Friday, September 28, 2007

All For the Love of a Button

Well, I couldn't figure out how to add Tricia's button to my sidebar on Blogger, so I sucked it up and moved.

In October I'll be posting 31 times in honor of my sister and National Down Syndrome Awareness Month, and I'll doing it at my new home, here:

http://princessnebraska.wordpress.com/

I hope you'll all follow me over there.

Thank you!
Elizabeth

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Probably Not of General Interest...

...but lately while doing my treadmill running I've been watching Season One of Battlestar Galactica on DVD and now I have THE BIGGEST girl crush EVER on Starbuck.

Seriously, I love girls that kick ass. Starbuck makes me want to quit washing the damn dishes all the time and worrying about when I'm going to fucking vacuum or whatever and she makes me want to ditch my kid and husband at home and go learn to fly a viper and smoke cigars and wear boots a lot, and I'll be honest, I don't really even know what a viper is, exactly.

In other related news, how come there are so few kick ass girls out there in TV land right now? And please don't tell me that Mariska Hargitay files a mean motion or whatever the hell her character does. Furthermore, I don't share the nation's interest in forensic science, no matter what random city it takes place in, so whatever ass kicking the sassy...uh forensic sciencey ladies of TV may be doing these days is of no interest to me. Anyway, I'm talking about actual physically violent bad girl power ass kicking and I can't think of anyone doing it these days. Anyone? If the situation doesn't improve I'm just going to have to watch Buffy Seasons 1-5 and BSG on an endless loop. And then I might have to start attending comic cons and writing fanfic and reading graphic novels and next thing you know I'll be buying Star Trek uniforms on Ebay and making Mr. E *renew our vows in Klingon.

And we can't have that.

*PS We aren't renewing our vows any time soon, we've only been married for four years. But if we ever do, it totally won't be in Klingon. Duh. It will be how everyone should renew their vows: in Vegas, before God and Elvis. Or Elvis, anyway.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Thank You

I have much to say. Am doing much better. Thank you very much to all who emailed support. It has helped immeasurably. If you wonder why I'm not blogging or returning email, it's because I just googled "help baby teething".

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Things I Might Delete Tomorrow

Lately I feel like too many people I know in real life read my blog and I can't admit the things on here that I wish I could. Like can I say that right now I'm trolling the internet for cute baby boy clothes because right now it's either shopping or eating and for christ's sake I've eaten enough today.?

Ugh. I'm tired of depressing revelations about my mental instability. I'm tired of my fat ass and my tight jeans and my total lack of willpower. I'm tired of becoming a cliched binge eater but I can't stop eating mother fucking sour patch kids. I'm tired of soul searching.

Admitting things late at night feels cathartic so maybe I should just keep going. If you know me in real life just pretend you never read this since I'm about to admit it all, right here for everyone to see.

That we don't know anyone here and we have no friends with which to do anything and I think my husband and I are starting to get on each other's nerves and sometimes I wonder how I ended up in such a one sided argument of a marriage where everything I say is agreed with. That I finally the other day realized for once and for all that I did not, do not - have a mother I like, really at all, and that I will spend the rest of my life fighting the emptiness that is left because of that. That I say terrible things about everyone I know and I can't stop. That often we are barely getting by and we are living paycheck to paycheck. That I almost never feel like putting out and that my husband has given up trying to persuade me otherwise and even that depresses me. That I never feel good enough. That I once tried therapy and it was useless because I completely and totally lied my ass off to my therapist. That I shop and accumulate as protection against the insecurity that mounts on the upward curve towards a visit with family. That I can't drive. That I convince myself that this is not an emotional problem and that I love spending every day at home with nowhere to go. That I love my son so much I often wish I could wake him up just to smell his neck and yet sometimes I look at him and think "you're STILL here?! Yikes." That it angers me intensely when I feel judged - and I'll passively agressively post on my blog later to get you back for it. That I hate talking on the phone and I hate leaving the house by myself because dealing with other people freaks me out so much. That I wanted a girl. That I wish I believed in God.


Bet you didn't know that, did you?

Park




Tuesday, September 18, 2007

I Know It's Kind of Wrong...

But I am the only one who laughs out loud when they hear the NPR announcer say "massive unit withdrawal"?

Hee.

These Have Always Brought Me Luck

I haven't been posting because I'm really not in the mood to do ANOTHER I'm in a really crabby mood blog post. I'm waiting it out. And yet here I am, still in a really crabby mood.

It's that feeling like when you're itchy all over but you can't find the spot to scratch? That feeling like having a cold on the hottest day of the year? The weird puckery sore lip thing you get when you eat too much salty popcorn. The way it feels to walk into the ocean with cuts. Being stung by a jellyfish. Making a fancy dinner only to discover that the meats gone bad. Swollen achy joints in my fingers. (I've had this since I gave birth - what the heck is it? Anyone? Post partum arthritis?)

Anyway. I did run my nine miles on Sunday, just to let you know. In case you were waiting to hear how that went. It wasn't easy, but it was possible, and that's what counts in the end. Parts of it I only kept going because I wanted to be able to come back here and tell you all that I had made it, so this is me, telling you I made it. But still crabby.

Sometimes when I'm in a really bad mood I start to remember all the things that Mr. E has done in the past that have really annoyed the shit out of me. For example two Christmases ago at Starbucks, they had these kick ass reusable advent calendars for sale...nice red boxes with numbers on them, stacked in the shape of a tree. A place for a chocolate in every box. I adored them and the idea that every year I'd get to pull the advent calendar out of the christmas box and fill it with my own chocolate. It had such a very nice square pleasing symmetry to it that just suited me to a t. It was like the Kate Spade of advent calendars. Boxy and crisp. And every time I saw it would say to Mr. E "that's really the only thing I want for Christmas this year" and it got to be this running joke, and I just assumed that he had purchased it early on because I mentioned it every damn morning and I am the sort of person who, if you tell me there is one thing you want for Christmas and that one thing costs a mere $14.95 well, heck, I'm gonna buy it for you. Early on and all, just to be sure.

December 1st rolled around and that's the day the more traditional among us start opening our advent calendars, and so when Mr. E and I walked into Starbucks that morning and he tried to it buy it that day!!! and it turned out that it was sold out everywhere and there was no chance of getting one, I couldn't help it. I'm not sure what came over me, even.

I started to cry.

I was just so shocked. It had never even occured to me that Mr. E wouldn't just...buy the thing he knew I wanted well ahead of time. When he didn't I took it very personally. Which I know shocked the hell out of him and maybe taught him a lesson when he had to pay $34.95 plus shipping to buy me one of those advent calendars on Ebay later that day.

But that is not the point of this story. The point of this story is that even though it is very easy for me, on these saltwater sore angry days, to think of failure, it helps immeasurable to rise above, to try harder, to reach for better memories. Like how sometimes Mr. E will say "These have always brought me luck" when he hands me the car keys. I just love that. It cracks me up every time.

So. Working on the crabby mood, hope to snap out of it soon. Wish me luck.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

So. I weighed myself this morning and I gained four pounds. IN A WEEK. Bah.

I'm probably projecting here. But people. I am so so so so so over the Detroit Half. So over it. I could not be more over it unless I actually just went ahead and broke up with it. "Hi, Detroit Half Marathon? You can take your nation's only underwater mile and your thirteen motown bands and your TWO trips into Canada and your ending on Ford Field and your Ambassador Bridge and cram them up your ass."

I know. I know. Sigh.

This is my third half marathon but it is my first as a mom, and holy crap, the massive time suckage involved cannot be overstated. And holy crap, is it hard to train when it's 80 degrees at 7 am. And due to a scheduling fudge up on my part I've run three eight mile long runs in a row and all three of them sucked hard. At no point during any of them did I did I think "wow, those nine miles I have to run next week should be totally super fun!" (Or possible, even).

And then afterwards between the breastfeeding and the long run I am so freaking hungry all day that nothing, but nothing, keeps me full for longer than an hour. I scarf down food all day. I'm hungry immediately after eating. I swear I get hungry for the next meal while I'm eating the first one. I can't deal with counting points. And come Friday I've gained four pounds.

Worst of all is that I am scared. Scared that I can't do this and that I will fail, and that's the ultimate terror because Mr. E's entire family lives in Detroit and those are the people who stress me out and intimidate me more than anyone else in the world and the idea that I could fail in front of them makes me want to enter the half marathon witness protection program.

Writing this all out here has kind of helped though. Admitting I am scared that I can't do this has helped. Admitting that I don't know if I can lose weight while running this much and that I might just have to suck it up and buy a pair of size ten jeans this weekend has helped. And maybe made me realize I can try a little bit harder. Even if I do feel like I could devour the world after I run, that world could be tuna and oranges and egg whites and tofu, it doesn't have to be forty three trader joes meringues.

However what helps the most is reminding myself that I only have five more weeks of this to go and only six more long runs including the half left and then I 'm totally breaking up with the Detroit Half Marathon for good. Although I am so keeping its t shirt.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

First Picture From the New Camera of Wonder and Delight

Re Run

Rather frighteningly, last night Mr. E's mom told me that when he was a baby the apricot baby food was her favorite and she usually ate about half of it while she was feeding Mr. E. Which I thought was funny because I think Mr. E eats more of the apricot baby food (the baby food that we sweated over for like, hours and made from scratch with our tender loving hands) than Eli does. Eli only really likes the most vile baby food - the kind no human in their right mind would actually want to eat - the jarred chicken lentil barley spinach pea puree of evil comes to mind. He loves that.

Also, let's just say that I know that some people who shall remain nameless were permanently life traumatized by the time that the CBS evening news report came on and announced that a dead body had been found in Kurt Cobain's Seattle home and then his or her father may have said "Well, Erik, sucks to be you!" but really, it is not necessary to keep me on permanent red alert update status regarding Greg Oden and his delicate playoff chance ruining knees. I am totally totally aware of the fact that once again, this season, my favorite sports team will break my heart, I don't need constant reminding. But thanks anyway.

Last night I was watching that Tim Gunn's Guide to Style because it comes on right after Top Chef and I was not done running my three miles yet and besides the fact that it's an egregious rip off of What Not To Wear, I found it rather heartily depressing that all the clothes that they making fun of and that horrified Mr. Gunn and his model helper the most were clothes that I actually own. Like, the actual American Eagle sweater that I wore this winter got placed in the discard pile. Also, the thing that annoys me most about those shows? Really, they're just telling you to dress up. And I have to say, I have those clothes. I have the dark skinny jeans and the blazer and the pointy toed heels and the aline skirt and I'm here to tell I don't care what you think, I'm not wearing that shit to the grocery store. I mean, of course you look better in dress up clothes, that's the point of dress up clothes! No one says "Damn, I look hot in this oversized hooded University of Michigan sweatshirt!" Of course not. But sometimes you want to wear the jeans and the hooded sweatshirt and I don't see anything wrong with that. I personally tried to do the whole little jacket and jeans thing a while back and I find that whole situation very restricting and I am not a fan. I'll just be over here rocking my striped unflattering what not to wear anti tim gunn American Eagle hoodie, thank you very much.

Off to order a shockingly overpriced must keep the babiessssssss safe carseat.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Plan of Attack

Well. I decided I was going to quit feeling bad about myself and bitching about how my shorts are tight again and feeling depressed about buying new jeans again and I was going to give this stupid Weight Watchers thing the real hard core try and in order to do that and to stop eating chocolate ice cream like it's going out of style my new plan is to set out everything I'm going to eat the next day on my kitchen counter at night. I just starting thinking about what worked for me in the past and what isn't working for me now and I think it was just easier to lose weight when I was at work all day and could control what I ate during the day by what I brought with me...I couldn't just wander into my kitchen the way I can now and eat chocolate and chips when I was at work. So I decided I would recreate that same situation as best I could by setting out my food for the next day the night before and so I have been making a new grocery list with high protein low fat snacks because crap, I hate being hungry.

Depressingly, all the high protein low fat snacks are the same this time around as they were last time.

Cottage cheese, anyone?

Waiting

According to the bastards fine folks at UPS my new camera will be arriving tomorrow!
I'm so excited I think I might pee ma pants when it gets here.
I wish it was arriving today though :(
Today is going to suck. (Mr. E works late).
I need something to look forward to.
Hmmm. I am allowing myself ten almonds as a snack later@!
And who says life isn't exciting?

Monday, September 10, 2007

Undecided

I can remember the exact moment I decided I wanted to have a lot of kids.

Mr E. and I were in Ann Arbor because his little sister had just graduated from U of M and so his whole giant family was there as well and since it was graduation weekend in Ann Arbor there weren't any extra hotel rooms to be found and everyone was crammed into a tiny little hotel room. You couldn't hear yourself think. Mr. E has twenty six first cousins on one side. He is one of five kids. His mom is one of six kids. And EVERYONE turns out for these family events, you just wouldn't graduate in his family without your seven aunts and uncles coming to see it happen. And so there were cousins screaming and there were coolers full of leftover meatballs and thousands of bags of opened chips and people laughing and someone was doing someone else's eye makeup in the corner and my brother in law phoned in prank noise complaints from the hallway on his cell phone and I think someone (that may have been me) was dying her hair red in the bathroom and the tv was blaring and everyone was happy and laughing and it was just so much fun to be spending time with all these interesting, smart, beautiful people who loved me and loved Mr. E just because we were their family. I loved it. I loved this huge crazy family and the noise and the chaos and the free for all and I loved that they go to basketball games and graduations and all the things that no one ever really cared about in my life, and I realized in that moment that all this happened because Erik's grandmother had six kids and those kids had their own bajillions of kids and that I wanted the same thing. I wanted the chaos and the laughter and the love. I was done with the cold empty quiet afternoons of my childhood and I genuinely wish I had grown up with a sister close enough to me that I could share a best friend with her and whisper my secrets in her ear as we fell asleep. So Mr. E and I have always thought that if we had kids, we wanted a lot.

And then we had Eli and I started to wonder. I don't care, at all, what YOU do, but I am not a fan of only children, so I knew we'd have two, no matter what. But you have one and five starts to seem like, man, that's all you'd do. All you would do is be a mom. Is that what I want? And doesn't that mean that I'd have to have number two like, tomorrow? I don't know if I'm ready for that. I mean, I think I'm not ready for that, because when I think about being pregnant again, I feel like like throwing up. And this might sounds stupid and maybe this is my own best argument for having more kids but when I think about Eli not being the only one I feel sad for him. I feel like he's so amazing he deserves all of me, that he shouldn't have to share. Is that stupid? I think it's sort of sad that he'll never remember this time alone with me. He will only ever remember having had a brother or a sister. Mr. E doesn't remember life without his brother Greg. Funny.

And then there is the weight thing. Because I always like to bring things back to the most superficial issues I can think of as I enjoy clinging to those like a life raft in order to not have to deal with the big questions I would rather not think about. I wonder if having four or five children would be a fundamental life mistake in which I try to change the very nature of who I am (someone who should only have two children) and force myself to become someone I am not (fun, loud, crazy, sexy, cool, etc) but instead of really thinking about that nauseatingly difficult question I choose to tell you that when I think about working my ass off and really killing myself to lose the 25 pounds I lost before I got pregnant and that I gained when I got pregnant only to go and have to do it over and over and over again after being pregnant two or three mores times? Well, it seriously makes me angry. Angry! What a useless pointless way to feel! I'd rather feel sick or frustrated or annoyed or distressed or a creeping sense of unfairness and while I do feel all those things, and more, mostly I feel pissed off. I'm going to spend the rest of my life dieting off this fucking baby weight! So shouldn't it be easier? Sigh.

I could really go for a chocolate chip cookie right now. Or two. Or maybe four or five?

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

The Lupine Lady

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open.”
-Muriel Rukeyser
I've have been in such a terrible mood lately. I have blamed it on PMS and exhaustion and my messy husband and baby jail and not being able to afford pedicures and a lack of Coffee Heath Bar ice cream availability in my life and I've blamed my thighs and my mother and my father and my in laws. And now I've run out of cliches to blame my irritation on.
Although I do really really wish my child would stop screaming his fool head off and go to freaking sleep already and I think it's safe to say that the screaming and lack of sleeping on his part and mine isn't exactly improving my mood. Not right at this minute anyway.
I feel like I am sinking under a sea of lies.
Because of all the emotional abuse heaped on me as a child I became a survivor at an early age. I will get along with you no matter what. I will lie my ass off and pretend to like you and laugh at your jokes and smile and nod my head and agree with you no matter what, all the while thinking the most terrible things about you. As long as you know me, I will always be one step ahead of you, gauging whether or not you like me, if I have offended you, if you don't like something I said, always calculating, checking, smoothing over, watching for an explosion, working to make sure one doesn't happen.
And so I never tell the truth about anything. I think the people who really know me can tell when I'm lying and they probably see through me better than I realize, but I never ever tell people what I really think of them if it's something negative.
Is that normal? Is that just being nice? Does everyone just go along with things they think are total bullshit, just for the sake of getting along?
Mr. E and I said that September should be the month of truth but I honestly don't think my life could handle it. I don't think my blog could handle it. I don't know if I could handle it.
Because the truth is ugly. (I had it all spelled out here and then I couldn't do it.)
I would much rather focus on the positive.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Saved

So ya'll may have heard of this Dooce lady? Some of you? Maybe? (I kid).

Anyway, ages and ages ago I found her site and since the minute she described picking out her camera (the Nikon D70) because she wanted a camera that would take the picture when she pressed the button, I have craved that camera. For years now, before I had a kid, before I had a dog. I put it on my Amazon wish list in 2003 or something. (Shockingly no one bought it for me.)

Anyhoo. Heather has since moved on to bigger and better cameras and they don't make the D70 anymore but I continued to dream about a Nikon digital SLR and so for many many months I have been saving every dime that came my way. I did not buy clothes, I did not buy nail polish or fancy soap, I did not get my hair cut, I did not get pedicures, I did not buy books, I did not buy sports bras or music or underwear or the new martha stewart cupcake liners at Michaels (although I really really wanted those). I saved and I saved and I saved and yesterday I ordered my new camera and I cannot freaking wait till it gets here.

The other day I took down my dusty regular SLR that used to be my grandfathers and I showed Mr. E how to take a picture with it and I told him about how my father taught me to use it when I was ten or so and how much I loved taking pictures and my father loved taking pictures and my grandfather loved taking pictures and how everywhere we went, there we were, the three of us, always with our giant cameras hanging around our necks. I've been too long in the land of the teeny camera and the random snapshot and I am so excited to become someone who is excited about photography again.

Can't wait!

Monday, September 03, 2007

She's An Extraordinary Girl

We ate pasta and shrimp on Saturday night.
We collected water and Gu and shoes and went to bed early.
We woke up at 5:15 on Sunday.
We loaded the jogging stroller in the car and bundled the baby up against the (very temporary) early morning chill. I tucked $5 into my shoe for an after run reward.

I did not run fast. I didn't break any records, mine included. I didn't even beat Mr. E and he was pushing a baby.

But I did it. I ran eight miles. Of course because I am a natural and constant self deprecater I was focused on how incredibly slow I was running and how some things were jiggling more than they used to and how I am 20 pounds heavier than the last time I trained for a run and then happened to look up and I noticed my shadow next to me, just bounding along. And all of a sudden I was beaming and I felt proud.

I am very very proud of myself. So never mind the rest of it. I ran eight miles!