A perfect new year

For reasons I can only partially understand, I am easily sucked into the romanticism of the ideal. It is surely chemical, since I have spent my life since puberty trying to be perfect, a feat I have only recently realized and accepted is beyond my capabilities. As my psychiatrist noted when I told her that I wish I'd known Laurie Berkner's song I'm Not Perfect when I was young: "You could have sang it but it wouldn't have been with feeling."

My book club recently read Little Women. Despite knowing full well that a poor mother of 4 daughters with her husband away fighting a war cannot possibly be as light and cheery as Marmee, I got sucked into all of that "la-la-la, rose-colored glass life" where everything works out wonderfully. While there may be some hard times, some squabbles, everyone comes through it all just smashing (or if not smashing it is only alluded to in brief). So not real life, but I am naive enough to wonder why I am not as good a mother as Marmee because I'm not chipper and wise and forever patient. I am naive enough to dream of having 4 daughters of my own and imagine what an astounding life we would all have loving each other. And my life could be all these things if only I weren't REAL. God is a more ambitious author than Louisa May.

And then there is this whole New Year's business. Tomorrow when I awaken, the air will feel no different than it does right now in 20o6. My cells will have only aged 12 hours or so. Provided an asteroid doesn't set off the end of days, I will still have my same house, same family, same head, same life. But there is this stupid little part of me that thinks maybe, just maybe tomorrow will be different. My mood disorders will start getting alot better. I will get pregnant in January. D will get a really good bonus.

I guess most people would just call this hope, but I find it scary. I don't know what to do with hope because I don't know what to do or how to feel when hope turns into disappointment.

The other day it really hit me that I don't get what I want in life. I don't mean my life isn't excellent because I would be an idiot to think I've got it hard, but somewhere along the line, and maybe this is a problem of modern American life that everyone experiences and not just me, I got the idea that I'm supposed to get what I want in life. Things are supposed to go my way. If I work hard and do the "right" things, I will get what I want. If I go to college, get a decent job, marry a decent guy, have a nice house... life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and happiness means getting whatever you want, right? Happiness means things don't go caterwompuss.

I'm starting to understand that happiness is having life go caterwompuss and dealing with it as best you can and understanding that you are only 1 person and sometimes life sucks and sometimes life rocks and you don't know how your world will shift in the next 15 minutes. Life is inherently about survival, period. Modern life gives me the time and luxury to fret about happiness and expecting to get what I want.

Somewhere along the line I began subscribing to a notion of a perfect life so I fall prey to idealism where I find it. So it will take me a couple weeks to work through this and by then I'll be writing 2007 on my checks without hesitation and finding that things are going a little caterwompuss but I'm doing alright.

Getting reorganized

I get the creepy-crawlies after Christmas. I don't know if my OCD kicks in high gear or what, but I find the urge to purge and buy thousands of dollars worth of organizing gear. Manufacturers don't produce enough linen baskets to satisfy this deep-seated desire.

And it isn't something new to mothering and finding myself drowning in a sea of toys. For as long as I can remember, I've never been able to keep my stuff under the tree for longer than a day or two, at the most. I'm a little astounded that it is 4 days post-holiday, and I am just now finding homes for my items (and hoping to find new homes for many other items).

I am not at the point where I can get rid of N's things. I'm hoping I will be able to part with some of it before she is able to vote, but I just don't know. As she is nearing 3, I am feeling weird. She is not a baby. D has been working to transfer our home videos from tape to CD format, so we've been watching what we all call "The N Show," since it is all her from start to finish (all 6 volumes of it, and we're only at 18 months).

I love watching her. It fills me with an endless sense of joy and a pit of despair because I cannot relive those times. In the Ender's Game series, one of the characters in the later books has these weird metal eyes and he is able to videotape experiences and play them back for himself (and for others in certain situations). Seeing her on video is good, but I want to feel what I felt at that moment, although I guess in truth the joy I feel now at seeing her on video is due to that "time has passed, my memory is foggy, isn't life sweet" sensation.

Isn't that funny about life? When I was in college, I traveled through England, Ireland and Wales for 10 weeks. I was drunk for most of it, thankfully, because our professor was a complete ass, and we had the privilege of not just traveling with him but living with him in thatched cottages and the like. When I wasn't drunk on Guinness, I was doped up on Dramamine because we took the scenic backroads over there. No highway driving for us. Anyway, upon returning home, I had the most miserable memories of this trip. For years, I thought about that experience with disdain. Now, some 14 years later, I remember only the fun things about that trip. I look back at pictures and get warm fuzzies, although that punk professor gave me a C (I don't think excessive drinking and occasional pot-smoking were listed in the syllabus).

I fear N growing up for all sorts of reasons but mostly because I want to savor now. I wish I had savored her first year and second year more (although damned postpartum anxiety and depression made that a little difficult). No matter how difficult it is for me sometimes to stay at home, the mantra "I can't get this time back" never leaves my head.

I have no idea what this thought has to do with linen baskets and reorganizing my living room, but hey, this is the way my old brain works (or doesn't work as the case often is).

Depressing....in a funny way

Yep....that is my world-view. Sometimes I don't know how I manage to have a friend in the world. But I do. So I am either not as bad as I think I am, or the people who have opted to be my friends are throwing exceptionally long pity-parties for me (lasting years and years).

I guess 2 things have contributed to this post: One was Garrison Keillor's essay "The Season of Perfect Families," and the other was my friend G's sweet post about her family and how she is doing exactly what she wants to be doing (as in being a stay-at-home mom).

So what I have determined is that if I were to write an essay about my family, it wouldn't be sweet like G's. As much as I'd like to have G's attitude and outlook, it alludes me. Nor would it be as subdued as Keillor's.

I've determined that the reason most people think I am funny is not that I am actually funny. It is because I tell the nasty truth a lot of the time. The blatant, honest truth, and that can often be shocking....and hence, result in laughter.

So what would my essay or holiday newsletter about my family look like? A little something like this....

Dear Friends,

What can I can about 2006?

It went by fast, except on days when N and I were home all day... that seriously drives mommy to distraction, especially if N refuses to venture outside to play or take a walk. Staying at home ain't all its cracked up to be for a gal with OCD, but I don't trust anyone else in the world to take as good of care of my girl as I do. Despite my imperfections, I am way better than a daycare worker (no offense to daycare workers, but it's a job to you; N is my life).

D has been at the same job for 6 years, which amazes me because for the first 6 years of our relationship I thought he was destined to switch jobs every 2 years. Our new high deductible health insurance plan drains a nice chunk of our change, but you gotta be covered, right? He had his gallbladder removed in August, so that was interesting. Boy, did we ever meet our $4,000 limit, and quick! Between my antidepressants every month, his allergy tests in the summer, and this surgery, we depleted our HSA account.

Overall, he likes his job, and his job seems to like him. I wonder though how he can hold such an important position when he can't remember to stop for milk after work even with a note I've attached to his lunch pail? And he can never seem to find the ketchup in the fridge. But after living with me and my mood swings, you can understand why his brain maybe doesn't function as well as it used to. He is pushing 40, after all, too.

D got his big screen tv, although I haven't conceived yet, and that was the deal. He wanted a tv; I wanted another baby. Damn it that Circuit City doesn't have newborns on the showroom floor. I don't know if it's the anxiety, my insane hormones, or God just being difficult, but this whole baby-making thing needs to be more cut and dry. You do it, you get pregnant, end of story.

N will be 3 in February, which makes my heart ache, especially if I am unable to have anymore kids because she is growing up entirely too quickly. It astounds me that I can love her so much...to the deepest core of my being...and yet have moments of really not wanting to be around her. I cannot reconcile the 2 drastically different feelings, and so I continue to see my therapist regularly.

In general, I don't like being told what to do by a toddler. It is often hard to be polite when she yells at me that I have to turn on the Beauty and the Beast song RIGHT NOW. And on days when she says, "Mom," 3,000 times but then doesn't respond when I answer, I nearly put my head through the wall. I never suspected that having a kid would be this much work...but I guess it feels like work because I'm trying to do a good job. If you ignore your kid and pop 'em in front of the tv all day, it probably doesn't feel like too much of a stretch.

We may be going to DisneyWorld in 2007 but that depends on if D gets a bonus at work, if we get a decent tax return, and if I can figure out how in the hell to plan such a complicated venture on the Disney web site. We're hoping for the best. We've got our tickets to see the Doodlebops in April, so that should be a little slice of heaven right there (at least for 1 of the 3 of us).

Let's hope 2007 is as much of blast as this year has been.

I can find the funny

People with healthy ways of adapting to life find the humor in things (or at least that is what I've read in Prevention). People with unhealthy ways of adapting to life, those of us who kick and scream and throw little tantrums on the floor when life is it's usual taciturn self, have a little trouble with finding the funny in some of the big wads of crapola that life shoots at us through a straw.

Now bear in mind, when I say crapola, I don't necessarily mean cancer or death or divorce or anything really traumatic. Crapola is anything that doesn't go as I'd like. And sometimes I've found, life enjoys pummeling me with little tiny spit wads of crapola for months and months at a time. And just when I think they have ended and I can enjoy a "peak" in life, I find it is merely a molehill I have stepped upon and not a mountain.

So let's review. Pretty much N's birth was the best thing that has happened in the past 3 years. After her birth, unfortunately, alot has been downhill. Her torticollis, my nervous breakdown, D's dad dying suddenly. There was a slight molehill, possibly a tiny hill, but then since August of this year, it has been D's gallbladder surgery, my ovarian problems, and N's illness marathon.

I had already written off December as sucking, but I had never designated it as sucking anything in particular. This afternoon I determined that it is "sucking ass."

I woke N from her nap because she was wheezing in her sleep. She then proceeded to run a fever, have a coughing jag, and spit up copious amounts of mucus all over herself and me. I called the after-hours service for advice. The lady, who could hear N wheezing and barking like a seal with emphysema, told me to go the pediatric emergency center. Of course, by the time we arrived N's wheezing had slightly improved. So we signed in and sat with all 11,000,000 other people there. Finally, I decided since she was not turning blue, I'd be better off to take her to our neighborhood urgent care where I might not have to wait until she is of legal drinking age to get someone to look at her. All of this, mind you, is coupled with the discomfort I am having in my lower abdominal region from this damned cyst as a result of lugging my baby around the city of L trying to find someone to get her to breathe normally.

Now before getting to the nearby clinic, I have to run home because 1. D doesn't know where we are since I left in such a rush, 2. I left the oven on with our tortellini in it, and 3. I think there is a candle burning somewhere in my house. I have to listen to a short lecture about how worried D was, and that I need a cell phone again, but we are momentarily on our way.

And that is where I finally get a glimpse of the funny. N was such a big girl with Dr. Bird, so brave and good. And not once, but twice she said, "Mommy, I love you" and gave me a kiss. So aside from feeling tremendously proud of her, I was also feeling gushy and over the moon in love with my kiddo. Maybe because I was so at ease that I was able to get a glimpse.

We had told N that we would stop at McDonald's for a Happy Meal, so she was talking about that with her little raspy voice. The nurse was about ready to give her a steroid by mouth and handed her a bedpan since many kids yak it up within a short period of time. It was at this point that my brilliant little girl said, "I'll put some fries in my bowl."

So fast forward 45 minutes or so and there we were: N eating her fries out of a bedpan, D and I eating a very disgusting, overcooked and dry tortellini, and me hoping that we will soon be on our way out of this short-lived valley.

Don't try this at home

Most people would say I'm not a half-ass person, as in, I give things my 110% effort. I have generally agreed with this assessment, but lately I'm discovering that I have a secret half-assed life that I keep hidden from everyone, including myself.

It occurred to me today that the reason my half-assed efforts aren't well-known is because I simply give up if I don't succeed immediately. I become easily bored and frustrated with actually having to work at something, and so I quit. Sewing is one good example of this. I would never be a great seamstress; probably not even middling, and so due to lack of greatness, I don't sew.

It's just another wrestling match between me and life for control. If I can't be outstanding at sewing or playing guitar, well then piss on it. If it takes the least bit of practice or challenge....forget it.

Because I didn't rock out like Kim Gordon after completing a 6-week guitar class, I have dropped it. I haven't practiced in weeks. The guitar and tuner are sitting in my basement, waiting patiently, but I bypass them on my way to doing other things that come easily, like scrapbooking or blathering on about my psychological gymnastics on this blog.

Because D and I haven't conceived yet, I am starting to think I'll just go back on the pill. Well damn...it's not coming easily. This is requiring effort. Chuck the whole idea, then.

I think what brought about this self-revelation was my efforts just an hour or so ago to bake cookies. I rarely bake cookies, and I know why. You see, I am a wing it kind of cook. If I don't have an ingredient, I wing it with something else (perhaps similar to what was called for, perhaps not). A friend gave me a salad recipe and we've had it a million times, but only recently have I actually made it with all the ingredients called for on the recipe card.

But cookies, you see, are something with which a person really can't or shouldn't wing it. So I was making Jello cookies, where you add 2 packets of Jello to the flour, butter, egg, sugar, etc. I added lime and strawberry....thinking "How pretty they will be...Christmas colors." It didn't dawn on me until after I had tasted them how lime and strawberry FLAVORS might blend. So these cookies have a weird wang about them (and the color doesn't look Christmas-y; it looks like vomit). And so, because they are not a smashing culinary success, I shall not bake anymore until next year when I want to attend a cookie exchange and am too embarrassed to purchase cookies at Kroger.

I am a wuss

Yep, I said it. Not that anyone is surprised by this statement, although sometimes I dupe myself into thinking I am stronger than I am. Of course, a little winter illness invades my abode, and reality hits home.

Let's see N had the vomiting episode about 2 weeks ago. Then last week I was sick...on the sleeper sofa, achy, feverish, followed by disgusting congestion. Then N started up with the same thing. After 4 days of fever, I took her to the doctor. So now we are treating an ear infection (her first) and a touch of pneumonia. Yesterday, D started with diarrhea. And N's antibiotics are kicking in so she's a little "loose" too. Furthermore, my lovely little ovarian cyst, which seemed to go away, has returned. Why, at age 33, after 23 years of menstruation, do my ovaries suddenly decide to weird out on me?

Anyway, I've written December off as "totally sucking" and am going to try to move on. I was pretty down until I read today's advice column about the man who's father died suddenly, who's life partner was killed in Iraq and who's mother has breast cancer. And I think of N's gym teacher who's son died this past summer at age 3.

It is at this point that I want to knock myself in the head with a frying pan for being such a.... say it with me now, WUSS.

Part of cognitive behavioral therapy is retraining one's brain to think rationally, and in my case rational is usually more positive than how I normally think. So over the past 2 years I've tried to learn to think "I can cope" with whatever life throws my way. But, sometimes, it becomes ever so clear that while I might cope, the truth is that I cope badly (and that is with benefit of medication).

So aside from being depressed about all the bugs my little family seems to be harboring, I am also depressed because 1. I can't cope with 2. all the little tiny minutiae of my life when other people have much more serious problems. Ahhh, is it almost January?

My inner dog

I used to like dogs until D and I, early in our marriage, "catsat" my SIL's 2 boys, Jasper & Sunny. I was surprised by how much I totally enjoyed the cats. God, they were easy. They didn't require any effort....clean the litterbox, food once a day, stroke their heads if they decided to deign me with their presence.

And that began a years-in-the-making realization that I am a psychological dog. As much as I have tried to change my inner puppy, my instinctive drive is toward canine behavior.

Dogs are needy creatures. They bark and yip and yap and growl. They require taking outside or walkings around the neighborhood. They enjoy meeting other dogs and the requisite butt-sniffing that ensues. And when they want your attention, they paw, scratch, jump up, chase their tails, run around like mad. And while this certainly doesn't sound like anything Carrie does on the outside (particularly the butt-sniffing), it is so me on the inside. And that is where all of reality is anyway, right?

I never had a cat as a child, so my automatic assumption was that I preferred dogs. But strangely enough, the people I chose to spend time with as I got into college and beyond were cats. Quiet, reserved, preferred to keep to themselves. My dearest friend K is a "cat." So is D. I love the cat in them, and am a little envious too.

I envy the satisfaction of their being content alone. The easiness of them. The seeming easiness of just being themselves. Not like me....not spastically arffing over every little event. Not needing someone to walk me or talk to me (there's a good widdle Carrie-girl) or petting my head and providing me my day's comfort and love.

So for years, I've been trying to find my inner cat. Or perform transgender reassignment of the canine soul of me. I have spent a large chunk of my adult life trying to not be something I instinctively am (and no, this isn't some roundabout way of saying I'm gay. I think I would have an easier time accepting myself as gay.) Being a psychological dog is being weak and needy and obnoxious, while psychological cats are cool, sheik and strong.

Is there any logic behind this? Of course not! When has logic or reason or rationality ever informed any of my views about myself or the world?

So now I am somewhere between a cat and a dog. Isn't there some freakish cartoon with that premise? And I am having to try to accept what I am inherently and what I am due to changes I have brought about.

The truth is both sides have their merits and disadvantages. Dogs aren't all bad. Despite all the slobbering and licking they do, they are damn loyal. And dogs are very sensitive to the moods of others. And they are certainly more enthusiastic about anything than cats.

So there it is. I am really a cog or a dat or a fenine or a caline. Or I'm just me.

House of drexin

Yep. We're drexin. I don't know if this is the correct spelling of the word, or if it is another of my maternal family's lexicon of "unreal words," but there it is. Drexin. As in N and I are drexin around the house because some nasty virus has decided to use us as hosts.

Mine began Sunday night, and while I'm not feeling good or even great, I'm getting REAL sick of being sickly, so that is a sign of recovery. N, on the other hand, is just starting her foray into this illness tempest, so I've written off the whole week for us both. My to do list says: Keep the sleeper sofa pulled out, Noggin on all day, wear the same clothes until at least Saturday.

So thinking of "drexin" makes me think of all the other funny phrases or words that I know from my mother (and her side of the tree).

Some other words for looking sickly....puny, peaked, punky. Feeling punky. I still use this one, except I just call N that sometimes. "Hey punky, how are you today?" I guess somehow this lingo morphed with my childhood fascination with Soleil Moon Frye's child stardom.

Then there is Blind Fish, which is French toast. When I was a kid, my parents were having some friends in from New Jersey with whom my dad had been in the service. M had long poked fun of mom for calling French toast "blind fish." Fortunately, just prior to their visit, I got the opportunity to go fishing at the lake with a friend. I can't remember who got the privilege of popping out that fish's eyeballs, but you know M's eyes were wide open when he saw it sitting on his plate the first morning of his visit.

Another is Crime in Italy, which I think is supposed to be Criminy? My mother would get disgusted or flabbergasted about something and say this.

Oh yes, and Crouch as in crotch. When I was in college I worked for a man named Mr. Crouch, and I remember thinking, "What an awful name!" Finally, upon stating to my best friend K that I hate it when jeans ride up in my crouch, she informed me that I was mispronouncing it.

I suppose my ability to mangle or misappropriate the English language is a skill passed down from the generations before me. I know books have been written about mis-singing song lyrics, but I am especially proud of botching U2's "Bullet the Blue Sky." Bono actually says, "Driving nails into the souls on the tree of pain." Na-uh Bono, me lad. The nails were being driven into the souls of the "chia pet." D, who loves U2 nearly as much as he loves me, almost didn't forgive me for that one.

Up and down

No baby this month, and so, I am a little blue.

Immediately, I go into cognitive behavioral mode to halt the dominos of negative thoughts. I guess the upside is that it makes me eager to spend that much more time with N because she is my one and only, maybe forever.

I know that if I don't have any more (and I realize this is premature because it is only month 3 of unsuccess), I will go on. I will have a good life. But there will always be a tinge of disappointment.

Like a record player, the wonderings that are generally filled with fear and not a true sense of wonder keep revolving:
"Maybe my meds are keeping me from conceiving?"
"Maybe N was truly a miracle baby because she happened so quickly when I would say I was at my mentally healthiest."
"Maybe God knows I shouldn't have more kids."
"Maybe this cyst on my ovary is keeping me from conceiving?"

In many ways I felt some of N's babyhood was stolen from me because I suffered from the anxiety/depression untreated or undertreated for so long. I see pictures of her between the ages of 8 months and 18-months, and I want to jump into the frame and relive it...well relive it without the feelings of sadness and irritability that accompanied me the first time around.

My nephew was born 3 days ago on Thanksgiving. And so I am envious as well. My experiences are never just filled with 1 emotion; they are usually burbling and gurgling, and just nearly boiling over with at least one deep-seated, better left hidden, unpleasant feeling.

When we went off birth control before N, my attitude was "If it happens, great. If it doesn't, we travel and have lots of fun." And true, I don't know how I would have felt if it had taken me awhile or a long time to conceive. Maybe that would have been the lever that hoisted me into the world of mental disorder?

But now, I understand what it is to have a wonderful child. Being a mom is hard...not physically so much as emotionally and psychologically. Worrying about her now, her future, her development, her psyche. Being vigilant that I am doing what I need to do to help her, to be a solid presence in her life.

But despite the hard, the being "on" most of the time, she is my miracle. Sometimes I still can't believe I gave birth to her because I remember it so clearly, and yet it seems like a surreal dream. Maybe it was someone else, and I was just standing in the room? She is what makes me know there is a "something" greater than myself....whatever that "something" is called makes no difference.

And once you experience a miracle, it's like a drug, and you want to do it again. Or at least I do.

Sick day

Fortunately I missed the big event last night. N was acting weird after her nap...unusually clingy and quiet so I suspected something was up. And it was, in daddy's lap and on the basement couch. Up-chuck. Throw-up. I had managed to head to the library and grocery store. By the time I arrived back home, D had bathed her and gotten her ready for bed.

But today was my day of fun. Staying in all day...just vegging. Prior to being a mom, I used to think hell would likely consist of me ironing in pantyhose. Now I think it is being stuck in the house with a semi-sick toddler. N didn't take a long nap, despite waking up a good hour and a half earlier than her normal waking time. She wasn't well enough to play by herself and be really active and fun, but she wasn't sick enough to just lay on the couch and be quiet. She kept wanting me to pretend to be "grandma." One day last week I took on a grandma persona just to be cute, rocking in the rocker and talking as if my dentures needed adjusting. Now I've got a 38-inch "grandma groupie" following me around begging to see my schtick.

And D is feeling sickly. Something has happened with his allergies this year, I guess, but they have been worse than ever. So he has that pathetic look about him...drexin around as if he has the world's worst case of....stuffy nose or post-nasal drip. It is really difficult for me to drum up alot of sympathy for him. I had tubes at least 3 times, my adenoids removed, and a hole repaired in my eardrum before I was 10. I have seen so many ENTs I can't even name them all. I have tonsils the size of small South Pacific islands and have taken allergy shots for nearly half my life. Beat that!

Anyway, I just hope both of them start turning it around because with Thanksgiving being this week it means I will be, for all intents and purposes, stuck in the house with both of them. I suspect I will be thankful we have 2 unopened bottles of wine in the rack.

Prevention primarily, but some other thoughts thrown in there

My MIL has been giving us a subscription to Prevention magazine for years as a Christmas gift. At first, I loved getting it. I have long been pretty fascinated with biology and health-related topics, and before my OCD became a "problem," I read through it seemingly unharmed.

When my OCD became unruly, I found that getting the mag in the mailbox nearly brought on fits of panic. Prevention became a direct indictment of me as a person, an unfit lump of margarine kind of person. A diseased, "this close to death" person. Despite meds and therapy, I still have a hard time reading it especially with articles like, "The Superbugs Are Here." God, how many more vats of hand sanitizer can I fit in the back of my SUV? I know how the superbugs are going to enter my bloodstream....FROM ALL THE ABRASIONS I'VE MADE IN MY SKIN FROM WASHING MY HANDS TOO MUCH AS A MEANS OF KEEPING THE SUPERBUGS AT BAY.

Reading Prevention is a blow to my self-esteem. Why? Because I didn't get my 25 mg of fiber or eat 9 servings of green leafy vegetables. Because I haven't exercised 5 times this week for at least 30 minutes each time. Of course sometimes reality checks in and I think about the lady I used to work with who ate at 1Potato2 nearly everyday and who's skin was a pallid yellow, and who's arm fat hung down a good three inches whenever she'd stretch her arm out to hand me journals. This makes me feel a little better.

I do have to say that I did find one small nugget of info in the recent Prevention that made me feel a little better. According to a Penn State study, crabbiness can be a sign of intelligence, at least in people ages 60+. People with above-average intelligence tend to be the very disagreeable. Now a lot of people wouldn't think I'm disagreeable, but I just keep it to myself. Maybe if I can keep working on it, I'll be in really good shape by the time I'm a senior.

Enough about Prevention. I walked on the treadmill today, ate wheat chex & blueberries for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and then blew it all to hell with 2 pieces of chocolate satin pie for tonight's dessert.

Speaking of biology and other health-related topics: I never used to dislike the 3rd week of the month, but alas, my "expected period date" is looming, so my brain is starting to....you know...go there.
Do I feel any different? (See the sparkle of hope)
I don't think I'm as irritable as normal (Another sparkle)
Are my breasts starting to develop those darkened veins? (Maybe, maybe)
Oh crap, look that that giant zit on my thigh. That is typical PMS (See hope fading fast)
For the life of me I can't remember how I felt around the same time when I was pregnant with N. Probably because I was toodling around Iceland...talk about distraction.
I am trying to just say, whenever I start on this circular train of thought, "You can't control this," and somehow, at least right now, this week, this moment, it all falls like icicles.

Addendum to I wish I lived in a village....

So I had moved on to working on my Xmas cards when the voices of "those people" popped into my head.

Everyone has a "those people" voice. Mine works overtime. Those people are the ones who disagree with me, or are seemingly superior to me in every form and fashion. They are the perfect imaginary people who pooh-pooh my Carrie thoughts and feelings. They are all the child experts and the marriage experts and the scientists and the authority figures I've read about who tell all of us dumb-ole flounderers how we should make better choices in life. They are the "no tv for children under 2" people and the "eliminate all white foods because they raise blood sugar levels too high, too fast" people and the "stay in the BMI range of 20-24 or you'll develop pre-diabetes" people and the "don't waste fossil fuels, Carrie, by running to the store too often" people.

As I'm minding my own card-making business, "those people" in my head, in their haughty way said, "How can you possibly be bored?"

Today my answer to those people is: I am bored just because I am (and btw, f*** you imaginary people).

I wish I lived in a village...

Sometimes.

There are certain benefits to living in a small village, in huts, without streets. For one, there are always other women around...bathing their children in buckets, smacking their laundry on rocks, cooking their rice over the fire. There is always noise and activity. There is always distraction.

Of course, the disadvantages of village living asI imagine it, namely malaria, lack of sanitation, abject poverty. I don't think I could get used to those.

When N is napping is when I am at my worst, although I so desperately need my "down time." As I'm getting her settled for nap my body is achingly saying, "It's almost mommy rest time." But once I have the time, I find myself putzing around the house. Or spending entirely too much time doing MOMS Club junk or, now, writing whiney posts like this.

I guess I'm not whining; this would be stating facts. I think this is just me. I've always been this way. Daggonit, I like to be entertained by other people. My brother was the type of kid who could play in his room for days with his Legos. I was the type of kid who loved when my nearly crippled grandma came over because since she could barely walk, she had no choice but to play dolls with me or let me play beauty salon and fix her hair.

Yes, I could turn on the tv, but that doesn't cut it (unless it is Battlestar Gallactica, and I have to wait for D because he likes that too). I could read a book, but I only like to read my books before bed. I could work on my holiday cards, but I don't really want to. I could practice my guitar, but again....don't wanna.

Oh Geez, my own blog is boring me. I am posting about being bored...and yet, I'm not willing to do anything to resolve it. I'm just over-analyzing the boredom.

Why am I doing this????

So why have I decided to start a blog? A couple of reasons.

First and foremost, I like to read what I think. Perhaps it is the mood disorder, but I vacillate between feeling tremendously insecure and nearly falling down under the weight of my bloated ego, which is always accompanied by Freddie Mercury chanting, "You are the champion, my friend."

Secondly, my friend G has a blog, and she is hilarious and witty and wise, and I want to be like that too. Of course, this is a free service, so I daresay the hilarity, wit and wisdom are natural to her, not special gifts granted by this blog site.

There is no thirdly.

Unfortunately, any of my friends who is bored enough to read this will determine that there is likely a special ring of hell for people as boring as me who start a blog and bore their friends.

So what is new with me????

Trying to have another baby, which is proving highly anxiety-provoking. Not so good for a person with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Now I have Specified Anxiety Disorder....specifically about getting pregnant.

Cyst on my left ovary. A little uncomfortable physically. It, too, is proving to be highly anxiety-provoking.

Dealing with a nearly 3-year-old. Can you guess what type of emotion this provokes?

There is a theme to my life. You don't have to be an analytical wiz to figure it out.