Finally

I’m not an idiot. I know that the Obama-mercial which aired last night was essentially a piece of slick advertising designed to present a certain image and highlight certain strengths of a very charismatic and media-friendly candidate. But I still think it worked, and for one HUGE reason:

IT WAS COMPLETELY AND SOLELY POSTIVE

This election has been down and dirty on BOTH sides for far to long. And without getting into any argument about who started what, I- and I’m sure the majority of Americans- am SICK of hearing the candidates sling insults and insinuations at each other as our country quietly slips further and further down the proverbial drain. So I must say that I was absolutely THRILLED to see that Obama spent his $4 million dollars last night conveying a completely positive message about what matters to him and what he WILL do to get our country out of this mess, as opposed to whining about what his opponent HAS or has not done in the past.

Apparently, that second action was reserved last night for John McCain, a candidate who doesn’t appear to have any ideas or plans for what he will do, just whiny complaints about what Obama may (or may not) have done.

It’s sad really, but if you read the transcript of McCain’s Larry King interview, he does not mention ONCE what he plans to do for the country. And that’s absolutely all that I- and most Americans- care about.

photo by Krugg6 on Flickr

So no more baby. Or, more aptly, no more pretend baby. Apparently there never was a baby, just a sac. Which is about what I feel like now- an empty sack. “Blighted ovum”- isn’t that just another word for “bad egg”?

The D&C is scheduled for Friday morning. Try try try again…

I’m so tired of being good at this. I just want to be out of practice.

Catching up

Hi there loyal readers! Or should I say loyal lurkers, as I haven’t been giving you much to read lately. Sorry for the long delay in writing, but, as most of you know, it’s been a busy few months.

First of all- in case anyone who reads this wasn’t aware (which would surprise me…) I’m knocked up. Yep, I’m totally pregnant, due on tax day (April 15). So that was a surprise. Here I’d been thinking it would take me months to get pregnant, for my body to “readjust” to being off birth control, as so many people told me it would. But apparently that wasn’t the case for me. I hadn’t even been off for a month- obviously I’m fertile. Or maybe my body had just gotten tired of me making excuses as to why now wasn’t the “perfect” time to have a baby. Ironically, I had gotten cold feet and actually convinced Jay that we should maybe wait a while before really trying to get pregnant about a week before I took the test that told me that I already was. Oops- a little late with that call. Guess that was my first lesson in the fact that I am no longer in control- there’s a little sac of cells in my uterus that’s calling the shots now, and will be for a long time. Great- not even born yet and my baby’s already as stubborn and impatient as I am! Now let’s just hope that she (Jay and are both convinced that it’s a girl) doesn’t get my boobs too.

So that little revelation led to the other things which have been taking up my time and making me a harried crazy mess lately. Since I can’t take a class during the spring semester, and am still aiming to graduate next December (09), I decided to take THREE classes this fall. And work full time. And be pregnant (ie. tired, and cranky, and mush-brained with the attention span of a dead flea). Some days I want to smack myself in the face and ask me why in God’s name I decided to do such an obviously insane and stupid thing. Then I remember that taking classes is not going to get any easier when I have a newborn around, so maybe the craziness now is worth the extra sleep later. Oy. Sometimes I just want to run away and join the circus. Kids like circuses, right? And maybe we could become a mother daughter act, with lions or elephants or something. Or I could just be the fat lady, which is another thing I’m feeling qualified for lately. Once again I say- Oy.

Now, with that nice little bit of bitching out of the way…raise your hands if you still want me to blog more? Really, some days are better than others (as I’m sure you all know), and today I just happen to be feeling a bit overwhelmed. I keep hoping I’ll win the lottery so that I can quit my job and focus on finishing school and eating bon bons and being a big glowy happy pregnant lady. I never thought I’d say this, but I do feel that I have the potential to be a big glowy happy pregnant lady- if only life didn’t get in the way.

At this point I’m just focusing on December 6, the day that two out of three of my classes are officially over. After Christmas I plan to settle in, eat lots of mac and cheese, and just nest and reflect until the baby comes. Ahhh- that sounds nice…When is December again? Tomorrow?

People can be SO STUPID!!!!!

I’m sorry, but I’m mad today. I don’t usually talk about politics online (there are more than enough people doing that already), but today I just can’t help myself. I wanted to title this post “Americans are so stupid”, but I figured that would just get me on some kind of watch list (if I’m not already).

Here’s the thing- voting for a candidate just because they’re a woman does not make you a feminist. It does not make you a ’strong woman’ or part of a ’sisterhood’. It just makes you a gullible idiot. The whole point of feminism is that women should be treated as EQUALS of men, not given special favors or special attention just because they have a vagina. That’s not feminism, that’s pandering. John McCain has chosen a woman as his running mate assuming that all of the discontented Hillary supporters will automatically jump to his side. If they do that, then they were never true Hillary supporters in the first place. As she said herself in her speech Tuesday night “did you vote for me, or did you vote for (what I stand for)?” And if you just supported her because she’s a woman then it is a sad, sad day for women and feminism in the United States of America.

I agree that it’s about time we had a woman in the highest office. I agree that women need to hold more public offices in general, especially in an era when we make up more than half of the US population yet hold only 17% of the seats in Congress. BUT- it should not mean that the Republican party (or ANY party) should be able to throw any woman on the ballot and assume that other women will vote for her, regardless of her viewpoint, experience, or political/personal beliefs. I don’t know very much about Sarah Palin, but I do know that she’s no Hillary Clinton, and in fact stands at the complete opposite side of everything Hillary was fighting for. If you were going to vote for McCain anyway, fine, be my guest. If you were a Hillary supporter and you can’t stand Barack Obama, fine, then sit this one out if that’s what you feel you need to do. But if you have ever considered yourself a democrat, or a Hillary supporter, or in favor of alternative energy, abortion rights, gun control, universal healthcare, and an end to the war in Iraq and America’s international policy of fight now/talk never, and John McCain’s adding a woman to his ticket has changed your mind just by the very virtue of her being a women, then don’t talk to me- you’re not worthy of your gender, as far as I’m concerned.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I hope I’m wrong, I hope Americans- and American women in particular- aren’t stupid enough to fall for this ploy. But then again, this is the country that brought us George W. Bush. TWICE.

I’m good enough

***WARNING: This post is particularly personal, introspective, and touchy-feely. What can I say- I just got back from my first therapy session in almost three weeks. Further than that, I make no apologies: you’ve been warned***

No, this is not a post about Stuart Smalley, it’s about me, and the fact that, according to my therapist (and I think she’s right) I don’t believe the title of this post. She said that to me today in our session- actually, she said that I don’t think that I’m “enough”, period- and it really set off a bell for me. She’s right. I don’t think I’m enough. That’s why I constantly go out of my way to try and earn other people’s love, people who already love me Bridget Jones’ style- “Just the way I am”- in the first place. That’s why, when invited to a dinner party, I not only insist on bringing dessert, but make the most complicated dessert I can, entirely from scratch, when the people who invited me would probably be perfectly content with Duncan Hines brownies from a mix. That’s why every Christmas at my annual Christmas party, I make 12 different kinds of cookies (also from scratch) though no one would care in the slightest if I just put out a plate of green and red Pillsbury slice-and-bakes. That’s why I planned an elaborate Italian vacation for my husband, complete with cheese and wine and a 7 city whirlwind tour, when he’s said many times that his favorite vacation of all time was when we went to the farm for a week and did absolutely nothing but read, swim, nap and spend time together. That’s why I go out of my way to make everything I do more complicated and more “impressive” when the only people I truly care about find me perfectly impressive enough already.

Soooooo…in light of this epiphany, I am making a list- Oprah style- of terrific things about me. I’m not even going to put a number on it, because I think I can come up with a lot of things- yeah, I said it- that make me more than “enough”. Here goes:

1. I am smart
2. I am curious
3. I am creative
4. I am talented
5. I am kind
6. I am generous
7. I am loyal
8. I am considerate
9. I am observant
10. I have a great sense of humor
11. I am a great (almost wrote “good” there- baby steps..) singer
12. I am a great (same reaction) writer
13. I am a good speller
14. I have a great vocabulary
15. I have great boobs
16. I have great posture
17. I have nice skin
18. I am a good cook
19. I am a great baker/dessert-maker
20. I am adventurous and willing to try new things
21. I’m an excellent traveler
22. I have great manners
23. I have pretty eyes
24. I am very flexible (yoga-style)
25. I have a great imagination
26. I am a survivor
27. I am incredibly independent
28. I am have a great sense of wonder
29. I appreciate and recognize beauty in the world
30. I have a strong personal spirituality
31. I am respectful
32. I have a great knowledge of music
33. I am a great reader
34. I have an amazing capacity for joy
35. I am compassionate
36. I am self-aware
37. I am honest
38. I wear my heart on my face
39. I am passionate
40. I am always thirsty to learn

I could probably keep going, but I think that’s a pretty good start. It felt good to write those things down. I highly recommend it to all of the fabulous people who read this blog. It’s nice to give yourself credit. Could I go through this list and challenge each of these traits in myself? Yep. Could give lightning fast examples of times when I have demonstrated the opposite of each of these traits? You betcha. Could I make an equally long- if not longer- list of negative things about myself? Abso-fuckin’-lutely. Am I going to do that, now or any time soon? In the words of a wise shortie who I don’t see nearly enough of, “No way, Jose”.

Now the trick is to remind myself of these things every day. Not in an egotistical or self-inflating way, just as a self-affirmation, a reminder that maybe I don’t always need to try so hard, maybe all that I bring to the table by just being me is enough. Stuart Smalley might have had it right after all:

“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, I AM ENOUGH“

Summer lovin

A few words about nostalgia. I’m sitting at my desk right now, in Chicago, Illinois, having a relatively normal- possibly a little busier than usual- work day. And yet my mind’s not here at all. My mind is currently sitting beside a public pool (probably Kanawah) somewhere in Richmond, Virginia, sucking on Lemonheads, dreaming about boys, and hating how my body looks in my teal-colored one piece. My mind is also at the Cavalier (beach front) hotel in Virginia Beach, wearing some combination of neon and white, teasing it’s bangs in the downstairs lobby bathroom before heading back out to the beach to- surprise surprise- look for cute boys. In both of these places my mind is between the ages of 10 and 16, slightly sunburned around the nose and cheeks, completely ignorant of such adult worries as money, career, or ‘family-planning’, and probably listening to Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis and the News, or the Go-Go’s over some sort of crude loudspeaker system. In short, my mind is lost in summer’s long gone by, when I was young(er), (more) naive, and life was simple(r).

Music brought me to this place- specifically, my “Public Pool Mix” that I put together (and sent to almost everyone who reads this blog) last summer. Listening to Bananarama, Hall & Oates, and solo Belinda Carlisle always makes me feel this way. I begin to long for the days when my life was so much less complicated, and there were so fewer responsibilities or restrictions on my time and my friends time. When Lionel Richie was just the guy with the big head and the Jeri Curl who sang that awesome song about the blind chick, not Nicole Richie’s dad. And all of my friends were babysitters, not people who hired them.

After a few minutes of listening, I began to fantasize about throwing a big 80’s theme BBQ, but then I realized that it would be hard to find a date when everyone I know would be in town or free, or that it would have to be an early afternoon affair to accommodate the growing number of babies and toddlers now on the guest list, and that the closest thing I have to a pool is a sprinkler. Then I thought maybe just a small afternoon meet up at a local public pool, but when? On a Saturday or Sunday, when the pool is packed to the gills with all of the other 9 to 5′ers who are restricted to weekend-only fun? Oh, and what public pool? Then I began to put together a beach or river getaway in my mind, maybe a reunion at my grandparents river house in Maryland for all of the old Johnny Sunshine Fan Club members. But once again, when, and more importantly how- how to reunite a group that has grown apart, spread itself across the country, and added so many new members of the husband/child/S.O. variety, each with their own needs, responsibilities and scheduling conflicts. Will life ever be as simple as calling up a friend on Saturday morning and spending the afternoon with a guest pass pinned to your bathing suit strap again?

Appropriately enough, the song “It’s the End of the World as You Know It” just came on. Maybe Michael Stipe is trying to tell me something, and I should just gracefully accept the end of an era and still “feel fine”. But I miss those days. And as much as I love the days I have now, and the many summer memories still to come, I think I always will miss those days. Sorry Michael.

Commute

Some mornings I feel like a clockwork doll, lurching,

herking and jerking into my day.

Five minutes late leaving for the train, and I’m suddenly awkward:

cup of coffee in hand, large purse stuffed with bills and phone and plastic covered lunch,

red shoes pinching,

I shuttle down sun dappled streets, barely noticing the shy rabbit in the wet grass.

How ridiculously simple that an five extra minutes

would have allowed me to glide.

Reevaluating- yet again

So apparently writing every day is not working for me. Actually, writing once a week is even feeling like a stretch, but for the sake of some order and discipline, that’s the new goal: I will post at least once a week. If I post more- great. If not, no big whoop.

I honestly don’t know why I’m finding it so hard to make myself write lately. I guess in some ways I’m busy, but not really, compared to working moms, stay at home moms, law students, chemists, people with multiple jobs, or any of the other people lurking here and reading me whine. The main things taking up my time lately are trying to finally take control of my finances (Jay and I are trying to wean ourselves off of credit cards and actually start- gasp!- living within our means. Oooooooo- scary…), and planning for this trip to Italy (I never should have shelled out for a travel agent- I’m waaaaaay too much of a control freak to ever put my dream vacation in someone else’s hands). I know it may sound oxymoronic (that’s not a word, but I SO think it should be) to be focusing on curbing my spending habits while simultaneously planning a  decadent international getaway, but really the second task has given me a lot of perspective on the first. It’s making me think about what’s worth shelling out for, and what’s just useless crap that I buy out of boredom, laziness or some societally influenced consumer addiction to buying stuff. A dream trip to Italy with my husband before we settle down and start a family? Priceless. Another $5 magazine, cup of Starbucks,  or cute but useless vintage doo-dad off of Etsy or Ebay? Not worth it. Get a subscription, brew your own, and stop accumulating more junk to clutter up your house. I have been working hard at trying to find some perspective and clarity in my life- trying to declutter both my house and my mind- and it’s really feeling good. I’m not ready to sell all of my stuff and start a homestead in Vermont or anything, but living in a more simple, streamlined, and mindful way feels like the right thing for me right now. I have always preferred to spend my time and money on experiences rather than “things”. I’ll take dinner out with my husband, a night of  great live music, or a girls night out with my friends over new clothes, new kitchen gadgets, or a month of $8 lunches any day. So if I want those first things, I need to stop wasting my money on the second group. Pronto. Or, as they say in Italy, subito.

Well apparently I still have plenty to say, and it actually feels really good to be “writing it out”, so maybe I will start blogging every day again. Awww, who am I kidding- I’ll see you next week.

I’m back

So I guess last week I should have retitled this blog “Sitting Perfectly Still”, seeing as how I didn’t write A SINGLE POST ALL WEEK LONG. But, as I’ve mentioned before, part of moving forward is trying to be nicer to myself, more forgiving, and therefore I’m not going to beat myself up for not posting. Really, I’m not beating myself up one little bit, not in the least. I don’t feel even a whiff of guilt or the teeny-tiniest bit of self- loathing or sense of failure. Not one ounce. I swear.

The funny thing is that I could have used an outlet last week more than ever, as Jay was gone for three days longer than originally planned, making it almost a week apart. He originally went home because his nephew Brian (who some of you may remember as the adorable ring bearer and scene-stealing dance phenomenon at our wedding) was having health problems. Well, unfortunately, on the Monday Jay was supposed to fly back Brian ended up going to the emergency room and being admitted into the hospital for surgery. It was a long and harrowing few days, with Brian not actually going in for surgery until Wednesday night at 9pm, and Jay flying back at 6am on Thursday morning. Explaining Brian’s exact situation in detail would take a much longer and more complex post than I’m willing to write at the moment, but the short of it is that he had a big mysterious lump on his back which had been swelling and deflating at random and causing him pain  over the last month or so, and the doctors wanted to remove it so that they could biopsy it and see what was causing it. Since it was so close to his spine, they had to call in a spinal surgeon, which caused the delay in his surgery. They still don’t know exactly what it is/was, but they have met several times with an oncologist who doesn’t seem to recognize it as any life-threating condition that she’s familiar with, so I guess that’s something. The most important thing is that they’ve got it out, Brian is recovering quickly and well, and they can now move forward to see what needs to happen next.

Jay was very glad he could be there for Corie (Brian’s mom) and Brian and the rest of his family, but it was an emotionally exhausting week for him as well, trying so hard to be the big strong shoulder to cry on without letting himself show how worried he was. Every time I talked to him he sounded exhausted. To add to that, I felt sad and frustrated that I couldn’t be there for Corie or Brian or Jay at such a crucial time. And the cherry on top is the fact that that was the longest that Jay and I have been away from each other (6 nights) since we got married. Let’s just say that I wasn’t having the “Best Week Ever”, and writing it out probably would have been healthy and helpful. Oh well, I guess I screwed the pooch on that one.

But this weekend was at least a partial return to normalcy, with BBQ’s, sleeping in, and lots of catching up with Jay and with friends. I was extremely grateful for my friends who pitched in to keep my pathetic butt company while Jay was gone, including a special gold star for Robin who let me sleep over at her house on two different nights (the second of which came a bit to her- gracefully displayed- surprise) and for Jen and Becca who took me out and got me totally ferschnickered on half-priced cosmos on the last night before Jay came back (cuz that’s what you should do the night before you have to make a 6am airport run- drink 3 cosmopolitans- good idea Julia…). Though it was lonely and hard, that week did teach me that I have a great group of friends that I need to be more grateful for and spend more time with. It also taught me that I’d be a big fat hot mess- at least temporarily- if Jay were to ever leave me, so here’s hoping that never happens.

So I’m back, mentally and emotionally, and ready to start writing again. Only a little less than two months until I leave for the writer’s festival in Iowa City, so I’d better get serious about my writing goals. Wish me luck.

Please ignore the man behind the curtain

The man behind the curtain, in this case, takes the form of the missing posts from Wednesday and Thursday of this week. I just forgot to write- it’s really that simple. Moving on…

Jay is out of town this weekend, back in NY visiting his family, and I am not looking forward to a weekend with my empty bed. In order to distract myself, I decided to throw a dessert party for my lovely friend Anna, who will soon be leaving the flat and frequently frozen Midwest and moving back to the balmy South East- Atlanta, to be exact. I will truly miss Anna, that’s for sure, but I’m pretty excited about having an excuse to host a dessert party. I’m Monica, after all, and I love being the hostess. I decided that for the sake of ease and as an introduction to the (coming soon!) summer season, I would make the party an ice cream social. Therefore tonight I will spend the evening in my empty house making homemade ice cream, cookies and various ice cream sauces. Just a typical Friday night. Sure, I could easily just buy all of that stuff at the grocery store, but where’s the fun in that? Besides, there are way more bragging rights in saying I made my own hot fudge and caramel sauce. Not to mention my own mint-chocolate chip ice cream, and even some homemade magic shell. What can I say- Martha Stewart is my hero, prison rap and all.

Not much else to report. We got the final go ahead for our Italy trip, and so we will be spending the 4th of July in the Tuscan countryside this year. I really am spoiled. If it makes you feel any better, after all of the ice cream and sweets I plan to eat this weekend, I will be probably end up wandering around Italy in a MumMuu.