Miley and Me

My blogging life has had so many reincarnations, it might as well be Hindi.  Some of them have come back as a dung beetle...and rightfully so.

On my main one, Life Inside the Blubber Sarcophagus, I regaled the tales of a horrible childhood, a fat life, and my numerous attempts to change myself.  Nearly five years after it began...I am in the same physical space that I was when I started.  Obviously that wasn't working for me. 

I spent the last two days going over post after post and reading the words, "I'm baaaack", "Reboot, "starting over" or "Here we go again" more times than I cared to document.  The fact that I said it in so many different ways gives you the idea that it was obviously not a successful venture. 

So...I'm not starting over.  I'm starting anew.

It's been a crazy week.  If you count that whole Miley Cyrus thing, it's a sick, weird, child-star-turned-into-a-crazed-sex-demon week.  I can't remember one of those before.

Billy Ray's mullet is rolling over in it's grave, right?

I can't lie.  I can't get it out of my head.  I wish I could.  I think I have finally and literally seen something that can not be unseen.  The end result ruined a perfectly good song for me and it ruined the ONLY perfectly good Robin Thicke song. Hey Hey Hey Hey!  (Come on...you were thinking it)

Plus, she single handedly destroyed the future of the foam finger industry, pigtails, and I know I'll never look at a teddy bear the same way again.

On the upside, with all that "twerking" she saved medical schools thousands on proctology industrial films.

I think I will begin the Great Miley Purge of 2013.

Remember when you were a kid and your parents found out that Smurfs meant "little blue demon" and you were forced to gather them all in the back yard and throw them in the fire? (Um...me either. :\) 

Baby Photos

After being together for about seven years (5 years dating, 2 years married),  I decided it was time for a baby.

About a year earlier, my husband sprung on me that he didn't really care if we had kids.

Having a "rocky" childhoods were a sort of glue that bonded us together.  A safe haven.  You're messed up, I'm messed up, let's just get on with it.  I was always terrified of being a bad parent, so I kind of went along with it.

Fast forward twelve months and I can't really tell you what changed, but I was thinking about babies all the time.

You know, the romantic stuff about babies that people who don't have babies think about.  Cute little faces, sweet baby cuddling, tiny clothes, or the smell of baby lotion.  Not the moments of reminding yourself that if you don't feed the kid, you're going to jail.  If you don't change the kid, you're going to jail.  And definitely not those moments of knowing that no matter what perfume you are wearing it's just barely covering up the underlying scent of someone else's vomit.

It wasn't easy trying to convince him, but one night, alone in the moonlight, fishing off the back of a tiny boat in the middle of the Mississippi River, he leaned over and whispered, "It might be cool to have a kid." 

It might be cool to have a kid.

It might be cool to have a kid, but it's apparently not as easy as I had once thought.  There are diagrams in books, right?  Follow the directions and it happens, right?  Yeah...not so much.

Time passed, attempts were made, doctors appointments were had, medications were taken and all of a sudden this idea that it might be cool to have a kid changed into "It might be cool, but it may not EVER happen."

I had just finished my final cycle of chlomid and with that came the decision that I would not make any further attempts at enhancing my chance of having a baby.  I didn't want to do further testing, I did not want to know whether it was me or him.  I just wanted to be done and move on.

The final cycle happened to coincide with a planned cruise, where I learned what some high school and college friends of mine learned early.  Alcohol can sometimes be the kicker.

I found out I was pregnant 12 days after we came home.  Excitement led to terror as I had to immediately end a long term relationship with the Marlboro Man.  I was given what I wanted, I had to treat it like I appreciated it.

9 months later and the WORST pregnancy EVER, I was running late for my scheduled C-section.   My husband was driving like crazy through rush hour traffic.  My family was already there waiting and we were not there.

When we arrived it was a whirlwind of blood tests, fetal monitoring, and surgery prep.  BTW...I had never had surgery, so I was freaked out and keenly aware that my husband was snapping pictures of EVERYTHING.

"Smile"...getting blood drawn
"Smile"...while getting an epidural

What I wanted in the operating room was a husband that was sitting next to my head telling me that everything would be ok.  What I got was a husband standing up looking over the drape cracking jokes, asking questions that no one wants their doctor to answer while they are performing surgery, and leaning down every now and again to lovingly remind me that he can "see my insides".

Finally...It's a girl.  A beautiful girl.  A healthy girl.

The first time I saw her I didn't understand how a baby, so obviously Asian, was born to two of the most Caucasian people in the world.

The first day was a whirlwind.  So many people visiting.  These crazy nurses that kept coming in FORCING me to breastfeed a baby that would just fall asleep the minute we would get her to latch on.  I was tired, but I knew one thing had to be done.

I picked up the camera and as my sister was getting ready to walk out the door, I handed her the disks that held precious, precious photos of my little Autumn Nicole.

"Pick one really good picture of her and email it to everyone in my email list." I said as I handed them over.

"No problem." she replied

The next morning my room phone rang.  I was excited to hear the voice of my good friend, Scott. 

"Good Morning", he said.  But there was something almost devious in his voice.

"Hello", I said.

"I came into work this morning to a surprise." he relayed.

"Oh...Good, she sent them out I was worried."

"Who sent them out?"

"My sister sent them out for me."

"Are you sitting down?"

Uh-oh!

He recounted to me how he came into work and saw the email from me.  He opened it expecting to see a red faced baby, but as the picture was opening, coming down the aisle at work was our boss with intent in her voice making it very clear NOT to open the email from me.  In the confusion of the moment he began to look through the photos.  No red faced baby to be found, there were however photos of doctors elbow deep in my abdomen, lots of blood, and ultimately epidural shots that revealed my butt-crack.

The photos were sent out to roughly 200 people.  Family members, friends, co-workers, random people I have emailed with questions about items I saw on ebay.

My sister's story?  She never looked at the pictures, just was too tired to pick one out, so she sent the entire disk to everyone.

I guess every desire comes with a price.



 

Ring Around My Toesies

 I'll start with one about me, That's only fair, right?

Residing in the "mother in law" apartment at MY in-laws was never my idea of what my life would be like at 25, yet that was the reality.  My husband of nearly 2 years was never going to leave that place, so I begrudgingly agreed.  Don't get me wrong...They were great and I appreciate the many years of care FREE living, but I have an independent spirit.  I just longed for the day that I could be intimate with my husband and not have someone just walk in and grab milk out of our fridge, peruse our leftovers, and then walk out like nothing was going on.  (True Story)

It was a full apartment with all amenities, full kitchen, private bathroom, improvised laundry room, and 1 teeny, tiny basement sized window which on the outside was at ground level...under a bush.  No natural light crept in at all.

I worked as a collector for a major department store.  It was the perfect job for me.  I was newly married with no children, the hours were ALL OVER THE PLACE, and while I made an hourly wage, I was netting about $1500-$3000 additionally in bonus every month!  I loved that job.

As much as I loved that job, they were very strict.  You could not be late for work, from breaks, or from lunch.  I had about an hour commute if I had a 7 am shift and being a night owl, I was always on the run.

Once we were having an "awards meeting" first thing in the morning.  I was set to receive the "Collector of the Month" award so I could not be late.  I, of course, woke up at 5:45am giving 15 minutes before I had to be out the door.

I jumped in the shower, got dressed in the dark, darted across the kitchen, into the dark living room, heading straight for the door when all of a sudden WHAM!  No...not the George Michael variety. 

Me, face, floor.

I stepped in and then tripped over the laundry basket.  Tangled in clothes, I threw my freshly cleaned laundry to the floor, righted myself, and despite the rug burn on my elbows, continued out the door undaunted.

A torrential downpour met me this fine morning. 

GREAT.

Traffic was a mess and I was going to be late.  There were no two ways about it.

The office was inside the warehouse where they kept the mattresses and furniture for delivery, so the parking lot was just shy of ginormous.  I had to park around the side of the building which translated to about a quarter mile hike to the door, in a downpour that I can only describe as being like God flushing a toilet, and me without my umbrella.

As I made my way across the parking lot as fast as my 5ft frame could carry me, I had the odd sensation that the back of my left leg (more than anything else) was getting extremely wet. Figuring that my shoes were kicking up water,  I adjusted my gait to more of a high school band march, but nothing helped.  The back of my left leg was soaked through to skin. 

With only seconds to spare and copious amounts of water still falling earthbound I made it to the doorway.  I was going to take a second to right myself, before walking into the cafeteria area where the meeting was being held, but I was distracted by the laughter at the security desk, obviously directed at me.

"You think that was funny?" I snarled, as I walked past the security desk into the hallway that empties into the cafeteria.

With each step I took, the laughter increased and I heard a defined almost slapping noise.  I turned toward the desk,  to notice the guards re-winding the security video.  I just barely made out the HUGE white something apparently chasing me from behind.

I looked down and my eyes met the culprit.

An enormous, stretched out, and completely soaked pair of my underwear.  Not cute, little matching bra and panties type, but your above average quality pair of the "granny panty" variety.

What to do?

Stuck in a hallway in what seemed like the balance of my past and my future, I had to make a decision.  I bent down, forced them into my front pocket, walked into the awards banquet and sat down next to my friend. 

They used to make us do some silly stuff to motivate the collectors.  They would make us pick theme songs to walk the aisle to get our awards.  This time, I chose Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure".  I heard the music start.

Cold Sweat.

I get the award, walk back to my seat.  My friend, Sari leans over and says very non-chalantly "Did you piss your pants?"

"No?" I responded sheepishly.

"Your pants are completely soaked in the back AND in the front.  It looks like it rolled down your leg." she replied.

I promised I would tell her later.

As we were walking back to our desks, I was explaining how I must have stepped into the underwear when I tripped on the basket, we passed the bathrooms.  Laying in the middle of the floor was a pair of women's underwear.  We looked at each other and broke out into raucous laughter as we heard the security guard in the corridor say, "Do those look familiar?"