Since I already post typically once per day, I have signed up for National Blog Posting Month, wherein I have agreed to post each day. INCLUDING WEEKENDS. I guess I’ll have to clear my busy social schedule (hahahahaha. See, it’s a joke because I don’t have a social calendar any longer.)
(weeps uncontrollably).

Admit it people, you think I’m awesome. And by awesome, I mean completely lame.

Thanks, Niobe for the idea. Let’s see if I can do this thing.

I’ve spent most of my adult life waiting for that other shoe to drop. Similarly, I’d imagine, somewhat to relatives of patients afflicted by Huntington’s Chorea. Whether it is a blessing or curse, a genetic test is available to determine their fate. What horrid knowledge that must be. What a terrible burden to be able to ascertain whether or not they will someday cease to control simple bodily movements, slowly losing their physical identity, and ultimately become an invalid. I wonder if I would be brave enough to undergo that testing.

There is no known test for mental illness, only a bit of evidence that the disease may have a genetic link, much like alcoholism. So those of us with a close genetic relative afflicted (especially with both) must simply watch and wait, fearful that each and every irrational emotion, every outburst, each tear may be the start of something far more terrible and ominous. The end of every bad day is met with relief, a feeling of dodging a nasty bullet once again.

The downside of up here, is that I tend never to overreact or let myself be overcome with any kind of emotion without examining it explicitly and exhaustively. This is something that my husband claims to appreciate, while assuring me that it is a rarity. I’d never thought of it like that.

I look back at pictures from my childhood, and it’s interesting to note that one can actually determine when my mother began her decent into madness. Her youngest child, her only daughter, began to transform in front of my adult eyes from an obviously well-groomed and loved child into someone who it appears is suddenly expected to care for herself and has no earthly idea how to do so.

This visual reminder of her illness has bothered me so tremendously that I had to stop sorting and organizing the pictures. So now they sit in my bedroom in a large Tupperware container waiting patiently for me to face my own demons.

Tickity-tock, tick-tock. Time will tell, it always does.

Let the record show once and for all that I am not a Video Game Person ™. You’d never know this by the vast amount of video game systems that currently reside with us, though, as the two oldest males in my home are obsessed. Honestly, it doesn’t bother me much unless I’m trying to have some sort of conversation with either of them while they are trying to “beat this guy! C’mon Mom/Becky! THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!” With as self-centered as I happen to be, I cannot believe that ANYONE wouldn’t want to hang onto my every word (truthfully, I also cannot believe that video games are EVER “important.” Bring on the hatemail, people.), so this tends to offend me.

Several months ago, we happened upon a Wii, which thrilled and delighted both Dave and Ben. Overall, I think that it’s pretty neat and I even have a game that I occasionally play (go Elebits!), and Dave wouldn’t admit it but I can totally whup him in bowling.

Ben had his best friend over yesterday, and he mentioned that we had a Wii. Bad move, BAD, BAD move, as I am pretty sure that this child is never going to leave my home again. Suddenly, I may have to resort to ninja-like stealth to enter and exit my house so that I don’t have to sit, watch, and mediate golf and bowling and somehow figure out how the hell to work the damn box. Because, Lord knows, a game isn’t nearly as awesome without an adult watching it and cheering vigorously for both children WHILE troubleshooting something I know nothing about.

His friend even suggested offhandedly that the Wii could perhaps come over to HIS house when Ben wasn’t at home. You know, in case it got lonely and needed another 6 year old boy to keep it company. It was with great pleasure that I informed him that Dave might cry without it.

This child’s school lets out a bit before Ben’s does, and man, I tell you, I’m going to have to barricade myself in the basement and turn on some tuneage to block out the doorbell and subsequet weeping and pleading.

10 years ago, if you’d asked me what I’d expected to do with the rest of my life, I’d have probably told you that I’d be backpacking across the Aboriginal jungle or a commentator on E! news. I am quite certain that had I been able at that age, to see a 5 minute snapshot of my life now, as it actually turned out, I would never have believed it. Not for one tiny second.

We went out to lunch today, and by nature of either the restaurant accoustics or the fact that this chick had the most amazingly grating voice known to man, we got to overhear nearly a full conversation of a girl of probably 22 or 23. Really, by conversation, I mean monologe (I actually began too feel sorry for her friend, as this chick spent the whole 35 that we were there talking about herself. I almost told her to go get herself a blog. OH SNAP!). And boy, OH boy was this girl deluded.

She had it all planned out: where she was going to live, when she was going to be married (despite just “dicking around with this guy,” her actual words), the age in which she would have kids. I mean, no words can describe just how sure she was of the way her life was going to turn out. It was sort of cute, but it completely dated her.

The way that I see it, growing up is mainly just letting go to the notion that you have control over a whole lot of anything in life. I’m not trying to factor free will out of the equation here, but over the past couple of weeks, as I’ve watched several good friends of mine get shit on by circumstances completely outside of their control, it’s served to remind me yet again, that most illusions of control are merely that: illusions.

Surely, but surely you can control yourself, can’t you? To some degree, perhaps, but I’m sure that the most jealous person cannot stop themselves from coveting, no matter how hard they try. Even emotions, it seems, are almost impossible to control. You don’t control who you love, nor can you control who you hate, or who loves or hates you. Sure, William Blake claims, “The cut worm forgives the plow,” but he neglects to say when and at what cost.

As we left the restaurant, both slightly bedraggled and sore, I asked Dave if he believed that I had ever been as naive. He looked at me, laughed, and told me that he was sure that I had been even more so. This I can accept, but I cannot imagine that I would have spent the entirity of a lunch with a friend monologing about myself. Even at 17, I’m pretty sure that I knew how boring that must have been for anyone but myself.

So, I got off my (large) ass and made an appointment with and endocrinologist, which turns out to be a smarter move than I’d previously thought. I had my last labs sent to me to bring in (cue ominous music)…

Yikes. Holy yikes.

Looks like I’ll have to start checking my neck for goiters until I see my endo.

Seen on the wall at Jimmy John’s,

Sometimes we’re the pigeon,
Sometimes we’re the statue.

Ain’t that the Lord’s Truth.

Lack of sleep has left my poor brain a lone stem complete with misfiring neurons, so I bring you a post in snippets, because, well, I’m too damn tired to put any more thought into anything that doesn’t need it (I looked for a meme to do, but I couldn’t find any. Well, by “looking” I mean, I “thought about looking”). I’m starting to think that Alex is trying to break me. Right now I’m about ready to confess to anything. Why YES I DID kill JFK! AND Jon Benet Ramsey! NOW can I sleep? PLEASE?

*My phlox looks terrible. In fact, the winter killed off 95% of my bulbs (well, at least the ones that I liked). I had all of these grand visions of doing some fall planting, but it’s looking damn near impossible right now. I’m so out of it that I might accidentally plant the baby in the ground by accident. What do YOU do to get your yard ready for winter?

*Alex is terrified of the nicest piece of furniture that we own: his crib. This means that he’s still sleeping in one of three places, depending on my mood, his bassinet, his swing or one of his bouncy seats. I am unhappy about this, as I am a bit tired of sleeping in the same room with my ickle one. Any suggestions (assuming crying it out, like I’d like to do, wouldn’t work)?

*I need to buy some simple (but nice) frames for pictures. I’d been needlessly waiting to hang pictures, as I’d imagined that we’d be painting all of the hideousness off of the walls first, but alas, with Alex being, well, Alex, painting isn’t going to happen this year. So where do people buy nice frames (that don’t cost a fortune, but aren’t made of plastic)? And is it a bad thing if I have a ton of extra pictures to frame of Alexander in 8×10 but not so many of Ben in that size?

*With Christmas looming around the corner, we have decided to do something a bit differently this year. Rather than spend a bunch of money on toys that neither of the children need, we’re going to pool our money together and get them a wooden swingset. And then pay someone to install it. I don’t know if this qualifies for most boring parents of the year or most awesomist parents of the year. I remember there being an age where quality was better than quantity, but I cannot remember when this was.

I make myself hurt, I am so damn boring today (see, yeah, TODAY. Normally I am HILARIOUS! Let me be delusional). Anything else you want me to pointlessly pontificate upon?

When I was eleventy-hundred months pregnant with Alexander, I got into a discussion with a couple of pregnant women in my OB’s office (as a rule, I avoid pregnant women like the plague because well, someone once told me that pregnant women were 3 doors down from the nuthouse, but I firmly believe that they are actually much, much closer than that). The subject: 3 year olds. The concensus: 3 was much, much, much worse than 2. I agreed wholeheartedly, 2 was great, 4 was great, but 3? 3 found my hands making repeated contact with his cute, ickle, tantrum-y, willfull, annoying, butt.

Just like I would never tell a woman pregnant with her second child that having 2 is much harder than twice the work of having 1 (follow me?), I remain mum with my friends who rapidly approaching the dreaded 3. Until they mention it to me, I have nothing to say about the matter.

I don’t mention to newly pregnant women how sick I got while pregnant, I don’t tell them that labor hurts like hell, and I pretend that having a newborn and breastfeeding is great fun. Once they’ve gotten past all of those milestones, I’ll commiserate, but not before that point.

Why would I avoid something that so many others like to blab about (especially to complete strangers)? I don’t want to be a naysayer and I don’t wish to make others fearful unnecessarily. It’s not fair and it isn’t nice. Just because those were my own experiences doesn’t make them universal.

Just like you cannot actually prepare a child fully for the arrival of a sibling (try as you might, but no child could possibly wrap their mind around it. You may as well tell them that you are moving to the moon in a couple of months. We bought Ben a book that was actually pretty scientific and read it over and over, which meant that we had to listen to a multitude of songs written by Ben which went “I’m the lucky spermy who met the ova and that became ME!” Thankfully, he didn’t ask how the sperm got to be there in the first place. Yikes.), no amount of naysaying will do any good to anyone else because their experiences will probably be different than your own, so why bother if you’re just trying to scare someone?

I’m using children as my example here, but fearmongers (thanks Al!) know no boundries. Have a puppy? (OhmyGOD, when *I* had a puppy, I was up *all* night! for weeks! It’s SOOOO hard!) Have a house? (OhmyGOD! the furnace went out and we had lead paint! and I HAVE TO PAY SOMEONE TO MOW THE LAWN. Why not rent instead? Owning SUCKS!)

You can smell what The Becky is cooking.

I tried to be her friend, really I did. At least this is what I told myself to assuage my own massive guilt. But the truth of the matter was is that when the going got tough, I bolted. I cut my own losses and chalked her up as a “lost cause.” I’ve felt guilty for years about this, as I know how badly I really fucked up.

In truth, I’d reached that pivotal point in my life where I realized that I had been heading down the wrong street (hell, I was in the wrong state) and I promptly bought myself a map and changed directions. She had not. Her bad decisions seemed to top each other in a frightening pattern of self destruction.

And I know self destruction.

Maybe it was self-preservation on my own part. Having dealt with pill-popping alcoholics for parents, I knew what a tricky situation that could be. I happen to be the only one in my family who confronts these situations and tries to make them right. Mainly because I have this vision of being at the funeral of someone that I loved very dearly and remarking that “I wish that I’d done something to help them.” But as you cannot help the dead save from letting them be, I was stuck wishing and wondering what could have been. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.

I ran into her mother today (again), and recieved some devestating news. She was back in the hospital after another gruesome suicide attempt. And I realized that now it was my time to help. I’m done with excusing my inaction to my fears, I’m done with hiding behind my children and my (not really so) busy life, and now I must act. She had once been a good friend of mine, and now I will try like hell to be one to her.

This is where those of you who know her must help me. Get over the fact that you don’t know her as well as I do and buy a card. I’ll give you her address. Hell, if you send it to me, I will address it and stamp it and send it myself. She needs to know that people who knew her (however well it may or may not be) care about her. Period.

No one should ever, ever, ever feel as alone as she does now. No one.

(Is there anything else you can think of that I can do for her?)

Back when I worked outside of the home, The Daver and I divided up the house chores. I tried like hell to do mine and Dave’s, well, often went undone (let’s just leave it at “he works a lot” and be done with it. Normally, I’d make some sort of joke here, but I am trying to get laid. So, no jokes). So when I started to stay home, almost all of the chores were taken over by me. Save for two: mowing the lawn and doing the catboxes, as pregnant women aren’t supposed to actually touch kitty poo (not that I scooped it with my bare hands or anything. That’s nasty).

And the fights about doing the catboxes, they were mighty, as The Daver hates that chore possibly more than he hates putting away his laundry (which, judging by the fact that his laundry has sat in the baskets that I’ve put them in for 7 or 8 months, is a lot. To his credit, when my mother-in-law came out to stay this summer, I noticed what a fanatic she was about laundry and suddenly I understood my husband much, much better. You might even say that my sympathy grew quite a bit.). In order to avoid said fights, and the less pleasant option of letting the cats poo on the carpets and the sinks, I take care of them about half of the time (especially gleefully when I am offered sex as a bribe. What can I say? I’m easy) because I am no longer with child.

The lawn, however, would go unmowed to the point at which I would actually hide from my neighbors (this is especially easy when one’s lawn looks remarkably like a prairie!) so that they couldn’t yell at me or give me nasty looks. Alex never sleeps, so I can’t do it at his naptime, I cannot safely mow the lawn while holding him, and although I have threatened to get a goat, I’m certain that the neighbors might hate that smell even more than the waist high grass.

A couple of months ago, while having coffee with one of my neighbors, her teenage son walked into the room. It was then that my brilliant idea was hatched: I can pay someone about $20 a week to do something that has become a major source of contention in my marriage AND BE DONE WITH IT. Everyone walks away a winner!

His father, who is coincidentally my son’s soccer coach and the father of his best friend came to assist the first time, and they did an asskicking job. Although we were a bit sheepish about this arrangement, the same way you feel when a 50 year old man delivers your pizza, we were assured that his father was merely showing him the ropes. The check was written for $30 because the lawn had been in such sorry shape, and we made the teen promise to buy his father something nice as well (again, we were embarressed at ourselves here).

This may have been our fatal flaw, because the following week when I dropped by his house to give him his check for $20, he looked at it and got kind of, oh I don’t know, surly over the amount (which had been agreed upon beforehand). I’m sure he was hoping to get $30 EVERY week, but hey, he’s 14 and it takes him 45 minutes because my lawn, it ain’t sprawling.

It happened again this Sunday, he came by, mowed with our mower, and when Dave brought out the check, he got a bit salty. He’s never actually complained out loud to us about it, but you can tell that he isn’t pleased.

This annoys me on several levels. First, he’s 14 and $20 is a lot of money of 45 minutes of work. I dare you to find me a job at 14 that pays that well, besides of course, prostitution or porn. Secondly, I am literally surrounded by teenage boys that would be more than happy to make a quick buck. I’ve been offered many times by most of them that they are available to do odd jobs for me (too bad there are no cabana boys here). Third, it’s a lot more money than the job warrants. Period.

So I’m stuck between some grass and some taller grass here (get it? Because he’s MOWING MY LAWN! HAHAHAHAHA.). I can’t just tell him that he’s no longer needed and hire another kid, as his mother is one of my best neighborhood friends AS WELL as the mother of Ben’s best friend. Plus, he’s never actually SAID anything to me about it, just gotten sort of grumpy when the check is delivered (which, yeah, at his age, I babysat, and you know what? I never, ever bitched about what I was paid, because it was damn easy work. I also walked uphill to school both ways in the snow WITHOUT SHOES. Damn kids these days!)

What the hell do I do?