Operation Pink Herring

Two years

I always thought the old adage that rain on your wedding day is lucky was just a load of bullshit that people slung around to try and make rainy-day brides feel better.

But maybe there's something to it.

Happy anniversary, sweetie.

Vasovagal response

The first time that I can remember feeling totally frozen with fear was on a family vacation to Hawaii, about 5 or 6 years ago. We went bowling (in re-telling this story, my sister-in-law was confused as to why we'd go *bowling* in Hawaii. I am not really sure. It must have been raining. Or nighttime. Or... I don't know.) We were having a grand old time, making bets (my brother cannot play any sort of game without betting on it) and talking smack about my patented between-the-legs grandma bowling style* when my mom walked up to the line to bowl. She wound up, her arm swung back, and in what seemed like slow motion her shoes slipped out from under her and she flew backwards like a cartoon. Except in the cartoons, a when Wile E. Coyote slips on a banana peel and goes flying over backwards, his skull doesn't make a sickening crack when it hits the ground. The crack sounded as loud as lightening, and my brothers and I stood there frozen for what seemed like a very long time while my mom lay there, not moving. 

She was fine. We carefully finished our game, made jokes about no more drinking while bowling. But for that split-second, we were just frozen in place, unable to process the potential consequences of what had just happened. Head injury. Skull fracture. Concussion. Coma. These are the things that flew into my head. I was completely paralyzed.

*I used this method again last weekend and totally tied my bet-loving brother, so there. It works!

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The second time I can remember feeling the same sort of unable-to-react horror was during the car accident, two and a half years ago. Again, it felt like time slowed down and I had an eternity to consider what was happening. The car was moving in the wrong direction. I could hear glass breaking and metal tearing. We were crashing and there was absolutely nothing I could do. I'm going to die in this car, I thought. This is what it feels like.

I was not exactly fine, but I didn't die in that crash. No one did. It was OK.

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The third time I experienced that paralyzed, refusing to comprehend yet at the same time processing a million terrible possibilities, terror was on Tuesday night last week. At the second session of our Prepared Childbirth Class. When, after what I thought was an unnecessarily detailed description of the four degrees of vaginal tearing, the instructor moved on to All About Episiotomies and Joel passed out cold.

Typing it there, it sounds almost funny. It's like a sitcom! Dad-to-be passes out in the delivery room, hilarity ensues! Turns out it's not all that funny when it's actually happening to you in real life.

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Tuesdays are a hectic day, and neither of us has time to go home between work and the class, which starts at 7:30pm.  Since February, I've been leaving work early on Tuesdays so that I can drive up to Towson and go to a 4:30pm yoga class. It's a pain in the ass and it makes for a very long day, but as part of our teacher training we're required to attend one class taught by the studio owner a week, and this is the only one she teaches that isn't hot yoga. Normally I love hot yoga, but I've been trying to avoid it while I'm pregnant. So I negotiated a modified work schedule and I schlep up to Towson once a week now. 

Last week we also started our Prepared Childbirth class on Tuesday evenings. I have enough time to change after yoga and drive directly to the class, but not enough time to go home and shower. Or eat dinner. Tuesdays have become a sort of marathon day, where I leave for work at 8am, go to yoga from 4:30-6pm, and then go to the childbirth class from 7:30-9:30pm. It sucks, but it's only for four weeks.

Joel normally works until 7 or 7:30pm, so making it to the class on time is difficult for him too. The first week, he had just enough time to stop home and pack us some cheese and crackers to snack on during class. But last week we had no snackable food in the house. When we got to the hospital, we briefly toured through the cafeteria to see what sort of dinner or snack options it might offer. I was this close to buying some chicken fingers for us to share (I like to make healthy food choices when I'm on the way to a class about caring for my unborn child), but then I saw the price. Five dollars for four chicken strips, you have got to be kidding me! No way, I'll just wait, I said. I asked Joel if he wanted anything. "Well, I thought we were going to share some chicken fingers..." Oh! Well, in that case, the breakdown was only $2.50 each, and while I'm not willing to spend $5 on a snack for myself, I'm willing to split a $5 snack. But honestly, would four chicken strips be enough for both of us? No, better get the six piece. Which is SEVEN DOLLARS OH MY GOD. No, we'll just wait. (This is how my brain works.) I had a yogurt in my purse, and I'd been careful to eat two bananas and one of those 90-calorie granola bars over the past couple of hours to stave off the wolf-hunger that hits me when I go too long without a snack. I handed Joel my spare 90-calorie granola bar and we went up to the conference room.

This week's class topic was (TMI alert) vaginal delivery. It was not exactly for the faint of heart. We watched a video that included footage of an actual birth, full frontal and up close. I... really did not need to see that. And then we started talking about labor. Hours and hours of labor. Contractions. They don't feel good, apparently. More contractions. Contractions followed by contractions with a 30-second break in between, being in horrible pain for hours. I was displeased, to say the least. I know that this is all going to happen. I KNOW. But I don't really think it's necessary to spend 20 minutes driving home the fact that HEY, CONTRACTIONS ARE AWFUL, SUCKS TO BE YOU LADIES. I know I am going to go through this and I'm OK with it... as long as I don't think too hard about it. I will survive it just as generations before me have survived it, except I have the benefit of drugs. Which I will be taking lots and lots of. I am quite proud of the fact that, except for one dose of Tylenol and my prenatal vitamins, I have not taken a single pharmaceutical during this pregnancy. I feel that this buys me a guilt-free pass to take every legal drug available during labor. (Again, this is how my brain works. I am much better at suffering through the long-term, chronic discomforts of pregnancy than I am with the acute pain, so I will do my very best to be healthy and all natural and all that hippie bullshit during pregnancy, and then during labor: I want drugs. ALL OF THEM. And this rationale makes me feel like labor is going to be OK. If I am wrong, I really don't want to know about it.)

And then after we got done talking about how long and difficult labor is for first-time mothers, we got to the part about (TMI! TMI!) vaginal tearing. First degree, second degree, third degree, fourth degree. "You'll need a LOT of stitches and you won't be sitting down without a donut for a couple of weeks," the nurse teaching the class chirped. "And now let's talk about episiotomies!"  

And that's when Joel got up and walked out of the room. To go to the bathroom, I assumed.  A few seconds later we heard a crash in the hallway. I thought it sounded like someone had crashed one of those wheeling beds in to the wall. I hope they didn't crash that bed right into Joel, I thought. In the seconds that followed the nurse continued talking, but there was just silence from the hallway. No sounds of a wheeling bed continuing down the hallway. Nobody apologizing for crashing or almost crashing a bed into my husband. (Why did I assume it a wheeling bed? I don't know.) Ten seconds probably passed before the instructor and I realized at the exact same moment that something was not right. We both flew out our chairs and went to the hallway, where we found Joel crumpled in a lifeless heap on the floor.  My brain immediately began both processing and denying, and I was just frozen. Over and over my brain repeated, this is not real. This is not happening.

I snapped out of it within a second and was on the floor shaking Joel's shoulder trying to wake him up. After a few moments he opened his eyes and looked at me, confused. "Are you OK?" I asked. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said, looking completely baffled as to why I'd ask. Then his eyes rolled back into his head, his mouth started to move without making any sound, and he went completely limp again. "Has he ever had a seizure before? Is he diabetic? Does he have any health problems?" the instructor asked urgently as she rapped on his sternum with the knuckles of one hand and slapped his cheek with the other.  "No!", I responded. "He's healthy!" Except for the fact that he is completely lifeless at the moment, my brain added silently.

It felt like a really long time, but Joel eventually came to and was again completely confused as to why we were standing around him asking him if he was OK. He was fine, he insisted, he just wanted some air. It wasn't some kind of macho, nothing-hurts-me protesting. He didn't understand why I was worried, why everyone was standing in the hallway looking at him. He felt like he needed come out in the hall for some air, and now he was out in the hall getting some air. What's the big deal?  That scared me even more.  He had no recollection of collapsing. He'd started to sweat through his t-shirt and he had the pallor of a corpse, but he kept insisting he felt completely fine.

So, spoiler alert: Joel is OK. We were in a hospital, our class contains two doctors in addition to the nurse teaching it, and about fifty more doctors were immediately called. We were issued a free wheelchair ride down the elevator to the ER, where his vitals were checked and I had the privilege of using the most disgusting bathroom I have ever encountered, including port-a-potties (hey, turns out that spending five minutes convinced that your husband is going to die is an instant cure for pregnancy constipation!).  After a second nurse checked his blood pressure she gave us two options: be officially checked in and wait to see a doctor -- with the approximate wait time being six hours -- or go home. We opted to go home. After a brief discussion about how I did not feel it was a good idea for him to RIDE HIS BIKE HOME (omg), that is. 

"Don't you agree that it's not a good idea for him to ride his bike home right now" I asked the second nurse while she was taking off the blood pressure cuff.

"Ride a bike? Why would he ride a bike right now?" she asked. 

"Because that's how we got here." 

"How on earth are you still riding a bike?" she asked, eyeing my belly.

"Well, I didn't bike [although I do still ride my bike for shorter, non-hilly trips thankyouverymuch]; I rode an adorable motor scooter. That's not the point, don't you agree he should just walk?"

"Oh, we don't recommend walking in this neighborhood."

OMG. She REFUSED to back me up. Instead of getting into the fact that I know EXACTLY what kind of neighborhood this is, you know, since I work across the street and waddle my pregnant ass in here on foot every damn day, we left and got a Sprite from the vending machine in the cafeteria. After Joel pounded the Sprite and I tried one more time to convince him that riding his bike home was not the brightest idea, can't we just walk, we departed -- Joel on his bike and me riding the adorable scooter alongside. We made it home (on a bike, it's only a 5-minute downhill ride) and I then forced him to chase that cafeteria Sprite with a huge glass of lemonade and a bowl of cereal. Joel went to bed complaining that he felt uncomfortably full from all that liquid and I was quite pleased with that. So pleased that I only woke up about ten times during the night to make sure he was breathing.

23 weeks

Well, here I am. I survived the weekend. Looking back, I am really not sure what I was so panicked about, but you know how that is. Or maybe you don't because you're not an anxiety-prone person who works themselves into a lather at the thought of not having a full weekend day to zone out on the couch. Lucky you.

Things went pretty well overall, if anyone cares. I survived the entire 18 hours of yoga training and my teaching portion went really well. No prize dropped from the ceiling as a reward when I walked out the door on Sunday at 4pm, but I'm sure that was just an oversight and a big box of chocolate covered something is on its way. The flea market was a pretty good success, despite the fucking RAIN that would not stop raining down from the rain-filled sky the entire day. And my friend and her boyfriend ended up not coming to town and staying with us. Which was probably best. For their own safety. I spent a good hour and a half cleaning up and putting shit away last night after work and the place STILL looks like a post-yard sale disaster. I had to leave the back door open all last night just to vent out the nasty smell that has somehow invaded the house. Henry the Cat chose to lounge on the deck next to the compost bin rather than in the house, if that tells you anything. I'm going to stop talking about this now.

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Now that it's glaringly obvious that I am quite pregnant, a lot of my fellow teacher trainees have been politely asking if I knew I was pregnant when I enrolled in this training. The answer is kind of complicated. When I registered and paid my non-refundable deposit in November, I was not pregnant. Shortly afterwards I got my PCOS diagnosis and we started to very seriously think about trying to get pregnant sooner rather than later. I obviously realized that with the training running from February-September, there was a possibility that I would (hopefully) have to complete some portion of it while pregnant. I looked at it as betting on both sides: if we were able to get pregnant, hooray!  And if we couldn't get pregnant, well... at least I'd be able to complete the training! Which, by the way, I'd been meaning to do for years, but there was always something in the way. I was working full time and going to grad school and didn't have time. I was travelling too much for work. I was planning a wedding. I just felt like if I put it off another year it was just never going to happen. So we plowed ahead on both tracks.

And then by the beginning of January, we realized that hooray and holy shit, I was pregnant. For real. With a baby. I emailed the studio owner who runs the training to see if I was even able to still do the training, which is pretty intense, while pregnant. She said it was totally up to me. I wouldn't be the first person to do go through some of the training pregnant (although I've since found out that I will be something like the third, and that I will be the first to do the ENTIRE thing pregnant), but they would refund my deposit if I wanted to drop out at that point. The thing was, I needed to decide right away so they could fill my space before the training started in February. If I started and then couldn't make it through, I'd be getting zero refund. This thing is pretty expensive. She did graciously offer that if I had to drop out, I could make up what I missed in a future year's training at no charge... but we really, REALLY hope to not live in Baltimore at that point. So I'm not considering that as an option.

Obviously, I decided to go ahead with it. At that time, way back in January, the pregnancy seemed so tenuous and incredible that it felt like I'd be tempting fate to make any sort of life alterations around it. And now here I am, halfway done with the pregnancy and halfway done with the training. So far, so good!  The training ends on September 11th. I am due on September 13th. The closer we get, the more ridiculous it seems that I thought cutting it so close was a feasable option.  But really, I didn't have much of a choice.Hopefully the baby stays in until its due date. Hey, my mom had all three of her children on her exact due date!  It could happen. And we're allowed to miss one day of the training, which I am obviously saving for that last day in case the baby is two days early. Maybe I'll be the first person to go into labor during this thing. At least I'll be surrounded by a pretty competent bunch, which includes two nurses and a gaggle of doulas and midwives. I'm trying not to worry about it, and to just take it one week at a time. Right now I can still do both. If I reach a point where I can't any more, I'll figure something out.

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You may have noticed that I'm still calling it "the baby". Not "him" or "her". That's because we're not finding out the sex. As an impatient person who doesn't really like surprises, trust me, I know. But Joel really, really wants it to be a surprise on the day of the birth and he's a pretty good guy so he gets his way on this. I'm actually very OK with it. What's another 20 weeks of not knowing in the grand scheme of life?  Sorry to disappoint those of you who've asked, though. You'll know when we know!

 

I have absolutely no feeling one way or the other. I had one dream that the doctor accidentally let it slip that it was a girl. So maybe it's a girl. Then again, I have about five girl names that I really like and no boy names that I'm absolutely in love with, so it's probably a boy. Place your bets!

Adios, 2010

Annual New Year's quiz thing time!  I love reading other people's responses to this quiz every year, and here's to hoping that you do too. 2007, 2008, and 2009 versions, should you care to look.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before? Got a job that I did not hate. Started a (*cough*prize-winning) garden. Celebrated a year of marriage.  Started composting. Crafted a homemade Christmas wreath. Learned how to (sort of) knit.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?I have fallen out of the habit of making real resolutions because I didn't really like the pressure I put on myself to achieve each and every one of them.  Since one of my resolutions several years running was to be less hard on myself, I'd say that means yes, yes I did keep my resolutions.

I did informally resolve to go to yoga more this year, meaning I wanted to clock at least 53 classes during 2010.  Going once a week has been my norm for several years and it's pretty easy to fit in one class on the weekends, but it gets tricky when we go out of town or have company and I then have to try to "make up" the missed class.  In 2009 I just barely squeaked out 52 classes, thanks to the month I took off for the wedding/honeymoon, the three weeks I was incapacitated after my knee surgery, and the ridiculous amount of traveling I did for work, my brother's wedding and related activities, my wedding shower/bachelorette party, friends' weddings... etc. Anyway, this year was much calmer on the travel and wedding side, and I clocked in 64 classes. I'm quite proud! I am signed up for a teacher training course that starts in February, and the course requires that I go to three classes per week (OMG) so next year's tally will be even higher.

I also kind of resolved to lose some of the extra weight I'd been carrying and get into better shape, and I'd say I did fairly well at that. The last time I weighed in at the gym I'd lost a total of about 6-7 lbs. Sadly, that weigh-in was almost a month ago and I haven't been to the gym since then. I have no good reason other than I just never feel like going, even though the damn gym is right in my office building now.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes, the newly pregnant friend mentioned in last year's survey gave birth to an adorable baby boy! 

4. Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully, no, but I am a little afraid that Madison's name will be in this space next year. The old badger is not looking so good lately, and by that I mean he is looking even worse than usual. He's due for his annual vet visit this month which should be a rocking good time, as always.

5. What countries did you visit?This is the first year in a good long while that has not seen a stamp on the old passport.  We did go to Colorado for our anniversary in July, and we made a visit to Vermont in October... but other than that and several weekend/daytrips to New Jersey, we pretty much stayed put.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010? A new job for Joel, complete with a new location for us.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? April 2nd, my last day at my old job, and April 12, my start date at my new job.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?  Getting a new job; realizing that it is possible to not only not hate your job, but to actually like it.

9. What was your biggest failure? I'm really not sure.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I am getting really sick of listing my knee for this question. Guess who's back in physical therapy? THIS GIRL. My settlement had better be very large is all I'm saying.

11. What was the best thing you bought? I'm having trouble coming up with something for this question, possibly because we tried really, really hard to put as much money into savings as possible this year. I did buy this pursein August and I love it, like, a lot. The Groupon for 5 Bikram yoga classes for $20 was an excellent purchase, and we've been getting a lot of mileage out of our Netflix via Xbox live acount as well.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Same answer as last year: Joel's. I would be lost without him.  

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?  Appalled: People who cannot shut the hell up in the movies.  Depressed: Apostrophe abusers.

14. Where did most of your money go? The mortgage was far and away our biggest expense this year.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Quitting my old job. I miss certain things, most notably my old coworkers, but on the whole I am so, so, SO happy to be free of that place.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010? Zero, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Help I'm Alive and Stadium Love by Metric.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) Happier or Sadder? Happier.
(b) Thinner or Fatter? Thinner.
(c) Richer or Poorer? Richer. 

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Hiking. Writing.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?  Sitting around wondering what we should do on the weekends.

20. How did you spend Christmas in 2010?  Christmas kind of blended in with the rest of my week-long vacation this year, which is just fine with me. We stayed home, slept in, watched Scrooged (which I'd never seen before) and then I screwed up our Christmas Ham (which was actually a shoulder roast, but whatever) but it turned out delicious anyway. Christmas was lovely.

21. Did you fall in love in 2010? With Raylan Givens, yes.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Justified. Walking Dead is a close second.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?  Every single one of the stupid hooligans that ruined a movie for me this year by yelling through the whole damn thing. 

24. What was the best book you read? I didn't have a standout best book this year, but here are the books I really enjoyed:

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Watership Down by Richard Adams (This was a re-read, and I think I loved it even more than I did in high school.)

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand 

Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Shiver and Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Hey, speaking of books, are you on Goodreads? Me too! Want to be my friend?

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?  Metric. My god, they are good. Also, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

26. What did you want and get?  A new job!  

27. What did you want and not get?  A new job for Joel. And a new house.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?  I always have to ask Joel for help with this question, so here are our combined favorites:

How to Train Your Dragon. You guys, this is the cutest movie ever.

Inception. Lived up to the hype!

True Grit. As discussed.

The Town. Even though this movie was totally ruined for me, once again, by loud punk-ass kids in the theater. At the 2pm showing. IS NOTHING SACRED. 

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?  I turned 29, and I cannot remember for the life of me what I did.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?  Having more than one closet and a dedicated parking space.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010? Jeans, Jcrew tshirt, hoodie and Privos.

32. What kept you sane?  Quitting my old job. This is getting a little repetitive, but I don't know how much longer I was going to survive in that basement dungeon. 

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Tie, between Timothy Olyphant and Georges St-Pierre. Did I mention that not only did I get totally into Ultimate Fighter this past season, but we went to watch the pay-per-view finale? At a sports bar? I never thought I would care about a sporting event -- let alone a fighting sport -- in my life. But between my love for polite, Canadian Georges and my burning hatred for Josh Koscheck, I was no-shit nervous about the outcome of that fight. (Georges won!)
 
34. What political issue stirred you the most? Ugh, I don't know. I hate politics. I am pretty psyched about the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, though. I hope one day my kids will be unable to believe that such a stupid policy was ever real.

35. Who did you miss? My two best friends, who live way too far away.

36. Who was the best new person you met?  Raylan Givens.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. If the other person pulls first, it's justified.

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2010 was a great year for us, and I hope it was for you all too. And if it wasn't, well, hooray! It's over! Here's to a happy and healthy 2011. Happy freaking new year, internet.

The best laid birthday plans

I am not a very good gift-giver. Well, I shouldn't exactly say that. I love buying things that I see if they remind me of someone. If I happen upon a book or a scarf or something that I know a certain person will love, I'm a great gift giver. But if I don't happen upon something perfect, well... I just draw a blank. The idea of Christmas shopping gives me an anxiety attack. How are you supposed to come up with a good idea for every person you know and love at the same time?  Throw in the fact that my brother's birthday is in January and my mom's is in February and that is a whole lot of winter gift ideas that never seem to come up with themselves. Much to my relief (and probably at my suggestion), my immediate family did away with getting each other Christmas gifts several years ago. And Joel and I usually just get each other birthday gifts and forgo Christmas gifts, since his birthday in December and mine is in January.  It's just too much. (For me.)

Even with just one gift to buy for Joel, I always end up stressing about what to get him for his birthday. I always want to get him something totally awesome but as his birthday draws nearer and I still have zero ideas, I start to think that I'd settle for getting him something pretty good. Maybe just something not terrible. I mean, something he only hates a little bit, that would be fine, right?

I started fretting about his gift early this year, as this is the big 3-0 for us. My thoughts on turning thirty are another whole topic (I was totally fine with it until about three weeks ago), but every time the topic would come up whoever I was talking to would remark on what a BIG BIRTHDAY it was. Better get him something REALLY SPECIAL, huh?  Wouldn't want the BIG SPECIAL BIRTHDAY to TOTALLY SUCK, would we?

So, there's that. And then there's the fact that Joel is probably the world's best gift-giver. He comes up with ideas all on his own with no hints or suggestions. He often buys me things that I never would have chosen for myself and they always end up becoming my favorite things. And most importantly of all, Joel is just a good guy and fantastic husband and I wanted to show him how much I appreciate him with a totally kick-ass birthday gift for once.

Eventually, thanks to RA, I hit upon the idea of tickets to a Ravens game. I was pretty pumped about this idea. I looked up the schedule and found there was a home game the day after his birthday. Perfect! My brother and my BFF coached me on where to get tickets and what seats were better than others and for the first time ever I had a present bought and shipped and sitting safely in my office with weeks to spare.

Then came the task of keeping it a secret. I have never, ever managed to keep a gift a surprise from Joel. He always guesses it, ALWAYS, even when I think there is no possible way he could ever figure out what I got him. I was really feeling quite smug about my idea and it was SO HARD not to gloat about what a great gift I'd gotten him. But I kept my mouth shut and I refused to answer any questions, give any hints, or even discuss the matter at all because I was afraid he'd figure it out.

On Saturday morning we woke up and while Joel was watching cartoons I wrapped up the tickets in a spare box. I made him open all the other cards that had come in the mail before opening his present. He was genuinely surprised (or he's so good at faking it that I can't tell the difference) and I patted myself on the back for being the best wife ever.

And then this afternoon, around 3pm, Joel started to feel sick. You'd better suck it up, I joked, because we have a goddamn football game to go to whether you feel like it or not! Maybe he was just hungry, he said, so I made us some toast. An hour later he seemed to feel better, and then he went upstairs to take a shower. When he hadn't come back down after what seemed like a long time, I went upstairs and found him in bed. Just taking a nap, he said. Wake me up at 6.

At 6:15 he said he felt OK, but not great. He didn't feel terrible, but it was the kind of uneasiness that could change in to full-on suckitude or just pass. The game kicked off at 8:20. I think you can probably see where this is going.

I made myself some dinner. Joel didn't want any. I looked on Craigslist and saw there were people selling tickets at the last minute and a few people were looking to buy tickets. I wondered if I should list ours and see if anyone was interested. But I didn't want to give them up in case he suddenly felt better.

At 7, we decided to go to the game. We bundled up appropriately and got on our bikes and rode over to the stadium. In hindsight, biking there was a terrible idea, but at the time it seemed l ike a better option than walking through the serious ghetto to the bus stop or riding our bikes to another less ghetto but far away bus stop. 

When we got there, Joel didn't think he could go in. We hemmed and hawed for few minutes over what to do and decided to go in after all, since we were already there.  But when we got to the stadium entrance there was a wall of people waiting outside to go through security.  Just looking at the line made me a little queasy and I realized that this was the stupidest idea ever. So we go in, and what? Joel feels like shit for three hours? While surrounded by drunk, screaming people? In the freezing cold?  No, we needed to go home. I sold the tickets to some dude and we turned around. Joel stopped to throw up before we even made it back to the bikes and had to stop several times on the way home.

So! We're back home. Joel is retching over the toilet upstairs. I guess we'll remember his 30th birthday for a long time, so at least there's that.

Strangely, I am not overly upset. I'm sad that he didn't get to enjoy his gift and I definitely wish that Joel wasn't upstairs barfing right now. But this sudden turn of events made me appreciate all we have more than it made me feel angry at the universe for ruining his present. Even though it may have been the best birthday idea I'll ever have, no big deal universe!  Assuming this is just a stomach bug (and I refuse to consider any other possibilities), we'll be back to normal by tomorrow or next week at the latest. I'll still have my husband and we'll still have our overall health. Of all the disasters that could come out of left field at any time, missing a football game isn't the worst thing that could have happened by a long shot.

But now MY stomach is starting to feel a little questionable, so I reserve the right to take that statement back.

 

Indie rocker, not so much

Internet, I have a confession to make. It’s really not my confession, it’s Joel’s. You see, Joel is not on Facebook.

I can’t really blame him, since 80% of the time Facebook makes me want to bludgeon my “friends” with a book on the correct usage of grammar and punctuation… and that’s not to mention the people who genuinely do not know the definition of words they use every day. (You are not “weary” of trying out a new hair salon. The word is "leery.") (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.)

But because of his disinclination to enter the wide world of social networking, what often happens is that I end up liking (or friending, or whatever it’s called) all the organizations that he would like if he were on Facebook, so that I can see their updates and pass them on to him. That’s what marriage is about, right? Liking things for someone else on Facebook?

I logged in this weekend and saw that a comic book shop that my cartoon-loving husband enjoys visiting was giving away free tickets to the Matt & Kim concert on Saturday. I've been in love with Matt & Kim since I first saw this Bacardi commercial. The first time I saw it, I rushed upstairs and described it to Joel so he could look it up on the internet and find the song for me. I probably shouldn't admit that I actually discover a lot of new music from commercials, especially since I now have Shazam on my phone, so I can just find the songs and download them myself. (And while we're on the topic of things I shouldn't admit on the internet, I'll confess that I actually like this comic book shop, too. They have actual print, hardcover books filled with lolcats! Maybe THAT’S what marriage is really about: “liking” stuff you don’t like and then realizing you really DO like it.) I got in the car and sped off to Hampden and that’s how we ended up at an indie rock concert.

Now, I have been to a few concerts in my life. But I haven’t been to one in a while, and I don’t think that I’ve ever been to one -- how do I put this so that I don’t sound like an alcoholic? -- sober. In fact, after the second or third Dave Matthews concert where I had to rely on photographic evidence to see what happened (see: blackout drunk, I use to like to get), I actually stopped buying tickets. Why waste $40 on a concert pass when you’re not going to remember anything that happens after the second hour of the tailgate party, right? Yes, I may have made some poor decisions in my life, but I’ve always hated wasting money.

Anyway, barring a couple of free weeknight shows put on by the local radio station, I haven’t been to a concert in a quite a while, let alone a cool hipster indie rock concert. What does one wear to a hipster indie rock concert? (I went with jeans, my Privo sneakers, and a t-shirt. In other words, my weekend uniform.)

We left around 7:30pm, and MAN did I feel like a rule-breaker. The tickets said the doors opened at 7pm and I do not like being late. (That statement should not be confused with “I am never late,” because I am late all the time. If we have ever met in person, I was probably late. But trust me, I felt REALLY bad about it.) But we knew that no one arrives at concerts on time, that would simply be uncool. No, we planned to arrive fashionably late. By the time we had parked and ordered some food, I’d started to panic, though. It was almost 8pm. What if they played Daylight first and we missed it? So we scarfed down our pizza and rushed into the venue, only to find that the first warm-up band had not even started. It turns out that being fashionably late to a concert means two and a half hours late, not 57 minutes after the doors open. Who knew?

We waited through the first warmup band (horrible) and the second warmup band (not too bad), and finally, FINALLY, Matt and Kim came out. And at the very end they played Daylight. And I loved it.

But even more, I loved that the whole night, including four slices of pizza and a beer for Joel, cost us $16.

And perhaps most of all, I loved sitting down when we got home. How do kids stand up all night like that?

How was your day, honey?

When Joel and I were doing pre-marital counseling one of the things our counselor recommended was a "daily debrief".  Every evening, you just take five our ten minutes to talk uninterrupted about what happened in your day.  It felt kind of silly at first, but it's become a very natural part of our day.  "So, what's going on today," Joel will ask as we're brushing our teeth.  Free pizza lunch at work, maybe, or three-hour meeting that no one is looking forward to.  Evening reports are no more exciting, but it's a good way to catch up when you spend 8 hours apart each day and come home to laundry that needs to be done and dinner that needs to be made and cats that never stop yowling.  Free sandwiches for lunch (my reports often revolve around food of the free variety)! I was accosted by a crazy person demanding fifty cents on my way home!  Had to kick a girl off the treadmill I'd reserved at the gym and she totally gave me attitude, and then five minutes later I realized I had my shorts on backwards! Thrilling stuff, really.

Except for yesterday, when my workplace (which, yes, you can totally figure out, but I'm not naming on purpose here) made the front page of CNN.com because there was a shooting. 

I was puttering around getting things ready for a lunch seminar in the morning.  I set up the laptop and projector, loaded the presentation, opened the door when the catering guy arrived.  I was making what felt like my forty-third trip down the hallway when a coworker erupted out of her office, cell phone in hand.  "Did you get the alert?!" she asked. "There's a shooter!"

Um, pardon moi?

The news spread very quickly after the emergency alert (which I never got, THANK YOU VERY MUCH) went out: there was a shooter in the hospital.  It was rumored he had hostages (this turned out pretty quickly to be false).  Buildings were supposedly on lockdown.  Everyone was supposed to go into their offices, shut the door, and stay away from the windows. 

Of course, what's the first thing people do when you tell them not to look? We wandered into the office with the street view and watched wide-eyed as the cop cars and fire trucks pile onto the street below.  Wait, was that a SNIPER lying across the street?  Look, it's the police helicopter!  Um, is that a SWAT truck?

While there was obviously a very serious situation going on across the street, we seemed pretty safe with a rainbow assortment of law enforcement officials between us and the building in question. There were no sirens, not even from the police cars below -- and I work at a hostpital. There are ALWAYS sirens. There was no announcement from the PA system telling us to calmly exit the building or to take shelter or to do anything, really. In fact, I've seen people here get more worked up over winter storm advisories.

"So, we're still doing the seminar?  The show must go on?" I half-joked.  Might as well, we figured.  And so we did.  We went about our day in an oddly normal fashion, taking breaks to press our faces against the window and watch the corporate security guys hustle around on what was certainly the most exciting day of their jobs.  I sent an email to my mom and texted Joel, telling them not to worry, I'm fine and by the way I think we're on the news.  I snapped a few more pictures with my phone and went back to my desk.

Two hours later, the situation was over.  We saw the SWAT guys shake hands with the police and drive away.  I watched the mayor give a press conference and wondered if I should go downstairs and run around the block to get a cameo the "live cam" CNN.com had set up on the street corner (hint: I did not).  When 5pm rolled around I packed up my stuff and went home, just like any other day. 

It was one of the strangest days at work I've ever had, and the story that has emerged is tragically sad. I hope that I will have nothing even remotely exciting to report tonight.

 

Scott Pilgrim Versus the Old Notebook

Over the long weekend I spent several hours organizing our home filing cabinet. Lately I have been feeling like our house is a total disaster, but I didn’t really feel like cleaning. So instead I organized the filing cabinet while watching Tivoed episodes of my new favorite show –- it’s called Man, Woman, Wild and it has completely replaced that lying liar Bear Grylls in my heart -- and then I felt better about my messy house. Don’t question the method, it works.

In the back of the filing cabinet I came across a stash of old notebooks. Now, here’s a confession: although I am a huge fan of home organization, getting rid of clutter, and taking trashbags of junk to Goodwill, I have trouble letting go of notebooks and day planners. I get a sort of archaeologist thrill flipping through my old pen-and-paper calendars, trying to remember what “6pm Black&White” on May 17, 2002 meant and reminiscing about the days before I used an Outlook calendar, when I used to color-code all of my school, work, and social obligations using purple, green, and black pens. I also can’t part with anything school-related. When I finished my last Master’s class, I neatly organized all my notes and papers and stowed them in a banker’s box in the basement. I stashed the remaining notebooks with empty pages in the back of the filing cabinet to use as scrap paper and then promptly forgot about them. When I discovered them this weekend, I pulled out two smaller notebooks that I thought were empty and brought them in to use at work.

As I flipped the first one open yesterday, I found a few pages of notes scrawled in Joel’s handwriting. All in all there were about fifteen pages filled with college-era scribbles and notes. July 25th marked not only our first wedding anniversary, but also the eighth anniversary of our first date. Eight years! Skimming through Joel’s notes made me feel so nostalgic, recalling the days when we were boyfriend and girlfriend, meeting up after class to eat dinner and watch Smallville, back when Smallville was still a good show. There were some coaching notes on the first few pages, followed by instructions on how to refinish a door. After that was a page with job possibilities listed out and another page with numbers of computer repair places. Finally, at the very end of the used notebook section, I came across a list titled “Things to do this Summer”. It was so cute to read.  Baseball Game, Annapolis, Smithsonian, Matthew’s Pizza. A few items were crossed off, and I tried to remember doing them. The Baltimore Museum of Art ($5/person), yes, we definitely went there a time or two. How quaint, we had to pay!  Now it's free.  Go to DC and do the tourist thing, yup, we have a picture of us standing in front of some memorial during cherry blossom season on our bookshelf, me with my super-short hair and Joel in that blue t-shirt. Try crabs…well, that’s strange, because I know I didn’t have crabs, real crabs, hit-them-with-a-mallet crabs, until last year. I wonder why that’s crossed off? And “beach”? When did we ever go to the beach? I hate beaches.

And that’s when I noticed the year scribbled next to the list title, 2001, and did some quick math. This is 2010, minus 2001, equals nine. We have been together eight years. Eight is less than nine. RIght? Well, let's see: we graduated high school in 1999.  So that was the summer before freshman year.  2000 would be the summer before sophomore year and 2001 would be... the summer before junior year.  We met at the very end of that summer, and when I say "met," I mean that I crashed on the couch of my friends' house, where JOel had just moved in, for a few weeks before jetting off to Madrid for my summer abroad.  Our conversations, if we had any, were not memorable.  We did not hang out.  We most certainly did not go to the beach together.  I realized that this list, Things to do this Summer (2001), was an accounting of fun things that Joel did with his old girlfriend.

Internet, I do not know if I have ever felt such an intense wave of jealousy. This list looked exactly like the kind we make together, except Joel made it with someone else! Some woman who is NOT ME! I was instantly hateful of this stupid hussy, who from the very little I know about her was a perfectly nice girl.  I wanted to punch her in the face. I wanted to tell her to stay the hell away from MY man. I wanted her to not exist.

As I said, Joel and I met for the first time in August of 2001.  We didn’t say more than a quick hello to each other until I came back from Spain in the spring, and we didn’t start dating for another six months after that.  I spent most of my semester abroad (Mom, close your eyes) going out to Spanish clubs and staying out until 5, 6, 7am. Nearly all my friends that semester had left boyfriends back in the States, which left me and my one other single friend responsible for making out with more than our fair share of Spanish boys, a responsibility we took quite seriously. We even had matching pseudo-boyfriends named Alejandro Uno and Alejandro Dos for a few weeks! So it is not only ridiculous for me to feel mad about Joel having fun summer adventures with someone else during this time, it’s completely unfair and hypocritical. 

And yet, I cannot look at this list without feeling a jealous fire in the pit of my stomach. I want to find this girl he went to the beach with in the summer of 2001 and tell her, Hi, I don’t think we’ve met, but you dated my husband nearly a decade ago and the two of you broke up before we met. And guess what? YOUR LOSS! He’s mine now, I win, back off, and go back to living what I hope is a very happy life in which you are oblivious to my existence.  PS: Stay the hell away from my hunky man.

Pet Kidnapper

This morning I was 2/3 of the way to work when I spotted two dogs rooting through the trash out on the sidewalk across the street. There was no one around and they were obviously roaming free, so I crossed the street to see if they were lost or hurt.  They were two young, friendly pit bulls with no collars or tags, happily sniffing the garbage bags.  I stood back a bit to avoid scaring them, but one immediately trotted over and started licking my leg. 

I debated what to do as the first dog happily slobbered all over my feet and begged me to play with him and the other continued his methodical inspection of the trash.  Just as I was getting out my phone to call the police non-emergency hotline to report them to animal control, a door opened up the block and a man came out with his recycling.  I asked if he knew who the dogs belonged to and he said they lived a few houses down and he'd knock on the door and get the owner. I left, looking over my shoulder after a block to see the first dog sitting down, head cocked, watching me.  His companion never stopped digging through the trash, which, by the way, was placed illegally on the sidewalk without a trash can. Five days before trash pickup.

I'm happy that I didn't have to be responsible for sending these dogs to the city shelter where they'd likely be put down.  They were friendly, they seemed to be well-treated, they have a home.  But this kind of blatant irresponsibility makes me fume.  You cannot let your dogs roam unattended on a very busy street with no identification!  They could run off, be hit by a car, be antagonized by the hoodlums that roam that neighborhood, bite someone who threatens them.  If you're too busy to put a collar and a leash on your dog and take it for a walk in the morning, then maybe you shouldn't have a dog in the city.  In fact, you know why I don't have a dog?  Because I live in the city, I travel too much,  and I don't have time to take it for walks. If I didn't have a cat who spooks at the sound of a truck driving by and if I didn't live in the world's smallest house, I would have rounded up those dogs and taken them home. Take note, people who live on that block.  Your dogs are cute and next time I might just steal them.

****************

Other than my feelings of hostility towards irresponsible city pet owners, life is good.  I spent the last two weekends celebrating: first, a friend's bachelorette-hood at the Jersey shore, and then our wedding anniversary in Colorado.  Both included copious amounts of sunscreen, one ended with me vomiting in a Wendy's restroom.  We returned home on very late on Monday night and found a killer parking space right on our block.  As much as I love traveling and friends and fun, man, it's good to be home.  What have you been up to, internet? 

This

I’d read that the first few years of marriage can be an incredibly difficult adjustment, but my experience has been exactly the opposite. Much of the anxiety (not all, but most) that use to plague me has evaporated and dissolved. The unspoken question of where things are going has been answered, and answered in the best possible way. The wedding to-do lists have been burned in a mental bonfire and the few tiny disappointments of the wedding process and the actual day are all but forgotten (except for the rain that drove our lovely terrace cocktail hour indoors, I’m still a teensy bit sad about that). All that remains of the hours spent planning and organizing are memories and photos, enhanced by the rose-colored glow of nostalgia.

Aside from the additional pieces of jewelry on our left hands, our lives together didn’t change all that much. We merged our car insurances and our cell phone plans. I visited the social security office and got a card with a new last name on it. Other than that, things stayed the same.

And yet, everything shifted. I used to suffer immensely from a feeling of having no footing and no direction. I felt like a waste of potential for having a job instead of a career, for not being interested in law school or business school or anything, really, that didn’t occur on the weekends. I drifted, unable to make myself choose a direction. And while I still work at the same job, still live in the same house, still have the same life, essentially, I don’t feel like I’m drifting and searching anymore.

It used to drive me crazy when people would ask when we were going to get married already, as if it were any of their business. People mean well, I know, but these questions are obnoxious. It made me almost as angry when near-strangers would ask how the wedding plans were coming only to voice disapproval at whatever response I gave.  What do you mean you don't have a florist booked?  What do you mean you haven't had a bridal shower?  There is always an undercurrent of impatience in those queries, and I always felt like the last thing I needed was to have some outside party insinuate that I was doing things wrong. I expected to feel the same way about the meaningless “how’s married life” question. But I don’t! I don’t mind it at all. Married life is awesome, I happily reply.

I don’t know exactly what it is. The sense of permanence, of groundedness. I still worry about lots of things. I worry about the economy, I worry about money. I worry about asteroids hitting the moon and I worry about how writers of Lost are possibly going to wrap up all those crazy parallel universes. But I find immense comfort knowing that whatever happens, we’ll still have this.

And this, this life together, is exactly what I've been drifting towards all these years.

Social cycling anxiety

We went down to Richmond on Saturday morning so that Joel could drool over expensive custom bikes at this thing, while I got to partake in ABC Family’s Phony Matrimony Weekend with my friend Jenny, who convenient lives in Richmond and shares my love of made-for-TV movies. That name is not a joke, by the way. “Phony Matrimony Weekend” was dreamed up by someone at ABC Family’s corporate office and then approved by whoever lords over this sort of branding. I don’t think I could love the channel any more, and having someone to watch these ridiculous amazing cinematic pieces with me makes them even sweeter.

This a perfect example of the phenomenon Janssen talked about her in her post about People Who Do … there are people who enjoy watching movies called My Fake Fiance, and there are people who just cannot understand it. The movie was ridiculous, completely unbelievable and terribly acted. I loved every second of it. I loved The Perfect Man, which was on Oxygen later that night, just as much. Hilary Duff! Heather Locklear! Horrific New York accents and a ridiculous premise, around which the entire plot revolves! Honestly, what’s NOT to love?

I like good movies, too, don’t get me wrong. It’s just a completely different kind of enjoyment. I can appreciate a movie for being really good, and I can also appreciate a movie for being really, really bad… in a good way. It’s when bad movies take themselves too seriously that we get into trouble and end up with horrors like Post Grad. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Rory Gilmore for that monstrosity.

Anyway, after our day of wine-soaked chick flicks and bike-oogling, we headed home just in time for me to make it to a Ladies Biking Event at new-ish bike shop in our neighborhood. I got a flier for this event when I stopped in to pick up a bike part Joel had ordered last weekend, and I treated it like every social invitation that comes my way. I thought, hey, that sounds like fun, and then immediately began compiling a list of reasons why I couldn’t or shouldn’t go. We’d be out of town most of the weekend so I’d be too tired. I wouldn’t know anyone. I’d be mauled by hipsters when they realized I’m a complete cycling fraud. I don’t know anything about bikes. No, seriously, when I called to see if my bike was done with its complimentary 6-month tune up, the bike shop dude asked me which bike was mine and I stammered that it was the black one. The small, black one. Filed under my name?

I always do this, and luckily Joel is there to force me to go and do things that I’m uncomfortable with (he refused to dress in drag and attend as my lady biking BFF, though). So I went, ALONE, to a social event, ALONE -- an event about bikes, ALONE -- and… I had fun. I wasn’t even the least knowledgeable person there; some people didn’t even have bikes yet. (I laughed their asses right out of town, of course, right after I got done accidentally dropping the brochure for Joel’s fancy schmancy bike show on the ground. I mean, no bike! What a loser! I have a very trendy, important bike. It’s, uh, black. And small.)

I am so glad I went. I learned a lot, had a good time and met some new people. I won’t be joining their mountain bike club any time soon, mostly because mountain biking is terrifying and my small, black bike is not a mountain bike, but who knows! Maybe I’ll go on a road ride some day. Like, for fun, not just to get to work. Or, at the very least, maybe I’ll stop panicking when someone makes eye contact with me at the office bike rack. Either way, yay for, you know, doing stuff.

Just to top off our weekend of atypical activity, we went out for dinner and a movie afterwards. On a Sunday night! We didn’t get home until midnight! Again, my gut reaction was to say no, I just want to come home, watch TV, maybe cry a little if the hipsters were mean to me, and go to sleep. But why, self? Why don’t you like fun? There’s a ton of housework and laundry and backlogged Tivo to catch up on tonight, but so what?

I tend to get very anxious when we have things planned for the weekend, which I realize is kind of ridiculous, but I just really, really enjoy decompressing. I need time to clean, to watch TV, and to just be at home. Again, going back to Janssen’s post, I think there are people who get this and people who’d be perfectly fine traveling and going out every single weekend. I’m not one of them, but I’m trying to remind myself that everything is a good idea in moderation.

And that, internet, is what I did this weekend. Did you do anything fun?

Hypothetical potential non-babies

Blame it on too many after-school specials in Health class or on my natural proclivity to worry about everything, but I’ve been worrying about getting accidentally pregnant for… as long as I can remember. Before that was even, ahem, physically possible. My friends did it too – in college, one of my friends was absolutely convinced she was going to be the next feature in Seventeen Magazine: Pregnant with Triplets and I Never Even Had Sex! 

About three years ago I had this revelation: if I did get accidentally pregnant by some divine simultaneous failure of multiple methods of birth control, it would no longer be disastrous. I mean, it wouldn’t have been ideal timing-wise (call me old fashioned, but I was hoping to, like, get married and stuff first), but it wouldn’t have ruined my life. I wouldn’t have to worry about droping out of school. I was with the man I wanted to marry, we both wanted to have kids eventually. It would have been… fine.

This little epiphany didn’t stop me from worrying about it, though. Instead, I moved on to worrying about accidentally harming my potential non-baby. I drink wine! And coffee! I love coffee. And what about the benadryl and ibuprofen and preservatives in cold cuts and getting toxoplasmosis from scooping the litterbox and oh my god, that's just the stuff I KNOW about.  I probably do a hundred things a day that could potentially hurt my hypothetical non-baby! And I can’t have a baby. I’m not old enough to have a baby. I curse too much to have a baby. I love sleeping too much to have a baby.

But when I’m not busy worrying about having babies by accident, I’m haunted by the idea that I might not be able to have them at all. I might have permanently screwed up my body with that stupid fucking eating disorder when I was in college. Maybe I was never able to have kids. Without skidding too far into TMI territory, I have never exactly been textbook normal with the old womanly troubles. As strongly as I feel like I’m NOT READY OMG I've  always known that I want to have kids some day.  In the distant future when I was a grown-up adult person. And back when I was in high school I certainly would have considered a twenty-nine year old -- WHO IS ALREADY GOING GRAY BY THE WAY – to be such a grown-up person. However, I routinely leave the oven on after dinner and drop kitchen towels on the gas burner and forget to put the car in park and lock myself out of the house. So, obviously, I am not ready for kids. Yet.

Every time I get dizzy or I have a worse-than-usual food craving or I gain four pounds despite working out five times a week, what the hell is up with THAT, dual emotions start tugging at my gut. Part of me is thinking crap crap crap I CAN NOT be pregnant we don’t have enough money saved and our house is too small and I can’t do this… and another, quieter part is thinking hey, this would be kind of awesome.

The year of the wedding

I know that 2009 was pretty terrible for a lot of people.  Layoffs, infertility, breakups, unemployment, divorce, you name it: 2009 seemed to have it.  And in filling out this little annual survey doohickey I'm remembering that there were some pretty hugely sucktastic events in there for me, as well.  But, overall, I think 2009 the happiest year of my life.  Am I crazy?  Was our wedding just THAT awesome (be forewarned: this post unintentionally became a bit wedding-heavy)?  Or did the good just outweigh the bad in my little heart of coal?  I'm not sure, but I can't bring myself to say that 2009 was anything but good to me.  Even if we did spend the last few minutes of it chasing our dumb-as-bricks cat across the neighbor's snowy roof. 

Without further adieu, here's the annual New Year's quiz thing! I really enjoy reading the responses people post to this all over the internet.  (2007 and 2008 versions, should you care to look.)

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before? Rode in an ambulance. Got married. Bought a non-Volkswagen.  Bought a bike of my own.  Made the decision to put a pet to sleep.  Had surgery.  Baked a pumkin pie from scratch.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I never quite got around to making any concrete resolutions this year.  I felt like if I made it through the year without going totally broke or insane and came out married on the other end, then I would have accomplished everything necessary.  And I did, so... I win!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No, but I did just learn that the very first of my friends is pregnant. 

4. Did anyone close to you die? My grandmother died, and that was sad even though we weren't particularly close.  And there was also Max, if animals count.  The first week after that was pretty horrific.  I am an old pro at making myself feel bad about things, but I have never felt so completely crushed by guilt as I did in the first few weeks after putting him to sleep. It was... not good.  Honestly, I still don't feel great about it.

5. What countries did you visit? Canada, for our honeymoon.  I was supposed to go to Argentina for work in November, but then I realized that a 14-hour flight three weeks after having knee surgery was probably not a super idea.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009? A new house and new jobs for both of us.  (Dream big, right?) 

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? July 25th. No special reason. 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?  I don't want to say "getting married" because that sounds like one of those people who has been sleeping with a pink, glittery wedding binder under her pillow since age six, just waiting to fill in the blanks with a groom's name... but I think that planning and coordinating all the details that went into that day without losing focus of why we were doing it was my biggest achievement.

9. What was your biggest failure? I'm really not sure. Maybe getting so anxious in the final run-up to the wedding.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Ugh. Almost a year later, and I still think about that stupid car accidentmultiple times a day.  I spent countless hours (and by "countless" I mean that I have a detailed list I'll be sending to my lawyer) going to a chiropractor, an orthopedic surgeon and a physical therapist and I've managed to get everything back to normal except my stupid, stupid knee.  In case you couldn't tell how I feel about the whole situation: it's stupid.  I still vacillate daily between feeling so lucky that things weren't worse and being really, really angry that I'm still dealing with knee problems (and very well might be for the rest of my life) while that kid who hit us has probably forgotten the whole thing ever happened.   

11. What was the best thing you bought?  Again, it's a tie. Between my wedding ring and my Motorola Droid. My god, I love them both.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Joel's. I would be lost without him.  

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?  Kristen Stewart's.

14. Where did most of your money go? The wedding, the mortgage, and our new car.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? The wedding.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009? Daylight, by Matt and Kim.  And Your Song, by Ewan McGregor, which was our first dance song.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) Happier or Sadder? Happier.
(b) Thinner or Fatter? About the same, again.
(c) Richer or Poorer? Definitely poorer, but we're steadily repairing the wedding-sized hole in our savings. 

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Sleeping. Reading.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?  Fretting.  This is the same answer I gave last year, and I'd be willing to bet it will be my answer next year too.

20. How did you spend Christmas in 2009?  We slept in and opened a few gifts from Joel's family in the morning.  Later, we went out for dinner and saw Sherlock Holmes in a sold-out theater.  When we got home around midnight there were parking spaces aplenty, which was a true Christmas miracle.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?I stayed in love? This question is weird.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Tie, between True Blood and The Vampire Diaries.  Man, I wish I could love the Sookie Stackhouse books, but they are so very awful.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?  I hate lots of people.

24. What was the best book you read? I read a lot of really great books this year and I really can't pick a single favorite.  It's a tie between the Harry Potter series, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, Graceling by Kristin Cashore, and The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman.  However, worst book I read is easy: any one of the Sookie Stackhouse books.  I was totally expecting to LOVE those books, since 1. I bordered on obsession over the first season of True Blood, 2. I like vampire shit, in general.  But oh my god.  They are so godawful that I haven't even been able to finish the last three books yet.  Nine.  There are NINE of these books.  I can't leave the last three unread because the unfinished task light will continue blinking in my brain until the day I die, but I'm not sure when I'll muster up the patience to power through. 

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?  Shazam.

26. What did you want and get?  Married.  

27. What did you want and not get?  A winning lotto ticket.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?  Out of loyalty, I'll say New Moon.  But coming in at a very, very close second: Avatar. 

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?  I spent my 28th birthday on the couch, feeling pretty miserable (and being smothered by a sympathetic cat).

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?  Winning the lottery.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009? Illegal jeans, Threadless t-shirts, sweater dresses.

32. What kept you sane?  My mom, Joel and my seven thousand excel spreadsheets. 

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?  Edward Cullen, as portrayed by Robert Pattinson.  (This is different from Robert Pattinson himself, mind you.) (This answer is exactly copied from last year.  Sigh.  Still true.)
 
34. What political issue stirred you the most? Legalizing gay marriage.

35. Who did you miss? This wasn't for the whole year, but Max.

36. Who was the best new person you met?  Uhhh... I'm drawing a blank.  Did I meet anyone new this year?

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009. Biting your nails doesn't help.

Happy new year, internet.  I already know that 2010 is going to be great, if only because doing math this year is going to be SO much easier.

My enemies, let me show you them

Joel and I are out at a restaurant having dinner – that’s one of the benefits of living in the city, when it snows 20 inches you can walk to the movies, and then later to a bar, in effect going out more than you do when the weather is perfectly nice – and I’m looking at Twitter on my phone. I’m about to reply to Kristabella about the Vampire Diaries, and as I type “did you know that Stephen is Steve McQueen’s son”, Joel informs me that it’s actually Jason, not Stephen-with-the-big-head, and he’s Steve McQueen’s grandson, not son. Oh. Well. Backspace-backspace-backspace.

Then we get to talking about Steve McQueen, who I often confuse with James Dean. Joel explains that Steve McQueen is the dude in The Great Escape, which I’ve seen most of, and which I actually liked. Wow, I say, he’s like, all wiry and super-skinny, right? He’s cool like James Dean? Yes, he did boatloads of cocaine and was very skinny, Joel says. And he possibly died racing his car, which everyone knows is about as cool as you can get. Oh, like in that episode of Supernatural, I say, but no, again, that’s James Dean. I don’t understand how this guy is SO cool, I say, and so we do the sensible thing and turn to Wikipedia (have I mentioned that I adore my new phone? It’s quite handy to be able to settle these questions immediately) to find out just why everyone thinks this Steve McQueen character is so goddamn cool.

Ok, first of all: his photo is his mugshot. Second of all, he is making a peace sign. In his mug shot.

Further evidence of coolness: He was an avid racer of both motorcycles and cars, he performed his own stunts, he has a type of Mustang named after him, he was on Richard Nixon’s Enemies List.

And that’s where the conversation stopped being about whether Steve McQueen was cool or not and started being about how you know what I need? An Enemies List.

OPH Enemies List – last updated 12/23/2009

• The guy from the Free Credit Report.com commercials
• Kristen Stewart
• Whoever's idea it was to cancel The Unit
• The guy from the gym who calls my Pinky*
• Max’s (RIP) previous owner
• Car Accident Guy
• Sheila Dixon
• Catherine Hardwicke
• Our neighbor**
• Whoever leaked Midnight Sun
• Handicapped parking space asshat
• Snakes
• The dude who bought my Jetta and keeps getting it impounded***
•  Calleigh Duquesne
• People who can’t parallel park (I mean people who park in the middle of two spaces and have no common sense, not people who can't nail a space on the first try.  Although, I'll have you know, I can nail a space on the first try.  As long as no one is watching and making me nervous).
• People who run to the store to buy toilet paper and bottled water every time the forecast calls for snow****
• Scooter thief 

I have the feeling I might have to  make this list into a permanent page, because I know there are more enemies out there.  Douchebags: they're everywhere.

* Funny story about the gym. So, maybe I told you guys, but I got married and I was really busy doing all kinds of important marrying stuff and I sort of stopped going to the gym some time around, say, June, so that I could focus fully on biting my fingernails and creating superfluous Excel spreadsheets. And then there was the wedding, and then we were on vacation, and then my knee hurt and then I had knee surgery, and then I was recovering from surgery and long story short: I didn’t go to the gym for over six months. When I found out I was going to be having surgery, I meant to call and put my membership on hold so I wouldn’t be paying for my unused membership, but, well, I never got around to it.

So I went back for the first time last week, and I was really nervous. Would it still be in the same place? Would my card still work? Would I get stuck in an awkward conversation with my Gym Nemesis about why I’ve been gone for so long?

I walked in and I’d never seen the guy working at the desk, SCORE. Maybe Gym Nemesis doesn’t even work here any more, wouldn’t that be grand!

When I swiped my card it made a bad-sounding dinging noise so the new guy asked me to swipe it again. No dice. It turns out my membership had been canceled in August, when I changed my name and totally screwed up their automatic deduction system. Score one for procrastination! He said it was no problem, gave me a new application to fill out and said I could just bring it with me the next time I came. He waved me through, I managed 20 minutes on the elliptical, determined that everything was pretty much in the same place as it was six months ago, and went home.

The next day I returned with my completed application in hand. I turned the corner to see none other than Gym Nemesis working the desk. Maybe he won’t remember me! I’ll just pretend that I’m a totally new person and hand him this application and – - “Hey, Pinkie.  Where've you been?”

Fuck.

** Funny story about our neighbor: for no reason at all, she hates us. Well, I should say, she hates me. She seems to have no problem with Joel, which is super since I’m the one who bought her a cute (not creepy) Welcome to the Neighborhood card and introduced myself when she moved in. Anyway, she doesn’t like us, her yappy dog doesn’t like us. So on The Great Snow Day this weekend, Joel is out shoveling the sidewalk (including hers, because he is nice) and she asks him if he can collect her mail next week. And then she elaborates, saying usually she asks her First Tier Friend, Mr. Old Man, but she really can’t ask him "to come out in this weather." Sooo... not only are we her second choice for vacation mail collector, but she hopes we slip on her (unshoveled) stairs and break a leg.

*** Funny story about my old car: apparently you can’t just sell a car, the car remains yours in the eyes of the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration until the new owner registers it in his own name. If, say, he prefers to drive the car around unregistered and all unlawful-like, and then, say, he gets his car towed for parking illegally, you will get an Official Certified Letter from the Official County Government demanding that you come and officially pick up your car, even though it's officially not actually your car at all and you have neither the required proof of ownership nor the keys.  This Official Certified Letter will threaten all kinds of official fees and penalties for failure to officially pick up your car and pay the official towing and storage fees.

I ignored the first letter because it came just before the wedding. When I got a second letter, I called every number listed on the damned thing, from the county police station (“nothing we can do, call the MVA”) to the MVA (“nothing we can do, tell him he needs to register the car”) to the impound lot (“nothing we can do, there aren't any Volkswagens here”). I noted all these supremely helpful conversations and filed the letter right next to the Bill of Sale.

And now I’ve gotten a third letter. This one says the car was impounded on December 3, which leads me to believe that Mr. New Jetta Owner is somehow retrieving his (my) (our) poor Jetta each time. I don't have any way to contact him, since we communicated only via text message and his number was erased when I got my new phone. The best I can manage it to call the County Police, the MVA, and the impound lot again, note the conversations and file the letter away, hoping to the Ghost of Volkswagens Past that when I go to renew the registration on our Mazda next year, the MVA doesn’t tell me that I owe some horrific amount in fines. I figure in that case, I can always “sell” the car to Joel. Or, failing that, we can move far, far away and change our names.

**** Funny story about people in Maryland: Every time it looks like a single snowflake might fall, there is a run on toilet paper and milk.  I honestly don’t understand this. How long do people think they’re going to be snowed in for? Do they really not have enough toilet paper to last them through the weekend? If the snow really does pose an emergency (which it sometimes does, here, because of pure incompetence on the part of the city), really, toilet paper is what you’re putting in your survival kit?

*******************************************************************************

And, well, just so this isn't the most bitter post in the history of Christmas, look!  Snow!

If it's going to be cold, it might as well freaking snow.  That's what I always say.

I like to call this photo "Nevermind".

Ok, I hate the parking situation, but I do love our neighborhood.  Especially when it gets all snowy and I half expect to see a horse pulling a buggy down the cobblestone streets.

 

Annual identity crisis

Today is Joel’s birthday. Ready, everyone? HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOEL!

One of the very convenient things about Joel’s birthday is that it’s exactly one month and four days before mine, which gives me a handy alarm as to when I should begin mentally preparing myself to turn a new age. I have never liked turning a new number, except for when I was 16 (driver’s license!) and when I was 20 (vodka!). It’s not that I have an Isabella Swan age complex, it’s just that after a whole year I’ve always come to really like the age I’m at. It becomes part of my identity and the new age just sounds… wrong. Oh, there's nothing wrong with the new age, and I'm sure it's a very nice age to be.  It’s just not me.

Some years this identity crisis is worse than others. I remember listening to the radio when I was in college and hearing a news story about a nineteen year old woman. A woman! They should have said a nineteen year old girl! A nineteen year old student! Nineteen is not a woman. I was nineteen, by the way. I don’t think I ever got used to being twenty, but I was OK with twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three and twenty-four. The next three years were bad. Didn’t like anything about twenty-five, six or seven. Twenty-eight, I like. It has a nice ring to it.

Twenty-nine. I actually think I kind of like it! I’ve been feeling quite like an adult recently, if I do say so myself. I am married! We have pets, we own a house! We talk about having children, and not only in that someday in the unimaginable future sense! But I’m still not altogether sure that twenty-nine is me. I have a month and four days to get used to it, and you’d better believe I’ll be saying “Hello, my name is Jennifer and I am twenty-nine” in my head a lot during that time.

[Those of you who don't want to hear any more about that certain time of the day that occurs just before dusk and is also the name of a popular vampire fiction series should wander away right about... now.]

Speaking of things that are age-appropriate (um, yes we were), I have wandered back into Twilight Obsessedville and I cannot find the way out. No, that's not true.  I don't ANT to find it. That’s how you know you have a real problem, right? You recognize your behavior is unacceptable and yet you are unwilling to change it? Well, better Twilight than (my own personal brand of) heroin, right? That’s what I’m telling myself. Relatedly, if you live within 100 miles of Baltimore and are interested in seeing New Moon with me, please let me know. I’ve now been three times and I’ve completely exhausted my pool of willing (and not-so-willing, but coercible) companions. This is a problem. I’d like to see it at least once more. That’s code for as many times as possible, for those of you who do not reside in Obsessedville with me.

I’ve once again found myself struggling to explain just what it is about Twilight that I love so ridiculously much. Some people just don’t get it at all (it's a book about... vampires?); others remain at a normal level of fandom (wait, you already saw this movie?). I just typed out three different attempts at an explanation and they all sound so terrible and trite that I’ll just say this: I guess I’m a romantic at heart? Stephenie Meyer cast a magic spell on the manuscripts? I don’t know.

What I know is that, hello, my name is Jennifer, I am very nearly twenty-nine and I love Twilight.