One of the things I am terrible at, besides, of course, flagrant overuse of commas, jumping in and out of tenses like it was my job (ed note: it is not my job), Misusing Capitol Letters, and generally making people uncomfortable with the assumed familiarity that a nickname like “Aunt Becky” brings, is updating my loyal Internet Army about things I’d previously whined about.

It’s not that I don’t HAVE updates or think to tell you of them, it’s just that without collecting several things to update you about at once, the post becomes even more boring than normal. If my blog reads “and then (dot, dot, dot) and then (dot, dot, dot)” even I become irritated.

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The Internet was both shocked and appalled that someone who has Crohn’s disease (or maybe NOT Crohn’s disease) would try a weight loss drug like Alli. And I was shocked and appalled that after cutting out butter as a food group, the scale zoomed up 12 pounds. Seemed mighty suspicious.

(my scale is broken)

But, because I’d tried Weight Watchers and found it to be too much work for someone barely sleeping and barely able to cook–thanks to a certain squally infant (read: The Daver)–I decided to go with Alli. Against the better judgement of many of my closest friends in the computer. Alli trumped a tapeworm (and since regular diet and exercise wasn’t cutting it), so I took my first pill with great trepidation.

I sat there at my computer for the first couple of hours, waiting for the butt-butter to liberally pour out of me. My diet wasn’t terrible to begin with–shockingly, I look as though I polish of boxes of Little Debbie every night–but everywhere I went I was told to not wear white pants (Thankfully for eyeballs everywhere, I do not own white pants), wear a panty-liner and to watch out for flatulence with particulate matter.

Terribly anticlimactic for me when absolutely nothing at all happened.

Save for this: I awoke the following morning–mornings are notoriously bad for my guts around these here parts–and waited for the spew, the pain and the cramping (this happens without Alli). It was only when I felt absolutely no pain whatsoever that I realized that I really HAD been in constant serious pain before this.

Day after day, I hesitantly popped the blue pill–waiting for the inevitable agony–and noticed that for the first time in many years, my guts felt oddly normal. Not like they were trying to eject themselves from my body cavity through my belly-button or like they were imploding. I’d never found anything–even Demerol–that controlled the pain I was in, I just sucked it up and dealt with it. Because what else CAN you do? Chronic pain is chronic pain and you get used to it.

So the drug that was supposed to induce terrible cramping, diarrhea and seepage made me…better. I swear on a stack of Bibles that I have never been more baffled.

I will admit before you, o! Internet, that I have indulged in some fattier meals and paid the price. The price was shockingly low, truth be told, and I’m not sure if it’s my particular GI anatomy or that I’m used to this pain, but I did pay. The oil, if you read in the wise comments I got on those posts, I should tell you, comes out of your body looking just like…oil. Neither here nor there, honestly, but sort of amusing.

I haven’t shat myself, ruined any pants (white or otherwise), and I’m not exactly sure if I’m seeing results. Like I said, my scale is broken, and I stupidly stepped on it a week or so ago while very bloated and noticed I’d gained a pound and a half. I moped about for awhile afterward and vowed to get the hell off the scale. It does me no good.

So there you have it. I am pretty pleased with it but cannot honestly tell you if I have seen results. I have no desire to be a slave to my scale, and I know soon enough my body will realize that it doesn’t desperately need my fat stores to feed a baby or nourish a fetus. Time will tell.

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Earlier this week, my agents schlepped off my book proposal to the first round of publishers in the first of many months of “hurry up -n- wait.” The beauty of agents is this: not only do they know what to do, you aren’t rejected YOURSELF. I am not subjected to the “You suck ass” rejection emails, and the few rejections I have been sent (by my agents) have been ridiculously flattering.

I realize I sound not terribly excited and I know that’s weird, but like I said, I won’t hear anything for MONTHS. I’d much rather be excited about my new site design or this fantastic bottle of blueberry flavored vodka Daver bought me.

Another one of those “time will tell,” “laughter heals all wounds” stupid platitudely bullshitty statements that serve to annoy most people.

Like me.

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Thanks to your votes, I made it into the top 5 Funniest Blogs, a title I know full well that I do not deserve. But I’m ridiculously flattered that I made it there and from here on out, the top 2 will be determined by a stealthy secret panel of judges. Actually, they’re not stealthy at all, they’re listed on the site somewhere, but I don’t read fine print and besides, what does it matter who these people are?

Cake Wrecks will somehow no doubt win both spots.

(I am super pumped to go through those posts and remove my pleas to you to vote for me. Because I felt like a total assbag begging you. Shit, I *still* feel like an assbag)

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Amelia is still working on rolling over which means one of two things:

1) She gets flipped onto her belly and becomes furious and indignant about it

B) She isn’t sleeping because all she wants to do is “roll, roll, roll.” Indignantly. She is obviously my child.

Her scar, rather than shrink like everyone seemed to think it would–which, in hindsight, makes very little sense to me–is expanding rapidly towards her forehead. I am no longer sure the hair in the back will easily cover it, but this is okay. Hats, oh hats, they will become our friend.

Although my brother seems to think that a scorpion tattoo would be even cooler.

The stretching of said scar has shown that I was correct: there is another fucking stitch back there to be removed. Awesome. Even creepier is that you can now see her skull implants. Which, yeah.

Anyway, before someone pipes up with, “AT LEAST SHE HAS FEET! HOW DARE YOU COMPLAIN WHEN THERE ARE PEOPLE WITHOUT FEET!!!” I’ll end this post with an adorable baby picture.

Maybe green and sparkly won’t be her first choice in headgear. Can’t win them all.

As some of you may recall, last summer I made mention of the words “book proposal” and “agents,” in regards to a Super Drooper Trouper (Grouper?) Tippy Top Secret project I’d been working on. Because somehow, a pair of agents (having agents PLURAL makes me sound impossibly cool, I know) had taken an interest to a collection of essays–much like blog posts but longer and better edited–I’d written and I put together a book proposal.

(I know, you can’t believe that I would be able to have the brain power to put together a proposal. Neither can I.)

Just as they were shlepping it out to publishers, the great crash of aught-eight occurred, and the publishing industry tightened up. Considerably. Which makes sense. If people are laid-off and facing foreclosure, I found it highly unlikely that they would consider shelling out $15 bucks for my pithy book.

But the bright spot in this sea of rejections was this: I had a couple of publishing houses suggest that I write up another different book, similar style, this one dealing with autism. Not one of those cure-all-vitamin-diet-no-vaccine-way; those have been done ad nauseum and I’m no damn authority on that anyway. Nor do I want to be.

No, what I ended up writing was a companion book. Not like a TRAVEL companion book or another-word-for-lover kind of book, no, not that book. A book that entertains you. Makes you feel less alone. Because with all of the therapy and cure-all’s and special schools and special needs that our kids get? We parents are left out in the dark. Hurting and scared, but afraid to talk about it because how dare you complain about your child? How dare you when there are so many that have it so much worse than you?

Having a child with special needs–especially as a young, single mother–was hard. It was isolating. It was lonely.

So this was the book I wrote: not what I thought I’d be writing about, but mine nonetheless. And this week the proposal will go out to publishers.

I’d gauge the likelihood of this book getting eagerly snapped up at about a 0.05 percent. Not because I’m trying to be self-deprecating or depressing and not because it’s not good: it is good, I know it is, but because I’m being realistic. It’s going to be damn near impossible to break into publishing right now.

And that’s okay. I wrote it. I’m proud that I wrote it. If this isn’t what I was supposed to do right now, well, at least I tried. Rejection (in this case) isn’t personal, and it doesn’t bother me. It is what it is.

I’m making this sound so much drearier than I feel about it. I’m thrilled, excited and completely reserved all at the same time.

So, let me end it on this note: this truck, if only for a moment, made me wish I had a septic tank: