Category: Uncategorized

He’s All Growds Up

The eve of my son’s twelfth birthday seems like a good time to sit and reflect on the last decade plus two years we’ve had together. People I know make a lot of posts on social media about their kids but since he hit 9 or 10, he’s been more hesitant and self-conscious about me posting pictures of him for the world to see. Which is fine, honestly, as time goes by, the more I hate social media anyway and don’t think it’s really your fucking business what my kid is doing or, for that matter, what *I* am doing. (Unless I’m recapping Game of Thrones while drinking and posting it to my Instagram stories because LET ME TELL YOU, this is my new favorite hobby. I’m sure it’s annoying but whatever because you people post the same 7 pictures of your dogs every day.) Anyway.

A month before I had my kid, my doctor put me on bed rest because my blood pressure was spiking. This was after a completely miserable pregnancy, chock full of morning sickness, sausage fingers, more morning sickness, scraping my child’s drunk father off the floor (literally AND figuratively), sciatica, working 14 hour days, boobs that got bigger than my head, creeps I didn’t know rubbing my tummy and alluding to wanting a threesome while I was working one of those 14 hour days, and other fun things like my body deciding it was going to reject certain food immediately upon consumption (mandarin oranges) or just…leaking like an old car. You know fluid is coming from somewhere but you’re not sure where, or what it could be. So a friend drove me to my final doctor’s appointment (before which I’d spent the whole weekend pissing into a large orange jug and keeping it in my fridge so she could monitor my urine protein) because my kid’s dad couldn’t be bothered to get up. At the appointment the doc takes one look at my blood pressure and orders me to go to the hospital. I looked her dead in the eye and said, “You mean I pissed in this jug for NOTHING? UGH.” I was already pragmatic about pregnancy and motherhood because I romanticize nothing but seriously, do you know how hard it is to piss in a jug EVERY FUCKING TIME you have pee when you’re 9 fucking months pregnant?

Continue reading →

Just Do the Damn Thing and Leave

In my line of work, I get a ton of desperate calls from people who have broken dishwashers or, gasp, ice makers in their pool houses that have stopped working and there is a lot of huffing and puffing because now they have to use the OTHER ice maker in their MAIN house and can you even imagine suffering such an indignity? Surely, you cannot. [puts hand over eyes and faints]

But I have never, until today, received a desperate phone call for a very simple, very minor,  cosmetic issue from someone who wasn’t selling a house. (People selling houses are ABSOLUTELY BATSHIT INSANE over minor appliance issues.) The woman had left a voicemail describing a minor cosmetic issue, but requesting a full-on, major, expensive repair. She sounded kind of desperate, but I’ve had people get angry with me that we would have to wait a few days to repair their pool house ice makers, so I didn’t think much of it. Within 20 minutes, while I was on the phone with other customers, she called back twice. I was definitely annoyed at this point because her appliance was FINE, just had a SMALL DENT GIMME A MINUTE LADY. Continue reading →

Hey! Look! I Did It! I Guess!

Ten years ago, on my 25th birthday, I stood in front of my mirror, very naked and very pregnant and burst into tears because huge, purple, itchy stretchmarks were snaking their way up my belly. Well, wait. That is not technically accurate. I burst into tears because the stretch marks were just the cherry on top of the horrible shit sundae I’d made of my life. I was making a baby with a terrible someone who I KNEW was bad news. I worked a shitty job that kept me for 13 or 14 hours a day sometimes. I was PREGNANT (oops) and even though I was in a (horrible) relationship, I was definitely alone. One of my best friends took me out to dinner that night and I ate a pricey hamburger I could not afford, so she covered my tab. I went home, alone and obviously sober, and wondered if that would be my life in 10 years. Would I be miserable and raising a miserable child, miserably? Would I still be broke and at a dead-end job I hated, needing friends to pay for everything? I could hardly muster enthusiasm for creme brulee anymore, how was I going to get stoked for a man I detested and I life I made for myself that fucking sucked? Continue reading →

I’m So Vain, I Probably Think This Blog Post is About Me. Oh. Wait.

treatyoself

Seven years ago, I was a depressed gelatinous mass, exhausted from the stress of raising a newborn and an alcoholic man-child who managed to drink up a large balance on my credit card and pass out in places that were not our home, making it difficult to get to work the next day since he generally had my car. I was verging on the alcoholic-territory myself, often downing 1 or 2 bottles of wine a night after putting my baby down which was always a pleasant experience when that 3am feeding came. My shifts at work were sometimes 13 hours long, and some of those were worked alone. The 70 pounds that I’d put on during pregnancy were maybe half gone and none of my clothes fit. If my body could have made a noise, it would have been “pffffthbbbbbbt,” like a raspberry you blow or a slowly leaking whoopee cushion you sit on. My bank account was dwindling. My job was terrible. My boyfriend was The Worst. I had my friends and my baby, and that was that. Continue reading →

A Seriously Random List of Things on My Mind Today

  • I can’t stop listening to Lana Del Ray. She makes me feel like I am in a movie in the best possible way. Haters gonna hate, and I don’t particularly give a flying fuck what anyone else has to say about her.
  • If you find yourself constantly apologizing for your shitty behavior, maybe you should quit behaving so shittily (is too a word, I just said so.)
  • My son used letters from his new Matchbox license plates to spell HAM GUY. That is not his name.
  • In related news, I am now referring to my son as HAM GUY.
  • My friend volunteered me to help out with my kid’s school’s annual fundraiser and I actually like it. Not feeling useless is pretty cool.
  • My other friend and I have serious plans to start a band. I don’t know when or where we’re going to practice, and it might just be her and me, but I’m totally into it.
  • Man, that Superbowl was fucking awful, right?
  • Unpopular opinion: Despite his charming dance moves and resemblance to a leprechaun, I cannot stand Bruno Mars. I’m not debating this with you. I get why you like him. That goddamn Locked Out of Heaven song is nails on a chalkboard to these ears.
  • I wish I could sit down with Ryan Murphy and talk to him about how to improve future seasons of American Horror Story. Coven was so close this season, but dropped the ball in SO MANY WAYS. (Clearly, Stevie Nicks was not the issue for me.)
  • That said, I LOVED THIS SEASON SO HARD. Myrtle Snow is my new spirit animal.
  • I really hate when I tell dudes I don’t like something, like a band, and they brush it off and tell me to try it again. Then I reiterate my researched opinion and my opinion is still ignored.
  • I want my son to listen to Beyonce’s Flawless. It is important for boys to start learning to get on the feminist level.
  • I got this amazing Maybelline Color Show glitter nail polish and I love it, except 2 days ago I painted them and it’s already coming off in huge chunks, littering my office carpet with disco ball nail polish flakes.
  • Last Wednesday I went out on a whim and had great conversation with lovely ladies who reminded me that I need to create more. Since the extent of my artistic abilities are stick figures and macaroni necklaces, I am making a commitment to writing more. And baking.
  • Related: My city is overflowing with amazing women. Now ya heard.
  • This quote right here, from another dear friend: “Patriarchy is exhausting.”
  • I love winter. Cold gets me motivated, and makes me love snuggling in my bed with books, tea, Netflix, and iTunes. It has also made me seriously consider getting a cat, which goes against both things I believe in. (Yeah, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. Deal with it.) I’m not going to get a cat. But a fluffy gray or black one named Myrtle Snow exists in my dreams.
  • Spring is just ahead which means fucking yardwork. I fucking hate yardwork. That’s it. No witticisms.
  • The next post I make won’t be so disjointed. Probably. But maybe it will. I don’t know. But I am going to make an effort to post more. The end!