Heavy on the prepositional phrases

Our financial situation has improved since I started my little job, and having rebuilt our savings, we recently invested in a Hugh Mungous flatscreen TV. Spouse had been looking for months, nay, years--whenever we were in a store that sold flatscreens, even if we'd gone in for potato chips, he'd end up in the electronics section--and found a good deal online. So we got the thing, and it now sits on the dresser in our bedroom. I stayed home to meet the delivery man, and when it got here I called Spouse and gaily announced, "It's a boy!"

I should explain that when we moved into the townhouse we rent, we had no kitchen table. We also had no couch. We did have a hodgepodge of other furnishings our parents didn't want anymore, including the aforementioned dresser. Also, before we ever slept in the new place, we went to Sam's and got a king-size mattress and box spring, and I was oddly comforted when I read on the labeling that it had been manufactured right here in our fair city. We also got an extremely basic bed frame. Since there was nothing else to sit on other than a lawn chair, we'd sit on said bed to eat dinner and watch TV or a movie, on the laptop, on the dresser.

I should also explain that Spouse has to be watching something when he eats a meal. When he was a kid, TV during family dinners was an ordinary, regular experience. (My mom is a retired reading teacher, and when we were little kids, TV was as poisonous as sugar and Liquid Plumr.) Granted, if I'm alone and eating anything that takes more than a minute to chew, I've gotta be reading something, or listening to the radio, or I feel ridiculous. But when I have company during a meal, I would just as soon have a conversation as watch MythBusters.

The embarrassing fact I'm getting at is: despite having eventually acquired both a dining room table and a comfy couch, we still eat dinner in our bed, which is why the TV is perched on our bedroom dresser, where the mirror should be, and not on the living room wall, opposite said couch. This is mostly my fault, not just because I failed to put my marital foot down, but because the table is perpetually covered in my junk. Hell, pretty much the entire dining quadrant of the living room is covered in my junk, including, Spouse informed me the other day, something like thirteen pairs of shoes. That area is my landing pad when I get home. It's where the mail gets tossed, and where the receipts and candy wrappers go when I clean out my purse, and where I sit if I'm looking through cookbooks or filling out bills. It's hot out now but there are still coats and jackets on the dining chairs. (Have I mentioned how rarely we have people over, and how if anything breaks or needs maintenance, such that the landlord has to visit, panic ensues?)

Eventually this will have to change, because eventually (I hope) we will have offspring, who will probably be even messier eaters than we are. But for now, we eat dinner in bed, and late at night when whatever we've watched on Netflix ends and the giant screen glows red, I think, "Who needs a fireplace?" And if I get sleepy before the show's over and take off my glasses, if I hear something interesting, I can look up and see it just fine.

Disaster brownies

I think if I wait until I have Something Important or Something Upbeat to say, I will continue to not blog very often.

So instead I will talk about the cookbook I recently threw out.

Many years ago I got my mom a cookbook with a charming title about how sugar-filled and butter-packed its contents were. And recently it came back to me when Mom was cleaning out her cookbooks and gave me an overflowing bag of them. Many were utter doozies (fundraising collections, heavy on mayonnaise-based cuisine), but this one was funny to read and the baked goods sounded delish.

So one evening last week I tried to make Congo Bars, basically a chocolate chip blondie, and they were a total disaster. There was a center portion that looked and tasted all right but it was surrounded by a moat of scary-looking goo that had to be chiseled out of the pan. You could see that the batter had bubbled to the very top of the pan and could easily have spilled over. My oven rack had not been centered, and I figured they must have gotten too hot.

Not twelve hours later, with the rack properly adjusted, I opened the oven to find...exactly the same thing. I was chagrined. I asked Mom if she remembered the cookbook, and she said, "Um, I think there might have been a reason it was in the giveaway pile." As in, she probably hadn't had any luck either. So I dumped the cookbook in the kitchen trash, along with most of the contents of the brownie pan.

Last night I got some Good Chocolate bars so I can make World Peace Cookies if I wanna.

My yoga teacher and probably closest friend here is moving away, and I need to find something to do exercise-wise or my new clothes aren't going to fit. I suppose I could just walk around my neighborhood but depending on the time of day, I have to beware blistering sunlight or swarms of insects. It's hard to get a good pace going to NPR. I don't have an iPod, so I wear one of those headphone radio contraptions, and as ridiculous as that probably looks, I'd feel even sillier lugging around a Discman. I might as well strap an Atari console to my back.

What is really bothering me: A couple weeks ago I had an appointment to meet with an attorney, mostly to get advice about what to do for my pro bono client. This attorney works with my therapist, who had mentioned me to her and recommended that we meet.

It was less than helpful. Mostly, she just did not have time to meet with me. She took a phone call right after we sat down, and then we spoke a bit, and then suddenly she urgently had to take her paralegals out to lunch. I'm sure she didn't mean to be dismissive or discouraging. Honestly, it's the same problem I bump into over and over again: Almost nobody, particularly practicing lawyers, can get their brain around an unemployed lawyer. People just cannot believe it. My existence messes with their heads. This is precisely why I don't go to local bar meetings. I have not found a way to describe my situation--faraway law school, extended struggle with bar exam, finally licensed, can't find job--in a way that makes people understand it and react with any sort of warmth or empathy. People react with utter incredulity and I have no idea how to respond.

If anything, meeting this lady--who just happens to look like a dang supermodel--made me feel even more awkward and incompetent, and even less equipped to deal. I'd spent the previous week applying for an internship in public-interest law, for law students and licensed attorneys, and had written all these essays about my much-vaunted experience, and how I'd gone to law school to Help People, and was finally feeling sorta motivated again...and now I'm back to wondering why I bothered applying, because I haven't heard anything yet and I'm not sure they're even going to consider me.

My part-time job, at the Day Spa for Overly Entitled Women and Occasionally Their Spouses, is...probably best not discussed here. Sigh.

Channing who?

So...did anyone else assume Channing Tatum was a girl?

Let me back up a bit. I used to be somewhat up on my celebrity news, at least what I could read in a daily paper. However, the daily paper in the town where I live is full of typos and its editorial slant ranges from slightly rightward to full-on nutjob. Between the cost and what it would do to my blood pressure, I have never subscribed. I was getting Radar magazine for a while, and then when it folded I received a few issues of The Star, which was a hoot. But other than that, my celebrity news is decidedly limited to what I can skim at the hair salon or doctor's office, or what I happen upon online. I continue to enjoy Go Fug Yourself, but honestly, I don't know who half the people being skewered are anymore.

And somewhere along the way I picked up the name Channing Tatum, and I just assumed that it was some new music video or TV starlet with implants, a made-up name, and a somewhat quaint affection for pop culture. Carol Channing's a girl, Stockard Channing's a girl, Tatum O'Neal's a girl, ergo Channing Tatum must be female. So when I read this from the Fug Girls last night, I felt rather sheepish.

I should say that I do not know how to dress myself at all. If I am ever complimented on anything I'm wearing, inevitably my mom or grandmother found it for me. I wore my "good" pants Easter Sunday and they declared that a Shopping Day was overdue, because said pants were falling off. So we went last weekend, and it was an adventure. Everything I tried on felt too tight, and they had to reassure me that I did not look like a sausage and just needed to get used to clothes that actually fit.

I was hopeful that shopping would be different, having lost 36 pounds in the last, I dunno, year or so. But I am still decidedly 3X up top, and down below, my underbelly is so outsized compared to the rest that it was still a pain to find pants. At least we stayed at one department store and avoided both Catherine's and Lane Bryant. In that respect, it was a lot better.

Oh, and I'm SHORT! At 5'6", I might add! In grade school I was one of the tall girls and now I'm "petite." Plus-size petite. Jesus. It almost makes me want to try wearing heels, except I know better. Short and fat beats short, fat, and in a cast any day of the week.

twit twit oh twitter twit

Just a quick note to mention that I've started tweeting. Well, actually, I haven't tweeted yet, but I did start an account, mostly so I could keep up with friends and bloggers who have protected accounts. If I'm not following you yet, let me know your moniker on Twitter!

Yawning in Technicolor (GROSS ALERT)

So...not last Saturday night, but the one before that, I got very, very sick. I went in the bathroom and came out several hours later, and then tried to sleep, but like clockwork, every freaking twenty to thirty minutes, my stomach would hurt and I'd have to go again.


Early the following afternoon, after I'd finally gotten a little sleep, my belly still hurt but I was pretty sure I was all done, on the grounds that there couldn't possibly be anything left to eject. So I tried to take my pills. On an ordinary day I take seven pills of various sizes, for various ailments, and I nearly always do them all in one gulp, no biggie. But not that day. No, that day will go down in history in our household as The Day I Barfed All Over Everything.


Immediately, the pills came up, along with great quantities of puke. My bedside trash receptacle was right there, only about half full and lined with a bag besides, but I thought I could make the three steps to the bathroom sink. I made it about half a step, and the unthinkable happened.


Casualties included my lampshade, my husband's ancient copy of Ender's Game, my History of God book, the gardening journal I spent months on, and various ointments and beauty treatments from the top of my nightstand. I am in the process of washing most of the clothing I own, because my clean laundry piles were in the splashdown range. Luckily I had finished LOTR, and actually put it away, and for once I didn't have any library books out, or I'd have had a grim phone call to make. If nothing else, I am unlikely to pile that much junk at my bedside ever again. Spouse was just horrified--he got what he could, and stripped the bed, but puke makes him puke and he had to get out of the room. It wasn't until last Sunday, when I was picking crud out of my clock radio, that I realized just how awful a tableau it must have been.


Spouse took good care of me--he got me to the doctor, made numerous trips to the pharmacy, and called to check on me from work, and made me the few foods I could think about eating, like instant mashed potatoes.


I'm not trying to be dramatic, but I have never, ever, EVER been in that much pain. Granted, I don't have much to compare it to--I've never had a baby, and I've only ever had a couple of surgeries, and the last one was in junior high. I'm very lucky to not have to deal with anything hurty on a regular basis like so many folks do. But this was almost a spiritual experience. When things stopped hurting so acutely, I found myself in this weird state of bliss and gratitude. (I should point out that I was pretty out of it once the Phernagan kicked in.)

Another strange thing: I SAW the phone ringing. I mean, I heard it, too, but this was freaky. I'd be lying there trying to read Bloom County cartoons, and instantly everything on the page would be distorted, like the panels had been printed on a layer of glass that suddenly shattered. I'd have the visual disturbance, and then I'd realize the phone was ringing. It went away immediately, but I've never had anything like that happen before.

I worked this week, though, without any problem. A couple people pointed out that my face had cleared up. I don't know if it was the not eating for a couple days, or the sweating, or what. I have a number of friends who will periodically go on "cleanses," eschewing food for a dubious cocktail of lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and honey or agave nectar. They'll do this for more than a week, which seems insane to me, and yet I can't help but wonder if maybe it's not completely nuts. I do know that my portions veer too large--especially when we're eating fast food or take-out--and that Twizzlers and I need to have a serious talk. Or maybe I'm allergic to milk or something. I don't know.

Things are mostly back to normal, although the other receptionist at work has been out with her own stomach troubles, and I'd feel terrible if she got them from me. Also the brown felted cardigan sweater I wore several times a week during the winter is still lurking in the laundry pile, possibly tainted. It's too nice to throw in the machine, so I have been assiduously avoiding it.

Yeah, go ahead and think I'm smiling at you

Spouse and I spend a lot of time watching movies, and currently we are viewing Alien and its spawn. We watch a lot of "action" films and thrillers, because that's largely what my husband owns. I am largely prejudiced against "action" films, being that I have "taste," and I am just too jumpy for thrillers. Frequently I interrupt movies at particularly gross or scary moments to proclaim, "If this gives me nightmares, I'm waking you up!"

But I really just came here to recount what we just saw over dinner, in Alien Cubed. (And yeah, as you may suspect, this series is pretty much Thumbs Down as far as dining viewing. Yaaack.) Sigourney Weaver, sporting a crew cut, bursts into a large room, where the Evil Warden of the all-male Prison Planet is hectoring the captives. Other than the last line, nothing is an actual movie quote.

Sigourney [panting]: Holy crap! The aliens are here! They're disgusting! We have to do something!

E.W.P.P.: Shut up! You are completely bonkers. You stupid woman. Ima gonna come over there an--

Alien [crawling onto E.W.P.P. from above]: Om nom nom.

Onlooking Prisoner: F--k!

People frequently react to my animated self-expression by dismissing me outright, telling me to calm down, saying that it's cute, or otherwise displaying condescension, and I suspect that's partly why I like this scene so much, but I'd probably like it anyway.

Short-form resolutions

This will probably sound odd, but sometimes what keeps me from blogging is having too much to say. Stuff will happen that I'll want to write about and I'm not at a point yet where I just come to this space and type. Now granted, I observe LOADS of interesting content at work (boy howdy) but literally trying to blog about it right then would be impossible.

So instead I wait until I'm "ready" to blog, and...hardly ever blog. Phooey.

And then I read about people who actually write for a living, getting sponsored by X or Y corporation, inking development deals with TV networks, etc. etc. and get very angry at myself for not writing.

So. Here are my ten New Year's resolutions in abbreviated form. I had this all written up as a handwritten entry but it didn't have an ending (I always have trouble with that). Also I don't know that it would have been legible. And Spouse would have probably fussed at me for privacy reasons. Anyway, here is my shortened list, with comments where appropriate.

Thing One: Read the Lord of the Rings, all 3 books. I've had a very nice hardcover edition since, um, 2003, that Spouse (then-LDPP, Long Distance Partner Person) gave me for Christmas. This Christmas we watched the movies again (all three in long-form director's cut editions, which makes for something like a week of viewing), and I think we might make that an annual holiday thing.

Thing Two: Read A History of God by Karen Armstrong. This will be worth it. I need to either underline or highlight as I read, or take notes, because I keep having to start all over again.

Thing Three: Read some Richard Dawkins. We went to see him speak at a nearby university a few months ago, and it was a Huge Deal, both going out and doing something with Spouse, and driving the hour-plus to get there. The very first cell phone picture I ever took is of Spouse getting his book signed, and it trips me out every time I see it.

Thing Four: Get back to doing yoga regularly. I have the options of reasonably priced classes that take place upstairs at my workplace, or of playing a DVD at home, and have taken advantage of neither.

Thing Five: Get involved in UU church. If I can't make the services (Sundays, 11 a.m., less than 2 miles away), join one of the umpty-million committees. They even have a Committee Committee, I shit you not (although they call it the "Committee Council," which I think is a Committee Cop-Out.)

Thing Six: Learn how to roast a chicken. (We get rotisserie chickens rather often, and I want to see if I can do it better, or as well.)

Thing Seven: Do some pro bono legal work. (Oh the drama! This will be like pulling teeth but it HAS to be done if I ever want to get a job as a lawyer. Which is not a question I can answer quickly or without crying.)

Thing Eight: Blog more regularly. Consider Tweeting, if only so I can respond to the people I read.

Thing Nine: Learn to deal with money anxiety. (Translation: learn to deal with, and not procrastinate on, student loan paperwork. See parethenses after Thing Seven.)

Thing Ten: Learn how to speak honestly and not freak out about whether people will like me afterwards. Unless I am talking to Spouse, a close family member, or a friend I feel truly safe with (this rarely happens, and is not so much a commentary on my friends as on my hangups), I repress. A LOT. (Spouse would pipe up here and say, "And then you come home and bitch at me about it!" Which is true.)

See, there have been a few occasions lately where I have spoken up, or been assertive, or at least not been a marshmallow, and it seems to inevitably Bite Me in the Ass, Hard. And I'm not sure what message I'm supposed to learn from that. One might think it would be about Thinking Before I Speak, or even Shhhhh, but I so rarely say what I'm really feeling, outside a therapeutic context (and even inside one sometimes, I'm ashamed to admit), and my self-worth is so desperately low, and has been for years and years, that I cannot believe that the takeaway is STFU. That would be nuts. I think maybe the takeaway is, "People are going to flip out no matter how carefully you phrase your truth, so you might as well JUST SAY IT and develop some self-protective behaviors so you don't flip out when they do." Or something like that.

I can't fret about this ending, because FUDGE, I have to leave for work in 20 minutes, and today's a shampoo day. Aieeee.