tell you that I finally finished the Next Great American Novel (tm). I could say that I did 100 sit-ups and leg lifts until my thighs turned to jelly... or that I suddenly found the answer to unlocking the unified field theory...

But then I'd be a big fat liar.

I did manage to get my walk in... I only did a mile because it was FREAKIN' FREEZING outside, and my knees persist in aching and my hip popped again. I vacuumed the house. I straightened up the main rooms in preparation for the playgroup I'm having here on Thursday. I put away the toys and changed about 15 diapers. I went grocery shopping and made Hamburger Helper for dinner. I drank a Diet Coke.

I think I need an upgrade. Isn't there some sort of chip that can be installed to my brain to help me look at life in a different way -- so I can find fun where there is none? My friend Renae told me about a friend of hers who, when stuck on a 5 hour layover at the airport with her two kids, made up a scavenger hunt to keep the kids entertained. Me? I'm more of the curl up into a ball and curse the fates kinda girl...

And it's midnight. And I'm still awake. Even though I was up at 3am with a screaming 3 month old infant.

Something is fundamentally out of balance with the universe when I'm feeling this much in a rut and it's only Tuesday.

POMEGRANATE.

The 30 Year Old Virginian...

Okay, so he doesn't live in VA anymore, but congrats to my Big Brother, Andy, on getting hitched yesterday. And also congrats to him on the fact that I am certain that, at this very moment, he is enjoying the hell out of his hot new wife.

A moment of silence for the end of his life of celibacy.

Okay, now we can start taking bets on whether or not she comes back from the honeymoon pregnant...

Tag, I'm It!

Okay, so nobody tagged me but it seemed like a good way to kill 15 minutes...

Four jobs I've had:
1. Nanny
2. Tele-survey phone girl for the "Beef - it's what's for dinner!" people
3. Towel Girl at a gym
4. Medical Secretary

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Princess Bride
2. Gun Shy
3. Zero Effect
4. Groundhog Day

Four places I've lived:
1. Vienna, VA
2. Provo, UT
3. Walnut Creek, CA
4. Plano, TX

Four TV shows I love:
1. Scrubs
2. Good Eats
3. Deadwood
4. The Daily Show

Five highly regarded and recommended TV shows that I've never watched a single minute of:
1. The Sopranos
2. Arrested Development
3. Six Feet Under
4. The Bachelor
5. The Wire

Four places I've vacationed:
1. Disneyland, Anaheim, CA
2. Maui, HI
3. New Orleans, LA
4. Cozumel, Mexico

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Pizza
2. Gumbo
3. Chocolate
4. Steak

I'm a girl of simple tastes, I guess.

Four sites I visit daily:
1. google.com
2. dooce.com
3. woot.com
4. cnn.com

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Asleep in bed
2. On a cruise
3. Anywhere in western Europe
4. San Francisco

Who am I gonna tag with this?
Just Empire. And only because I think he'll have to admit he doesn't watch Desperate Houswives religiously, which totally damages his homo cred.

Permanent Ink...

It may come as a surprise that I have a tattoo. It certainly surprises me from time to time.
I feel that I have told the story of how this came to pass so many times, it might help to record it somewhere. For posterity, at the least, but also because it's a good reminder for me.

I won't go into all the details of how I came to the following conclusions -- I'll likely be working that out in therapy in the near future. Instead, I'll skip to the crux of the matter.

I am not the most graceful person. And anyone who remotely knows me will recognize that sentence for the gross misunderstatement that it is. Due to my propensity to injure myself making the smallest and most inane of gestures I have collected various scars, including 2 on my face. I didn't have control over getting these scars. I did not choose to receive them, yet they changed my appearance in small but irreversible ways.

Likewise, I carry a mixed bag of emotional scars from past events that were beyond my control. I guess I'm referring to what most people call "emotional baggage" - the stuff that seems to follow you and color the way you approach every new situation you come across. Like the physical ones, I did not choose the emotional scars.

Over the years, the emotional wounds began to give me a perspective on life that I didn't enjoy. I spent some years depressed - cover the window with a blanket, go days without eating, stay in bed for 18 hours a day depressed. Slowly but surely, following an incredible series of events that included a move across the country and the biggest life decisions I have faced yet, I crept out of that hole and began to live my life again.

And so to the tattoo. A tattoo is a sort of scar, but a scar received by choice - which serves as a metaphor for me taking control of my life and learning to own my decisions. The symbol in the center is a kanji - a japanese symbol. No, I have no connection to Japanese culture whatsoever (except an enduring love for anime) but the symbol itself inspired me. It has a broader meaning than a simple word, but basically embodies happiness - Joy.

And so, I made the conscious decision to be scarred with Joy. To me, this means that every day I wake up and, whether it's a good day or a bad day, I take every opportunity I can to remind myself that I want my life to be marked by Joy - by the things I choose, and not the negative things that happen to me by chance or because of someone else.

And there you have it. It wasn't an act of whim, or youthful rebellion. I won't be turning 40 and deciding to have it lasered off my back - just like I won't ask a plastic surgeon to remove the little scar next to my eyebrow from where I passed out in the park and bonked my head when I was 17. It's a part of my face. It gives me character. Kinda like the little wrinkle that shows where my smile lines are.

And it totally freaks out the Soccer Moms. :)

Mending Wall...

Something about this time of year makes me yearn to reach for a book of Robert Frost poems, a steaming cup of tea with cream, and a big comfy chair to curl up in.

Unfortunately for me, there are two very large (and yet very small) obstacles to this aim -- named Jack and Tobin. Yesterday, however, there was a zen moment where the moon was right and all the chakkras came into alignment, and both boys actually slept AT THE SAME TIME for about an hour - During which time I got a hot soak in the tub, managed to hilight my hair, and made use of the French Seaweed Mud Mask (because apparently French seaweed and mud is superior to all other kinds of seaweed and mud) that I got in my stocking for Christmas. And my skin feels fantastic today, thankyouverymuch.

I felt absolutely decadent. I mean, a BATH. In the middle of the day. And quiet time to contemplate the condition of my pores. And more quiet time to contemplate the wrinkle that has formed on my left cheek, right along the smile line. (It's a badge of honor, that one wrinkle. Perish the thought of ever botoxing proof that I really do smile more often than I frown - in spite of rumors to the contrary.)

Of course, the moment of zen was later pulverized when Toby decided that sleeping was a secondary concern to crying for no apparent reason in 2 minute bursts every 10 minutes through the night.

I parried with a "fine, sleep with me in the bed".

He returned with a 4am feeding demand.

This back and forth continued until he fell soundly and silently asleep. I celebrated my victory, vindicated by his little baby snoring. Then, I realized it was 7:30 and T was shaking me awake to see to Jack so he could leave for work. All the while, my little ninja slept soundly in his crib, secure in the knowledge that he had ruined Mommy's chances of making it through the day without a nervous breakdown.

Something there is that doesn't love a sleeping Mother. That wants her awake. That sends the sobbing infant to rouse her, and topple her sanity in the sun... (shameless murdering of Frost there, by the way. It's really a lovely poem.)

It's 9:25am. Can I go back to bed yet???

Good slumbers make good Mommies.

I Need A Shrink To Help Me Call A Shrink.

One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
~Emily Dickinson, "Time and Eternity"

In which I share "Too Much Personal Information..."

As T and I discussed blogs and various other topics last night (and I changed the heading to include a reference to sex which he thinks is totally unjustified since, as he put it, I have never discussed our sex life on here in any reasonable amount of detail) -- I was recalled to a conversation with a coworker of his.

We were at a poker game with several of the guys from his office. I was there (pregnant with Toby) to socialize with my friend Paige, who is married to one of T's coworkers. Anyway! Point of story:

T made one of his typical smarty-pants remarks over his shoulder as he walked out of the room... His coworker turned to me and said, sotto-voice, "uh.. YOU married him."

And, sweet, innocent-looking pregnant mommy that I was, I smiled, shrugged, and said, "yeah... well... I was drunk. And he's hung like a rhino."

Dentist, Schmentist...

Over the years, I have been in several serious relationships. Some of these have ended on good terms, some of them have ended horribly, and all have involved hours on my back, lots of tears and the exchange of large amounts of money.

I am referring, of course, to the many dentists who have come and gone through my adult life. One was fantastic, but when it took me 2 years to get the money to pay for a series of treatments I was too embarrassed to go back. One was horrid, screwed up a root canal, and tried to drain what he thought was an abscess (which is probably actually a very small cyst) by puncturing it without first providing me the benefit of local anesthetic.

My latest dentist is actually a practice where I have now seen 3 of the dental docs - all of whom have been so far stellar. The hygienists and various assistants are 99% female, and they all know me by sight and name and always remember to ask about my kids. They all knew when I had to go in for an emergency root canal the day I left the hospital with Toby, and remembered to ask at my cleaning today how he is. They also demanded to see photos, and (geek that I am) I had my digital camera at the ready with a plethora of recently shot photos and quicktime videos.

When Trip asked me to marry him, I told him (in no uncertain terms) that he first had to be aware of a few things. Some of those things are none of your business, but one I will share. I told him point blank that, over the course of our marriage, he should expect to invest the price of a very nice cadillac into the care and repair of my teeth. At the time, he thought I was kidding. He has since learned how deadly serious I was...

For the first time in my adult life, however, my dentist has worked with me to put together a treatment plan, and they have perfect awareness that I won't be able to pay them for all of the work up front. They have no problem letting us make monthly payments, and in the mean time they have been seeing me every 4 months for a thorough cleaning and to monitor the status of my problems. (Which are too numerous to list here. My teeth have all the stamina of a large brick of chalk..)

If you want to understand how I feel about my dental life at present, you must imagine my life before. Picture a draconian chamber of torture, complete with dull, rusted blades and a wart-nosed receptionist named Elga who has more hair in her eyebrows than on her head. Now picture stepping from that room into a state-of-the-art surgery theater, where a doctor with the bedside manner of Patrick Dempsey on Grey's Anatomy waits for me past a receptionist with the face and charm of Reese Witherspoon. And, thanks to extra-frequent total cleanings and good advice, I can state - for the first time I can remember - that my teeth have not developed any NEW problems in the last six months.

As I ponder my situation, I can't help but wonder... who would have thought a person not into S&M could ever feel so kindly disposed toward a place where you fork over buckets of money in exchange for intense pain?

Down the Rabbit Hole....

Or, more accurately, the cat hole. You see, we have this little hole cut in the basement door to provide the cats with unmitigated access to their litter box, while keeping our adventurous toddler at bay. The basement stairs, they are unfinished you see. They are the builder's stairs, hard and wooden with but a bit of carpet rolled down the center.

As Jack is unable to access the basement area without assistance, he has discovered that he can still explore the basement by living vicariously through the toys that he shoves through the cat hole. Onto the Stairs.

Today, one such toy - a truck to be exact - was hiding in the shade of one of the steps near the top. With Toby tucked into my arms, I stepped blithely onto the Staircase of Doom, unaware of the fate that was about to befall me.

Surely as a bear relieves himself in the woods, my foot found that tiny toy truck... and down I went. Feet flying comically (and yet not at all comical) out from under me, I landed flat on my back on the stairs.

Maternal Instincts combined with Superhuman Speed and I managed to cling for dear life to the precious bundle in my arms.

Apparently my superpowers do not extend to a resiliently bouncy body, though. With several loud cracks and a few muffled thumps, various parts of my anatomy were bruised and battered. One wooden stair cracked me upside the head. I'm fairly certain my backside is currently a mottled shade of purple and blue. I need a jumbo sized bottle of Ibuprofen.

But Toby is okay, angry red scratch on his cheek notwithstanding.

And Jack and I had a little talk about putting toys down the cat hole. He listened with rapt attention, then pointed out to me that, whilst I was engaged in my losing battle with gravity, he had opened the new air filter I purchased yesterday and turned it into Pop Art. That will teach me to pay extra for the nicer filter.

Anyone know of a nice band of wandering gypsies interested in purchasing a gently-used toddler?

Tom Waits for No Man...

This afternoon Jack and I sat at the kitchen table, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and sharing a banana. It's one of those dreary, rainy January days, and we turned together to watch the fat raindrops landing in puddles on the deck outside. I sipped at a cup of coffee (a spiced blend which, when combined with french vanilla creamer, becomes a dangerously addictive substance. *insert contemplative sigh here*) and realized that Tom Waits was still in the CD player.

For anyone who doesn't already know, Innocent When You Dream is a Tom Waits reference.
It feels so vulgar to type that out loud. If you didn't already know that, you should be taken out back and flogged vigorously with a wet noodle.

It was an odd moment - so perfect in its wistfulness, so beautifully dreary. The sound of the rain echoing off of the gravelly sound of Tom's wail.

It was then that I realized, half way through my PB&J, that I really wasn't hungry anymore. I think the frozen moment had put me in a strange mood, and I sat there realizing that I was going to leave food unfinished on my plate. The last time I can vividly remember doing this was when I was maybe 6 or 7 years old. I was a picky eater back then - and by picky, I mean I would literally pick at my plate for a half hour or so and then call it quits. Anyway, I had food on my plate in front of me, and I had no appetite... So I sat at the table until bedtime, because I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I had eaten. I wonder if that marked the beginning of my issues with food - which has become a lifelong obsession. Looking at it objectively, there's nothing at all wrong with not finishing every bite on your plate -- in fact, it seems obvious that when a person is full, said person should STOP eating. Amazing how the obvious can get so lost in the shuffle of obsessive-compulsive behaviors.

So, I stopped eating. I threw away half a PB&J sandwich (I can hear my mother thinking, at this very moment, "Sacrelige! Wasted Food!") And you know what? I feel fantastic. I may have just turned a corner in this battle with my butt. I wonder if it's appropriate to send Tom Waits a thank you card...

The Best Laid Plans...

I have to be careful what I say, because I believe in Murphy and his stupid law. And I'm waiting to find out what the third torture in our trifecta of evil happenings will be.

1) Trip dropped his car off for an oil change and tire rotation the week after Christmas. We didn't hear from the dealer for a few days -- no big deal, right? I mean, it's the week after Christmas, they're probably just short-handed from the holidays, right? Nyet, my friend. Here to follow is a lot of car talk that I can parrot, but don't actually understand: On the "test drive" (which I believe is code for "trip to the race track up the road") the engine blew a cylinder - which had to be repaired, and which also vented metal bits into the turbo, which then required all new bits and pieces. Got the car back after a week and a half. Still broken.... leaking coolant so the engine tries to overheat, and the turbo isn't working at all. Dropped car back off at dealership on Saturday. Reading between the lines, you may have figured out that this means T is driving MY car, leaving me stranded at home with the baby and a very cabin-fevered 2 year old. The only bright spot? (If you can call it that). Because the whooping West Virginia mechanics are the ones who blew up the car in the first place, so far we haven't been tagged for any of the repairs. Let's hope it stays that way as we go forward...

2) Trip's computer drank the purple kool-aid, people. And THEN it ate the pudding. And then it blew up the motherboard. The motherboard, which is a few years old, had to be replaced.. but the really fun part is that the new motherboards available don't work with a good deal of the current hardware we had... SO... Saturday also involved a trip to Best Buy to get an off-the-shelf emachine which, all things considered, wasn't so bad except that it blew the sum total of the expendable cash we had.

I think I just realized that #3 in the trifecta already occurred. You see, the above badness means that we had to cancel our plans to go to NYC for the Chemlab show. Which means I didn't get to lick any part of Jared Louche, and Trip had to miss the show and the chance to meet up with the TSC folks. Instead, we spent our weekend watching football and Signing Time DVD's. Not a horrible way to spend a weekend, mind you, but a considerable let down after the big adventure we had planned.

At least the weather is improving. Is it Spring yet!?

The Longest Yard

I remember my parents having some shindig or other when I was a little tyke. I was sent up to bed, and relegated to listening covertly from the top of the stairs to the tinkle of glasses and low buzz of conversation below. It was gut-wrenching, really, the desire to go down and share in the festivities.

I was reminded of that feeling today, as we made plans for the weekend. Turns out Chemlab will be performing on Saturday at Albion Club. We're planning to drive up Saturday morning and spend the night in the cheapest non-sketchy hotel room we can find. Trip will hit the show while I entertain the boys in the hotel room (Thank God "Madagascar" should be on the pay-per-view menu). I would sell any of several favorite appendages to get to that show, but at least I'll be just down the way. And we'll get to meet up with some of the weird and wonderful (?) guys from TSC. No, there's no link for it and yes, that's intentional. If you were supposed to be there, you'd already know the URL.

SO! I'll be mere yards from the show, and the illustrious Jared Louche (nee Jared Hendrickson) who is quite possibly one of the most charming and gifted individuals I have come across in my lifetime. At the very least, the man tells a damn fine story, and if you missed the Jared Louche GlamRock hour when it used to be on TotalRock.com then you should slap yourself silly right this minute. It was sheer bliss. We lived in our tiny matchbox of an apartment in Herndon. It had one bedroom and not much else, but it did have a fireplace and vaulted ceilings, so we could pretend it was a penthouse haven. Friday nights, 2 bottles of red wine, a fire in the grate, and Jared's buttery gravel voice walking us through our Friday evening.

Those were the days before marriage, before kids, and before a mortgage. It was brilliant, really, and one of those things you wish you had appreciated more at the time. It's also one of those things nobody else can ever really appreciate, which pisses me off because I won't ever forget it. "I'm a Damn Genius." God, that man can tell a story.

Skeletons in the closet... Junk in the trunk....

My mood today is somewhat maudlin - in this case, referring to webster's second definition: 2 : weakly and effusively sentimental, rather than the first : 1 :drunk enough to be emotionally silly.
I'm sure I would fit definition 1 if I could, but I haven't been "drunk" since... oh, before I found out I was pregnant with Tobin... which is to say at least a year. (Holy Dry Heaves, Batman! Has it BEEN that long??)

Adding to the general gloom is the fact that my email client apparently gorged itself today on all of my email from the past 3 years, digesting it right out of existence. This means that I am starting over from scratch. There are currently 3 emails in my inbox, and one of them is from Papa John's confirming my order from earlier tonight. That's just sad on many many levels. Oh, and my address book? Also gone. Somebody hold me, I've lost my connections to the outside world...

Add to this the fact that Trip's car sniffed some glue, his computer drank the purple kool-aid, and my car registration is now officially expired and can't be renewed till we pay the property tax (which comes out to enough money to feed a small third-world nation for the winter.)

This is not a promising start for a new year.

It doesn't help that I have given up sweets until I can lose the bulk of this baby weight. (pun intended.)

I am officially tracking my progress towards my goal weight. If I make it public, at least I will feel there is someone to hold me accountable for doing something stupid like, say, oh... gorging myself on a large pizza.

*Burp*

And why am I craving butterscotch ripple?? I ASK YOU!!!

Current Weight: 200 pounds
Target Weight: 160 pounds
Ideal Weight: 145 pounds

Current Size: 18 .... Dear Heaven, that's frightening.

I think it's time for a little John Stuart injection to boost my humor.