It appears as though I am in the market for a new highchair, since Alex’s has been summarily destroyed by Captain Destructo himself (also destroyed is his crib).

I guess all that I can say about this crap-tastrophie of a weekend is this: hey, at least we’ve developed our Ninja-Like method of removing toxic wastes.

I managed to not only record a video of my daughter eating real! food! but edit it (or beg and plead with The Daver to do so for me) AND post it to Facebook* and now I am feeling all sorts of accomplished.

Hooray!

*We can be BFF! On FB!

You cannot tell me that no one maybe suggested to them that this might not be the graphic they…wanted to use.

———

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve found lately?

It’s taken me nearly four years now to finally get over the fact that while I wanted to elope to Vegas, The JOP, Detroit, wherever, I got a wedding instead. Sure, sure, blah, blah, blah, I am happy to be married to The Daver, whom I obviously don’t deserve, because if I did, I would have HAPPILY planned The Wedding of Doom for him without later whining to The Internet that what I’d really wanted was to be married by Elvis.

I wasn’t quite an anti-bride, but I was as close as it comes without that label displayed prominently across my fluffy white dress and perfectly coiffed up-do. I just had a hard time mustering up the energy it took to get worked up about place cards and first dances. Daver, on the other hand, wanted a proper wedding.

I’m not certain if it’s because his parents might have spontaneously combusted if he’d informed them that we weren’t getting married by God, instead by The Little White Chapel Drive Thru wedding guy, or if it’s because he’d been dreaming of His Wedding since he was a wee girl boy, but there I was in a white dress, pledging to love, honor and repay my now-husband. In front of Sweet Baby Jesus and all of our relatives and friends.

I couldn’t wait to leave.

No really, I couldn’t. Come over sometime and I’ll show you my perfectly arranged wedding album. You’ll see a lot of pictures of me, head buried into the side of The Daver’s face while he lovingly looks at me. And maybe, just maybe you’ll gaze upon us in our finery and say, “Now I bet THEY’RE whispering sweet nothings to each other.”

And you’d be horribly, awfully wrong.

In each one of those shots, you see, The Daver is talking me into staying. I wanted nothing more than to leave from the moment the photographer started taking shots of me any my girls in our undies in the church basement. Although I’m quite social, really, I couldn’t stand being the center of attention for an occasion that I was supposed to behave a certain way.

I knew I was supposed to be Bridely, but short of fluttering around and demanding that my bridesmaids do stupid stuff like fluff my dress and polish my nails, while complaining if someone dare express an emotion other than Pure Happiness for My Big Day, I was kind of baffled. I figured that bride’s didn’t swear, or have their underwear shoved unceremoniously up their ass crack or have their knees sweat. I figured they’d probably revel in their newly married status, and while that was all fine and good, I was hot, uncomfortable, nervous, and overall unhappy as hell.

Also? I was sick.

Really, really sick.

I’ve been blessed with a mere handful of chest colds in my life and the one I came down with the week prior to our wedding was the worst I’ve ever had. I could barely breathe without choking on phlegm, I coughed so hard that I could no longer sleep without sitting up at a 90 degree angle, and I was running ridiculous fevers.

So I did what any sensible bride-to-be would do: abso-fucking-lutely nothing.

I never claimed to be brilliant, did I? Because that would be telling a lie that lying liars tell. And lies? Make The Baby Jesus cry.

I then did something to top that feat of brilliance: I wore a corseted dress for over 12 hours.

(corseted dress = decreased lung capacity = lungs fill with more mucous than you thought possible = pneumonia)

I woke up the first morning as Mrs. David Harks (do not get me started on how much I hate this title. I hate it so much that my friends all make sure to address ALL the things they send to us as Dave and Mrs. David Harks. Because my friends are HILARIOUS) and felt like death. Blaming it on exhaustion and stress, Dave helped me drag my sad sack ass out to breakfast with some of my family, who was in town visiting.

Intelligently, while I had packed a wedding dress, makeup, white shoes (okay, they were cream. It was after Labor Day, and we ALL know how well I follow rules), a Guns-n-Roses garter, a diaper bag for Ben, bobby pins and a bra, I hadn’t packed anything to wear the First Day of The Rest Of My Life. Our miserable cat had taken a lovely piss all over the dress I’d worn to the rehearsal dinner, something, of course, I hadn’t realized until I was literally standing at the alter, wondering if Dave had peed himself.

Turns out he hadn’t. But I still had to go through the rest of the warm muggly summer evening smelling like a fucking cat box. What I’m saying is that this was the Best Day Ever.

So I had no dress to wear. Instead, I had an electric pink bra, an oversized Grateful Dead shirt (hey, don’t judge) and some hot pink mini-shorts that had the name of my alma mater on the ass cheeks. Also? Some rhinestone kitten-heeled sandals.

I know, I know, I was too sexy. Stop flattering me, I’m all embarrassed now.

After brunch, we went to my parents house to pick up some of the gifts we’d received and while we were there, I really started to have a hard time breathing. Every time I took a breath in, I coughed so badly that I would have peed my pants had my bladder been full.

Our honeymoon was the following morning, and I had pneumonia.

On our way back home, I really REALLY had a hard time breathing, so I had The Daver take me to the ER. It was a Sunday and we’d moved into an area where I knew of absolutely no urgent care facilities, so off to the ER I went, looking like a cracked out whore and sounding like I’d been smoking cigars by the bushel* since I was 12 minutes old.

The lovely–for once no trace of sarcasm here–ER doctor gave me a script for some big guns antibiotics and some codeine and I was sent on my merry way. The first thing I was able to sign my freshly married name to? A nice fat ER bill.

But I swear, next time I am SO eloping. Or demanding a script for Vicodin as a wedding present. Because THAT would have eased my pain like no amount of vodka could have.

How are YOU today?

*How many is a bushel?

You know what I hate MORE than John Mayer’s douchiness* and mayonnaise combined? I know, what could top that?

What tops that is feeling like I walked into the middle of something I don’t quite understand. It’s probably what keeps me away from most TV series, which if my mother was correct and television truly DOES rot your brain, means that my grey matter is relatively unscathed. Well, what hasn’t been addled by illicit drug use and/or The Drink, I mean.

So please allow me to introduce myself, I’m (not) a (wo)man of wealth and fame. My name is Becky Sherrick Harks, and yes that is my real name and no I probably don’t talk about you, and yes it’s likely that most people I know read this blog and no that doesn’t squigg me out too much. But you can call me Aunt Becky.

No, no, relax, I’m not REALLY your aunt. If I was, you’d probably have at least gotten a coffee stained Christmas card from me or heard some story about how this one time That Aunt Becky did something really stupid and man, let’s make sure to hide the china when she comes over, because she has Those Shifty Eyes. So we’re not really related. Except on The Internet. The assumed familiarity of such a nickname never fails to crack me up, because I normally find that kind of faux closeness sort of irritating.

But this is The Internet, and we’re all friends here.

(don’t tell me otherwise. Because THINK OF THE CHILDREN PEOPLE. *wrings hands nervously*)

This is my blog.

I started blogging back in Aught Four over at another blog, sort of an anti-blog, blog, back when I didn’t realize that you could have a blog and somehow not be lame at the suggestion of my then-boyfriend now-husband The Daver. Apparently he got tired of me flapping my flippity-flap jaw at him and decided that plugging me into a computer was a wiser idea. I’m still not sure on that one, but I’m imagining that Daver’s ears are all high-fiving him for nice call, bro.

I started Mommy Wants Vodka sometime in Aught Seven after my second son was born and all my childless friends started blocking my calls. I guess there’s something really fucking boring about having to listen to someone endlessly whine about having a ridiculously crabby, clingy baby when you’re out clubbing and having hot sex on kitchen tables with random people. Somehow diaper rash and spit up doesn’t compare.

Sometimes I blog about my kids. Benjamin, who is staring down the nose of Eight (which, I should mention, is a much better time than Seven), the clone of The Daver, aside from that pesky biological aspect of it. But what’s biology got to do with it anyway? (this is a rhetorical question, people) He’s on the autistic spectrum, but who isn’t? (apparently this paragraph is all about rhetorical questions)

Alexander is my two-year old and requisite Momma’s Boy. Most days I think he’d happily crawl back into my uterus for the foreseeable future, not because he’s shy or anything, but because he loves me THAT MUCH. He’s loud and abrasive, obnoxious and charming, kind of like me.

Our last crotch parasite is Amelia, who was born in January of Aught Niner. She’s had a string of health-related issues stemming from a neural tube defect called an encephalocele. The really abridged version is that part of her skull was badly formed–stupid skull–and some of, well, I don’t know how to say it without freaking you out, but here goes: part of her brain developed out there. This is not, as you may imagine, a particularly good thing.

All’s well though, or as well as it can be for now, after corrective surgery and her development is being followed by so many government agencies that next year when I have to renew my driver’s license, I’m pretty sure the DMV clerk is going to take a look at my last name and say, “OH! You’re AMELIA’S mother. We know ALL ABOUT HER.” But it will sound less creepy and lecherous when they say it. Our fingers are crossed that she continues down The Normal Path, and so far, so good.

The Daver, as previously mentioned, is the husband I didn’t know I would be lucky enough to have is one of the few people who can tolerate me for long periods of time. Which is probably a good thing, since I happily remind him now and again as I point at his wedding band, “You see this ring? IT MEANS I OWN YOU.”

I’m only half kidding.

He blogs too, or he SAYS he does, but we all know that is a lie, but now and again I convince him to guest-post for me here and he says the same thing I always do. He tells me that I have the nicest audience ever. Which is totally true. I do.

As for me, I was born in 1980, July 15, to be exact (the day after Bastille Day), which makes me a Cancer and according to my astrological dohickey, I should probably be more sensitive. Like by nature or something. But sensitive is something I’m pretty sure no one has ever described me as unless they’re being completely sarcastic, and that’s just fine by me.

I’m a retired nurse, which sounds awfully shady when you work out the details and realize that that makes me retired by age 26, but it turns out for all my overachieving student ways, you can’t fake being a nurse. I’d gotten my bachelor’s in nursing in 2005, the profession chosen for the ability to net paychecks–upon graduation–that netted me did not read so-and-so measly dollars. I’d been a single parent when I walked into the program, and I walked out 2 months short of my wedding day and as my cards fell, it turned out that my happiness was worth more to Daver and I than my paychecks.

If you can believe it (and I can’t really believe it myself), I have netted myself a set of agents and put together a book proposal that’s currently sitting on the desks of some major publishing houses. Don’t be too jealous, though, my chance of getting published–unless a publishing house is exercising some excruciatingly bad judgement–is about three tenths of a percent. I only mention it here because occasionally I do reference it, and, well, who the hell would have thought that I was a writer?

(answer: not me)

My life has pretty much not gone at all the way that I expected it to, and while you could read that statement as: “Oh my GOD, she’s whining about her life when there are people in the world without FEET” it’s not the way I mean it. It’s just that everywhere I thought I’d be is nowhere where I actually wound up.

It’s a good thing, I think. Never thought my life would be so un-glamorous, always figured that I would travel to third world countries** while curing ingrown toenails and cancer, but I’m okay with that. Less chance for ebola here. I like to think.

I typically yammer out a post a day here, because it’s nearly impossible for me to get back into writing once I’ve taken a break. Whether what I say is good or not is debatable, but it’s my blog and I’ll post stupid pointless drivel if I want to. And just so you know, I really meant the whole kumbaya I heart the blogging community. I do try and catch up with anyone who catches up with me because I am married to a geek, I have a twitter account, a facebook account***, 47 email addresses (aunt.becky.sucks@gmail.com) and a nifty comment box.

If you want me, you got me.

I’m happy with what I do, I write, I raise kids, I sleep when I’m able, and usually have more heaped on my plate than I can ever possibly accomplish. It’s not where I thought I’d be, but then again, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Now that you’ve met me, Internet, Your Aunt Becky, what about you? Tell me about YOU. Or, alternately, what did I thoughtlessly not answer here that you’re going to lose sleep over if I don’t explain?

*But man, can he play a mean guitar

**A goal of mine always has been and will be (until such time as I am able to realize it, several years down the road) to join Doctor’s Without Borders or, if you want me to sound more cultured Médecins Sans Frontières. Yes I am serious.

***We can totally be BFF! On FB! OMG, IDK!

My family is big on traditions. Probably not the same ones that your family practices because, well, unless they make Shwetty Balls* for Christmas, it’s likely that ours may be unique to our twisted family. One of the more innocuous ones happens to be the Chicago Auto show, which comes to town every February like clockwork, and like a well oiled machine, some members of my family always go.

It’s mandatory for some, optional for others.

Members of my family have braved blizzards, ice storms and power outages to make it out for the auto show. It’s just that important. I’m surprised that Mr. (Dr.?) Darwin doesn’t have something to say about that, but let’s just leave it at stupidity clearly being genetic a genetic trait and move on.

As for me, like my parents’ anniversary, which has always ended in disaster one way or another, I tend to keep it OFF my calendar because Something always comes up. That Something changes year to year, but it’s safe to say that I’ll probably never get to go again. And not, like you may imagine, because I want to avoid it.

I do happen to have a vagina and I do happen to like both power tools and cars (lest you think me a closeted lesbian, I also like Chanel bags), and the auto show is always a blast. But many years ago now when I was 16 or 17, I went with my father and my uncle out to McCormick place and oogled cars.

Nothing like looking at cars can make a person work up an appetite, so afterwards, we traditionally go to China Town for lunch/dinner (linner?). It’s been awhile since I’ve gone with (for the aforementioned sinister-sounding Something has kept me apart) but I’d bet you that there’s a traditional restaurant they eat at every year as well.

The year I’m talking about, though, it was just my uncle, my father and I that went. My brother was off being Continental and/or Worldly and I was just pumped to be able to take a day off from high school where I didn’t have to have one of my friends call me in. And going to china town had a specific mission for me: I wanted a Kimono top.

(don’t judge)

(stop judging)

(seriously, knock that judgey shit OFF, I was COOL)

(shut UP)

My uncle had begged off, perhaps to go meet up with one of his motor head buddies–he’s an AVID Corvette Guy, which should mean something if you know any other Corvette People–so it was just my dad and I together in the store.

My father, I must explain, is one of the most modest people about the human body that I’ve ever met. I was an OOPS baby, I have an MUCH older brother, and I’d be willing to bet that my father had never imagined having a daughter, much less have to deal with her when she grew boobs. As a teenager, whenever I’d pop back downstairs on the way back to bed in an oversized shirt (nothing, I should add was hanging out), he’d scream, “ACK, PUT SOME CLOTHES ON, REBECCA!” Then he would cover his eyes dramatically and refuse to open them again until I went upstairs.

And they say drama doesn’t run in families. (don’t they?)

He’d carry on whenever I was nursing one of the babies like I was flagrantly prancing about the room in pasties and a g-string trying to give my relatives a lap dance, and it’s grown to be sort of a joke. Aren’t you glad that YOUR family is so normal now?

But the fact that I had boobies now made him uncomfortable, and while I certainly didn’t really worry about my dad seeing me in my bra since he had, at one point (although, I should mention, not for many years) changed my poopy drawers, I respected that.

So he stood very uncomfortably at the front of the woman’s clothing boutique in China Town while the owner, a very nice lady, was trying to fit my decidedly Western shaped frame (which, doesn’t Western-shaped give you the mental picture of a cowboy boot or the state of Texas? Because it does me) into a Kimono top. I probably tried on 10 or 15 until I found one that didn’t make me look stupid.

(shut UP)

I told her I’d take it, the beautiful dark blue silk shirt with those crazy-cool clasps at the neck, and she took it up front to the register to ring it up. I finished piling my layers of winter clothes back on and carefully made my way back to the front of the store. I had to contort myself into all kinds of odd angles to get past the wall-to-wall racks of clothes, but finally there I was, at the front of the store. My dad looked relieved and somewhat red-eyed from the incense that was filling the room with sweet smelling acrid smoke and he whipped out his wallet and handed me some bills.

I went up to the register, where the lady had packed my new shirt into a plastic bag adorned with the store’s logo on it and looked at my total. As I was combining bills to pay her, she leaned forward, conspiratorially about to tell me something. Wondering if she was going to mention that she had an excellent supply of either opium or switchblades, I leaned it too.

“So,” she began, quietly but excited. “Is that your boyfriend?” Hand to God, she gave me a wink as she said boyfriend. She said it with unabashed glee, like a gossipy girlfriend who is about to tell you HOW FUCKING LUCKY YOU ARE to be dating the quarterback, because, like, he’s SO hot.

My mouth flopped open like a carp and I gaped openly at her. My BOYFRIEND?

“No,” I caught my tongue. “He’s NOT my boyfriend. He’s my father.”

She stared at me, I stared back and quickly paid. I guess there’s nothing like finding out that someone thinks that you’re

a) 20 years older than you are

b) that your father is 20 years younger than he was

3) People my age could actually manage to date guys my dad’s age.

I’m pretty sure when I told him this in a furtive whisper as we left the store, that the remaining half of his hair just went made a FUUUMP sound and all popped out of their follicles in one big bang. Had I been in the process of balding myself, I have a feeling my follicles would have let ’em go too.

I was thinking of reminding him of this story until I remembered that he’d probably forgotten this one on purpose and am leaving it at telling The Internet. Because obviously.

Now YOUR turn, Internet, come sit next to Aunt Becky here on the couch *pats seat.* I want to hear some crazy awkward stories as I address these envelopes for all of you. If you haven’t heard from me at all or sent me your address, shoot me an email to aunt.becky.sucks@gmail.com. I am on the edge of my seat here, itching to know what you are going to come up with.

Well, I’m not technically ITCHING but, you know.

*beats “no cowbell” for best SNL skit by a mile

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.

Saturday morning found me fast asleep in my very own bed, dreaming contentedly about mountains of marshmallow frosting and inexplicably John Mayer (who, I should add, I find to be a complete douche. With amazing talent. But a douche. But damn, can that white boy play or what?), when through the door burst The Daver carrying Alex. Not entirely unlike the time the Incident When Alex Ate A Dime, but now Alex was 2 and no longer a baby.

Before I knew it, he’d thrust Alex into bed with me, unceremoniously, and while I was delighted to see my son, after a full two painful days away from him, I was suitably UNDERwhelmed to hear what came pouring from The Daver’s mouth.

“I’m sorry to wake you up, I know you got in late, but look at Alex’s eye.”

Alex was laying on his hands on top of me and all I could see was his gigantic hair covered head, and his eye was out of sight. Finally, he popped his face up to look at me (and thankfully did NOT thrust his tiny fingers into my eye socket as punishment for leaving him) and I saw it.

Since the last time I’d seen my son, his eye had…well, grown. It was now approximately the size and shape of a small nation and swollen nearly shut. I could see the purplish streaks that signified bruising from the sudden influx of fluid into his eyelid. Knowing that if something had happened, say, he’d been knocked out in a prizefight or maybe defended my honor against some other toddler who was knockin’ HIS mom, I’d have been told, my heart sunk.

By the grace of God, I forced myself as awake as I could be and sat up. As I wrapped my hammy arms around my son and pulled him close, I sighed deeply.

Alex had cellulitis. Again.

It’s been years since I actively practiced nursing, but I remember several things vividly from nursing school:

1) A code brown best avoided

2) I was a terrible nurse

3) Cellulitis was a big fucking deal.

This cinched it for me: I wasn’t going to be going back to Chicago for BlogHer. Nope. No more $36 dollar bottles of diet coke for me. No more swag and no more marketers. Hell, I wouldn’t even get to meet half the people I’d wanted to meet which is the only thing about the prospect of staying home that made my heart wear a frowny face.

But such is life.

I sent Dave downstairs to put a call in to Alex’s pediatrician while I put on pants as Alex stared at me, making me sort of uncomfortable. He eyed me warily; his one eye studying me very seriously. I’d left him once, he knew, and he wasn’t about to let me out of his (one-eyed) sight again until he was sure I wasn’t going to recklessly abandon him again.

The poor kid had had a bout of cellulitis mere months ago, also orbital (read: around the eye) but this time in the other eye, and I knew that we were about due for another ER visit. I’m telling you, my ER Frequent Flyer Punch Card is nearly full! I’m almost due for a free emesis basin OR I can wait and upgrade to some IV tubing!

The last time, we’d avoided being admitted for IV antibiotics by the skin of our teeth, and I wasn’t taking any chances this time around. We dragged our sad sacks to Alex’s normal doctor, who seemed shockingly unconcerned, discomfortingly telling us to “wait and see.”

Which, hi, I’m cool with waiting and seeing about, oh I don’t know, an ear infection, or a skinned knee, or what crazy outfit Britney will wear next but with orbital edema so severe that my son could now not see at all out of one of his eyes?

The doctor was, apparently as he told us, still pissed that someone had called him at 3AM complaining of a swollen hand from an earlier bee sting. Which sucks, no doubt, but this is my son’s eyesocket, not a boo-boo on his knee.

My professional opinion? Fuck you and fuck that.

It was back to the ER with us. And hey, all’s well that ends well, and we got the script for some antibiotics…

(I feel I should disclose here, in order to assure you that we are not exactly hypochondriacs, that this is the second time Alex has been on antibiotics in his 2.5 years on this planet. And the second time that he’s been to the MD for anything OTHER than a well-baby visit. The first time? Follow-up from the LAST bout of cellulitis)

…and he’s feeling much better. The swelling has gone down while the bruising has gone up, so he really looks like he’s got a pretty rad shiner. I’ve always been fond of a black eye, I told him today, and he just looked at me like I was the world’s biggest idiot.

Because, well, at 2 my son has discovered what the world already knows: I am the world’s biggest idiot.

But anyway. You read my blog. You know I’m a moron. This is not national news.

Here’s what is.

(no it’s not)

(no, really, it’s not)

So, BlogHer gives away a bunch of swag, no? I’m sure you heard of it, what with the hoards of stampeding bloggers rushing the bags and elbowing kids out of their damn way (damn fool kids!). These are not lies, no.

I have a fool ton of stuff. Some of it I’ll use, but most of it? I took because I did not know what else to do with it. It could be useful to other people, but for as much shit as I have in my house, I don’t need any additional, and I was struggling what to do with all of it. There’s some pretty good stuff among the ads and coupons (those I tossed).

I was also stuck trying to figure out what to do with the huge ass stack of business cards I’d been told I needed to bring to BlogHer but didn’t get to pass out because I am a loser who went home early and then had to take her very ill son to the hospital. The loser part is incidental and irrelevant, because, remember, I win at LIFE, Internet.

So let’s do something with this stuff, since it would be green to reUSE it. Anything you don’t like, you can give away to your least favorite relative for Christmas. Here’s what my friend Lola suggested.

Leave me a comment, I’ll email you for your address, or email me outright (aunt.becky.sucks@gmail.com) and then I’ll send you some business cards.

(Pithy Aside/Reassurance: do not worry about me stalking you, should you disclose your address to me. I have 0% attention span AND I am lazy. Plus, Dave is the only other adult in the house and I just asked him my middle name, so that I could prove to you that he is forgetful. His answer? Elizabeth. My middle name? Sherrick)

Do something high-larious with the cards–you know, take ’em out for drinks, give ’em to your friends, whatever–send me the pictures documenting what you did.

No, not like rubbing one off on them, because ew, but you know. Something creative, or funny, or just plain weird. I’ll throw up the pictures with a link to your site and we can vote. Whomever wins, gets some of the BlogHer stuff and some other obviously hilarious crap that I pick out for you. No, not like old banana peels and breast pump parts. It’ll be like a grab bag of The Awesomeness. But in gigantic box form.

And if THAT doesn’t sound appealing, leave me a comment telling me something else I can do with these cards. I mean, I feel like a tool keeping them, because what the shit do I do with them? No seriously, WHAT do I do with them?

We’ll run this contest until, oh, I don’t know, how about September 8? Because that’s Daver’s birthday and this should help me remember it. See, Internet, I love YOU more than I love The Daver.

Then you cannot say that Your Aunt Becky never gave you anything besides the urge to punch her in the head. Because that, my friends, is the universal gift Your Aunt Becky gives to everyone who meets her.

*Blogher didn’t REALLY break my kid. Just my soul. Whatever was left of it, I mean.

I’ve said it before, and I’ve meant it every time: I don’t tend to win stuff. I mean, I win at LIFE and all that, but that’s one of those things people say to The Losers when really they’re snickering behind your back because shit, no, you really don’t win anything. Sucks to be YOU.

Here is a brief rundown of the things I have not–and will not–won:

• The Lottery. While I don’t ever PLAY it, I’m as shocked as you to report, they don’t just give you the winnings for saying off-handedly to the overweight and stoned cashier that you’d like to win it one day as you bought your large Diet Coke.

• My 3rd Grade classes 3-legged race. Because I fell down and ruined it all. Hey, what else is new?

• Prom Queen. Because I was too busy being drunk and hot-tubbing at a party to remember to get all gussied up and shake my booty to a PG version of “Brown Eyed Girl” with the whole “makin’ love in the green grass” part taken out. Because THINK OF THE CHILDREN! *cue handwringing*

• The genetics that would make me 5’11 with long blonde hair (that is always romantically windblown, even inside), a teeny waist, and a nice rack.

• Class President. Now, I wasn’t campaigning for it, nor would I have wanted to actually BE Class President, but I need to tell you that there was no grass-roots movement to get me elected. I KNOW, right? The UNFAIRNESS of it all.

• An Heiress. I’m not really particular about which family, so long as I can sleep in a vault of money and pay someone to wipe my butt after I poo. While I know this isn’t something that’s really “won,” it’s another example of how wanting something badly enough doesn’t do any good.

After all, not everyone can be an astronaut.

When I was nominated for Funniest Blogger, a contest I didn’t even know was going on until a sweet Twitter Gnomie put me up for it, I was shocked. I told The Daver that I was now up for the award and then proceeded to laugh as I listed my competition. Because the competition should have kicked my lily-white ass to the curb and then made me buy it breakfast at IHOP.

And yet.

And somehow.

I won.

I tied for winner with Cake Wrecks, which is pretty much saying that Dooce and I won the same award. It’s like winning something alongside THE POPE. Which, hi, not going to happen. Except when it does. Because it did.

I’m as shocked as you are.

I’ll give you a minute to let this sink in because I’m still all, “I thought Punk’d went off the air when the dude from it married that old lady from Ghost.”

….

….

….

….

….

Done? Angrily writing nasty-grams to the organizers of the Social Luxe awards informing them of how very wrong their decisions were? I kind of want to send one myself, although, not for Cake Wrecks. They were a shoo-in. Starting hate blogs devoted to me yet? Telling Barrack Obama that he should fire me from life?

But no. They’re never going to pry the awesome award out of my nubbly little fingers as long as I live and breathe. I’m considering naming the trophy something like, “Bob” or “Earl” or “Princess Grace of Monaco” and sleeping with it at night. Maybe I’ll take it for carriage rides and long walks on the beach; maybe I’ll dress it in the teeny-tiny new baby clothes that my children will never wear again. Maybe I will take it out to dinner in lieu of going with my family members.

Because that’s what Winners do, right?

Wait, I thought you were up for Funniest LOOKING Blogger, Mom!

Nom, nom, nom, so THAT’S what victory tastes like. Hm. Minty.

Keep your hands off my deranged looking husband, and I will cut a bitch if you go near my award. I have a feeling absolutely no one will try and touch the award now. He’s like my own personal vault. Only human.

Thank you so much to everyone who voted for me, even if you’d interpreted it as the Funniest LOOKING Blogger. I really, honestly couldn’t have done this without you. Shut up! I am NOT crying! I have ALLERGIES. And a GLANDULAR problem, people!

—————————–

Here are the other winners as I don’t think they’ve been put up online yet. You should absolutely go and check them all out:

Blogs We’ve Learned the Most From: I Heart Faces & The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Most Inspiring Blog: Nie Nie Dialogues & The Spohrs are Multiplying

Most Provocative Blog: The Bloggess & Her Bad Mother

Tastiest Blog : This Week For Dinner & The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Funniest Blog: Cake Wrecks & Mommy Wants Vodka

Best Eye Candy Blog: I Should Be Folding Laundry & whatever

Guiltiest Pleasure Blog: MamaPop & Craftastrophe

Alex well, has The Cellulitis again. I’d make a joke like, “You should SEE the other guy!!” But I’m just not laughing right now.

My Jr. Lightweight Champion.

One of the pathetic stipulations I had for a college besides:

1) not advertised on television

2) offers stuff-n-things OTHER THAN A degree promised to allow me a career in an exciting technical field

was that I could access it by train.

See, for all the awesomeness that is St. Charles, it’s fucking impossible to get to or from. It’s not by any convenient highways or byways, but it’s not quiiittee far enough away from anything that whining loudly that ‘it’s too faaaarrr‘ will get you anywhere. Besides a hefty roll of the old eyeballs. The benefits from a cost/benefit analysis show that without a doubt, this is The Best Thing For Us All, so we deal with these minor annoyances.

Obviously using the haunting good grace that I am known to handle everything else with (read: no grace whatsoever).

But back then I also lived it St. Charles, only un-hipply (not un-hippIE because that would be weird) with my parents and my one-year-old son, The Benner. And I was in dire need of figuring out What To Do With My Life. After some teeth-gnashing and a good hard look at my future, I chose to get my undergrad in nursing at a college about 40 minutes away.

Also (and most importantly) it was on the train line. I’m not positive that if I’d been promised truckloads of cash driven to my front door by pursuing my undergraduate degree in underwater basket weaving, I’d have done so if I’d had to commute by car.

So, train it was! Hooray!! Bonus! Win-Win!!! Hooray!! Everyone wins!!! Yay!!!!

(note the flagrant use of exclamation points to really drive the point home. THAT’S how you know I’m serious.)

Except, hahaha, not so much. Turns out that wasn’t what I was going to do with the rest of my life. Because I’m still waiting to find out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. I’m not sure if this–like my ability to single-handedly lose my wallet 47 times an hour–is something to be proud of of.

I did ride the train every day, to and from school, and while I was initially irritated by that mandatory time stuck doing jack squat, I learned to love that part of my day. There’s something kind of romantic about being on a train. I guess it’s partially a throw back to The Olden Days–and let me assure you that most of the train cars in service today really are from those days–and partially just, I don’t know. I sort of feeling like I’m Really Traveling if I’m on a train.

And as time passed, I made a number of friends who rode the train with me. We’d study, or shoot the shit, or just be blessedly still for half an hour. These included some of the people in my classes and even a couple of my science professors. I’d gone from feeling like a total Failure At Life to having an identity of my own.

I was an over-achieving student, top of my ever-loving class. I became. TA for the upper level sciences. I had friends. I had something I could now identify myself as and be proud of.

I look back on that time and smile. A genuine smile, not an ironic or bitter one.

I took the train into the city on Wednesday at the ass crack of 6PM after I hadn’t been on one in at least three years. I can assure you that nothing, NOTHING has changed. Same strawberry-urine scented urinal cake smell, same entitled passengers*, same sweat-stained windows.

(*Back when I took the train 5 days a week, I was always sure to pick up a copy of their monthly newsletter. While I flagrantly ignored the boring stuff about safety and other stuff that I wouldn’t know what it was because I never read it, I always giddily ran for a copy when the new ones came out.

Because on the back of this, was a page of pure gems. The company would reprint some of the Letters To Someone Who Pretends To Give A Shit and they were comedy gold. Honestly. They really should come up with a book of these sorts of letters because seriously, they were that good.

Amidst the people complaining about delays and ice and those horrible rude people with suitcases who take! up! 2! seats! (this person, in her letter, referred to those people as “Piggy People.” Because how DARE someone need to use a SUITCASE!), was nestled my personal favorite. I will try to paraphrase it for you.

Dear So-And-So,

Here’s what makes me REALLY mad!!!! Those people who leave behind the newspapers after they’ve read them, so that other people can read them!!! That’s nice and all, but you know what? I am SO MAD when I see that they’ve completed the crossword puzzle!!!!!!

Signed,

I Am The Most Entitledest Person Ever!!!!!!

I mean, the NERVE of someone who spent THEIR money on a paper to actually put INK to the paper! They obviously should have graciously left it blank for you, oh person who is too cheap to buy their own paper.

Bwahahahahaha! *wipes tears from eyes* Bwahahahahaha!

You just can’t make this shit up.)

Well, The Internet, it turns out you CAN go home again.

After I wrenched myself away from a screaming Alex, and hauled my bag up those stairs again, it was like stepping into my old life. I half expected to see my grody red suitcase (note to self: buy cooler suitcase) turn into an Organic Chem book, my iPod to gain 3 pounds, and the spare tire in my gut to melt away.

But there I was. Seeing myself back 6 years ago. When my son was my only baby. When I wasn’t married. When I had a job, a waistline, and a completely different life. I’d never heard of a blog. Never considered that I might actually house a wanna-be writer in my wanna-be scientist body.

And look at where I ended up. Never thought I’d be where I am, never in a zillion years. I’m not sure I’d have believed it if you told me. No, I take that back. I am absolutely CERTAIN I would have laughed in your face had you told me where I’d end up.

I stay home. I write. I have three fucking kids. I write. I fantasize about sleeping and about wearing pants without elastic bands. Although, I should add, I do not fantasize about sleeping WITH pants without elastic bands. I drive a mini-van. An UGLY GOLD mini-van.

Everything is different and somehow nothing has changed.

Et tu, Internet?