I wrote a post on Antenatal Depression for ABC’s Million Moms Challenge. You should read it.

Also: I need a pony.

And a cookie.

Eleventy-billion (read: 6) years ago, I was in school. Nursing school, if you want to be pedantic about it, which, as Pranksters, I’m sure you do, because obviously.

As the three of you who have read my blog since I started spewing my words and polluting the Internet may remember, Nursing School was not = to Aunt Becky’s BFF. In fact, Nursing School was PROBABLY my archenemy, if it had feelings, which, I’m presuming, it did not. Otherwise it’d have spit on me whenever I got too close…kinda like that patient on the psych ward.

Alas, I digress.

I was the Bad Kid, the Black Sheep, the Outcast. I’d gone from sitting in the back row, eagerly spitting out answers to questions to sitting in the back row, playing Bejeweled on my phone as I pretended to be anywhere but, well, there.

Every break I got, I popped out to the front steps to smoke my cigarettes and glower at the happy college students bounding past me – probably carefree music majors – until one day, a boy showed up and introduced himself. Ryan was his name, and he was one of two boys in the program, which meant that he was as big an outcast as I.

We’d pass the time that way, he and I, sitting on the stoop of the Nursing School building, me smoking while he talked about his time as a Patient Care Tech. Having never worked in a hospital before, I was fascinated by stories like, “So this one time, I helped this old man onto the toilet and his balls actually dipped into the water.” I hadn’t realized that testicles got REALLY dangly as men age. On those steps, we devised an invention to keep ball bags out of the water: a small intertube that the testicles could comfortably rest in.

As our college (Elmhurst College, for those of you curious about which institution would give a diploma to someone like me) was set on a forest preserve, it wasn’t too long before his bizarre-ness came to light.

One day, as I carefully threw away my omnipresent Diet Coke bottle, a squirrel popped out of the garbage can, just like it owned the fucking place. Like the teenage girl I was (not), I shrieked and jumped back.

“I hate those motherfucking things,” Ryan said, as he chased it away from me.

“Huh?” I wasn’t sure if he was talking about my Diet Coke or the garbage can. With Ryan, you never did know.

“Squirrels. They’re fucking rats with tails. And have you seen their creepy, beady eyes? They’re going to murder us while we sleep,” he said.

I goggled at him, mouth hanging open wide enough for several squirrels to make their wee nests in.

While I’ve felt particularly vitriolic about some things (see also: the color orange and earwigs), I couldn’t imagine anyone actively HATING squirrels. They’re just so…cute! And fuzzy! And fluffy! And FULL of the awesome.

Before any roving squirrels could nest in my mouth, a mental picture popped into my head: squirrels banding together into one gigantic murderous squirrel, breaking into his dorm room, to murder him in a nut-filled haze while he slept. And then, well, I busted out laughing.

“What are you laughing about?” he demanded. “I’m putting together some fliers to post around the school, trying to ban the squirrels from living here.”

I laughed so hard that my sides ached and I couldn’t breathe. He was just so…serious.

“Will you help me?” he asked.

“Sure,” I replied, gasping for air. “Can we ban the color orange, too?”

“NO!” he nearly shouted. “That’s my favorite color.”

“I heard that squirrels love the color orange,” I lied. “You should probably get on that immediately.”

“Oh,” he replied. “I guess I can support your cause if you support mine.”

“You got it,” I agreed, even though I find squirrels to be the apex of awesome.

And that was how I ended up putting up hand-drawn posters all over campus that said, “BAN THE SQUIRRELS. THEY’RE PLANNING TO EAT YOUR BRAIN AND DRINK YOUR BEER.”

Because that, Pranksters, is how political Your Aunt Becky gets.

—————

So dish, Pranksters: what’s the dumbest thing you’ve gotten behind?

I live in one of those subdivisions that has approximately three different house styles.

It’s an older subdivision, built in the 60’s or 70’s, with the trees to match. I love those trees. In the winter, as the new-fallen snow is caught by the branches, they create something as close to a Norman Rockwell painting as someone like me is gonna get. In the spring, the new buds and fresh leaves remind me that winter, like anything else, doesn’t last forever. In the summer, the curtain of leaves, nearly meeting in the middle of the road, make me giddy with happyness. In the fall, those leaves change to all of the brightest shades of red and orange, a stark contrast against the impossibly blue sky.

Last year, after a particularly riveting night in the ER with a case of Orbital Cellulitis, I blurrily got the mail as we got back home at five in the morning. In it, there was a piece of mail from our city, stating that there was something called the Emerald Ash Boner. Before I went to bed for the first time in twenty-four hours, I chucked heartily that there was an infestation of Boners in my town.

I hadn’t considered that the tree I loved so dearly, sweetly shading my house and occasionally dumping gigantic branches onto my lilacs, was an Ash Tree. In fact, I’d considered that a particularly stupid name for a tree (when I discovered it was, indeed, an Ash Tree) and vowed to make someone somewhere change it to the Ass Tree. It seemed more fitting.

For the next year, I watched in horror as the trees up and down the sides of my road – all Ass Trees – were marked with a hastily spray-painted purple dot. Purple dot = infected. Which isn’t entirely unlike herpes, I suppose.

Every week, I inspected my Ass Tree for that tell-tale purple dot, knowing that my Ass Tree was probably superior to all other Ass Trees and would therefore be immune the Emerald Ass Boner. Clearly.

Three weeks ago, I came home to see the dot. On my precious Ass Tree. The Boner had struck.

Purple Dot of Doom = tree infected = cut down.

Soon, my favorite Ass Tree will be cut down and replaced with a tiny new tree, so small that I’ll neatly be able to fit my hand around it. Certainly, I’ll watch the tree grow and turn into a non-Ass Tree (I think we’re getting maples instead). I’ll happily celebrate the day it grows large enough to provide shade and again when it’s branches are large enough to support the weight of my smallest child. I know there will be lemonade stands underneath it, the new tree will oversee the tending of my rose bed, and it will, someday, shade me with it’s leaves.

But that doesn’t stop me from feeling sad about my very own Ass Tree, who will soon enough, be reduced to a pile of stumps.

Change.

It even happens to Ass Trees.

———

In other news, I have two columns up at The Stir. Please report back to tell me if the comments are hateful. Actually, don’t. I don’t want to know:

Reason Number Eleventy-Five Being A Kid Today Sucks

and

7 Reasons Your Kid’s Summer Birthday Sucks

Also, here: Puberty. UGH.

(the title has nothing whatsoever to do with what follows)

I haven’t managed to keep friends easily.

While I’d like to say something like, “it’s totally their loss,” or “it’s their fault,” there have been a number of mitigating circumstances, some of which were entirely my own fault (if one has to blame someone). I had three kids and was unable to leave the house for years. I moved from a central location to Bumfuck, Egypt. PTSD crippled my ability to let others really in.

And certainly, my former friends have done their fair share of shitballs things to me, too. I won’t fling poo, because that’s unladylike (snorts) but it has happened.

I won’t lie and say it’s been easy or particularly enjoyable, because who likes losing their friends?

Through all of the bullshit of the past couple of years, I’ve been lucky enough to maintain a few close friends; mostly people who’d once lived inside my computer but became real friends. We’ve managed to bridge the gaps in geography and, throughout it all, grow together, rather than apart.

(I include you, Pranksters, in this category)

Meet Kat.

I met Kat shortly after Amelia was born – her daughter Avi is roughly the same age – when she IM’d me to correct my grammar on a post*. And while this is an unlikely way to become friends with someone, it’s what happened.

I won’t lie or sugarcoat things here: Kat was instrumental in saving my life after Amelia was born. I was in a bad place; such a bad place that I’m not sure anyone else – including me – realized it. I would have easily told you that I was “fine,” but I was so far from fine that I couldn’t even recall what “fine” looked like any more.

Kat saved me.

Nine months ago, her husband had a stroke, spent a good amount of time in the ICU and was eventually diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder – alpha 1-angiotripsan deficiency – for which there is no cure. Her 2-year old daughter, Mimi’s clone, was also diagnosed with this.

On Friday, at the butt-ass crack of dawn, I got up and slogged my sorry ass onto an airplane to Seattle or Portland or one of those cities that is NOT Chicago on the West Coast. It was time to hug the person who had saved me.

And I did.

I also got to meet Mimi Avi who is, just as I’d suspected, Mimi’s doppelganger in both looks and actions. When I met her, she covered her eyes shyly, only to look at me through the cracks in her fingers. I may have passed out from the cuteness.

But Kat isn’t leading an easy life now, which breaks my small, dark heart. The daily what-if stresses are, as you can imagine, crippling. I wish like hell I could say or do something more than visit; something that would matter.

When I figure out what that is, Pranksters, I’ll do it.

Instead, I’ll be thrilled that I finally got to hug my friend in person, meet her charmingly hilarious daughter, and hear my very mild-mannered friend say the one word I flew a jillion miles to hear come from her mouth: “fuck.”

*Prolly NOT the best way to become BFF with me considering both my grammar and spelling are atrocious AND I LIKE IT THAT WAY.

My kids are home this week. After I realized what a job Band Back Together was going to be (and how freaking BORED they are with me), I enrolled the two smallest ones in preschool. Plus, that gives me ample time to sit on my ass and watch cactus videos. Those cacti are a laugh a minute!

Anyhow, for some strange reason, my preschool teacher decides once every six months or so to go on vacation. (I call bullshit) Then, the crotch parasites are home with everyone’s favorite Aunt Becky. Everyone, of course, but my small crotch parasites who are bored after two minutes of looking at my face. It sorta goes like this:

9:17 (AB): “Hey guys, let’s COLOR a PICTURE!”

9:18 (Alex and Amelia): “WE’RE DONE MAMA.”

9:20 (AB): “Let’s play a game called, “Make Mama a Martini!”

9:20 (Alex and Amelia): “NO.”

9:21 (AB): “How about, “let’s take a nap!” that’s a GREAT game!”

9:22 (Alex and Amelia): “That’s bullshit!”

9:22 (AB): *headdesk*

See, I’m just not cut out for playing games with toddlers for more than twelve seconds. And it’s approximately eleventy-billion degrees out now, which means I can’t boot them out the door to “play” and lock it behind them. Which is, I’m pretty sure, how my parents handled ages 2-18.

(come to think of it, perhaps I shouldn’t follow my parents lead)

So now I have two days left of “entertaining the children” and am about ready to sell them to the Hare Krishna’s because, well, I think they take kids and shave them and put them into wee orange robes. If not, they should.

When my preschool teacher gets back on Monday, I’m planning on tongue-kissing her. Or perhaps not. Anything to make her want to watch my children again. Because I think they’re sharpening their Play-Doh knives into shivs to attack me for ruining summer. I only hope that it takes them until Tuesday.

Until then, I’ll be counting down the minutes. And praying each one isn’t the one that brings me to my dramatic death-by-Play-Doh-knife.

———–

I wrote this on The Stir. It’s about Tattooed Moms. Because obviously.

It was mentioned in the comments on a recent post that I do not discuss my middle son, Alex, nearly enough. I’d figured that since I’d devoted Year One of Mommy Wants Vodka to him, you guys were probably sick of hearing about him.

Alas, I was wrong.

———–

When Alex was two, I’d finally managed to wrangle my boobs away from him – he was a Boob Man – and *cue angels singing on high* put him in the shopping cart when we went to The Target. After spending the first year of his life as the ONLY person he’d allow to hold him – and in my arms was the only place he’d not shriek – this was no minor victory.

Whenever I think of Alex, I think of the legend of the Monkey Paw, which apparently no one else has ever heard. Basically, there’s a long-winded, slightly creepy story involving wishes, dead monkey paws and gypsies. The moral of the story? “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” I’d have guessed the moral to be something more like, “don’t buy a dead monkey paw, you jackass.”

WHATEVER.

During his pregnancy, see, I’d cried and moaned and carried on about how much I wanted a baby that loved me best (Ben’s autistic and didn’t give a flying poo about me)(can you blame him?).

WHOOOOO-BOY did I get that in spades.

So there I am, in The Target, trying to soothe my savage son who is trying to wrangle his way from the cart and into my arms, where his newborn sister is. It’s nearly impossible to hold the two of them and walk around at the same time, so I decided that the only course of action was to begin to sing. So I did.

“C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me, OH C is for cookie. Um. A is for Alex, that’s good enough for me, OH A is for Alex, that’s good enough for me, oh Alex Alex Alex starts with A!”

Probably terrified a good number of shoppers with my horrifying amazing singing.

It was then that my son, son of my heart, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, told his first joke. In song form.

“P is for Poopy, that’s good enough for me. P is for Poopy, that’s good enough for me. Oh poopy poopy poopy starts with P!” Then he burst into gales of laughter.

Rather than scold him, yell, or even raise my voice for making an off-color, inappropriate joke, I busted a gut. Then I beamed in pride. It’s not like I sing the P is for Poopy* song myself or anything.

This Sunday, on the way home from picking the boys up from their sleepover at Grandma’s, my musical eldest began singing all 198 versions to London Bridge Is Falling Down. Apparently, in addition to dancing cat videos and porn, You Tube is ALSO good at teaching kids all the obscure verses to songs.

As my eldest sang, “Build it up with bricks and hay,” for the zillionth time, my middle son decided that what the song needed was a little pizazz. So he, in all his tone-deaf glory, began to chant, “Build it up with poop and hay, poop and hay.”

Rather than do the proper thing and be all After School Special on him, “Now Alex, we don’t say, ‘poop’ in this house,” I laughed. I laughed so hard that it actually hurt.

Yep.

He’s the kid that’ll net me a jillion angry phone calls from other parents. It’ll be all I can do not to laugh.

*Much.

1) You go to annual doctor’s appointments, not just when “it burns when you pee.”

2) You begin to care about the length of your lawn.

3) You dread summer vacation because WAIT A MINUTE, I have to PARENT these kids?

4) Rather than stopping to check out that rad couch on the side of the road to see if it has obvious pee-stains, you drive by, laughing, remembering when you’d say, “THAT LOOKS GREAT.”

5) You actually drink alcohol for the flavor.

6) You laugh at the Coors Lite commercials, because remember when you drank that shit?

7) You know how to reorder checks.

8 ) Staying out until the bars close is an impossibility.

9) You get excited about buying a steam cleaner for your rugs.

10) You become even MORE excited to USE the steam cleaner.

11) You know what a 401K is.

12) You can’t remember what month it is because they’re all the freaking same, right?

13) You have a mortgage.

14) You refinance your mortgage to get better rates.

15) You own jewelry that needs to be insured.

16) You take your car in for regular oil changes – not just when it starts making that weird thumpy sound.

17) Your fridge is stocked with things other than condiments and beer.

18) You buy mulch. And use it. HAPPILY.

19) Drinking until you shit now sounds like a bad idea.

20) You own – and occasionally wear – comfortable underwear.

21) You realize that spending the night in front of the television sounds preferable to getting smashed at the bar.

22) You can keep a plant alive.

23) You regularly change your wiper blades.

24) The prospect of dropping 5K on a new air conditioner thrills you.

25) You never turn a load of whites pink by accident.

26) You no longer use rope lighting as an accessory.

27) Putting up a Bud-Light poster in your living room is considered trashy. By you.

28) You’ve developed a plan that goes a little farther than, “drink as many PBR’s as possible before lunch today.”

Wednesday evening found me on a train headed downtown. In a bizarre bit of strange luck, I found myself about to go speak to a writing class about blogging, which had filled me with all kinds of ennui. Especially since I didn’t have any black turtlenecks OR Woody Allen Glasses.

I figure that’s what a Liberal Arts Degree teaches: how to properly dress as a “writer.”

(well, that and how to excel at Ultimate Frisbee)

I spent minutes agonizing over how to properly dress before I threw on something I’d found under my bed and called it “good enough.” I figure I write in cat-hair coated Happy Pants and a t-shirt, so really, anything was a step up from that. We all know looking the part is half the battle.

I used to take the train to and from school and I’d completely forgotten how much I love to people-watch at the train station.

I stood near someone I deemed a “Real Housewife of Chicago,” based upon her spray tan and knee high boots coupled with a gigantic fur coat.

It was while talking to her that I saw him: he was The God of Luscious Mustaches everywhere and I was betwixt. Dressed head to toe in Spandex, listening to an iPod, and wearing the thick-rimmed glasses I so desperately required for that class. Certainly, I could have crushed his twiggy body for the glasses, but once I saw the mustache, I knew I could never harm him.

It was too perfect.

Perhaps I could get a PICTURE of his ‘stache. I contemplated how to do that (The Twitter had the best idea: pretend to be Canadian and ask for a picture with him) and couldn’t figure it out before he was lost in the breeze; on a different train car. The chance of a lifetime, and I’d wasted it.

I spent the rest of the train ride mourning all of the things that might have been; me and his mustache.

Somehow, I’ve managed to get on with my life. But the image of his mustache, carefully playing on the top of his lips, will haunt me forever.

(an artist’s representation of the mustache)(the part of the host will be played by Moby).

Did I mention he was a ginger with a Hitler Mustache?

It was truly a work of art.

Or something.

I’m off to get my tattoo today. What did I decide upon? YOU’LL HAVE TO WAIT AND FIND OUT. I’ll put up pictures as soon as humanly possible.

That is, if I don’t die in a fiery tornado of terror.

As you can see, I may very well perish.

Let’s see what the Weather Channel is REALLY saying about the storms today:

Well, okay. If I die, I can use Yes That Can Be My Next Tweet to keep my Twitter account active.

I mean, this sounds like something I would say:

It’s freakish how spot-on the thing is.

Catch you on the flip-side, Pranksters. Also: HOLD ME.

Yesterday, I woke up and Billy Motherfucking Mays was all:

IT’S VALENTINE’S DAY, YOU DIRTY SLUT, SO GET YOUR LAZY BITCH-ASS UP AND GET READY TO FUCKING SPARKLE ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE.

When Billy Motherfucking Mays is the first voice in your head in the morning, you shut your whore mouth and you listen.

Gingerly, opened my eyes and thought about my plans for the day. I had an appointment with my neurologist who looks, incidentally, like he stepped off the set of a spaghetti Western somewhere (I’ve diagnosed him with GERD)(gastroesophogeal reflux disease)(he should really get that taken care of). Over by the neuro was the mall. At the mall were STORES. At the stores were PRESENTS. Presents for ME.

Today, I thought, was going to be a very good day indeed.

I sat up. Easy-peasy, I thought to myself. Eye of the Motherfucking Tiger!

Then, in an alarming fit of poor judgment, I stood up. Whoops! My bad. My legs felt like wobbly stumps, thanks to the migraine and Imitrex. Well, shit. Hard to take on the world without properly functioning legs.

I hummed “Life’s Been Good To Me So Far,” as I made my way to the bathroom. All right, I cheered. I got my fucking sea-legs.

When I looked in the mirror, this is what looked back;

Woah. That’s hot. I should probably become a model or something.

(BARBIZON, BE A MODEL, OR JUST LOOK LIKE ONE)

I tried to scrub the ugly off my face but it just wasn’t happening. The Ugly Cry has it’s aftermath.

I wobbled down and drank some coffee, giggling at all of the anti-VD Tweets (I have other holidays I feel similarly about) and tried to peck out a post. I’ve been writing in the mornings for so long that if I don’t, I feel like I’m missing an arm.

But I couldn’t.

I was wobbly in the head, too.

Billy Motherfucking Mays piped in:

“SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH AND WRITE A GODDAMNED POST, YOU LAZY DRUG-SEEKING BAG OF WIND.”

But luckily, Bob Motherfucking Ross was right behind him:

“Happy Clouds, Aunt Becky. Focus on the Happy Clouds.”

I tried to see those happy fucking clouds and write my goddamed post at the same time and I just couldn’t do it.

Then it came to me. I needed to go where I’d never (willingly) gone before to do something I’d never (willingly) done before: look at laptops.

We all know that my technical knowledge begins and ends with I push a button and the Magical Elves in the Email Machine come alive! So the very notion going to a computer store for the express purpose of looking at computers for myself is as laughable as me painting my kitchen with my tongue.

Normally, I only go to Best Buy if ambushed:

Daver, My Dad, or My Brother: “Oh HEY there, Becky/Rebecca/Stumpy, let’s go to MCDONALDS!!”

Me: “OOOOOOOOH CHEESEBURGERS.”

(I get into the car like a rube)

Me: “HEY WAIT A MINUTE THERE’S NO CHEESEBUR…GAH, OH MY GOD THE BLUE AND THE YELLOW AND FUCKING SHITBALLS IT’S SO BRIGHT IN HERE. LOUD. LOUD. LOUD. HALP ME HALP ME HALP. MAKE IT GO AWAY.”

Daver, My Dad or My Brother: “You think you’d learn, but you never do.”

Then I hover, invading their personal space, until they get fed up and leave. Alternately, I insist that they buy me something exorbitantly expensive. Like a pony.

To actually want to go to Worst Best Buy is the equivalent to hell freezing over. But I need a lappy and I don’t have a lappy and every time I try and look for one online, this is what it looks like,

And then I get really annoyed because there are so many fucking NUMBERS and I don’t actually CARE about most of them so then I go and watch Dexter mutilate people and feel better until I realize that I still should figure out which laptop I am going to buy because, hi, this staying home all day bullshit is making me twitchy.

Also: I need to take the Internet away from Jimmy Wales and Mark Zuckerberg because it’s time for a GIRL to be in charge. I need to RUB MY VAGINA on the internet, Pranksters, but I have to be able to be MOBILE to dominate the world and shit.

I proceeded into Best Buy after perfecting my GET AWAY FROM ME GEEK SQUAD look in the mirror.

See, if you don’t watch out for them, they sneak up on you and the next thing you know, you have to hear a sermon on why you should buy their stupid anti-virus protection or whatever, but you’re just standing there, mentally rearranging their features kinda like Mr. Potato Head but geekier. So you have to be wary of them. Very wary.

I snuck to the back of the store where the keep the lappy’s hostage, ogling the desktops as I went past.

And there they were: row after row of laptops. Finally, I could stop obsessing about my inability to decide and just fucking decide already. This was too tedious, even for me, to obsess about.

I rolled my eyes at the tiny netbooks. I didn’t need no stinkin’ netbook. Child’s play.

And there it was. A light, a beacon of light, shone down and I saw exactly what I needed. A laptop that said, “hey world, I’m a fucking blogger. You’d better take me and my 17 inches of swinging death seriously or I am going to go all CPU (whatever that means) on your ass. I’ll punch you in the throat if you don’t take me and my oversized screen and too many memory chips and stuff fucking seriously because I am a blogger and this is an absurdly awesome computer.”

A laptop that was absurdly absurd. Too much computer. WAY too much computer.

Just like I like it, baby.

Just as soon as I sell a kidney, Imma get me a fucking big ass 17-inch MacBook Pro. So I can go all (insert a bunch of nerdly phrases that I don’t understand here) on the Internet’s Ass. I’LL SHOW ZUCKERBERG WHO’S BOSS.

Just as soon as, uh, I get it. And stuff.

SO TAKE THAT, ZUCKERBERG. In um, a, um, couple of months…and stuff, I’m going to take over the INTERNET.

#BOOYEAH