It’s a good damn thing that my Vitamin Z is making me feel loads better, otherwise I would feel completely overwhelmed by my youngest son’s newest trick.

He has gone from being pretty immobile to crawling literally overnight.

Now, by this age (10 months young) Ben was walking shufflingy along (I love how toddlers walk like little drunk people. It makes their tantrums completely endearing), so I’ve been pretty spoiled by Alex’s lack of movement.

I mean, it’s not like I’d planned on breaking his ickle legs to get him to stay where I put him, but I knew full well once this began, my hair was going to turn even more grey (as my kids are apt to do for me, God bless their hearts), and doing even a simple load of laundry was going to require a cocktail chaser.

It has, no doubt, but it is also completely endearing, watching him explore the house and finding joy in such things as splashing in the dog’s water bowl. The toilet holds a special fascination for him (probably because he has spent many months sitting on the floor as I crapped my brains out did my business) as does the diaper pail (mayhap he’s a bit bowel-obsessed, a habit which I can blame only on myself).

The animals are suitably underwhelmed by his sudden ability to follow them around screaming alternately “KATTY-CAT” or “DOOOOGIE” in their faces while he grabs handfuls of their hair. Maybe I should feel sorrier for them, but since this is something he has done to me for as long as I can remember, I can only find it humorous.

(Put down the phone, Dear Internet, and don’t bother calling DCFS on me; I don’t allow him to abuse them too much, and over archingly, they seem to like him. He’s a likable dude)

He is just doing his best to live up to his nickname of “The Monkey” with his ability to get into absolutely everything possible, and leave a trail of wreckage in his merry-making. It’s what he does best, afterall.

And I can always hire him out as a floor duster. He’ll be like a Swiffer, only more interactive. Shit, spray him down with Pledge and he’ll polish your furniture! Man, I am FULL of good ideas.

Any takers? Any suggestions?

I’m sure the image of me sitting around with harsh black eyeliner lining my eyes inexpertly while listening to (insert something more emo than The Cure here. Help a stupid sister out.) and cutting my arm while hoping like hell it gives me attention (this is actually the mental picture I have associated with the diagnosis of “depression,” which is why I use the PPD initials instead when referring to my current issues. Makes me feel less like a dramatic teenager), it was just not the case today.

Rather than sit around wallowing in my grief, I was overtaken by the intense urge to purge.

To be fair, this is something I typically do every couple of months, but to completely illustrate how un-me I’ve been, I’m going to confess to you, Darling Internet, that it’s been over a year since my last purge (of my own stuff). I hope you understand, baby, I’ve just been unwell. No baby, it’s not you, it’s me. Really, it is.

Since I live with two people who are unable to part with so much as a four-year old Target receipt for a plastic garbage can that we no longer own, I am completely responsible for making certain we don’t save such stuff. Last year found me tossing rudely away The Daver’s collection of cassette tapes because we no longer own a tape player, and empty CD cases (why we lugged them from apartment to condo to house, I cannot be sure).

(I move it to the garage where it sits until I insist that we drop it off at the Salvation Army down the street. It does, I admit, sit there for many days erm, months. Ashley keeps threatening to leave a pee-stained mattress propped up against my garage to really give my home that Salvation Army Drop Center look. She’s a funny one, that Ashley.)

So today, I tasked myself unceremoniously with purging my closet. This is a more depressing task than one might think, as I am currently too large for my pre-pregnancy stuff and too small for my maternity tents clothes (thank you, Baby Jesus, thank you).

And without really delving into my cadre of un-fat clothes, I was able to get rid of three bags of clothes and another bag full of miscellaneous stuff that I have never found a use for but saved in case I suddenly needed about 500 mini packages of off brand tissues (um, I have no idea why people insist upon giving these to me. Do I constantly walk around with bats in the ole batcave? I am sure there are less oblique ways to inform me of this.) or the tags for clothes I’ve been wearing for months (which is pure laziness rather than deliberate ‘I might need this-ness’).

For some reason, getting rid of stuff gives me a high like no other (aside from Vicodin. Mmmmm Vicodin, how I love thee…let me count the ways….one, two, three…). I don’t pretend to understand why I feel so gooshy and elated when I’m getting rid of something and becoming more organized, but it never fails to bring me to near-orgasm.

I have a deep seated fear of becoming that person who lives so incredibly surrounded by crap that my kids are horrified and disgusted to come to my home, for fear of being attacked by a toppling box-o-junk and buried there for the next several years.

I think I might be severely twisted.

(The Internet is letting out a collective “You think?”)

On Friday, I said good-bye to my friend, and I wish like hell that I could say it was wonderful and uplifting, but it was neither of those things.

It was unspeakably awful.

Someone (likely her parents) had put together some poster board montages of pictures of Steph in better days and they carefully portrayed someone so full of life, so vivacious that it made it even harder to remember that the person in that open casket all stretched out and weird looking was the same person.

Hearing her five year old son say, “Hey, want to look at my mom? She’s all dead and hard.” and then her two year old say, “No, wanna see MOMMY!” when he was taken away from the coffin made my heart sink and die a little bit right then and there.

Whomever the person that officiated was (it was in a funeral home, so I don’t think it was a pastor or anything) sucked. She made me angry, with her stupid metaphors about Steph’s struggle with alcoholism and mental illness, and above all else, she sucked and Steph would have hated her speech.

She made it sound as though Steph was routinely sitting around in heavy eyeliner listening to The Cure’s Disinegration on repeat carving “Kurt Cobain” in her arm. It couldn’t have been farther from who she was.

She also claimed that all that we’d loved about Steph, her effervescence and wit, her humor and braveness had all been part of her illness. Yeah, fuck and you come to mind as I recall that. Don’t you DARE take away who she really was to any of us. You did not even know her.

(In the words of one of my Metal Heads, “Anytime you evoke Lazarus at a funeral, you’re an idiot.” See, these are Catholic School educated Metal Heads.)

We held our own sort of remembrance afterwards at a bar down the street from the funeral home, and the mood, although seemingly buoyant to bystanders, was downright morbid. We each took turns talking about what we wanted the other to make absolute sure that our funeral would hold (not something one would normally think about and discuss, but then again, none of us expected to be there).

Scott wanted to be stuffed and set up in a chair a la Weekend At Bernie’s, and we assured him that when the firewood inevitably got low, we’d throw him on as kindling.

I explained that under absolutely no circumstances would my casket be open to freak everyone out (no one looks like they did in life, no matter how good the makeup artist is), but since some morbid A-Hole would probably want to see me, I insisted that I be in full KISS makeup.

I mean, if I’m not going to look like myself anyway, I may as well REALLY not look like myself.

I also appointed Kristin as my flower monitor, and as such she would be responsible for insuring that only good flowers make it to my graveside. No filler flowers, absolutely no carnations or daisies and under NO circumstances would lilies (aside from Cala lilies, which I adore) be allowed. Pretty much anything ordered from the Funeral section of a florists selection would be a no go.

And anyone who dared bring either wreaths that said “Beloved Mother” or “Devoted Wife” OR plastic flowers would be sent away at the door. Return to sender.

I also explained that rather than give my children an inheritance, I was going to hire out- of-work actors to weep hysterically at my grave several times a week. For as many years as the money would last.

I wish like anything I’ve ever wished that the funeral had provided closure (what the hell is closure, anyway? Seriously, I don’t get that concept.) or that I can say that I honestly feel better, but it would be a lie. (I’m not sitting around in heavy eyeliner listening to The Cure’s Disinegration on repeat carving “Kurt Cobain” on my arm, either though).

Steph’s death did, however, make damn sure that any other petty annoyances seem even more trivial than they previously had. And I make certain that I count each and every one of my blessings.

And that is a good thing.

One of the last truly happy memories I have of my friend Steph was when we went together to see the Rolling Stones. I loved The Stones, but Steph was obsessed. Her bedroom walls were literally papered floor to ceiling with pictures of Mick and The Boys carefully cut from magazines, and she had a typical girlish crush (read: obsession) with Mick Jagger.

Saw you stretched out in room ten-o-nine
With a smile on your face
And a tear right in your eye

I can still see her in my mind’s eye, if I try hard enough, huge smile on her face as she belted out the lyrics to all of the songs (of which, I personally knew only a fraction) while taking drags off her Camel Wide Light.

Couldn’t seem to get a line on you
My sweet honey love

That was my friend.

The same friend who smelled like a garden with me, the same friend who threw my baby shower when I was pregnant with Ben. She (and Ashley) are the reason that for every party I throw, I must have a cutout Hula Girl thrown up somewhere (we found it along with every color of the rainbow baby dolls in our quest for the Tackiest Shower Decorations Ever). She was my introduction to flavored coffees and Opium perfume. I think I still have her copy of “Goat’s Head Soup” somewhere.

Well, you’re drunk in the alley, baby
With your clothes all torn
And your late night friends
Leave you in the cold gray dawn
Just seemed too many flies on you
I just can’t brush them off

Somewhere, probably up in Heaven, she is laughing at me right now. I can almost hear it’s distinctive peal tinkling over me as I write this. She’s sitting up in Heaven surrounded by stacks of every Rolling Stones record (even the unreleased B-Sides) ever recorded, drinking her ubiquitous cup of coffee, with a carton of Camel Wide Lights by her side, and she is laughing.

She had a beautiful laugh. It was the sort that made you smile no matter what mood you were in, the kind that made other people around you stop and look around for the source (but not because it was annoying or grating, but because it was so full of happiness). I always wished I’d had a laugh like that, and now I just wish I could hear her laugh again.

Tonight I bury my friend.

And the angels beating all their wings in time
With smiles on their faces
And a gleam right in their eyes
Thought I heard one sigh for you
Come on up, come on up, now
Come on up, now

(I am linking here so that you may go over and see what she looked like. I don’t have a scanner, so I cannot scan a picture in of her right this moment like I’d like to).

This week, I’ve been posting under titles ripped from Rolling Stones lyrics as a (pathetic) tribute to Steph, as I know she would have liked it. I don’t have any better way to commemorate her yet, so I will likely continue doing so from time to time. Maybe it’s not as permanent as a tattoo, but it’s something.

One of my own favorite Stones songs has always been “Shine a Light,” but it always confused me until Steph died. The ebullient chorus coupled with the really depressing stanzas always seemed such a disconnect until I looked at them in this light. When I reread the lyrics, it made perfect sense.

Now, if this were anyone else, I’d have scoured The Internet looking for a poem or quote to dedicate, but Steph probably wouldn’t have appreciated that nearly as much. It just wasn’t the way she rolled.

And normally, I refrain from posting lyrics to songs because it makes no fucking sense and offers very little emotion without the music behind it, but today isn’t a normal day.

May the Good Lord shine a light on you
Make every song you sing your favorite tune
May the Good Lord shine a light on you
Warm like the evening sun.

The world is a colder place having lost Steph, although I am certain she is far happier where she is now. But I’m a selfish prick, and I want her back. I don’t want to be attending her funeral tonight. I don’t want to bury my friend.

I want her to come back and tell me that this was the ultimate prank. I want her to jump out from behind a door and yell “Psych!” and laugh uproariously at my stunned reaction. I want her to be who she was before the disease took her Shine away from her, and I want her to get her life back on track. I want to have coffee and play dates with her, I want our children to grow up together as good friends, I want to sit around and reminisce about the dumb shit we did when we were kids. I want to get old with her and start switching to decaf and vitamins, rather than coffee and cigarettes, I want to laugh with her again.

I don’t want to bury her tonight.

She was my friend and I loved her very much and I don’t want her to be dead.

Even during my Single Years ™, I always have had a deep affection for Valentine’s Day, probably, at least in part, because it showcases my favorite colors: Red, Pink, and Sparkly. I’m not going to say that before I got a built-in Valentine (well, three of them, if you’re counting), I didn’t occasionally long to do something romantical with my other half, but I never knew what that was, exactly, which made it exceptionally hard to wish for.

Even after however many years The Daver and I have been together (let’s not count, mmkay?), we have yet to form any interesting traditions relating to Valentine’s Day (aside from me buying every Pink -n- Spangly thing I can get my mitts on), and I am pretty okay with that.

I guess I just don’t see the point in Valentine’s Day.

I mean, any holiday that nets me some presents (oh, I am so easily bought) is A-Okay in my book, and I do love buying gifts for the Sausage Factory nearly as much as I love getting them, but shit, why is there only one day of the year that I have to express my love?

And how, exactly, is love bought with a box of crappy chocolates (which I have actually never gotten) or wilting flowers? I have a feeling that if I were to be on the receiving end of either of those gifts, I would end up more upset than if I’d gotten nothing at all. Why? Because I dislike crappy versions of ANYTHING, and stuffed animals for people over the age of 8 drive me up a wall.

But I am probably in the minority here, as I noticed wall-to-wall such items yesterday at Mecca (read: Target), which means that there is a market for these gifts.

I don’t know.

Aside from the gifting and the color scheme, Valentine’s Day isn’t all that appealing to me (to be fair, if Bastille Day–which happens to be the day before my birthday, so mayhap this is a bad example– were the day in which I got presents, I would like it just as well). I don’t love my husband any more or any less today than I will tomorrow (unless he magically makes the ice melt from the driveway; then I will love him more), and I’ve always thought real romance was found in the day-to-day stuff.

Passion is great, I’m told, but it fizzles and you’re left sitting across the table with someone whose deplorable manners you’d never noticed when he was giving you multiple orgasms.

Maybe it’s not as thrilling to have someone who will (without prompting) clean out the coffee maker for you so that your morning coffee doesn’t taste vaguely minerally, but I don’t care. Passion doesn’t set up e-payments for the bills or pick you up McDonalds when you’re needing a fix. Passion doesn’t watch you push an 8 pound baby out of your crotchal area WITHOUT VOMITING, nor does it stay up late to help your big son fill out last minute Valentines, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t even clean up dog barf from the white (WHITE!) carpeting.

I’d rather have someone who, without making a gross poo face, will plunge the toilet you’ve just clogged (while complimenting your toilet clogging prowess), or drop everything he’s doing to visit your dad in the ICU.

Maybe it’s not the sentiment expressed in a Hallmark card, but it’s real and that’s what I care about.

The Daver, who smiles as he takes my shit and sometimes even laughs when he’s wearing his phone headset and I follow him around trying to order a cheeseburger and large Diet Coke, is the man I never expected I’d be lucky enough to marry.

And no matter how pissed off I can become with him, I never forget that.

Ever.

—————-

So tell me what YOU think about Valentine’s Day. Love it? Hate it? Marginally indifferent?

—————

And happy Valentine’s Day to all of you! Aunt Becky loves you, you know.

While I am completely aware that grief affects each and everyone differently, I’m pretty much wishing I were a little more over it by now. I mean, I felt pretty hideous for the first couple of days and now I’m not hugely better BUT I WANT TO BE.

I want the nightmares to stop (I’m fairly prone to nightmares during times of intense stress), I wish I could feel like I had a handle on my life and responsibilities and start fucking functioning again. I HAD MY HUSBAND TAKE THE REST OF THE WEEK OFF WORK (like he’s actually not working or something. Ha-ha-ha) TO HELP ME OUT, HOW PATHETIC IS THAT?

And I really want to be certain that I’m not one of those hysterical people who troll the planet looking for things to be sad about and making it.all.about.them! I’ve never been that person before, and as self-centered as I can be (dude, I have a blog that I write about such meaningful topics as “toilet paper and how it changed my life” and “my kid is weird looking but that’s okay”. How more self-centered can one POSSIBLY be?), I’m not even close to pretending that I am grieving any more or any less than anyone else shocked by this loss.

I guess that I’m just hoping that the funeral will bring some closure and maybe, just maybe, stop the damn nightmares. I hate nightmares (I’ll spare you a boring recount of them, which would be interesting to absolutely no one.).

————

I pretty much suck at emotions in general, and feel only a couple specific ones: Give Me A Fucking Cheeseburger, Angry, and I Need a Goddamned Nap, and emotional situations always make me afraid that I’ll say the wrong thing and make everyone feel worse. This is why I am funny. It’s hard to make someone cry when you’re trying to make them laugh (although you can be certain that I have probably done this), and laughter is something I can handle. Crying, not so much.

*ahem*

Anyway.

I wanted to thank everyone who has supported me since this whole damned ordeal started. Your comments honestly meant the world to me, and it’s great to know that her memory will be perpetuated (however small it may be) by people who she didn’t even know. Thank you also to my lurkers, who pulled the cloak from their face and showed me that even if they think I’m an idiot (they have every right to think this), they care too.

Steph was a neat person, and I just know that you all would have liked her tremendously. She was just that kind of person, you know, the kind you like immediately and unapologetically.

—————

In an effort to distract his mother from her grieving process, Alex has mastered something I hadn’t even thought possible.

Now, after having an overarchingly non-verbal child as my first, this whole babbling and talking this has thrown me through a loop. Ben grunted, Alex succinctly demands.

After blowing his brother’s verbal prowess out of the water, he has picked up a brand new habit, one which terrifies me and sends shivers down my spine:

He mimics our voices and statements.

No sooner have I let the dog out to make some yellow snow, when Alex begins to bellow “Caaasssshhhh”over and over again until the dog has come back in. (Yes, my dog’s name is Cash. No, I don’t mean as in Cash Money. Yes, he was named this to prevent me from loudly petitioning to name our youngest “Cash.” Can we all agree that I have terrible taste? Okay, good.)

Later, I will go to the top of the basement stairs and sweetly call “Dave” should I need my husband for something. As soon as I do this, my parrot for a son begins yelling (not so sweetly) “Daaavvvveee” Daaaavvvvveee” over and over until his father comes into his line of sight.

While this is completely adorable, it means precisely one thing, one harsh thing: I am going to have to stop referring to my husband as “Motherfucker” in Alex’s presence.

When Steph’s mom called me on Sunday morning (right after I’d posted that chippy post about sleeping through the night that I’d really wanted to take down, because it then seemed so wildly inappropriate) to tell me that her daughter was dead, she asked me to call all of the old crew and let them know what happened.

One of the guys I called (and one of my best friends) said something that I haven’t been able to shake no matter how hard I try. He said that he only wished that he were surprised.

Because I was surprised. I was shocked.

Last I’d heard from Steph, she’d been going into rehab and had been attempting to turn her life around.

I knew that she hadn’t been doing exactly well in the last couple of years, and that was the reason that all of us had distanced ourselves from her. Alcohol seemed innocuous until she drank it, and when she did, she became a different person. The type who makes you somewhat nervous because you never knew what she’d do next. That sort of volatility is more fun and freeing when you are much younger, and when you deal with it first hand as more of an adult, it makes you somewhat embarrassed.

But, like Kristin, I wanted to believe that she would come around. I wanted to believe that she would eventually see that she was worth something, even without the alcohol, and that she would take steps in that direction.

I knew that there was nothing I could really do for her until she decided to do something for herself. That’s the kicker about addicts: you can watch them spiral downward and you can try to throw them a lifeboat, but it’s completely up to them whether or not they choose to climb aboard. It’s heartbreaking.
But I believed in my heart of hearts that she would come around.

She never did.

She died in her sleep after popping her prescriptions and washing them down with alcohol. I’m choosing to believe that it was accidental (there was nothing to say otherwise), and I’m choosing to believe that she died just as she was gearing up to fight her demons. Her mom told me that she’d been planning to call me this week or next so that we could spend some much-needed catch up over a cup of coffee or thirteen.

God, how I wished she’d called me.

Maybe, just maybe then we wouldn’t be hatching plans to carpool to her funeral together on Friday.

Just maybe I wouldn’t have to spend hours and hours pouring over floral arrangements to send to her parents, because what precisely says “I’m sorry that your daughter is dead. I loved her very much.” Is it the roses? Or the tulips? Or the multitude of hideously arranged flowers with such stupid names as “Forever Yours” or “A Loving Wish?”

I know that if Steph were here with me, she’d totally make fun of the traditional funeral arrangements, calling them tacky and ugly. We’d probably make fun of the names that the flower people came up with because seriously, what a crappy job that must be. I’d have named them something goofy like “To My Concubine” or “It Sucks That You’re Dead,” and not something so drab and ineffectual. I mean, death is sad enough without having to thumb through stupidly named floral arrangements (I am putting it in my will that only beautiful flowers be allowed at my funeral. And absolutely no plastic ones.).

I can’t seem to make a decision about the flowers, though, no matter that I’ve memorized the layout of the page with my scrutiny. I’ve been looking since Sunday, and have gotten no closer to ordering a thing.

What the hell sort of flowers are you supposed to order for someone who isn’t supposed to be dead yet?

During my first clinical rotation, I got stuck on a Med/Surg floor of an area hospital staffed by some of the nastiest and unpleasant nurses on the planet. I’ll never forget the day I came on shift to hear a nurse give report about a patient who had come on the floor with obvious drug-seeking behaviors.

The disdain in her voice was both palpable and obvious.

Anyone who knows an addict can sort of see where the distrust comes from, it’s hard to trust anyone who will beg, borrow, or steal to get what they want. You want to believe the promises, no matter how many times they’ve reneged on them, you want to hope for the best, no matter what the facts say.

But underneath all of the lies and half-truths, beyond the addict and the drug, lies a person. A person who loves and is loved, someone who has goals and dreams, talents and shortcomings, a person who has likes and dislikes.

It’s easy to forget this, especially when the drug has obscured the ability to touch these parts, as the drug screams infinitely louder and more gratingly. You can hate the disease, but not the person underneath.

Underneath the use and abuse is the person you once laughed with. The person who shared cup after cup of coffee with you. The person who made you smile when you were at the lowest point of your life and reminded you of what was important when you needed to hear it. The person who brought you a card when you had your wisdom teeth out, but delivered it to a house on the block over from your house, but amazingly had another girl named Becky who lived here. The person who, when your boyfriend cheated on you with another girl, and you were pregnant, wrote this girl a scathing email on your behalf.

The person that you wish you’d sent flowers to before she died, and not to her funeral.

I love who she was underneath all of it. And I miss that person very much.

I’m sure I always will.

One of my oldest friends died last night.

She died and I am angry.

I want to kick the dog. I want to scream at the baby. I want to pull out my hair and punch holes in the walls. I want to ram my car into something, anything. I want to choke the birds who are singing and tell the Universe to fuck off because how dare it be a sunny and beautiful day today. How dare the world keep spinning now that two little boys are to grow up without a mother. I have this untapped chasm of rage that I didn’t know I could possibly feel.

I’ve never felt so angry in my entire life.

My oldest friend died last night.

She was 26.

Last night, after many months of hemming and hawing (what the hell does that mean, anyway?), for the first time in the history of his existence, Alex slept through the night.

Attachment parents everywhere are now gathering slings and breast pump parts to lob at me viciously, but I do not care. Last I checked, none of them had offered to come over and love him back to sleep for me, which leaves my sympathy at approximately zero.

It took about 15 minutes of my Benevolent Dictator screaming in his crib for him to realize that neither of his slaves were rushing to his aid, and he promptly stopped screaming and eventually went to sleep (at least, I am assuming that he went to sleep. He could have been translating the collective works of Aristotle for all that I know. Or care.).

(Did you see The Exorcist? Do you remember the part when the possessed little girl is alone in her bedroom and her eyes pop open and she starts being really demonic? I always used to imagine that this is precisely what Alex looked like when he woke up overnight to beckon me to his side. And I am telling you that the minute you start comparing your child to the kid in The Exorcist is when you know once and for all that you are very.not.happy.)

I know better than to pat myself on the back too much, as I know full well that this is just one night in a string of behavior changing nights, but you see, I don’t care. I’m fucking happy as fuck and I am proud of us for doing what we’d needed to do for so long.

Makes me a little ashamed that we haven’t tried it sooner, as it really went much more smoothly than I’d imagined (although, I’m pleased enough that my skin is not shredded into baby nail sized ribbons and hanging off my frame disgustingly, which is really part of how I envisioned my first night of Crying it Out. Alex is cute because he can be so brutal. The cuteness is a defense mechanism on his part so that I don’t “accidentally” “forget him” “at” “the store”).

*ahem*

I feel as though a weight has been lifted off my back (a 20 pound weight, if I must specify, and genuinely not the weight of the world. Even I am not that melodramatic. Shut up. I am not.) and I can not recall a time in recent history when I have felt so incredibly positive. I’m still tired (extra sleep that I’m not accustomed to gives me a odd sleep hangover. Does that happen to anyone else?) but I’m happy.