Still Dumbstruck

I am still absolutely dumbstruck by the events of 6/1. For those of you who haven't heard on the news, an EF03 tornado ripped through western MA in a 39 mile path of sheer destruction. I have family and friends in every single affected town and city, and the tornado missed them all by as little as a half mile and my house by about 8 miles. By sheer dumb fucking luck, we were all either just to the south or north of the tornado's path.

My former stomping grounds from my teenage years are all but totally leveled. People have lost everything. Again, by dumb fucking luck, only 4 people were killed. One of them, a mother, was killed when she acted as human shield over her 15 year-old daughter as their house came down on top of them. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about it.

I've seen many people on the news and on Facebook talking about how they prayed for God to spare them and their homes, and how it was a "miracle" they came through unscathed. I am amazed at the cognitive dissonance that belief requires. It has taken all of my self-control not to ask - do you somehow think you prayed harder or had more faith than the people who lost everything? Do you think you deserved to be spared and those affected didn't? How can you possibly believe in and justify the actions of a god who would do something like that?

Don't get me wrong - I'm sure that if my house had been in the path and I was forced to take cover in the basement, shielding my baby from flying debris, glass, and mother nature's blind-ass fury, you'd probably catch me, an Atheist, praying my ass off too. I think that's just human nature in the face of impending doom - not necessarily praying to a god, but to anything, everything that might be listening - even the tornado itself - "Please Mr. Tornado, please spare my baby, I am BEGGING you PLEASE!" - throwing your will and desperation out there to the universe and hoping it sticks somehow.

But then if you ARE spared, if you are one of the lucky ones, how can you possibly sit there and say, out loud no less, that "God" saw fit to save YOU because he heard your prayers somehow over the prayers of thousands of others praying just as feverishly and desperately as you?

I am dumbstruck by all of it. The destruction, the violence of it, the terror I went through calling my family members and saying "There's a tornado heading straight for your house!!!!!" while I'm watching the shit happen on the news. Being in a panic the entire rest of the evening with every rumble of thunder, every flash of lightning, a yellow-orange foreboding sky above - the whole time saying to myself "But this shit doesn't happen HERE! Not HERE!!!"

And I've been having nightmares about it ever since. As someone who truly loved thunderstorms my entire life, I don't think I will ever see them the same way again. Ever.

Nature 2. JLK 0.

My loyal readers might remember the last time I tried to take on nature at our new house. It didn't go so well.

And it's only getting worse. In fact, I am looking forward to winter and it's only just Memorial Day. And I used to LOVE summer.

It got pretty hot around these parts pretty quickly. I was happy for the nice weather, but we don't (yet) have air conditioning in our house so the nights have been steaming hot on the 2nd floor. We've been forced to open the windows at night, knowing that the shitty screens were going to let some bugs in. And so for the last week or so, my house has been damn-near infested with every little creepy crawly you can imagine.

Then, on friday, we found ourselves having a pretty serious carpenter ant problem, especially in the living room. But even then I was okay, because I can kill ants, I'm not scared of them, and my husband all but eradicated the problem when he got home from work that same day.

Today we had all new windows installed in the house. We've been counting down the days for a month, so we were pretty excited. Every single window in the house is open right now and I am enjoying the bugless fresh air. Except for two nagging things:

1. One of the window guys felt the need to tell me that on one of the 2nd floor storm windows there was a big ass spider with fangs that jumped off the house before he could kill it, and...

2. The thing about new windows is, in order for them to install them they have to take the old ones out. Which means that for at least a few minutes, there were gaping holes in the house. So for most of the afternoon I have been killing MORE bugs and spiders and only keeping myself from losing my shit by telling myself that this is the end, these are the last bugs that are getting in here.

But the absolute KICKER today was when I headed out through the garage to go see the progress of the install. I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye and noticed a 6 FOOT LONG SNAKE dangling from the side wall of the fucking garage, trying to slither its way on top of the now-open garage door. I freaked the FREAK out.

A got the thing down and out of the garage, probably injured it in the process, and laughed at me for being such a chicken shit when we used to have a pet snake. But a snake in a cage that you raised from the time it was a baby and a wild snake from the woods that you don't know from Adam are two different things.

Either way I thought it was over.

Late this afternoon I noticed the garage door was still open. "Gee honey, I wonder how the snake got IN the garage in the first place????" I decided that since it had been open for so long, I should probably go out and check to make sure the snake hadn't returned. I didn't make it 3 feet in before I noticed a giant-ass snake skin hanging from the crawlspace above the interior entry door. I'm pretty sure it wasn't there last night. I'm also pretty sure it wasn't there this morning. Hubby isn't home to check it out.

I am now at the point where every time I go outside, I feel like Owen Wilson in Behind Enemy Lines - under constant fucking attack from creatures all around me. Bugs fly into my head, mosquitoes bite me, bees screw with me, spiders somehow decide that my yard isn't big enough and they need to come investigate ME. I've gone from telling my husband not to use pesticides in our yard at all, to saying "Spray that shit until it glows in the dark for all I care, just get rid of the fuckers!" Irresponsible and selfish? Yeah, probably. But I'm developing phobias left and right here.

So much for my gardening and landscaping plans. I have an awesome Yankee Doodle lilac to plant but I can't bring myself to go outside long enough to dig a hole.

This summer is going to suck. :(

The Bucket List

This post over at The Domestic Diva in which she lays out her Bucket List inspired me to come up with my own, as I said in the comments over there, "to remind myself there is more to life than dirty diapers and sleepless nights!"

So here is mine, numbered but not in any particular order:

1. Visit every major city in Europe.

2. Earn a graduate degree. In something.


3. Take a jetski out on open ocean.

4. Sleep overnight on the beach, like maybe in a tent.

5. Ride a horse on the beach. (Has to be in Mexico, it's illegal in the US!)

6. Pet a killer whale.

7. Visit Disneyworld, with or without children.

8. Pet a tiger cub.

9. Go out for one fantastic, Sex & The City-type night out in NYC.

10. See the sunrise from Haleakala crater on Maui. (Didn't do this during the honeymoon.)

11. To snowboard for real. At least once. Preferably in Alaska when it's 50 degrees outside.

This is all I"ve got for now, but I'm sure I'll be adding to this as time goes on. What about you guys? What's on YOUR bucket list?

Tuesday Evening Ramblings

As I sit here on this Tuesday evening, drinking a glass of cheap-ass wine after putting the baby to bed, besides thinking about how drunk I'm going to be after 3-4 sips of this shit riesling, I find myself thinking that I'm feeling a bit isolated these days.

Yes, Aunt Becky, I'm going to write that post you skipped after deciding it was too whiny.

I have plenty of acquaintances who are moms, but none who I'm really close with. I have one who I've been "mom-dating" pretty steadily, mainly because her daughter is only a month older than my son, but we're by no means exclusive BFFs. We know each other well as moms - it's the only context in which we've spent time together - and though our parenting styles can be very different at times, we both accept and respect each other's way of doing things and actually enjoy talking about our differences because of that.

But as women, it doesn't seem we have much in common. Our personalities are different, our senses of humor are different, and although the gaps are not too wide to bridge, they can't be ignored completely.

The closest thing I have to a best GF is a friend who is not yet a mom, who still parties pretty hard, and has a husband who makes it virtually impossible for her to hang out with her friends on her own because he's also friends with all of us. And ever since we moved 25 mins away (even though it's only 8 miles), it's been extremely difficult to coordinate a way to spend time together.

Because I work full-time (albeit from home), I can't really join a playgroup and I'm not sure I'd really want to anymore anyway, and I'm living in a new town where I don't know anyone. I also do not live in a "neighborhood" setting - I have one neighbor on one side with a 6 year-old son who is never home, and a neighbor across the street with what appears to be a 2 year-old daughter, but I'd never know because she has never introduced herself or even waved. (Though she has no problem letting her goddamn dog on my lawn......but that's another story for another day.)

So where does this leave me?

In the motherfucking blogosphere, that's where. And frustrated, to boot.

"Why are you frustrated, JLK?"

I'm so glad you asked. Thanks for caring about my feelings, Blogosphere. See, every day I read these wonderful, awesome, kick-ass blog posts from these amazing women who bare it all for The Internetz to see. In some ways, there are bloggers I feel I know better than the people in my real life because of the things they choose to share on their pages.

Now of course here I am giving the benefit of the doubt (or as my husband says, benefit of doubt - who is right????) and just believing that the public persona matches the private persona of these women. But even if it doesn't - it would take a heck of a masterful writer to pull off some of these personalities if they were in no way a reflection of self. (Again, here's looking at you, Aunt Becky!)

I am constantly hunting for bloggers who live in my neck of the woods. PhizzleDizzle up and moved far, far away (not that she was that close in the first place, but driving distance at least) and she was really all I had. I've looked at blogs from people in my state who identify themselves as such, and so far I have to say, they're written by women who I don't think I would have ANYthing in common with whatsoever.

There are so many of you out there though who I absolutely adore - those of you whose pages I read and think "Now THIS chick is someone I could get drunk and have great conversations with!" But then I find out at least in general terms what your geographic location is, and I think "Goddammit! We'd have to get drunk over Skype or some shit!"

And we all know that's just not the same. You especially know this if your spouse/partner is in the military.

Ahem.

Anyway. So I'm grateful to have found all of you over there on my blogroll, because you've made me realize that I am not alone in this crazy ass journey of motherhood/adulthood/womanhood and that there are people out there with the same sick sense of humor and appreciation of random shit that I have. I love you all for it. But I also wish you were all just a car ride away where we could meet up for Mexican food and margaritas or hang out at my place with a glass of ass Yellow Tail riesling or some Captain & Coke Zero and make fun of stupid people. Or something.

Bottom line - if any of you are heading out to New England anytime soon - hit me up. Because JLK needs more people in her life like you guys.

It Feels Good To Be Queen

Apparently I have a talent. Too bad I can't turn it into a profitable enterprise. Yet.


Over at Mommy Shorts I recently won my second reader-judged caption contest!

And if you're bored, here is the first caption contest I won over there!

A few words about Mommy Shorts, aka Ilana Rosengarten: She writes what I consider to be one of the best Mommy blogs out there. She's funny, she's down-to-earth, and her daughter Mazzy is downright adorable. If I lived in NY I would be begging to be her BFF. Back in December I read her entire blog archive in a single sitting and now I'm hooked. 

So not that I've been drumming up a whole lot of traffic via the mommy blogs, but if you're looking for something new and amusing to read, head on over to Ilana's page and I guarantee you won't be sorry. 

Thanks, Mommy Shorts, for crowning me once again - this shout-out's for YOU!

The Things I Miss Most

Ah, I remember JLK back in B.C. (read: Before Child). I will have these things again, but while my son is still an infant I will miss them and remember them fondly.

1. Free time. Now, whenever I am not tending to the baby I am running around the house trying to clean, do endless piles of laundry, run to the grocery store, take a quick shower. And, oh yeah, WORK. I miss staring at the wall sometimes and being all "I'm bored."

mi annoio.

2. Sleeping. I think this one speaks for itself, but seriously? The biggest fear I have about having another child is that I might Never. Sleep. Again! And I used to sleep til 1pm on the weekends. Man, those were the days.....

3. Drinking. Actually, this one should say "the enjoyment of drinking" because I can still drink in moderation and even over-indulge if I have bottles lined up with the babysitter and the pump on hand, but it's not the same. I'm all boring responsible now and start to get paranoid if I even have a slight buzz that something will happen and I'll be That Mom In The News that everyone tsks at. No thanks. I'll wait until he's in college and then go on a bender. 

4. Drawing/Painting/Coloring, etc. Ha! Caught you off-guard with that one, didn't I? Me too when it hit me the other day. When inspiration would strike, I used to pull out all my art supplies and sit for hours and hours doing a single work all in one shot. Now I have to write blog posts over the course of 3-4 days, for crying out loud! And I have this super-sweet coloring book I got a little while back too that mellows me the heck out when I have the time to sit down with it. (See left panel. If you ignore the fake-Twilight theme, the coloring pages themselves are pretty sweet.)

5. Going Out Just Because I Feel Like It. To the store. To Starbucks. Even to the goddamn post office. Now I only get one day a week to do that while my mom watches the rugrat. But see #1 above - I usually spend that time working on the house, aka The Money Pit.

I love that movie. Especially now that we have a house. That reminds me.....my roof is probably collapsing from all this GD snow and ice!

Now tell me, peeps, what are the things you miss most, Before Children, Before Grad School, or perhaps even just Before Adult Responsibility?

And if you would be so kind as to click the link below to vote for me on Top Mommy Blogs, I'd be ever-so-grateful.

Who or What?

The Unlikely Grad Student recently asked this question over at her blog:

Who do you want to be when you grow up?

I have wasted a lot of time in my life asking myself what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I never really spent any time asking myself who. Her post gave me pause and I found myself thinking about it for days afterward.

Who do I want to be when I grow up? Who did I want to be when I grew up? Am I that person? Has my time been spent pursuing that person or did I get distracted?

When I was younger and particularly when I was a child, I knew I wanted to create things. I've always had artistic inclinations, in large part due to my artist/painter grandmother with whom I spent many a school vacation while growing up. She taught me to draw, paint, and sew when I was very small. I made my own doll clothes and put on impromptu fashion shows at her house using scraps of fabric from clothing she had made.  I had the Fashion Plates set and spent hours and hours pretending I was a designer. When I was 8 or 9 I created a portfolio of original clothing designs complete with fabric samples for each outfit. I still have it in the attic somewhere.


When I was 11 or 12 I thought maybe I wanted to be an architect. Using huge sheets of drafting paper, I designed my "dream house." To scale. It was about 45,000 sq ft and included full suites for each one of my family members, a "rec room" with a full-size basketball court, an indoor swimming pool, and servants' quarters. I went through countless magazines and catalogs, tearing out images of furniture, bedding, and decor for every single room of the house, labeled them accordingly, and put them into a 3-ring binder with tabs.

Yes, I was that kid. And now I am that adult.

When I realized the odds of making it as a fashion designer (in the days before things like Project Runway) and the amount of boring-ass math required to be an architect, I decided to go in another direction. I found psychology.

I looked at research as a creative endeavor - creating a hypothesis, designing experiments, writing up findings, etc. I pursued it as such for a very long time. But when the reality of grad school admissions and the earning of a PhD presented themselves to me, I learned that it was not what I had thought it was AT ALL. In interviews I found myself playing a part - it was all about the professor who was interviewing me, not about me or my interests, and certainly not about the ways I thought my presence could improve the current research going on under their supervision.

No, it was about stroking egos. The psychology PhD had nothing to do with creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. They wanted newbies whose undying devotion would guarantee their citations in textbooks and journals forever. That's just not me. If you study the history of psychology you will see all sorts of alliances, dynasties, rebellions, slander, professional suicides. It's like a soap opera. Or the Roman Empire. I don't know if it's like that in other fields, but the drama in psychology is rampant and gratuitous.

So when they said "You don't really belong here," I flipped them the bird and said "You know what? You're right."

And now here I am, 2 years later, with the same job that allows me to work from home and raise my son. It requires no mindpower. There is no creativity. There is no room to really grow. But it allows me to focus on what is important for now.

When my son is grown, I want him to think of me as a creative person. Someone unique, who doesn't fit easily into a mold and who offers a different perspective on things than most. That is the Who I want to be. The What that will allow me to become that person has not yet revealed itself. Only time and the appearance of opportunity will tell.

The Holiday Season

There is something about Christmastime that makes me all sentimental. I turn into one of those "Dammit, hurry up and wrap the presents so we can have a bunch of them under the tree way before Christmas Day" people.

One of my holiday quirks that my husband just doesn't get is my love of and need for Christian Christmas music. As you all know, I am not religious in the slightest and am best described as an Awakened Catholic. But 13 years of Catholic school and Christmas masses have taken their toll on me, and I LOVE old, traditional, Christmas music. I will take "O Holy Night" over "Jingle Bells" any day of the week. My favorite Christmas carol ever is an extremely obscure Latin song called "Angelus Ad Pastores Ait" - I sang it in high school when I was part of the concert choir and have been obsessed with it ever since. As much as I have trolled the internet, I am as of yet still unable to find a recording of the arrangement we used back in '99. I look for it every year.

I consider every Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, Christina Aguilera, Faith Hill, and every other pop/country bastardization of Christmas music to be the most horrendous shit ever created. It makes my ears bleed. I hate "Silent Night" just because of how many times it's been recorded and fucked with over the years, so I don't listen to it anymore.

There is something about the sound of a choir - the harmonies, the intricate balance of parts, the full sound they create - there's nothing like it in the world. "The Carol of the Bells," for example, is just not the same when performed any other way. I think that's why the Christian stuff is so dear to my heart - because it's all written for choirs to perform, it's very intense and complex, has so much more substance.

But really, it's more personal than that. Every year, from kindergarten through senior year of high school I was part of a Christmas concert. I have, at one time or another, sang just about every Christmas carol you can imagine in an auditorium or church. We had some great musical directors who went on to conduct large-city orchestras. In other words, this was serious shit for us. It meant spending block after block of classroom time practicing singing our parts for the show instead of doing long division. And it is rehearsing a complex harmony in a large, empty, echoing church that makes you fall in love with a particular piece of music.

My senior year Christmas concert we sang "Angelus Ad Pastores Ait" and "Lo, How A Rose Ere Blooming." I loved, Loved, LOVED doing the less well-known stuff. It sticks with you. So for the rest of my life, no matter how far from religion I may stray, the songs about the birth of a savior will continue to bring tears to my eyes when performed the "right" way.

The other, similar holiday feature that strikes a chord with me is The Nutcracker. My mom used to have The Nutcracker Suite on cassette tape (imagine!), and my little sister and I would put it on full blast and dance improv ballet on the hardwood floors in front of the lit-up Christmas tree in our socks. My mom used to put on the PBS broadcast of The Nutcracker Ballet every Christmas, and we would watch Clara's every move with rapt attention, hoping that her twirling techniques would magically bestow themselves upon us through the TV screen.

We would drink egg nog and hot chocolate with candy canes in it. Decorating the tree was an all-night affair that we were always excited about. Christmas was the one time of year where almost no one in my family fought, or was angry, and nothing bad ever seemed to happen. Our family would come together at one big gathering, we would get dressed up, we would spend the entire day together eating, talking, and exchanging gifts. A decade later my parents would be divorced and we would never again see our entire family in the same place to share a holiday together.

When it was over and the tree was gone, the excitement was worn off, The Nutcracker tape was put away, things would return to normal and the arguing and fighting would resume. I remember one time my sister and I pulled out The Nutcracker Suite sometime around April and tried to dance to it again. It just wasn't the same.

The nostalgia I feel for these small holiday-related things is strong. I dragged my husband to my old high school last night to see the Christmas Concert that I was a part of exactly 10 years ago. It left much to be desired after seeing all the changes that have taken place. I loved my high school, so it breaks my heart that it's been altered so drastically. I did not get the Christmas fix I so desperately needed.

So today, I am taking my little sister to see The Nutcracker ballet at symphony hall. Hopefully it is every bit as captivating as I remember.

Invasion of the Body Snatcher: Month 1

A week and a half ago I found out that I'm pregnant. Holy crap. No need for congratulations - it wasn't exactly some feat of accomplishment. In fact, the running joke in my house is that it was the first thing my husband did when he came home.

You know what the craziest thing is? It should not be that much harder to get into grad school than it is to become someone's parent.

I debated whether or not I wanted to post about this on the blog or keep it a secret until the rest of the IRL people knew. But the advice and support available to me offline is pretty limited and I figured what the hell. If something bad happens, I'd probably post about it on here anyway.

I did not expect it to happen that fast. Not in a million years. That said, the timing of it is perfect because I'll be due in June and I get summers off from work. I was 2 days away from calling my GYN and asking for a new Rx for the pill when the test came back positive. It's amazing how that works out.

So here I am, 8 weeks pregnant this coming Monday. I'm not sick at all which is fantastic, but I do get cramps like a motherfucker and I'm not allowed to take anything stronger than Tylenol. Not even extra-strength Tylenol. I am also exhausted most of the time. I told my husband that getting out of bed in the morning is like trying to re-animate a corpse with nothing but a set of jumper cables and a D battery. I sleep like shit, getting and staying comfortable is nearly impossible, and it doesn't help when 4am finds you down on all fours on the floor trying not to cry as your uterus throws a violent temper tantrum inside your abdomen.

Nope, not a whole lot of sunshine and roses here. Nosirree.

I am also a complete and total airhead. I knew the stereotype of the pregnant brain and all that, but holy shit they weren't kidding. I have all but left the house without pants on. The other day I was driving on the highway, moved over into the right lane because my exit was less than a mile away. And in that .75 mile or so distance, I forgot what I was doing and drove right by the exit ramp. That has never happened to me in. my. life.

I went out and bought the obligatory What To Expect When You're Expecting. It's pretty boring, but I appreciate the information. My other book, though, was worth every last damn penny I spent on it, and that is The Girlfriends Guide To Pregnancy. HI-LAR-I-OUS. Author Vicki Iovine is now my idol. The wit and humor in that book is so fantastic and needed that I haven't been able to put it down. In fact, I am currently reading the section on what to bring to the hospital even though I am 9 months away from that point. I just can't stop reading.

Something I wasn't expecting:

I have been cool as a cucumber about this whole thing. Not overly excited and yuppie-psycho, but not pessimistic and brooding either. I've been very zen - accepting it, allowing myself to be happy about it, willingly taking on the responsibility, mentally preparing myself for the possibility that it might not work out this time around.

Yesterday afternoon I saw the slightest potential sign of something going wrong. I knew on a rational level that it was 99% likelihood of nothing and that I was probably being paranoid. But when the possibility entered my head that I might lose the pregnancy and it felt as if I had some evidence right in front of me, I lost my shit.

I always thought, given what I know about my family's reproductive history, that I could face something like that with the understanding that it is not my fault, that it happens, that it's so early, etc. But when you're looking that demon in the eye, it's a totally different fucking story. It was in that moment that I got to feel what it's like to be a mother instead of just the earthly vessel that I feel like the rest of the time.

Everything is fine. At least for now and as far as I know. My first appointment isn't until 11/10 and next week I have to get the H1N1 vaccine since my job requires me to visit about 14 schools a week and some of them have just closed down due to the swine flu. Hopefully the vaccine doesn't make me sick because I've been running on E for weeks now.

A New Chapter, Or a Different Story?

When I announced on this blog that I had decided I was done with academia, I expected a lot more push-back. I anticipated scrolling through comments like "What?!" and the like. But I didn't get that. Instead I received supportive, "make the best choice for you"-esque comments. My first reaction to this was: "You guys thought all along that I couldn't hack it, didn't you."

It's amazing to me, how much weight has been lifted by letting go of the whole "I'm going to make a difference in this world" mantra bullshit. I still question myself frequently, wondering if I'm taking the easy way out, or whether I was cut out for it to begin with.

But it's been a major paradigm shift. It's never easy when your entire world outlook changes overnight - when something that used to be marginal in its importance becomes crucial, and the thing you always thought was necessary becomes minor at best.

I had carved myself out a small niche in the world of academic bloggers - a world I no longer feel a part of. In some ways I feel ashamed for backing out of the fight for women academics. In some ways I feel that I have minimized my potential in exchange for peace of mind. In many ways I feel like "the one who gave up." I'm sure that many of you probably think these things about me as well. And that's okay.

I lost a huge amount of readership during my transition. I think that's a big part of why I disappeared for awhile. When you no longer feel there are readers to whom you have an obligation, you begin to wonder what the point is. But I made friends here. PhizzleDizzle, who is one of the awesomest chicks I have ever met, is now way too far away for an in-person friendship to feasibly work, and that makes me incredibly sad. Though I wish her the best, as always! And to all of you, I still support the work that you do and the dreams that you have, and want everything you want in life to happen for you.

That said, I hope many of you will still follow this blog as your look into the path not taken, at least not yet. The path where husbands don't live hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away. Where roots are put down in a small New England town, where jobs are only 40 hours a week, where domesticity is not a dirty word. Where, if nothing else, we can all find out together exactly how long it will take an academic-at-heart to go completely stir crazy before she throws herself back into the rat race.

I'm not quite sure of the direction this blog will take in the coming months. I'll figure it out as I go along. But the title was always "Pieces of Me" so no matter what, I won't truly be deviating from the original intent.

I thought about "outing" myself on the blog, but I've said too many not-nice things about people to do that comfortably. So instead, I will offer to out myself on Facebook to those of you who don't mind outing yourselves in return. If you'd like to get to know me more personally, see who I am, etc., shoot me an email at fragile12682@gmail.com and I'll give you the link to my facebook profile.

In the meantime, I hope you will continue this journey with me as I figure out what is most important to me and blog about my progress.

Holy Crap - Where Did The Time Go??

My last post was 8/25??? How on earth did that happen? Not to worry, folks, I am still alive. Just being a slacker where blogs are concerned.

On the homefront - A is now home, at least on the weekends. It's been great having him back, but I'm still so used to him not being here that every weekend feels like a major disruption to routine. It's nice - a wonderful alternative to the boring existence I had going on for so long. My FIL talked us out of buying the house I posted about. It had a major mold problem in the basement among other horrible things. We have found another house that we love, but A's in-between job status means we can't put an offer in yet because we have to make sure the financing is good to go. Either way, our condo is sold and we have to move in November regardless of whether we have a house or not. Here's hoping that we have a house.

Work/school - I am debating getting a master's in some variation of writing or communications. I feel like it's a good idea to apply while letters of rec are still fresh and available. We'll see what I'm thinking next month, because work has been absolutely crazy. I put 600 miles on my car last week alone! I am completely jaded by academia and social psychology - it's strange, the feeling is like a long-term love affair that just ended because we drifted apart or something. Or like I gave a marriage ultimatum, academia said "Sorry, I'm just not ready," and I said "Okay then, no hurt feelings, but I am moving on." Yeah, it's more like that.

My 100 book goal - I fell a bit behind because of Proust, but it's still achievable at this point. Just finished Swann's Way and decided that the rest of Proust will have to wait until I am bedridden or something. Right now I am reading The Lovely Bones, seeing as I am the last person on earth to read it. Next up are The Lost Symbol, Julie & Julia, and The Time Traveler's Wife, to give me a dose of things I can read and enjoy quickly. I plan to post the complete list toward New Year's, when I see my final progress.

Heads up to those of you who either love Jane Austen or can't stand her books - there are currently some young adult twists on her stories that are so completely twisted and fucked up that you just have to enjoy them - Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters, and Mr. Darcy, Vampire.

I think that's it for now. I was very excited to see that Bruce Hood himself commented on my book review of Supersense! Check it out if you haven't already!

House Hunting

I'm super excited, but trying to keep myself grounded in reality and not get my hopes up. I went to look at a house yesterday that's in foreclosure - normally I've just been looking at houses on the traditional market. But despite the fact that my realtor said this one needs a lot of work, I asked her to humor me and take me to see it.

Oh. My. God. It needs work, no question. But this house has every possible thing that A and I could ever want in a house - over 2400 sq ft, inground pool, sunroom, outdoor hot tub and fireplace, English garden with fruit trees, master bath with a corner jacuzzi and 2 person glass-enclosed corner shower, finished basement not included in sq footage, big yard, huge heated garage, fireplace, recessed lighting, contemporary style. We could NOT afford this house if it was not owned by the bank.

I am in love.

And because it's a foreclosure that needs work, it's priced not much higher than what we paid for our condo over 2 years ago. So we could AFFORD the work!

We're hoping that it won't turn out to be Pandora's Box. We know it needs a lot of cosmetics, electrical, possibly plumbing, and definitely a new roof. But as long as the heating system is okay and there are no structural problems, we are all over this house like white on rice.

We both love projects. The other house on the top of my list is double the price but absolutely pristine. I love that one too, but I think we'd be bored with it considering that it doesn't even need paint (it's already in the color scheme I would choose.) It doesn't have any of the extras, but it's a really nice house.

But the foreclosure. Oh my word. It has so much damn potential to be an amazing house - the kind of house that my teenage children's friends would come to visit and think we're rich or something. Not that I care about that sort of thing, but I do look forward to impressing people with our pure blood, sweat, and tears.

I saw a shooting star last night while I was telling my husband about it. I'm not really into those cosmic sorts of things, but it was so low in the sky and happened at exactly the time I looked up. I really hope it's a good omen.

Focusing on the Mundane For Awhile

Today marked my return back to work after 6 weeks off for summer break. Those of you who remember my rants about the changes my company handed down right before the break will recognize that I am about to enter a period of stress and chaos. BUT - I thrive on stress and chaos so it will be a welcome change of pace after 9 months of what can only be described as mind-numbing boredom.

Lots of things going on in this head of mine lately, lots of changes coming down the pipeline. Husband comes home in just over 3 weeks, which is awesome. In the meantime, we are putting our condo on the market and looking for a house. Just found my DREAM house this past friday, but it's a bit on the pricey side and because of that, I can't make an offer on it until A comes home. 2 years ago when we were selling our old condo and looking for a house, I got so sucked into the process I couldn't see straight and was more stressed out than I have ever been in my life. I refuse to do that again. So whereas 2 years ago I would be freaking out about this house thinking if we don't buy it NOW then ZOMG!!! we might lose it forever!!! Nope. Not doing that again. If it's still there when he comes home, great. If not, I know will we find another one that I will love just as much. Let's hope I can keep this perspective.

I am no longer on the pill, taking a "come what may" attitude toward it. It's funny, various physicians and nurses have asked repeatedly when learning my medications have changed, "Oh, are you trying to get pregnant?" And I respond, "Well, not exactly. I'm not trying NOT to get pregnant." For some reason, when I think of people who "try" to get pregnant I imagine women trolling fertility websites, stocking up on ovulation tests from Costco, pre-shopping for maternity clothes and looking into cord blood banks (saw an ad for this in my GYN office - holy creepy.) That's not me. If we get pregnant, I will be super excited and happy. If we don't, then we don't. Again, not going to let myself get stressed out over something I don't really have all that much control over.

I am looking into applying for master's programs this fall. I'm thinking of possibly doing an MA in communications rather than psychology, or possibly doing an MSW or an MA in counseling. My focus is on something that will get me a job, not just a piece of paper. A MA in general psychology is useless, and usually doesn't even get you advanced standing in a PhD program, so I figure why bother with that. There's a program nearby in Writing, Rhetoric, and Media Arts that I thought might be kind of cool. I'm looking at it from two different points of view - either focusing on something I would like to teach or focusing on something I would like to DO.

The master's program idea is kind of a short-term solution to a long-term problem. It will keep me in a position to have fresh letters of recommendation for PhD programs down the line if I choose to continue that path regardless of what degree I earn in the meantime, and hopefully will broaden my skillset and make me more marketable for jobs. I am looking for flexibility and stability in my life and I think this might help make that happen.

I have a new personal goal that I stole from a certain academic who I admire to read 100 books by the end of this year. I'm at about 45 this year so far, running the gamut from nonfiction to chick lit. I am about halfway through Proust's Swann's Way, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for about a year waiting for me to have the time and attention it deserves.

I know my attention to the blogosphere has been spotty - been doing a lot of traveling and a lot of work around the house to get it ready to sell. As I type this, I have grout residue under my thumbnail that won't seem to go away from a bathroom project I tackled this weekend. I don't know the direction this blog will take over the next few months, but I know my readership will probably change dramatically, if not drop off completely. But the blogs I read and follow won't change because I love all you guys and my addiction is still pretty strong.

Onward and hopefully upward!

Priorities

By all accounts, I have been through some serious shit in the past year or so. It has drastically changed who I am and what is important to me.

I have decided to put off grad school indefinitely. At least, grad school for a doctorate.

"What??? WHY?? WTF is your problem, JLK???"

It's actually quite complex. My first response to this question is that I just don't give a shit anymore. Yeah, psych is still really interesting to me. But all of the bullshit I have to go through just to get to do it? Fuck that. I've got better things to do with my time and energy.

Academia is not like other jobs. Psychology, especially, is incredibly competitive. If you want to, say, become a lawyer, you get an undergrad degree, get into law school, and when you graduate you take the bar and become a lawyer. Same thing with becoming a doctor. Or just about any other job in the world - you study your shit, then you go out and do it. That is not the case with academia and definitely not with any branch of psychology other than clinical.

At some point during my tenure at my MRU, I lost sight of what my initial goal was - to teach in community college where relationships are meaningful, professors have control over the content and schedule of their courses, and where differences can be made. I was so dazzled by the thought of being "important" in my field that I forgot what my entire purpose was - where my loyalty lies.

My desire for a PhD was all about ego. I have always railed against the idea of becoming too specialized, too focused on one or two tiny aspects of a field as a whole. I think this practice, particularly in psychology, is detrimental to the progress of the discipline. But I wanted to be "Dr. JLK."

I was also incredibly selfish. My husband is not an academic, nor will he ever be. I never really thought about what it would mean to drag my husband and eventual children all over the country in pursuit of grad school, post-docs, adjunct positions and hopefully at some point a tenure-track professorship.

Please keep in mind that I am not judging anyone who has made the decision to pursue academia regardless of family status. I'm just not a person who is willing to do it.

Truth be told, if Yale called me up tomorrow and said "We made a huge mistake - we'd like to admit you for this fall" - I would go. But I am not wasting another second of my life trying to prove to some unknown admissions fucknut that I am good enough to slave for them for 5 years. I won't do it. It is utterly masochistic and I don't want to be part of a system that arbitrarily decides who is worthy and who is not.

Being separated from my husband last year combined with his being gone this year for the military has forced me to re-examine my priorities in life. My marriage, my family is more important to me than anything else in the world. I hear these stories about academics who live apart from their spouses, who have to keep 99 balls in the air just to keep their family functioning. Fuck that - it's not for me.

I can spend my life trying to make a difference in my field - trying to be important to strangers and to get my name in future textbooks, OR I can spend my life trying to make a difference in the lives of people I care about. To be an important influence on them - even the ones I haven't met yet.

No one, no matter how much he or she may have loved her job, ever says on their deathbed "I wish I had spent more time at work."

Nope, it's not for me. I won't lose another fucking second of my life to the pursuit of something that is fueled (for me) by ego and a desire for recognition. I have a good job. I have summers off, 5 weeks of paid vacation a year, I work from home, and I have all the freedom I could possibly ask for. Sure, it's boring. But it allows me to have a life outside of my job.

I may go for my master's so that I can teach. I know I'll get into any program I apply to at that level. I'll have my babies and raise them the best I can. And maybe when they're grown up I'll want to go get my PhD.

But I will not waste another second of my twenties trying to get somewhere that I'm not currently wanted. I am not being defeatist, I am not giving up, I am not quitting. I am recognizing that it's just not fucking important. I am nearly positive that continuing on the path I initially set out for myself will result in much more regret in the long-term.

And I have more than enough regret in my life already.

AWOL

I know, I disappeared off the face of the earth. I haven't even been commenting on your blogs, let alone posting my own. If anyone noticed, I apologize for my neglect of the blogosphere. 

See, I made a last minute trip to visit my husband last week. Literally - I booked it on Monday, got on the plane Thursday morning and came back Tuesday. By the time I got back, I was so out of the habit of blogging that I just didn't even bother with it. 

But coming up I have a post on a book I just finished about why people believe in supernatural things. I thought it was incredibly interesting and I hope you will too. I also intend to blog about a pretty major personal decision that I have mostly made that many, if not all, of you will probably vehemently disagree with and try to talk me out of. 

And I may or may not blog about a medical issue that just came up for me in the past 24 hours that has pissed me off beyond belief and also scared me a little. We'll see. 

So I hope you'll stay tuned.

Rx Drugs

I started taking wellbutrin SR last week to help me quit smoking, as it worked 6 years ago. (I started again after beginning my career in outside sales.)

I've had the side effects that I remember from last time - can't sleep for shit during the first week of taking it twice a day, my left hand shakes if I hold it a certain way, I feel jittery and jumpy, and have the occasional dizzy spell. Last time I was on it, all of these were gone by the end of the first month. 

Anyway, because a new side effect has started up (severe night sweats), I wanted to look up the patient info to verify that this was in fact a side effect of the wellbutrin. So I googled it. One of the sites I decided to look at has firsthand experiences of people taking particular medications. I was bored, so I said what the hell, I'll read through some of these. 

OMG. The first whole page is people who are taking wellbutrin and prozac at the same time. The second page is people who are like "Yeah, my doctor gave me atavan (sp?) to help with the sleeplessness, but now he's taken it away permanently :-(" and "I've been on wellbutrin for 7 months, and at night I take it with 10mg of valium, and now my doctor wants me to try seroquel in addition, even though it's an antipsychotic and I'm not psychotic."

It contains advice such as "If you're getting the jitters, you should ask your doctor for klonipan, because it worked for me while I was on the wellbutrin." Or "I recommend taking a Xanax at night if the jitters keep you up." Or "The prozac + wellbutrin killed my sex life, so my doctor gave me an Rx for Viagra." One person said "I like getting the jitters and the energy on wellbutrin - it has taken away my daily desire for cocaine which I quit 7 years ago."

OMG, the PILL POPPING in this country!!!!! Taking medications to treat the side effects of medications!! 

I have never met a doctor in my LIFE that would give someone who was on wellbutrin for depression a prescription for valium. Talk about begging for an addiction!

Now I personally have never gone to a doctor to ask for a medication to treat a side effect of a medication. I HAVE gone to the doctor and said, "I hate the side effects of this medication. Is there something else we can try instead?" I'm not judging the people who ask for it, but at the same time I wonder if we just walk around with the expectation that we should never feel uncomfortable for any reason. 

We as a society seem to believe that there is a pill to solve every problem we have in life. People no longer balance priorities and make decisions that way - they think they are entitled to have everything and shouldn't have to decide. 

For example, wellbutrin is known as the "sex-friendly" antidepressant, whereas the SSRIs tend to kill your sex drive or ability to perform. But wellbutrin has the side effect of increasing anxiety, something that Prozac can fix.

I look at it this way: what's more important, sex life or experiencing anxiety? I'd take the anxiety, hands-down. But the men on this thread chose to take both wellbutrin and prozac, plus viagra, while the women who are taking both wellbutrin and prozac are complaining that there IS NO viagra for women! They're bitching about not having that third option! STOP TAKING THE PROZAC AND DO SOME GODDAMN YOGA!!!!!!!

I feel sorry for these people. It makes me wonder about the psychiatrists. I personally chose not to take that career path because I have always thought of them as primarily drug dealers. Which I get - they are trained in medicine (diagnose and treat), and since psychologists can't prescribe medication, most patients of psychiatrists are there for only one reason - to get the Rx for the meds. They get their therapy elsewhere. 

I just resent this social climate of "Oh, you have a problem? We have a pill for that! Oh, taking that pill makes you nauseous? We have a pill for that too!"

I am never going to message boards to find out about experiences with medication again. It's too depressing. And I'm already on a pill for that.

Terrified

I really wanted to talk to my husband about this, but I didn't get a chance today. There isn't really anyone in my life that knows about this and I'd prefer to keep it that way, so here I am talking to you folks. I hope you don't mind. And if you do mind, then feel free to click out at the point of TMI. I promise, I won't be offended. 

My husband left in March, as many of you know. I visited him Memorial Day weekend. When I came back, I stopped taking the Pill. We talked about it, and figured we'd just see what happens until mid-October, and then I'd go back on the Pill if nothing happened. I kinda dug this approach - it's almost like a non-decision. 

But today I went for my annual OB/GYN visit. They of course asked, "Are you still taking the Seasonale?" and I had to say no. Next question: "Oh! Are you trying to get pregnant?" My response, "Well, not really. We're just not trying to NOT get pregnant."

Next thing I knew I was being handed a bag full of pre-natal vitamin samples for me to try, then to call them when I decide which one I like. I freaked my husband out though, lol. I texted him with "And so now apparently I am taking Rx prenatal vitamins." And he was like "WTF?" LOL. 

So as I'm waiting for the CNP to come in and do the exam (my doctor is on maternity leave), I pick up the first magazine I grab next to the exam table. It's "Conceive" magazine. I start flipping through it, and I find myself bombarded by ads for sperm banks, egg donor agencies, prenatal vitamins, pregnancy pillows. Images of pregnant women, babies, new moms, cribs, etc. 

I had an anxiety attack. At first I was like "Wow, I can't imagine wanting something so badly that I would turn to an article about Feng Shui for fertility." (No offense to those of you who have gone through fertility treatments and all that - no judgment here.) But then I was like "Holy SHIT! WTF am I DOING???? What is wrong with me??? Am I on crack???"

I want to be a mom. I just don't want to be pregnant. I am terrified of the idea of spending 40 weeks knowing that I have just made the most permanent decision EVER. I miss the days of believing that storks brought babies to lucky couples. I'm scared that it will change who I am, that I will become someone who cares about nothing but her child. I don't want to be a Stepford Wife. I want to be Dr. Mom. 

A big part of it too is that even though I consciously know that I'm 26, I still feel like I'm 16 - when pregnancy was just the most horrific thing I could imagine. I am still scared to tell my parents, even knowing that my mom WANTS me to have kids. In fact, (I don't know if I posted this before), she recently said to me: "Are you guys planning to start trying to have a baby anytime soon? Because you ARE 26, and, I mean, not that that's old or anything, but....you know."

I can picture myself as a mom. I can't picture or imagine myself pregnant. It's almost like I'm too much of a tomboy or something, I don't know. I'm not crazy about the idea of not being able to just do what I want when I want anymore, but the fact is that I don't do shit NOW, so I'll never know the difference. But still. It's just so FINAL. 

I must seem so childish and silly. Is it weird to feel like I'm ready to be a mom but not ready to be pregnant? It seems really weird to me. 

And it's all so STUPID. Because I'll only be off the Pill until mid-October, and then if nothing has happened I'm going back on it until next summer. I know the chances of something happening in a month and a half period are pretty low, but like a friend of mine said "It only takes 30 seconds."

And if I DO find myself knocked up this fall, will I be able to concentrate on grad school apps? If I go for interviews, are they going to see a pregnant chick and be like "fuck this"? It's moments like this when I feel like I should've just gone to R2 - one of their students had a baby in her first semester of grad school and was about to defend her thesis. 

Am I setting myself up for failure? Or setting myself up for settling? What if I get pregnant, and 6 months into it I'm like "OMG, WTF was I thinking? I can't do this!"

I'm freakin' terrified. But I think I probably always will be. I don't know. 

Somewhat Substantial HodgePodge of Bloggy Goodness

Nothing particularly substantial to blog about today, but have no fear - I just got my copies of JPSP and SPPB in the mail and I'm sure I'll have lots to share about some of the articles in there. 

I had a complete meltdown on friday afternoon after a member of a helping profession pointed out to me that "none of us have any control over what happens in our lives, despite the persistent illusion to the contrary." I don't think she knew I was an Atheist when she said this to me, because if she had she might have sugar-coated it or softened it a bit. The only thing that separates an Atheist from a Nihilist (in my opinion) is the belief that we have at least some measure of control over our lives. In essence, one could also say that this is the core difference between Atheism and Theism. 

In relation to the car accident, this was a relevant concept to explain that despite all of my efforts to be a safe driver (never caused an accident in 11 years of driving), and all of my efforts to be on the lookout for dumbass people behind the wheel, at the end of the day it means nothing because someone can always hit ME. And there isn't really a damn thing I can do about it. There was nothing I could have done to prevent the accident I was in. 

It seems so simple, doesn't it? But not for me. I started realizing that this explains why bad things happen to good people, why people who do everything they're supposed to do just can't get ahead, etc. She tried to make this idea a little more palatable for me by adding "The only things we can control are our own thoughts, feelings, and behavior."

But given all that I know about psychology, I'm pretty sure this is bullshit too. Implicit associations and priming, attempting to control intrusive thoughts, the daunting task of trying to self-soothe during an anxiety attack, trying to keep from crying, etc., - I think the only thing we really can control is our own behavior. Because our thoughts and emotions often have minds of their own. I have oodles of studies to back this up. 

So I found myself in a crisis, asking things like "What is the fucking POINT, then??" I am not a spiritualist by any means, but it took listening to Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart to calm me down. (Thanks AA, for the post title the other day. That's what made me think of it.)

Chodron talks about how life is filled with distractions to keep us from feeling emotions that have been labeled as negative. We don't want to feel bored, lonely, sad, etc., so we find things to distract us from feeling that way. Instead, she says we should try and sit with it for as long as we can stand it as often as we can, to build up a sort of tolerance for it. Just sit and feel it. 

So I figured, what the hell, and I tried it. I sat with the feeling of helplessness and anxiety. I sat with the sadness, the anger, and the panic. The only distraction was the sound of her voice telling me why I needed to do it. It took about 1-2 hours, but it went away. I didn't need to try and resolve it, think it through, find ways to fix it. I just acknowledged that I was feeling miserable, let myself feel miserable, and it went away like when one of my cats is desperate for attention but only wants it for 5 minutes before he or she is content to move on. 

I guess this post is more substantial than I thought it was going to be. LOL. Anyway, my point is that I recommend the audio version of Chodron's book for times of emotional upheaval like that. Her voice alone is very soothing. 

In other news, I got to video chat with my husband yesterday through gchat. It was awesome. Unfortunately he can't do it again today because the internet at the base is down. 

The Wii Active Personal Trainer is awesome, but it hates me. I went out dancing on friday night so my thighs were nice and sore yesterday. I turn on the Wii Active, and it made me do 6 sets of 20 lunges in all directions and variations. Now my legs really hurt. But on the bright side, I have lost 4 inches off my waist and 3 inches off my hips since I posted about being frustrated by my lack of progress, and about 6lbs or so since I bought that new scale. I have accomplished this through a daily combination of the Wii Fit, Wii Active Personal Trainer, and Zumba Fitness Latin dancing. I increased my calorie intake slightly by eating less food more often: 1 piece of whole grain toast with peanut butter and a glass of V8 Frusion in the morning, a yogurt or one of those Green Giant Steamers veggie things for lunch, my favorite sandwich ever for dinner (see below), a small bowl of macaroni salad with tuna after working out, and some Doritos for a nighttime snack. I also drink a shitload more water. 

Best Sandwich Ever:

I used to love this sandwich from Panera Bread until they posted their nutrition facts and I discovered that their version has about 1100 calories in it. I might as well eat McDonald's. I knew I could make a much, much healthier version of it at home. Here are the results:

Chipotle Mayonnaise - I bought a bottle of Chipotle hot sauce from the marinade/steak sauce section of the grocery store. I combined 1 cup of Helmann's mayo with 1 clove of minced garlic in a tupperware bowl (I didn't want to have to make this every day). I added the hot sauce to taste while stirring, then added Roasted Garlic & Bell Pepper seasoning and some Cayenne pepper until I achieved my desired level of spiciness. 

The Sandwich - 2 slices of Wonder 100% Whole Grain bread (total 160 calories), 1 tbsp of the Chipotle mayo (80 calories), 1 slice of Kraft Deli Deluxe american cheese (70 calories), thinly sliced red onion, lettuce (both with negligible calorie content), and 6 slices of Oscar Mayer Deli Fresh shaved turkey breast (45 calories). 

Fuckin YUMMY at a total calorie content of about 355 calories. Fuck Panera Bread.

Their version. Image from WebMD's article about the worst sandwiches ever.

***Update: Totally forgot to add this. When I started working out I could do like 2-3 push-ups (the real way) on a good day, 0.5 pull-ups, and couldn't run for shit. Now I can do 10 push-ups putting my nose to the floor, 3 pull-ups, and the Wii Fit is telling me I could probably run 1.5 miles in slightly less than 11 minutes. I feel diesel. ;)***

At The Edge of Insanity

I'm guessing that at some point, my readers got sick of me talking about my personal life because my readership is definitely down these days. 

But it's my blog, so fuck it. 

I think the car accident pushed me to the edge of insanity. I was doing okay with the husband being gone, I was hanging in there. Then the major changes came down from my company and I was upset for a couple of days and got over it. But then that woman ran the stop sign, taking my car away from me, and I lost my shit. 

I've been really nervous driving for the first time in my life. I see people constantly doing stupid shit - running stop signs and red lights, pulling out into oncoming traffic, etc. And I get really, really angry because their stupidity is compromising MY safety and well-being. 

My little sister has become a traffic vigiliante, which I love. She got herself some glass chalk, and when someone parks all crooked and what not in the parking lot at her work, she'll write things like "You park like an asshole" on their driver's side window. Guess what. You can't just wipe that shit off with your sleeve, which means that person had to drive home with that written on their car. Public humiliation is a great deterrant to doing stupid things. My sister is a genius. 

The other day I saw a woman trying to park this big-ass SUV. I don't remember what it was, but it was much, much, much bigger than mine and much taller. Like a Ford Explorer on full-size truck tires or something. Either way, she couldn't park the damn thing even though the space next to her was vacant. All I could think was if I had some glass chalk, I would wait for her to go inside, and then write on the car window "If you can't park it, you shouldn't drive it."

Seriously, I could spend my whole summer driving around watching for stupid and reckless people and then write messages on their car windows telling them what fucking douchebags they are. I'm considering making it my new hobby. 

Anyway, so yesterday my nerves were all sorts of shot from driving around in my mom's car and people just driving around me like this town is the site of a demolition derby. I come home to discover that Husband's Scary Reptile is hungry. Which means I have to feed it. Which means I have to open the cage and insert dead animals. Which means I have to put my life at risk for a few minutes. Yikes. 

I didn't have the dead animals to feed her last night and planned to go get them today (which I did). She was all sorts of active in her cage, and while I was trying to sleep last night it suddenly occurred to me that she might break out of her cage in order to get some food. Husband has assured me multiple times that she can't break out of this cage, but I'm not so sure. And we have cats. For scary reptile, cats = food. Their litter box is down in the basement where scary reptile is kept. In my extreme anxiety, I felt the need to go downstairs, get the litterbox, bring it upstairs, and lock the cat door so the cats can't get to the basement. Just in case. Only then was I able to sleep. 

But today I have to feed her once the dead animals are dethawed. And I am very, very nervous about doing this. I am making Husband call me and I am going to put him on speaker phone while I do it. I figure if I stop responding to him, he'll know something is wrong and can hang up and dial 911 and animal control. 

Fuck. I really want him to get rid of this pet. I can't deal with losing sleep over it anymore. 

So right now I am nervous to drive, depressed because I don't have my car or my husband, anxious about feeding this damned reptile, and on the border of going insane. 

And if I get the job at SFRSHS West, I will have to MOVE this scary reptile to the other side of the country. My heart pounds just at the thought. 

Add A Car Accident to The Week From Hell

As if I needed one of those. Some lady ran a stop sign at a T-intersection where I had the right of way because she couldn't see beyond a tractor trailer in the right lane when I was in the left, and I slammed into her. I'm okay, I think, but now that the adrenaline is wearing off my shoulder seems kinda sore.

But my car is not okay. The entire front bumper came off, the driver's side headlight is destroyed, and some big piece of metal is all bent around my driver's side front tire. I am very shaken up right now.

Why am I blogging, you ask? Because I walked home from the scene, made all the phone calls I needed to make, everyone is working so I can't talk to anyone and I can't work either.

And why is it that as soon as you pay off a car, everyone starts hitting it? My car had never been in an accident while I was paying on it for 5 years. I paid it off last year and it's been hit 4 times since then, NEVER my fault! WTF?!

And of course my husband isn't here. If he was, he would leave work and come home to be with me and help me sort all of this shit out, but I can't even get him on the phone until 6.

***Update*** - should I not work out today? I ask because my shoulder is definitely sore and I know I'm going to hurt tomorrow, so should I just avoid exercise until I see how bad this is going to feel in the morning? Or might it be good for me.....?