July 22, 2005

July 22, 2005

• Ha!  I discovered some info that makes the idea of breastfeeding a
  little more tolerable. No one told me that legally, a woman cannot be
  arrested or harassed for indecent exposure while she’s breastfeeding.
    This made my day.  Heck, I think I’ll breast feed just for
  that, so  I can flash whomever I want, wherever I
  want.   Also, knowing that Josh possesses such strong maternal
  instincts, is very comforting.  Maybe he’ll even come out here,
  slap on one of those rubber breast things they make for gay dads and
  join in the fun.  ( I can always hope).   Lastly, I
  discovered (via google) a rather hilarious mathematical formula for
  determining whether a restaurant is suitable for nursing.  Of
  course I discovered the formula before I learned that I can expose my
  breasts in whatever way I see fit as long as there’s an infant attached
  to it.   No matter, I still might apply the principle on days when
  I’m not feeling particularly rebellious.
    It is copy and pasted as follows:
  
  (C + A)(V + S)
  (M-Q) C = The cost in US dollars of steak frites at the restaurant
  Are we talking about the Olive Garden or Da Silvano? French Laundry or
  Orange Julius? ‘ The principle here is that a restaurant where steak frites
  costs zero dollars (because it has none) is probably not appropriate
  for breastfeeding, though a restaurant charging more than 30 dollars is
  also inappropriate. (It is acceptable, barely, if the dish is not
  identified by its French name.)
  A = The child’s age in months
  The age of the person-thing being breastfed is a concern. Obviously, a
  six-month-old infant may have a more pressing feeding need than an
  18-monther. Here we enter the tricky, judicially-inspired terminology
  of ‘community standards’ – in some communities, a fetus is a person,
  and may require a good suckle. Of course, much like breastfeeding a
  fetus would be grotesque, even more so might be the public suckling of
  a teenager. Age matters.
  V = A ‘hot-or-not’ rating of the breast’s voluptuousness
  Exposed in a room of businessmen clutching starched napkins, a proud
  breast the pale shade of Tilda Swinton’s arms can stop all discussion.
  Men have an untoward devotion to breasts, those quirky Darwinian
  phantasms. How they became so sexualized is a question best left to
  rabid teen feminists; to what extent they are appealing to the ‘average
  man’ is much more important. (We will ban lactation fetishists from our
  sample.) Rate your breast on this scale: 10 points for grotesque or
  surgically-altered in unpleasant fashion; 20 points for ‘eh’ breast, or
  a breast otherwise unappealing due to Debra Messing-esque smallness, or
  other real or imagined semi-deformity; 30 points for happy fun bosoms.
  S = The amount of slurping the child makes during feeding
  Public breastfeeding should be nearly silent. While a diner is happily
  encountering, say, the Savoy’s fantastic octopus appetizer, the
  soundtrack of an encephalopod-like milk-frenzy is not necessarily a
  super addition. Please rate your baby’s teat-adherence similarly to the
  voluptuousness scale: 10 points for ultra-squelchy piggishly loud
  Veruca Salt-type babies; 20 points for ‘some sucking noise’; 30 for
  babies who feed as if they were posing in stained glass with the Virgin
  Mary.
  M = The presence of men between the ages of 15 and 32
  Many think a man becomes more tolerant as he ages. Close – but really,
  as a man ages, he simply becomes more complacent. He cares less, and he
  cares less to rouse himself about what he might actually still care
  about; the old boarhogs of the world are degraded by long association
  with their own kind. In the testosterone years from mid-teen to
  early-30s, however, a man will butt his head against anything simply
  because his horns itch. The greater the number of such men present, the
  more likely you will hear comments about ‘bringing those funbags over
  here, baby.’
  Q = The number of obviously gay waiters
  The presence of a herd (in anthropological parlance, a ‘clutch’) of gay
  waiters means that you, clearly, are in a gay restaurant, and no one
  gives a damn if you breastfeed. Sure they’ll roll their eyes, but yell
  out, ‘Take a picture, ladies,’ and the gays will cackle and go back to
  ‘dishing the dirt,’ as their people say. A complete absence of gay
  waiters, however, means you are in a stuffy sort of place (perhaps the
  Friars Club?), and should proceed with caution. (Or, you’re at a
  lesbian separatist potluck commune meeting place, perhaps, in which
  case we imagine you have bigger issues to worry about.) The number of
  obviously gay waiters will be subtracted from the number of straight
  male diners.
  Again, our formula:
  
  (C + A)(V + S)
  (M-Q) Answer Key
  TOTAL = Any Negative Number: You’re good to go! Feed away!
  TOTAL = Greater than 1 but less than 30: Yo lady! Spare us your unsightly milktubes!
  TOTAL = Greater than 30: Go on, sister woman sister! Rock those puppies out!
  

July 21, 2005

July 21, 2005

I don’t know what it is I’m carrying in my uterus, but it sure as heck
can’t be a baby.   I will be less surprised if it’s some kind
of mutant tumor, than if it’s a real human with all its correct
appendages.  He (Jamie) weighs supposedly around 4 lbs right now,
but I don’t look pregnant enough to have a four pound anything in me,
which means he’s either going to be freakishly small, or I truly do
have some sort of alien in there.   Neither option is very
comforting.  
I’ve had seven months now to adjust to this parent/mom thing, and
frankly it isn’t going too well.  I seem to be cursed with the
juvenile tendency to desire to do the exact opposite of whatever I’m
told.  Moms gush about how in love they are with their babies and
I find it rather annoying and cliche’.   People have horror
stories about hospitals…I want to share horror stories about midwives
(I’m not even contemplating a home birth…ever).    I have
mountains of literature on why it’s best to breast feed, and yet there
is absolutely nothing in me that finds this appealing or desirable in
the least.  (yeah I know, in “mom circles” that’s tantamount to
confessing adultery). For most of my life, breasts were merely annoying
things to be covered and ignored;  now their usage is strictly
sexual, I can’t even fathom a baby sucking on it….it’s almost sacrilegious.
So there it is…I’m already a terrible mother to some alien who hasn’t even been born yet.

July 17, 2005

July 17, 2005

I’m the proud owner of a new cell phone, and although I was only one
month short of qualifying for a replacement Sprint
was kind enough to buy back the pieces of  my old phone for 50
dollars.   Although I’m skeptical of new phone’s alleged
stability,  it is cute,
stylish  (read: not a flip or candy bar phone) and Jim dutifully
and wisely bought insurance on it before I even opened the box, so I
can abuse it to my hearts content.
I monotonously put all the numbers from Jim’s cell phone into mine
(which had only a small fraction of what I lost),  while Jim
worked on consuming the new Harry Potter book at a lightening speed I’d
never before witnessed from him (normally, he prefers to enjoy his
books much the same way he enjoys a cigar or a glass of wine). 



…Jim is still finding young Harry’s adventures highly entertaining
(not deep or insightful, but entertaining nonetheless) so I’ve
regressed to surfing the web for nursery ideas.   I don’t
even have a house, and definitely not a nursery, but the baby shower
invitations are in the mail, which claim I’m registered at Babies R Us,
and although I may not have a nursery now, I’m told I need to decide on
colors and a theme so I can get a bunch of  the pastel garbage at
my party. (I’m not as ungrateful as I sound, I’m just still adjusting
to the whole mom world).  After searching through pages of “crib
bedding sets” on the Babies R Us website,  I almost had a
breakdown.   I was barely coping with the “brown is the new black”
in the fashion world,  and now I have to adjust to the news that
green is the new pink, frogs have replaced the teddy bear and toll
painting on cribs is the new “in” thing.  This solidifies the fact
that Jamie shall be fashion backward like his parents.  He won’t
be wheeled around in a savvy, hip Bugaboo stroller (which costs a mere
$800) nor will he rest his wee head on gingham striped sheets with a
coordinating frog themed quilt, however, we will ostentatiously
plaster our fridge with his picture, and we might even throw in an Aerosmith onesie for style. 
 

July 15, 2005

July 15, 2005

Hindsight is said to be 20/20 and should perhaps inspire you to be more
introspective, unfortunately it is most often just
embarrassing.   Jim decided it would be fun to go through
some stuff in my old room at my parents house.  I would have
stopped him with whatever force necessary had I known his evil plan,
but unfortunately I was sleeping and thus blissfully unaware of the
secrets he set about to uncover.   Later, he rather gleefully (much
too happy with his success) showed me the journals, CD’s and pictures
he uncovered which he had already gone through (much to my
chagrin).   Back when I was thirteen,  I was encouraged
by a mature, righteous, young lady (or so I thought at the time, now I
just make fun of her absurdity…and mine) to resist demeaning my journal
with trivial things like boys or drama, but rather give words of wisdom and
rhema’s from Scripture that would be a source of counsel and wisdom for
my children and grandchildren.   Now, as I endure endless
teasing from my husband, I wish I had just written about boys.
Goodness knows I obsessed about them enough back then whether or not my
journal commemorates that fact.   I considered burning the
silly journals (or something equally vindictive), but they really are
too funny, even if they are just a load overtly religious mumbo jumbo
(of course I thought it was modestly covert at the time ).
Moving on to the pictures Jim found…
    I’m barely eighteen, and new to the hell-hole better known as the
Riverfront Character Inn.   All the guys look funny with
their pleated, too-short pants, and their super short hair, and the
girls in their hideously awkward skirts (not that skirts are
hideous…just the ones we wore).  I can’t resist putting some of
the pictures in my blog even if I was a truly horrid photographer back
then.  I maintain it was largely due to my camera (it was one of
the first consumer digital cameras)  which took the picture about
three seconds after you pushed the button.

The dude looking at the camera is my husband (although I would have
dropped the camera I was holding if you had told me that when I took
this picture).   The girl on his left is Julie, who is still
tiny and cute.  The girl on his right is Liz, who was and is thin, beautiful and tall (we all called
her “Elizabeth” at the time).  It seemed like she spent most of
her life at Verity on those crutches, at least that’s what we teased
her about.   I shall continue the tradition (of teasing) and
wonder in horror what in the world she was thinking when she bought
that outfit.   Those were the good ol’ days, now
I’m told the only thing teasable about her is her elbows. 

The two people who terrified me most during the first half of the first
semester: Josh and Kevin.   Only thing missing is the evil yellow
legal pad Kevin sealed our fates with.

Just too cute.  Naomi and Liz, two girls I hung out with at
Verity.  The one I have nothing in common with is still a good
friend and the other one dropped off the face of the earth. Can you
tell which one is from the west coast and which is from Michigan?

July 13, 2005

July 13, 2005

In Memory Of The Nameless Phone
     My cell-phone and I had never been the best of
friends.  Despite its many bells and whistles, complete with
camera phone, Internet access and Tetris (my personal favorite), it
seemed to hate me from the beginning.   My husband has the exact
same phone and it is in the same pristine condition it was when he first
bought it.   He claims he just takes better care of his
stuff, but I am convinced my phone had a death wish.  Its sole
purpose in life was to commit suicide.   It’s not my fault, but my
husband now knows to always get the warranty for anything  I’m
going to be touching at all.
     I’m sad to say “it” doesn’t/didn’t have a
name.   We never got along well enough for me to refer to it
as anything other than a disgusted “it”.   Over the last nine
months “It” has slowly made it’s hatred of me clear.   First
the side of it cracked (“it” jumped out of my hand with no provocation
on my part) then the screen cracked giving it a “mirror, mirror on the wall…”
sort of appearance.   Eventually the screen died altogether,
and most recently the spring that holds it open decided to become
possessed.   I would be talking quite contentedly when it
would surreptitiously snap shut, sinisterly trying to catch my ear and
quite successfully scaring the crap out of me while convincing the
person on the other line I had hung up on them (I suppose technically I
had, I just had to explain to whomever, it wasn’t me who was upset…it
was “it” again).    Yesterday,  I picked it up to
make a call and I had barely hit “talk” before it snapped shut on my
fingers at which point half of it made a wild dash for the
floor.    Thus ended its short, frustrated life:
Death by decapitation.   Maybe it was actually middle aged,
I’m not really sure what the life expectancy of cell phones are.
Having killed two of them before, I’m afraid I’ve never reached
anything close to normal.
     I stared mournfully at the two halves this morning, not from any
affection for the phone, but with the comprehension that I had at least
fifty numbers on that phone and I only had about three of them
memorized.   I went to call Jim and complain, when I realized
I didn’t even know his number. 
I wandered around the trailer somewhat aimlessly,  wondering if I
had perhaps written it down somewhere….I hadn’t of
course.   So I got rather reckless and decided to just close
my eyes and punch in whatever numbers seemed natural.  I was
hoping my fingers could remember the number even if my brain
couldn’t.   They did, I got it on the second try.
However,  I don’t think that’s going to work again. (the irate
gentleman I got the first time persuaded me not to try)
     Hopefully the knowledge that I now have no phone numbers will inspire
some of you to call me, thus relieving me of the responsibility of
trying to find you.   hint…hint…

July 3, 2005

July 3, 2005

     All righty…in my
defense, I tried.  I really did, but
even my super patient, forgiving self can only take so much Christian crap
before I either spontaneously combust or stand up and start yelling at the
pastor. We’re visiting my childhood church (although now there’s a different
pastor) and right now I’m studiously writing away in my little notebook, which
I conveniently found in my purse.  Me,
who am almost never prepared for anything, actually had something useful when I
needed it. (this coming from the girl who can’t even remember to keep a tampon
in her purse)

    

     I’m getting
impressed looks from the people around me.
I’m sure they’re awed by the exhaustive notes I appear to be taking on
this sermon.  Truth is I couldn’t be
paying less attention. (go ahead, start throwing rotten fruit at me…at least a
self righteous gasp)   I was obediently
attentive for the first forty-five minutes (I swear I must have adult ADD and
forty-five minutes was pushing the limit).
However, when I realized we had only covered the first three points in a
twenty-point sermon, and we were digressing from your typical, boring sermon to
using scare tactics combined with “key” verses from Proverbs to produce some
sort of hysteria about our country’s safety (apparently terrorists are going to
kill us all…and…lets kill all the Muslims) I decided enough was enough.     I’m now humming la la la to myself and
trying to figure out how many skittles I can have…  if I have twelve skittles and church
supposedly gets out in an hour, then I can have one skittle every five minutes.    The distraction is not working, I
accidentally catch a snippet of what the pastor’s saying, “…It saddens me to
tell you that statistically, only 65% of Christians have ever led a person to
accept Christ” Aghh..!!  I’m about
to start mentally arranging the skittles in a pattern based on color ranging
from my least favorite to my favorite, when my husband leans over and whispers
in my ear “Arrogant bastard (meaning the pastor)…statistically speaking,
100% percent of Christians have never led anybody to accept Christ.  Last I heard, Christ did all the leading and
accepting”.  Ahhh…thank God for
Jim.   Knowing this one sermon will
provide at least an hour of entertaining conversation for us, I’m almost convinced
I can survive the experience.

    Up until now,
I’ve managed to combine humor, sarcasm and skittles to keep myself from being
truly bothered by what’s being said, but now church is over, people are
standing up to leave and I’m sitting here holding a little cracker and some
grape juice in my hand, wondering how I missed the most important part of the
service.   I look awkwardly around me
and see everybody else has already partaken of communion, how did I miss the
blessing?  I wonder, when my sister
informs me there is no blessing, no prayer…nothing.   I hastily swallow my grape juice on my way out the door and
humbly pray for God’s forgiveness.

It feels like blasphemy.