When I am interviewed by all of the groupies that live inside my head, one of the questions they invariably ask, besides, of course, do small people have to have their houses custom made so that they can actually cook at the stove, and the infamous, why do dogs eat each other’s poo, is this: why do you blog?

In fact, while I was at BlogHer, I was interviewed by a woman, who, no doubt, felt sort of sorry for me, standing there all bewildered and obviously confused (me, not her) while people darted around me for free pens and samples of detergent, who asked me that very same question: why do you blog?

Unlike when I am asked why I like McDonald’s so much that I might trade one of my kids for a cheeseburger, or why I find Diet Coke to be Nature’s Miracle, I had an answer other than “just because.” It’s one of the few things I can actually answer without having to send them to The Daver.

Hey, I never said I was smart.

Because blogging? Kind of a funny thing when you stop and think about it. I can tell you that it’s not for the fame or notoriety or fame or legions of screaming teenage girls on my lawn. If there does happen to be a gaggle of giggling girls (alliteration much?) near my house, it’s probably because they are hopped up on hormones and trying to get the teenage boys that live on either side of us. Not because Their Beloved Aunt Becky lives there.

(I’m pretty sure teenagers shouldn’t read my blog.)

And shit, anytime I meet a new person and they ask what I do, rather than say “I am a slave” or “I retired several years ago” I feel like I should acknowledge that I do manage to throw something up on a website most days of the week. 500-1200 words a day, pithily typed into a nifty wordpress box, published with nary a thought to The Edit Button.

Technically that’s writing. So is the book proposal I conned some gullible agents into schlepping around to publishers. Which means I could theoretically call myself a writer, which is what The Daver does (calls me that, I mean along with “Fuckface” and “Baby.” He is not a writer), but being A Writer conjures up an image of someone who can properly construct a painstakingly perfect sentence. I imagine A Writer in a chunky cream fisherman’s sweater, sitting in a room with “nice lines” (whatever the fuck that means).

I don’t own a fisherman’s sweater anymore and my room is decorated in kid chic, pretty much the antithesis of “clean lines” and well, I can hardly type out 200 ill-thought out words without having to get up and remove a marble from someone’s orifice. I peck out words between dirty diapers and dream of working quietly although I know fully well that if I tried to go into some silent office to write, I’d have to bring the kids just for some background noise.

So, being A Writer isn’t really what I do.

But what would you think if I introduced myself as A Blogger? Because to me, A Blogger probably looks like he (or she) crawled out of Middle Earth, cupcake frosting glued to her leg, teeth furry with green growth, a fancy camera attached to his (or her) wrist. I have a terrible time telling people proudly that I Blog, not because I’m ashamed of what I do–it IS work and I DO have integrity in what I do–but because it’s a lot of work to explain it so that someone else would understand.

As I was bombarded with this throughout the whole conference, I am well aware that soon enough, most people will have an idea of What Being A Blogger Is, because The Power Of The Blog is obvious in all the attempts for marketers to court We of The Blog.

Probably a good 75% of the blogs I read devote a couple of posts a month to doing reviews, and sadly a lot of ones that I do not read are turning into what appears to be a long press release. This seems to be what marketers want personal blogs to turn into.

But I write here because that is simply what I do. Every day–because if I skip a day, I find it nearly impossible to pick it back up–I come here, pluck out a post, and I write. I’ve done it for years and I will continue to do this until I am done. And when reach the end, I will stop.

I suppose that what I do is somewhere in the middle between A Writer and A Blogger, and while I am conflicted by quantifying what I do, I have no issues explaining why I do it.

First, I cannot stop. I write because I have to. On days that I’ve written something ahead of time and have set it to auto-post, I spend all day feeling out of sorts. Like I’m missing a toe or a finger or a kid or something and I can’t place why until I realize that hey, y’all, I didn’t write.

I write because I must.

Secondly, and probably most important, is that I write and I blog and I read and I comment and I tweet and I Facebook (who knew THAT could be a verb?) because I like people.

When the decision to stay home was made for me, I found myself miserable and alone. I’d gone from a place where I excelled at what I did, I took pride in myself and I did the best job I could, gal-darn-it, I was good enough, smart enough, and well, people liked (or hated) me, to being at home with Ben, my strange son, where no one noticed if I did an exceptional job at scrubbing out a pan, or was particularly efficient about cooking dinner.

I went from having a life to living for other people. And the adjustment was brutal. I was lonely, I was isolated, I felt like my life was turning into a should-have-been.

Years later, I am generally pretty happy to do what I do most days, and somedays, of course, I would happily sell my children UNDER COST WITHOUT A COUPON to a band of roving gypsies and run away with the circus, but mostly, I’m happy. Part of the reason for my happiness is because I’ve met a ton of people whom I now call friends. I have a life, albeit one that exists in the computer, but it’s mine and it’s what I’ve got.

So amidst the circus that was BlogHer, I stood there, while a confused woman in a snazzy suit held a voice recorder thingy in my face (probably regretting approaching me) and I told the tiny box that I blogged because to me, it was all about the community. And it is.

Why do YOU blog?

—————-

Because who can resist those rolls? She’s like a mini version of me!

And despite being INCREDIBLY crabby today, you can see that Alex is getting better. You can also see that Alex likes to eat markers AND draw on my arms. Goofy ass kid. Thank you for thinking of him–he was very, very sick.

I know that print media is going the way of the condor, or so I keep being told, but to me there’s nothing better than a nice quiet morning and a newspaper to rifle through. Well, okay, there are a lot of better things than that, namely a “nice quiet morning,” but I digress. I just don’t find reading newspapers online as appealing.

Partially it’s the site design. It’s like being fucked in the eye with all the blinky-glary-picture stuff being thrust into my eyes, and partially because I am a crotchety old person who doesn’t quite like to navigate through the clunky pages. I find it far less appealing, but I suppose I’ll have to get used to it.

What fascinates me the most is not the articles–no–what I find amazing is the way that John (or Jane) Q. Public reacts to them. Because now most of the stories come complete with a nifty comment box. And we all know that comment boxes + anonymity = assbags.

Newspapers seem to bear a good deal of the burden of this, often bringing out the loud and the stupid (why do they so often go hand in hand?) (I say this ironically. I am, after all, the person that posts something nearly every day here), and I have a field day reading it. The infighting and the general moral superiority to all other commenters just makes me giggle, seriously, if you want a good laugh, grab a bag of popcorn and pop open the comments box at the end of an article.

So as not to elicit the hatorade from the particular article I was just plowing through, I’ll spare you the linkage. This particular article was followed by the commenters ripping into each other about the nefarious use of Tylenol in schools. Apparently–according to some–Tylenol is a fucking gateway drug. Bwahahahaha! No, seriously. Someone thinks this. Several someones.

(Completely unrelated, but related: if they do manage to ban Vicodin, I am moving to the moon)

Blogs get it too, of course, as you have no doubt noticed, although it seems more muted on one hand and more personal and horrible on the other. Less infighting and more personal attacks.

The more readers your blog gets, the more expectations are placed upon the author. The greater the expectations, the greater the let down when the blogger has a particularly bad day or bad week and isn’t writing up to par. This is one of many things–like how a simple non-platinum coated front door can cost hundreds of dollars–I don’t understand.

Okay, I get the part where no one likes a whiny, cry-baby, because shit people, you may be complaining about your cock-bag ex-boyfriend while other people in the world don’t have access to clean drinking water! Or adequate health care! How dare you complain when some people have no legs! NO LEGS, Aunt Becky, you horrible bitch!

Perhaps they do not know I find “bitch” to be a term of endearment.

Before you accuse me of moral superiority (which, hahahaha! Just TRY and make that charge stick), trust me when I tell you that I have read posts on a couple different bigger blogs that have made me see red. It’s all I can do to not scroll down to the nifty comment box and pop in some awful, trite, I’m going to come here and rip you a new poo hole because you fucking suck crap. I’ve always managed to stop myself, close the window out and carefully unsubscribe.

The Internet needs more hatorade like I need someone to drill into my skull and pour cherry Jello inside. I mean, what does coming over to spew nastiness about actually accomplish? A feeling of moral superiority? You want moral superiority, go turn on Maury. Or Jerry Springer. Trust me, a half an hour of that should make you feel like a king among men. You’ll be patting yourself on the back for your decided lack of recessive genes and your amazingly normal family for weeks.

As bloggers, we put ourselves out there and invite you in to come see what we have to say. We dust off the Welcome Mat and offer you a tasty beverage while complimenting how amazing your ass looks in those pants (have you lost weight? You look amazing!). But do we have a right to be angry when you spit in our lemonade and throw eggs at our door?

Considering you get exactly what you pay for when you click to a new blog (think a sea of gigantic zeros as far as the eye can see), do you have a right to be cruel when you don’t get what you want? Or what you think you deserve?

I’m asking you, honestly. My friend Trish wrote this about authors handling negative reviews, and I’ve been rolling this around in my brain since then. How should bloggers handle it presuming a) they are not making money from said blog and b) they hadn’t asked for the negativity?

This morning, against my better judgement, I got up at the ungodly hour of 8:45. I know, how did I manage to hoist my delicate ass out of my lovely bed to the harsh reality of life with 3 (minus one today) children before plopping my butt down in front of my laptop? The things I endure, I tell you.

Well, despite my mango-vodka-flavored drinky-poo last night, I woke up refreshed, bright eyed and bushy-tailed and veritably bounded into the office of my new shrink. Being a (retired) medical professional myself, I knew that my first visit would involve a whole lotta observations of my behavior.

Did The Patient scratch herself too much? Did The Patient blink her left eye more quickly than her right? Does The Patient look like she engages in self-care activity (not, for those of you playing along at home, involving dildos)? Is The Patient trying to mount my desk AGAIN?

LOCK THAT CRAZY BITCH UP!

I don’t mean to make light of the situation,* but when you have streak of mental illness and alcoholism sixteen miles wide running through your family, I’m pretty sure you’re allowed to try and chuckle. Or at least, in my case, be very careful to remember that while giving your (sorted) medical history, it’s probably not wise to grab the red Sharpee on the desk and run around the room screaming about the eyes in the ceilings that watch us aaaalllllll!!

You should be pleased to note that I kept both butt cheeks firmly planted on the chair.

As part of the general information that he was gathering for me, I took this…test thing. I got pretty excited because I enjoy taking tests, until I looked at it more closely. It was a whole lot of questions to be answered in a true/false manner. I fucking hate true/false tests.

I was suitably confused.

I feel like I am a special person who deserves special things.

Well, DUH. I thought Mr. Rogers spent most of my early childhood telling me that we were all special rainbow snowflake droplets. Obviously TRUE.

I have travelled to Africa seventy times this past week.

OF COURSE I HAVE. TRUE, TRUE, TRUE.

I have been on 37 magazine covers.

Who hasn’t?

I have homicidal thoughts.

How often is often enough to mark True?

I’m much better at essay questions, as you can no doubt guess, considering how frequently I pollute The Internet with my pointless drivel. I always want to qualify my answers in these questions. Am I always in the middle of things at parties? Well, what kind of parties are we discussing? Because if it’s a Sausage Fest, you better believe I am. But in the middle of a comic book convention? You’ll find me crawling the walls, looking for an escape route.

The rest of the questions were pretty mundane. It appears that I do have a mild case of Post Traumatic Stress disorder and that I am ridiculously confident. Neither of these statements shocks me much.

What shocked me more than anything else is that this is all that appears to be wrong with me.

For 28 (29 next month. HOORAY for ALMOST 30!) years, I have been waiting patiently for the day that I wake up and do not go back to sleep for 4 days. For the day that I decided that 5 years old is old enough for my kid to fend for him/herself and lock myself in my room with a bottle of booze and a script of valium. For the day when I am so full of energy that I repaint the entire outside of my house with a toothbrush and my tongue between the hours of 1 and 3 AM one idle Thursday.

It’s never come, but I’ve waited.

Apparently, Amelia isn’t the only person in this house who has been diagnosed Completely Normal**.

Now, thankfully, I can focus my attentions on more fascinating pursuits. Like wondering if I should really make a shirt that says “I’m Friends With Heather Spohr” and if it’s more PC to call BlogHer “Beaver Fest 2009” or “Vagina Stock 2009”?

The jury remains out on all counts.

*I totally mean to make light of any situation, because hey, if you can laugh your way through having to collect your poo in a bucket, you can laugh at anything.

**When you’re used to dealing with people who routinely bathe the floor with their tongue and are convinced that they are pregnant with Jesus’s baby, “normal” is relative.

Okay, first, go read this, o! yee who don’t sit at their computer all weekend waiting patiently, crying, and prostrate with grief until I posted something obviously deep and meaningful here. Because who has better stuff to do on the weekend?

(don’t answer that)

Rick, one of the delivery drivers, acted first. He swooped down, all 6 feet of him, and grabbed the pizza suit from Cesar and held it up to his burly chest before running into the bathroom with it. He emerged, several minutes later, as a slice of pizza. A HUMAN slice of pizza with his face sticking merrily out of the middle of the slice.

It was just too much. I nearly soiled myself.

Who the hell thinks that a human dressing up as food is anything other than a) humiliating or b) hilarious? Phil had, obviously, seen this as an amazing way to attract attention and perhaps increase profits tenfold, but his thinking was predictably flawed.

While a dancing slice of pizza was sure to attract attention–the same way an afro on a white man attracts attention: it was, of course, the wrong KIND of attention. And it was such a uniquely Phil way of doing things, just like standing in front of the single pop machine during the dinner rush to inform some server or another that they were using too many napkins. Valid point, stupid timing. Could be the slogan for restaurant GM’s.

But for us, all of whom had been interrogated at one point or another about the Curious Incident Of The Cheese And The Nighttime, it was just that much more hysterical. I mean, really, a dancing PIZZA?

For the next several weeks, during the start of the dinner rush, well before the drivers were needed to shlep pizzas back and forth, the delivery drivers would take turns putting on the pizza suit and running through the dining room. I’m fairly certain that in this manner, many children were suitably traumatized. But it never failed to make us laugh: this a stupid, corny costume.

Once in awhile, Phil would convince one of the poor line cooks (poor as in the take-pity-on-him not in the broke-as-a-joke way.) during a slow lunch shift to go to the nearby road to wave at passing cars. As far as I know, it never attracted a soul into the restaurant to drop some bucks, but 50 million marketing geniuses (genuii?) can’t be wrong. Can they?

One Friday night after work, Rick and I were sitting and counting our tips and having our shift drink together, and I was grumbling and grousing about how he always made more bank than I did. Little did we know that the opportunity of a life-time was about to be hatched.

I don’t know who suggested it thanks, in no small part, to my tall Jack-n-diet-coke, I can’t full take credit for it so instead I will simply say that we mutually came up with a brilliant plan. The following Thursday night, when I was off work but while Rick was working, we would meet up at the restaurant so that I could help him deliver his pizzas.

Rick would, we decided, dress up in the pizza costume and deliver the pizza to our unsuspecting victims as a slice of pizza. Because short of throwing Rick into a thong, his bulge hanging out for all the world to see, I couldn’t think of anything weirder than getting a pizza delivered by a slice of pizza.

So that’s just what we did. With my friend from school, Arlene, manning the video camera, we–acting as normally as possible of course–drove Rick’s route that night. He’d ring the doorbell and hand the pizza to the victim while I would help make change. Just like this was the most normal situation. Just a random Thursday night delivering pizzas dressed as a slice of pizza lah-dee-dah.

Acting like this was nothing out of the ordinary was harder than it no doubt sounds.

Arlene took some footage that I am certain would rival The Blair Witch Project for most nauseating camera work on an independent film. I would pay a lot of money to see that footage now, but I haven’t seen Arlene since I graduated college and have no idea where to find her.

Shockingly, not a single person commented on this. Not one soul acted as though anything was out of the ordinary. It was as though we were being Punk’d while we were trying to Punk others.

In our efforts to behave as normally as possible, it seems that the houses we hit were full of people for whom this is an everyday occurrence. Maybe they are always served hot dogs by people dressed as gigantic wieners, Chicago-style. Maybe every ice cream cone is hand scooped by a walking, talking milkshake. In a world where a sandwich is always made by a sandwich, we were mere players; costumed pawns in this parade of nameless, faceless food mascots.

I would totally live in that world, you know. So long as I could make the rest of my family wear sausage costumes. Just so I never have to wear the Santa costume again.

All right, loves, dish: I want to hear about pranks. All kinds of pranks. I’m hoping that the laughter I get from your comments will help with this God-awful headache I’ve had for a couple of months.

And if you’re inclined, you can vote for my happy-crappy (emphasis on the crappy) ass here:

Some of you, especially those of you who have been reading my blog for any length of time will know that my childhood wasn’t quite…normal. I don’t mean this in a woe-is-me-my-life-sucked sort of way, because with the aid of a lot of smashed glassware and torn up flower beds, I’m pretty zen with the whole thing. My birth coincided with my mother’s mental health decline so I spent a lot of my young life in the role of caregiver and caretaker.

The most unexpected side effect of all of this chaos that Young Aunt Becky was my astonishment that some Things That Remain The Same. There was a movie out a couple years ago (and by couple I mean a lot longer than that) with Julia Roberts who is a serial jilter, leaving a couple different dudes at the alter.

It comes to pass that you find out she’s been morphing herself to be whatever that man wants her to be over a plate of eggs. First, she likes them over-easy, with the next guy, they’re poached, and finally scrambled. When confronted at the end, I think, she claims she doesn’t like eggs at all.

I watched that movie–really stupid if I can remember correctly–and sat there, mouth agape! It was my mother! On the big screen! Only she wasn’t changing to fit herself neatly into a jigsaw puzzle for someone else, she was doing it because that’s what she did.

One year, yellow was her favorite color. Then green. Then cobalt blue. My brother–who is 10 years my senior–remembers her favorite ice cream being butter pecan. For me, it was Jamocha Almond Fudge. She loved french fries, now she claims that she never liked them at all, despite vivid memories that I have of her filching them off my plate as a child.

Thanks to a cocktail of ECT and alcohol, her memory is shot, so she doesn’t remember key things like this.

Now, of course people change over time, and their preferences alter accordingly, but not this dramatically. Since I can recall, my favorite color has been pink, I’ve always had an illicit love-affair with diet Coke, I’ve always hated writing in blue ink, and, if given the choice, I prefer driving stick shift.

Will these always be the way of things? I don’t fucking know. I’ll be 29 in two months and these are things about me that have always just been the way of things.

Occasionally, things will pop up, things I never knew I liked. This blog, for example, would have been something I’d not have thought I’d like to do. I never was a writer (save for a butt-load of research papers), I never kept a journal, and if you’d have told me a couple years ago that I would have written a book AND gotten an agent or two, I would have expected that I had spree murdered a bunch of people and then written about it from my cell.

It was that far off my radar.

(I’ll tell you more about this in another post. o! the cruel suspense!)

Another oddity is gardening. My mother, as my brother and I both remember her (joint memories are a rarity), was a gardener. She’s no longer interested in it, but I grew up playing in the dirt and hoping that my Rich Other Family would swoop in and save me. We’d move to a castle and I’d make the servants garden for me.

My paternal grandfather was an avid horticulturist as well, so we’d spend most of the summers with him up at the Botanic Garden or in his green house. Some of my earliest memories are of the industrial sized fans that the greenhouses, which I was always transfixed by.

Now, I had a scanner (hint, hint hint, The Daver), I’d scan some pictures of me and insert them here to make my point, but you know, I’m sorely lacking in the scanner department…

Anyway, some of the best memories I have of childhood are playing in the greenhouse, the smell of fresh dirt and fertilizer in the moisture heavy air just makes my knees go weak. It’s the closest I can get to feeling safe and at home. There are tentative future plans for the installation of a greenhouse here for me, and I’m giddy just imagining it.

(why yes, I *am* an old woman!)

Last year, after my dueling miscarriages, I engaged in some post-miscarriage therapy in the form of digging out and bagging up approximately 6.2 million tons of moldy mulch from my side yard. I was preparing it for the addition of some peony bushes. Then, in a brilliant move no one could have predicted I not only got pregnant but then I fell down the stairs and hurt my ever-loving foot.

The side yard project was shelved and the weeds grew amuck (The Daver will always make sure I have top network speeds and fancy computers, but yard work is SO Not His Thing).

The peonies had to wait.

I went to the greenhouse (o! be still my heart!) this weekend, dragging The Daver away from the computer and picked up a couple of peony bushes. And a small hydrangea bush. I won’t bore you with pictures because I didn’t take them, and if I had, I’d just point out that my house has ugly yellow siding and that said siding needs a power-washing.

(I also engaged in some killing of buckthorns and snowball bushes this weekend, which, although incredibly satisfying, isn’t going to look as cool as my peonies. Because, obviously)

This year, I’m gonna reap just what I sow.

(that sounds more ominous than I intended)

————-

What’s something you didn’t know you liked that you now adore? Or something you couldn’t have predicted being good at?

Like you, I have plenty of ideas as to what makes a Good Blog. I don’t care for the sidebars of stuff that make my computer take forever to load, I think that music on blogs should be banned (because it scares the ever-loving shit out of me when I click on the blog), and I get a little skeeved when the owner is always begging for money.

Having a best friend in marketing, though, has made me notice things I’d have previously ignored. See, when I first started blogging–back when Jesus was my classmate–I had no idea that blogs could be used as a marketing tool. I couldn’t IMAGINE being asked to review something, much less have my audience want to read what I thought about the newest plastic wrap.

But after I started to read OTHER blogs, I noticed that some of the bigger bloggers ran review sites. Curious, I clicked over. It was just what you thought it would be: random blogger giving their (glowing) opinion on something or another. The reviews were unfailingly positive and often kind of dull. It wasn’t the bloggers fault, no, but how do non-marketing folks make the newest brand of paper towel sound interesting?

I mean, shit, I ignore the television commercials, and those cost a fucking ton of cash to professionally produce.

But print media as we know it is (sadly) going the way of the dodo bird, and advertisers have found the next media: The Internet. Especially blogs. Have a problem with a company and have a trafficked enough blog? Send the CEO a link to your scathing review and watch how quickly the situation is resolved. That’s some pretty powerful shit.

It might shock you to learn that I’m frequently contacted by companies asking me to review something or another for their company. I know, I’m just as amazed as you undoubtably are. I can’t believe that someone would want MY seal of approval or be associated with me.

Because I am no doubt VERY MATURE, I do the RIGHT THING and ignore these emails. I just haven’t decided if I should start a review blog. On the one hand, it’s immensely flattering that I’m asked but on the other, I feel enough like a sell-out simply having ads on my blog. I’m not a corporate writer or advertiser, I can’t sell stuff to save my own neck, and more than anything else: I have great pride in my blog and I don’t want to change what I say to conform to The Man.

And, as my friend Trish asked HER blog readers (she was talking about book reviews), because a company gives you a product to review, do you need to give that product a good review? I don’t think that I could. Honesty is more important than hurt feelings and bad press.

So here’s where I pose it to you, Internet (did I tell you that you look fucking hot in those jeans?): what do you think about review blogs? Should your Aunt Becky start one (because of my aforementioned ads, I cannot review stuff here) or would that make me too much of a sell-out? I genuinely cannot decide what to do.

And more importantly what annoys you about blog designs? I’m getting a redesign because I’m noticing a surge of this particular template around The Internet so I’m-a-goin’ custom.

*Defying all laws of time and space, the last month of pregnancy is significantly longer than the previous 8.

*All of the issues (nausea, sleepiness, vomiting, utter bat-shit craziness) that plagued you during trimester 1 will rear their ugly head yet again. Only it’s less charming this time.

*(especially if it’s your first baby) You’ll imagine each and every twinge to be the Start Of Labor and probably end up in L/D more times than you’d think only to be told that you’re not even contracting.

*After you have this baby, you’ll agree that nothing feels like labor except for…well, labor.

*Ending up in L/D and being sent home will make you feel more embarrassed than you’d imagine would be a logical reaction.

*Speaking of “logical,” you’re not. And you haven’t been for a long time. You won’t know how nuts you are until after the wee one comes and you realize that you no longer have any urge to clean the toliet with a toothbrush.

*Leaking pee will become a new and disgusting way of life. And you’ll occasionally think it’s your bag of waters breaking. It’s probably not. But, take it from me, get that fucker checked out.

*If you’re like me, the hospital bag you pack will go largely untouched, so don’t freak out. They’ll usually give you free ickle bottles of shampoo and the lot. Use these and then THROW THEM AWAY. Sure, you’re in L/D or Mother/Baby, but it’s still a hospital. And hospitals = germies.

*You will finally tire of talking about this baby because all that you can think about is how ready you are for this to be over.

*The fears of labor will quickly be replaced by the fears of never having this damn baby.

*Having wee feet kicking your internal organs and trying desperately to seperate your ribs from your spinal cord is just as charming (and painful) as you imagine it will be.

*Did I mention how off the rocker you are? Because you TOTALLY are.

*Once you hit 37 weeks, people will check in on you daily with one annoying question: have you had that baby yet? You may very well want to smack them.

*People will start snickering when you walk into a room. Presumably because you now look like Grimace. Or a Weeble.

*You will start to moan and groan every time you have to change positions. And you will be acutely aware of how dumb you sound and how feeble you now are.

*Try as best as you can to rest and revel in the attention people are paying to you right now. Because once that baby gets here, swollen and stitched up vagina and all, no one will give a flying crap about you. Just the baby.

*Your breasts are going to develop a mind (and body!) of their own. They will be equally as painful now as they were back in old trimester 1.

What am I missing, party people?

Even though it means I’m days closer to having The Daver go back to work–he takes the week between Christmas and New Years off–and thereby leaving me alone with my daemon (toddler) spawn, I’m so fucking happy that Christmas is over for the year.

I’m still pretty shocked by my reaction to the holidays in general this year: I’m normally THAT PERSON that you hate for being thrilled and awed when the Christmas stuff gets put out in the stores in August, and the person who reverently listens to Christmas album after Christmas album in my car in July. I get thrilled by spending ridiculous amounts of cash to give Martha Stewart a wrapping for her money, I carefully unpack and put out all of the 4,000 bins of Christmas decorations I’ve accumulated over the past years. I get misty-eyed when the Christmas programs start running on television, and I typically bake more cookies than anyone can possibly eat.

This year, however, was a bare-bones operation. And even still, as I sit among the piles of stuff that I need to sort and put away in their proper homes, I’m slightly blue that I wasn’t Feeling It this year. Don’t get me wrong: my sadness isn’t because I DIDN’T do the stuff, it’s because I DIDN’T WANT TO. And that is a-typical for me.

It’d be like waking up after having Cheerios as your favorite breakfast food for 25 years only to discover that now it tastes like battery acid to you.

But whatever. The whole fucking she-bang is done, and although we might all be suffering from massive Christmas Hangovers and a little crank-a-licious, we’re all pretty pleased that everything went off as well as it did. And moreover, it’s done! Praise Baby Jesus, it’s DONE!

Now is the time to hurry-up-n-wait for Amelia’s arrival, which will, of course, seem an eternity. Something about that last month(ish) of pregnancy seems to defy all Matters Of Time and yawn wildly into years.

Anyway. Moving on.

So, what would my obligatory Christmas post be without a good chuckle? Nothing much, I’m afraid.

I have this aunt and uncle, both of whom I adore completely and see (sadly) infrequently, but every year since I can remember, they travel to Costco, buy the sort of stuff you’d normally pass by and snicker at, and then wrap it up and send it to us. I’d like to imagine it’s a very cerebral joke as they’re both academics, but I somehow doubt it. I seem to bear the brunt of the weirdest of it.

This years take-home? A collectors box set of West Side Story for The Daver and I.

What’s wrong with that Aunt Becky? You may ask yourself. I mean, it’s a musical and it’s fun and who doesn’t love fun + musicals?

That would be The Daver and I. Especially moi, who tends to equate musicals with the type of torture that involves pulling out toenails and watching The Facts Of Life marathon on late night TV. I’m not only not a Movie Person, I’m REALLY not a Musical Movie Person. And I’ve never been, which left Daver and I mystified as to why on Earth we’d gotten this as a gift.

Certainly it would be an excellent gift for…someone. Just not us.

Thankfully, however, we were neatly able to pawn this puppy off on my father-in-law the following day and have been spared the inevitable back and forth we normally do with gifts like this. Now he, HE loved it. And I loved that I didn’t have to find someone else to give it to. Because it WAS a nice gift.

For someone else.

What was the weirdest thing you got this year as a gift?

(ed note: as my husband, The Daver, who is addicted to Work-a-hol is blissfully off for the next couple of days, I will be few and far between. I’ll be too busy watching him tackle 547 house projects that have gone unnoticed for the rest of the year.)

So, I’m pretty done with being sappy for the day. But hey, maybe with the 3! times we’re celebrating Thanksgiving this year, at some point I’ll get bitten by the Cheese Monster. Who knows?

But, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a sentiment brought to my un-creative mind by our friends at Somecards.com. Here is the link: http://www.someecards.com/upload/thanksgiving/this_thanksgiving_cherish_the_time.html

This Thanksgiving, cherish the time spent with your family as a reminder of why you moved away in the first place.

See, heartfelt AND true!

Happy Thanksgiving, Internet. Aunt Becky hearts you all madly.

Repost from October of 2005 that I found to be particularly disturbing. Please share your Rager comments with me to wrap me up in Internet Lovin’. I’m still a little disturbed re-reading it.

This afternoon, upon picking my son up from school, I decided to venture to the Greatest Place On Earth when you’re dieting. The Grocery Store. Our shopping experience was uneventful; I drooled over the non-diet food, even the stuff I wouldn’t have touched anyway, Ben pleaded for candy and no! vegetables! and my cart looked like a schizophrenic had gone shopping. Absolutely no different from any other time I’ve hit the store.

The true excitement only began when I tried to leave the store.

I’m waiting at the stop sign to turn on to North Blvd, about to head home. A car is approaching from the left with its turn-signal a-flashin’. I inch forward a bit, still in the parking lot, as I was taught to drive by The Most Anal Man Ever To Walk The Planet, his lectures still fresh in my mind, ‘œDon’t turn until you see the other guy’s wheels turn,’ “Signal Your Intent!” and the always super corny “Better Safe Than Sorry!”

When I look back at the other car, after checking to make sure the right lane was clear, the other guy has turned off his signal.

And stopped the car to honk loudly and gesture wildly.

At me.

This, being a pet peeve of mine, the Incessant Honking After I Have Clearly Stopped The Car and Thereby Present No Danger To You, irritates me. I’m not only a competent driver, I’m not reckless in any way–especially if my child is in tow–and I haven’t done a single honk-worthy thing. My car is standing completely still.

So I do the most mature thing possible, because I am as the French would say, ‘Grown-Up’, and I give him the ole One Finger Salute. I’m highly annoyed by his attitude and the one thing that’s keeping me from diving head-first into a bag of jelly beans.

Stupid fucking move, Aunt Becky, stupid fucking move.

If he was mad before, now he is on fire with anger, and he promptly sprints out of his car, headed straight for my car. To do, I don’t know what. Yell at me for flicking him off? Holler at my audacity to inch up at a stop sign to better visualize the cross traffic? Tell me about how I’m an idiot for not buying organic produce and bringing my own bags?

I just can’t be sure.

Let me make it absolutely clear that I had not gotten even CLOSE to hitting him. I was still physically in the parking lot, behind the white line at the stop sign. You wouldn’t have had to so much as swerve to avoid me.

So, all signs flashing ‘œDanger, DANGER Will Robinson!’ I take off like a bat outta hell. I’m not interested to find out if the man had gotten out of the car to tell me how beautiful I look today, offer me a bazillion dollars, or threaten the life of my son and I. Nope. Not interested at all.

I look back in my rearview mirror to see him standing in the middle of the road on his cell phone, likely trying to call in my plates. My heart pounded freakishly the entire way home, and I tumbled back to the condo as freaked out as I’d ever been.

What.The.Fuck.Man?

Ed Note: It’s been over 3 years since this happened, and I haven’t flicked off a single person since. Nor have I had any follow-up whatsoever from this incident, which one could hardly even call an “incident” since nothing happened.

But it still freaks me out to remember that. Rage, road or not, directed at the right or wrong person, is still damn frightening.