Mamarati

So, I read this article in the New York Times about these two couples who had sex every day for periods of time (one for a year and one for 101 days). They both wrote about the experience (365 Nights and Just Do It) and I’m jumping on that bandwagon much to my boyfriend’s joy. (He just tonight renamed it “Sex Every Day for the Rest of Our Lives”).

We’ll see.

So far my biggest worries are those days when I’m feeling not so fresh and being on my period, which yeah yeah yeah for those of you who have no issue with this at all. I’m sorry. I just … would rather not. I’m not scared of my junk and I’m not a prude and I’m not being kept down by the man or whatever… I just am not a fan.

Anyway, tonight is night three and so far, so good.

I mean… so far, sooooooooo good.

So, I did something recently that I’m feeling rather strange about. I quit school, basically.

I’m this close to the end and I threw up my hands and said, “I can’t do this any more.”

There are a number of reasons why I did it. It’s actually been something I’ve been thinking about doing since I fell off the roof. I mean, what better time to take care of myself than then? But instead, I did not do that. I took it a little bit slower, but basically kept plowing through. And then all these things started happening with Jacob and the surgeries and the changes in his diet and on and on happened… things I did not forsee. And so, for the last year or so, I think I have been slowly losing my mind.

I mean, there have been actual moments where I have questioned my sanity. Where I felt like I was close to a nervous breakdown or something. I just felt pulled so tight all the time and the only logical next step was to snap. And all the while I was doing that thing… that superwoman thing where you tell yourself that you’ve got your shit together and you can do anything you put your mind to and all that other bullshit that really just means you can be all things to all people but you won’t be worth a damn to yourself.

So, no. I cannot be all things to all people. I cannot handle all this stuff on my plate. I cannot do it all. For now, I have got to focus on my family, my work, my relationships and myself. I wrote to my adviser and let her know I was losing my mind dealing with everything and talked a bit about the stuff going on with Jacob (more on that later, it’s all getting weird with doctors and such) and she was cool and agreed that I need to focus on family stuff. School will be there whenever I’m ready to go back.

The other thing is work. I feel like… Due to the flexible nature of my job, I feel like there have been times when I have given it my all and really thrown myself into it. And I enjoy those times more than anything. But then when things come up like they have lately, I feel like my work suffers greatly. It’s the thing that can bend the most, so I let it absorb the shock of any trauma or stress in my life. I’m lucky to have such a job. But I really miss working. School was not allowing me much room for that. And it’s like, for years I’ve been trying to finish school and something always happens that cuts into it. But still, I keep chasing down this thing that I want to be. This future occupation or career or whatever. And suddenly, I’m like, “Why?” Why do I keep chasing down something else when what I really love to do is what I’m already doing? If I’d just DO IT already. Like, if I would just go on and really give myself to it…

I had the fortune to go to an event recently that was for other folks who do the same thing I do… actually two events. One was specifically for folks that work at About.com and the other was for mommy bloggers. And I talked to other folks who felt the same way I did. Folks who may also have other jobs and maybe right now they are asking themselves if they are ready to take the plunge and do it full time. Leave the day job behind and just do THIS. I talked to some people who had already taken the plunge and they talked about how scary it was to finally realize that they were writers and that they didn’t have paychecks that were written in stone but that if they dedicated themselves to it, they would make it just fine and maybe even be more than just fine. I talked to moms who were contemplating never going back to corporate America in favor of staying home with their kids and blogging their lives and interests. There are sacrifices to be made, for sure… trade-offs. But I think they might be worth it.

And I’m feeling so many things right now… Anxiety. Fear. Excitement.

But mostly I’m feeling this amazing sense of relief. Like this huge burden has been lifted and the pressure is gone. I feel refreshed. I’m sleeping better. I’m thinking more clearly. I don’t feel like I’m running around in a fog. I don’t feel like a time bomb about to go off. I feel like I can finally relax for a moment and maybe even enjoy a few parts of my life. Even though there are still stressful things going on and there’s still that element of chaos, I feel like I can handle it now.

Please please take the coffee out of the house. I can’t take the smell or the temptation any more. I still have a headache and am sore.

Why can’t I learn?

I am placing my fate in your hands, here. I’m weak. You must be strong enough for both of us. Or, well.. just me really.

To show how little I think sometimes… I mixed cream of tartar with sugar to make powdered sugar. In my blender. I was going to use tapioca starch, but I couldn’t find it. I know I did buy some, however.

At any rate, the frosting came out tasting rather… tart. Is that why it’s Tart-ar?

I have no idea, but you’d think there was some sort of lingual connection there, no?

It’s not a bad tart, I don’t think… but it’s definitely there. Almost a lemony taste.

The sugar did not become near as powdered as I wanted. This is because my blender sucks. I want a BlendTec, dammit.

I’ve figured that there are a few pieces of equipment that will be important to Jacob when he is out on his own or if/when he goes off to college. He’ll never be able to have a meal plan, you know?

So, he’s going to need a blender to make nut, rice and soy milk. Powdered sugar possibly… Nut butters. But the milk stuff is really the big one. I’m using the blender almost every day now.

A food dehydrator. Because he loves fruit. And fruit is expensive. It’s not subsidized like corn, after all. And he loves dried fruit, but they always add stuff to it that doesn’t match our days. Oils. Sugars. Whatnot. We could make our own and buy it when it’s in season, local, cheap… and then if I need to add any oils or sweeteners, I can do that according to the rotation. It’s also easier to send dried fruit to school with him. I can’t send apples because they brown and get gross, the outsides are waxed with corn crap or they’re washed in citric acid from corn. But I can send some dried apples. So on and so forth. The only reliable dried fruit that we find around here is pineapple.

A juicer maybe. I’m entertaining the idea of this… Juices are expensive. Especially the ones that we get that are a bit “off” for the mainstream. Mango and whatnot. I’m thinking it might be easier to do this with juices or smoothies I make at home. Then I can get some greens in them as well and make it even better. And there’s the transport issue again. School lunches are just a bitch sometimes.

Food saver system. I will probably just pass mine on to him if the damn thing is still working. It has been a blessing in so many ways. Mason jars are great for holding flours and such and I can stretch them even further with the vacuum sealer. More on that later. I use that thing so much it’s on my counter now. I used to only use it when I’d buy the occasional giant pack of meat.

Have to run. Need to shower before frosting this cake and heading to the party.

Some of you have been reading me since Jacob was just a wee tot… Can you believe that he’s going to be 12 years old????? Tux, when I started reading you, you were just 4 or 5 years older than he is now, right? Such a crazy world. It kind of freaks me out how time is passing so quickly.

(sigh)

In other news, I am missing the hell out of my boyfriend. He has been out of town for like… ever. I have played a lot of Animal Crossing. I have like 800,000 bells in the bank if that tells ya anything.

Boyfriend, I wish you didn’t have to be away from me right now. I miss you. I hope you have an Internet connection long enough to read this. MMMmmmmmmwaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!1

So, my birthday came and went without too much fanfare. I’m officially older than shit and just five years away from 40. The excitement is just overwhelming. Or maybe the overwhelming part is just that I find a new grey hair every day now.

Still, only one grey pube in my lifetime… so I’m not quite as close to being a nursing home resident as I may think.

Boyfriend got me cool birthday presents… he’s so good at that. We went to Ikea to look for me a new pillow because (speaking of old age) I just can’t seem to get up in the morning without my neck killing me and causing me headaches. I blame the pillow, so we found a contoured job that seems to be working pretty well. While we were there we picked up a cool tablecloth and a French press. The French press didn’t work so well, but then maybe we’re doing it wrong because his dad swears by the thing. We thought it just made really bitter coffee and the clean up is a bit much.

Back to the found-by-the-roadside Bunn-O-Matic…

The two best gifts that he got me: Bread machine. We were at this thrift store in Alabama, which was the best thrift store I have ever seen in my entire life. They had everything at this place. When we were there, we saw all these bread machines that had been used maybe once or twice and I was like, what a great idea to get one of these here rather than paying full price. We didn’t really have room in the car to get one then, but we went to a thrift store here in town and found one and I love it. It makes the best bread and is so simple. I don’t think we’ve bought a loaf of bread since we got it.

And these pants. It’s not every day that you find someone in life who can buy pants for you. Pants that you won’t have to take back because they’re too small, too big, too long, too short, too not my style, etc.

These pants are perfect. They’re khaki and cargoish, which is my thing… pockets and comfort… and he got them in my size and got a petite even. The cool thing is, they’ve got these buttons on the outside that connect to a little strap on the inside so I can wear them like capri pants or like regular pants. Very awesome and they’re my new favorite pants, EVAR!

Good times.

well, first I am using a mac widget from the good folks at google. I just thought I would mention it. That’s always good, that they are developing stuff for us… makes me happy.

second, I am three teeth lighter now.

third, I am on vicoprofen, and quite a lot of it, so do not expect me to fix typing errors here. And expect them to get worse as I go. I have got about 1 hour till it peaks and I hit euphoria and naptime.

So, what ha-ha-happened was, I started having all this tooth pain. These wisdom teeth (the three that remain since having one pulled when I was a teenager) have been giving me crap for a long time. But this was not the run of-the-mill crap. This was pain with a capital p.

did I just say that/A

mercy. Anyway. So i couldn’t find a dentist that i could rrally afford, so i thought, I will just go down to the dental college and get it done. so I call and they get me in the system, tell me to arrive at window a at 8am and I’d be all fized up.

so the dental college is downtown and an hbour from here, but a traffic jammed hour, so i get up at the asscrack of dawn or rather 6am and head that way. trafric was good on the way no problems. I get there and parking is good except there’s those things ytou have to shove the money in the little slots and it’s 4 dollars and i only have a ten but you know me, all frugal and shit so there’s no way I am sticking a ten in there.

so this guy is behind me and I figure i have enough change to make 4 bucks, right? so I tell the guy to go ahead of me and stick his money in since I’m going to take a while.

so then i begin the laborious taks of shoving change in the slot. I finally finish and go to find a place to wait until window a opens up.

Wiat, let me interrupt this story to say that I am no longer using the mac widget to post this… it doesn’t scroll and you can’t resize it so the above text is all that would fit in it without going off my screen and then I couldn’t see it any more. I guess it’s assumed at google that mac users don’t have much to say in their blogs? Or maybe that they just don’t want to see what they are typing. Don’t know for sure.

so yes, I go an d instead of fidning a spot to wait for window a… boy am i naive! I found a long line of peopel waiting to get inside. So I take my place in line. And wait. After a while a scurity guard comes and starts counting people off and letting them go inside. He gets to the guy in front of me, prhaps you remember, he’s the one I told to go in front of me because of all my change in the parking lot… yeah, and he says “22″ and he gets to me and says “everyone else go home, come back tomorrow, we only have room today for 22…”

And that’s it. I drove all the way down there, went through that whole fiasco just to let some other guy go in front of me.

By this time, of course, my tooth is just screaming at me. I felt like I could probably just pull the thing out myself if I just mustered upenoufh strenght.

I go out to the parking lot and call my boyfriend… remind me to talk about the other thing, too, that I was upset about….

so I call him and I’m bawling bawling bawling. In pain. Sad. Frustrated. Wnating to die.

I vomited in the parking lot I was crying so hystercially.

I start the drive home. Not knowing what to do.

He calls me and says if I can book it then he found a dentist that can see me at 8.

so I haul ass and make it there. And theya re supper nice but still they can’t pull the tooth. It’s too impact.ed so they find an oral surgeon who can see me and tell me to hurry over there. so I do. And he only charged me $25 but told me to come back to get some fillings, because I ned them bad. I defnitely will, he was so nice about it.

So I get to the oral surgeon and he’s looking and both my lower wisdom teeth are infenct.ed and he wants to pull both of them, hell why not all three while you’re going to be sedated.

ends up costing $1050!! I paid for what I cold and my boyfriend put the rest like 600 on his cradit card so of course I am all guilt ridden and feeling like shit now.

anyway, before though, they’re trying to put me out and he can’t find a vein. never can find a vein… this is how it is everywhere. I am terrified of getting blood taken and IVs started because this is how it always turns out. He poked me in my writsts and my arms and my neck, even, but couldn’t get a vein. Stuck lidocaine under my skin to make it where he could dig around and still couldn’t get it.

So I start freaking out, because he wants to do more digging. My boyfriend got there and had to come in and calm me down.

Myu heart rate was through the roof and as soon as he came in it went right down. He’s such a comfort to me, makes me feel all safe int his world.

So he left and the surgoen is all, when you had dental work done before could you tolerate the shots in your mouth? And I was like, yeah…

So he gave me some shots in my mouth to relax me and they ended up doing the IV through there. Under my tongue. Is that nuts, or what?

I guess it all turned out OK. I mean, it cost a lot of money but maybe that guy who went in front of me needed it worse than me today. And maybe there was no way he could ever come up with the 1000 and could only ever come up with the 60 that the dental college charges. Maybe they couldn’t have even done my teeth down there with how bad they were. maybe this iall s karma>.

All I know is… wow do they hurt now, but at the same time, something about my mouth feels better already. I mean, it feels seriously altered.

My boyfriend has been super sweet and getting me icre cream and soup and alll and running me around and paying for stuff and he’s just reallly the greatedst guy ever in the world. I couldn’t be luckier to have him in my life.

k, vicostuff kcicking in super hard. must nap.

I used to be obsessed with the Bermuda Triangle. As a kid, I had some kind of perception of it that was askew– like that as soon as ships went in or planes flew in, they just disappeared. Just like that, lickety split. Every plane, every ship. I had some idea that you weren’t even supposed to go into the area.

I have no idea what fueled this, but I remember thinking about it a lot. I remember being scared that my birthmother would fly in there and disappear and when I went to look for her one day, she’d be gone.

There’s a show on TLC about this right now.

I’ve decided that I need a dog. I really really need a dog.

I love Jacob to death, but it’s not his job to make me feel unlonely or fulfilled. He has too much will and independence for all that. He doesn’t make me feel needed for much more than meals and fast forwarding through commercials and laundry and such.

I need a dog. I want someone to be happy to see me when I come home. I want someone to snuggle with and pour my affection on. I want to feel like some other life is here when I am alone and Jacob isn’t here, but not necessarily a life that needs a lot of my undivided attention.

I need to feel useful.

I feel like I have outlived my usefulness in other places in my life I guess…