They sat on the floor near the dollhouse I’d carefully chosen for Amelia’s second birthday, playing a matching game, putting together a puzzle and chatting. I sat nearby, as I always do, close enough for comfort, but not too close as to cause a distraction, my ears half-listening to their conversation.

Twenty minutes before, I’d watched her happily identify each of the planets on my iPad, squealing, giggling, clapping her hands and jumping at each image as it appeared.

I giggled whenever she got to “Uranus,” for obvious reasons.

And now, they were counting, “One, two, free, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN!” Ten was met with a burst of applause and a butt-shaking dance, because sometimes, that’s how counting makes you feel. I smiled to myself. I do the applause and butt-shake whenever I’m about to eat an Uncrustables. Or find a new flash mob video. Or vacuum.

Then, they were done.

“Amelia has made incredible progress. What do you think about going down to twice-monthly speech therapy?” Her teacher addressed me now, as Amelia busily got her “MIMI’S Froggie Boots” on.

Words failed to form. I simply nodded.

Whenever I stopped to think about the road we’ve traveled, the one rife with uncertainties, “what-if’s,” “could be’s,” and “maybe’s,” I am overwhelmed. A sweet-and-sour mixture of joy and sorrow; happiness and guilt.

And I am, once again, thankful for everything she has taught me, just as I’m thankful for everything my children have taught me.

From Ben, I learned to become truly responsible for another. He taught me to see beauty in the smallest of things, from a garbage can to Jupiter and it’s moons. I found out just how far I would go to do right for someone else, and I’ve learned to accept people as they are, not as I want them to be.

From Alex, I learned what unconditional love felt like. He was the first person I’d known who loved me simply because. Alex taught me that I was a good mother. From him too, I learned to appreciate how far I’d come. I’d gone from that scared, single mother, the load on her shoulders heavy, praying I’d do right by my firstborn, to the luxury of simply reveling in my new baby.

It’s from Amelia, though, the one with curls like a halo, that I’ve learned the most. Maybe it’s because she’s my clone, looks and personality alike, or maybe it’s because the road we’ve traveled in the past two years has always been rocky, uncertain and scary.

From Amelia, I’ve learned that it is possible to be shattered in a few short moments, by a couple of words, a terrible diagnosis. I also learned that this kind of fragmentation gives you a chance to start again; slowly picking up the pieces of your former life, discarding what you no longer need, adding what you do. All of those fragments of who you were and who you are will be pieced back together through time and love, and the cracks?

The cracks are where the light gets in.

Amelia has taught me to face my dragons head-on, even when the outcome was uncertain: sometimes you slay the dragon, sometimes the dragon slays you. But you can’t run forever.

She’s found Mimi’s Froggie Boots and appropriately cheered, “YAY! I DID IT!” when she managed to put them on “by myself.”

I grabbed my keys and we were out the front door, on the way to preschool. When we got to the edge of the stoop, where she considers the step down treacherous, she automatically raised her hand to mine and asked, “MIMI’S HAND?”

I held out my hand, marveling at how how someone so small, someone with hands like tiny birds, could have an impact so large.

Firmly holding my hand, Mimi lead me into the future.

In the 7 years since I began Mushroom Printing, I’ve watched blogging evolve.

As blogging became well-known, there have been plenty of good changes; online friendships and online communities were formed among people who’d had little experience with The Internet, the unique opportunity for self-publishing has launched careers and the popularity of microblogs like The Twitter and The Tumblr soared.

There are, of course, plenty of downsides, too. Companies began to take note of these “blogs” and started their “The Word Of Mom” advertising campaigns, sending out freebies (rather than the actual dollars they’d pay a marketing firm) to bloggers in exchange for a review. Personal blogs began to feel a bit less, well, personal. The blogging community became a saturated market and it was hard for new bloggers to get their names out there.

What hasn’t changed is that I still love blogging. If I had an “I (HEART) BLOGGING*” shirt, I’d wear it, because that’s how much I love being a blogger. I also (HEART) all the “I (HEART) XXX” shirts. Writing here on Mommy Wants Vodka, being Your Aunt Becky, has been a constant in my life. I’ve pecked out over a thousand posts since I began my illustrious blogging “career.” Some good, some great, and a hell of a lot more mediocre.

In that time, I’ve pulled down exactly two posts. The first post was a Go Ask Aunt Becky question about a child recently diagnosed with autism. The post I’d written; the way I’d written it; it fueled a comment war that was more scary and hurtful than helpful to the person who had reached out for help. That was unfair to her.

Astute Pranksters may note that I pulled down the post I’d written yesterday. Not because it was bullshit, or because I hated it, or because I didn’t feel as though I could share it. I’d written my experiences as they happened to me while I paid tribute my cousin. I wanted to explain that those small acts of kindness can stick with you forever.

In the process of giving the back story; the reasons those kindnesses resonated so much, I upset a family member. The damage is probably irrevocable.

When I write, I write with an audience in mind, knowing anyone can read my words. For every post I do write, there are ten others that remain unwritten. I keep my written words and experiences as honest and true as I am able without hurting others. Sometimes, I gloss over bits especially when they make someone else look bad, sometimes I don’t.

Well before I pulled this post, I’d started writing for my friend’s site, which led me to think of all of the words I’ve never written. All of the words I’d wanted to string together but for one reason or another, didn’t. Sometimes, those words remained unwritten because they cut too close to home; because sometimes words, feelings, pain, reactions cannot be explained away by logic. The kind of criticism it would open up would pour salt into an already-festering wound. Others remained unwritten because I didn’t want to cause drama or pain.

Being told that my about my feelings; my experiences, written as I’d felt them as a child, were mostly fiction, I pulled the post; ashamed. I felt cowardly. I feel cowardly. Admitting all of those words; those feelings, to you took a lot for me. Living in denial as I did for many years, well, that is much harder.

I can’t give you a *fistpump* and tell you “I did the right thing” by pulling the post, nor can I say that “I did the wrong thing” by writing it.

There are so many nebulous areas in life, the kind that don’t have clear answers, no villain or victim; and all of my unwritten words, I realized, fall into that realm. Sometimes things just are.

I’m so sorry that my relationship, one I’ve desperately wanted for as long as I can remember, will (likely) forever be altered by those 700 carefully chosen words. They weren’t written in anger, never intended to hurt or accuse. I string words together as I remember them. As I experienced them.

And if that’s going too far, well, so fucking be it.

*Hm, I’d prefer an “I (HEART) PRANKSTERS” shirt, now that I think of it.

The Realtor described my basement as an “in-law arrangement.” It baffled me when I saw it because it was two finished rooms, a wet bar, and a bathroom complete with whirlpool bathtub.

It wasn’t until I saw the room with the washing machine and dryer (no carpeting or prettying up here, folks) that I got what she meant: a Dungeon. I could totally chain up rogue parents who wanted to move in against the walls, throw leftover chicken bones down the laundry chute and hell, there was even a (laundry) sink for water!

I crossed off “in-law arrangement” and wrote in “Awesome Dungeon” on the glossy brochure.

We made an offer the next day.

For quite awhile, The Dungeon was empty. We’d moved from a three-bedroom condo with no storage to a three-floor house with all kinds of storage, and at the time, there were only three of us. The amount of space felt gratuitous.

Eventually, I bought shelving and Rubbermaid bins, carefully sorted our stuff (I am, after all, my father’s daughter), labeled them with a Sharpie (I heart Sharpies) and stowed them on the shelves.

Then, well, life exploded.

The Dungeon turned into The Room Where We Shove Crap We Don’t Know What Else To Do With (Bonus! Sorted Shelved Stuffs).

My coveted fiber-optic Christmas tree? Plop it there. Alex’s Halloweenier Costume? Eh, put it in The Dungeon. That Ugly Mirror I Bought But Never Hung Because It’s So Fug? Put ‘er down there. Deal later. The picture of the majestic jaguar that appeared out of nowhere and is too bizarre for even me to hang? Leave there; give to Dave’s Mom.

Cleaning The Dungeon is something I’ve wanted to take care of for a long time, and this weekend, after a long, anguished fight with The Daver, I saw no better time to begin. Some people eat their emotions, some drink them, others escape through television and movies. Me? I strap on my Super Becky Overachiever cape. I purge, I organize, and I clean. It helps organize my brain and process these weird things that you people call ‘feelings.’

(feelings are bullshit)

I started in the middle of the room; tossing what we didn’t need, storing what we did, and donating anything salvageable. Within a couple of hours, I’d cleared a path to the shelves. Even with my careful labels, I no longer knew what they really contained.

I hauled out a large unlabeled blue bin and popped it open.

Freeze-frame.

The box was full of craft supplies.

We all know that I’m as crafty as a blind woodchuck, but those supplies hadn’t been for me. Shit, I’d sooner gnaw off my fingers than craft something.

Standing in that basement, it was as though time had been frozen inside that box.

I’d birthed a baby boy, Benjamin, in August of 2001. In November, I’d gone back to work slinging pizza and beer. I enrolled in nursing school full-time in December. I worked weekends, cramming organic chemistry compounds into my brain between tables. Weekdays were spent in school, weeknights I studied. 7 days a week, no summers off, no rest for the wickedly weary.

My three-year old son watched me march across that stage as I graduated at the top of my nursing school class. I’d so wanted to do right by him. Benjamin, son of my right side, named that, hoping he’d pick up the very best bits of me. My right sides.

Ben and I moved into the condo in Oak Park post-graduation. I’d taken time off before the national nursing board exams, anxiously excited about being a Mom – a real one – for the first time.

I’d neglected to remember one thing. One very important thing.

All of those years I frantically ran around, trying to do right by him, I’d ignored it; reassured myself it would be okay, “when we were a real family.”

My son, Benjamin is autistic. Autistic kids are like Siamese Cats. They choose Their Person (or people) and That’s It. The rest of the world can rot in fucking hell so long as Their Person is near.

I was not his person.

Never have been. Not at birth, not after birth, not ever. We mostly got along but I was most assuredly Not His Person.

His Person was my mother, who now lived 45 minutes away. Dave was Another Person, but Dave also worked long hours, frequently not home until bedtime. Even when home, there was always more work.

Just me and my son. All those years I’d spent longing to be a real family, to feel like a mother, to be with my son…he hated it.

Rejection seeped in.

I went to bed alone each night. Dave working in the office; Ben fast asleep under the mural of The Planets we’d painstakingly painted, emptiness creeping inside me. “Tomorrow, it will get better,” I’d try and reassure myself, denying the sadness sitting on my chest, making it hard to breathe. “This is what you wanted. How can you be sad?”

Each night, the emptiness looming, I reassured myself with something else; another bright side.

When my friends complained about my son’s eating habits, my inability to “go out and party,” and how obnoxious my kid could be, I wrote it off. They were single and had no kids. I never allowed myself to feel hurt by that…or anything else.

When it was clear that Dave’s job was his wife, well, “he was doing what he had to to support his family. Look at the economy! This is what you wanted!”

My son watched a documentary about the Planets and my husband worked constantly. I’d gone from feeling purposeful to puttering about the condo; a shell of my former self, in a few short weeks.

I tried to fill my days. I swept the floors twice daily, washed them at least once. I washed and rewashed dishes. I scrubbed the bathroom tile with a toothbrush. Anything to stave off the loneliness.

Halloween-time, I thought maybe Ben and I could find some common ground: crafts! Off to the craft store, we went, where I bought a fuckton of crafty shit: paper, glue, crayons, scissors, glitter, stuff I’d have gone apeshit for as a kid. Ben was too busy organizing the shelf to notice. Oh well.

Panting and sweaty, I lugged our booty up to the third floor and spread it out on the dining room table. We were going to make MOTHERFUCKING PUMPKINS.

Except Ben had turned his Planets movie and was entirely uninterested in making MOTHERFUCKING PUMPKINS with me. I paused the movie. He wept for Grandma. That rejection finally opened a deep chasm of emptiness inside me.

Halfheartedly, I led him to our Craft Project.

Big, fake, cheerful smile on my face, I painted my MOTHERFUCKING PUMPKIN orange. Ben sat there, weeping for my mother. Smiling so hard that it hurt, I painted his pumpkin, too. He sobbed. I sent him back to the movie.

Then, I sat back down in front of the stupid pile of art supplies, buried my head in my hands, and I started to cry, too. Not the delicate kind of Soap Opera Cry, but the desperate, hurt, miserable cry that emanates from your bones.

I shoved the craft crap into that blue bin where it sat untouched for many years.

A perfectly captured freeze-frame of the way things were.

I held the tube of orange paint and overhead, I heard my three children thundering about, their footfalls booming as they happily chased each other. Their laughter echoing around the house; overcome with joy. I smiled as I repacked the paint, saving it for a cooped-up “I’m BOOOORED” day.

As I closed the lid, I marveled at the way we once were.

And the way we now are.

The way we were.

The way we are.

Dear Aunt Becky,

I’m a fan, a kindred spirit, and I have a question.  I enjoy writing and have been encouraged by friends and sisters to start a blog to document my take on my daughter’s life. So here’s my conundrum…when I’m not working and parenting (for better or worse), I am a community volunteer who is heavily involved in my very small southern town.

Hell, I was just named Woman of the Year!

The good god-fearin’ folks here do not know me as the foul-mouthed, non-domestic heathen that I really am. (Did I mention that I have a track or two from Ice T’s Body Count on my iPod?)

So I want to know what I should do.  I don’t think I can truly be myself without, well, being myself.  But I fear exposing the ol’ “man behind the curtain.”  Your advice is appreciated.

Well, Prankster, here’s my advice, which happens to be something I’ve been thinking about a lot (for separate reasons):

You are the one in charge of what you tell the world.

I understand why you don’t want to expose the Real You, and here’s the kicker, you don’t have to! The Daver has gone over the reasons anonymous on The Internet is never quite anonymous, (and in my opinion, a waste of time, energy and brain cells on your end), but that doesn’t mean you can’t simply not mention that you have a blog to the very good Southern God-Fearing Folks you know.

The best bloggers I know capture a moment in time, a feeling, bring you into their lives – their real lives – without having to show you everything, and that’s what makes them a cut above the rest; they’ve managed to find that elusive balance between sharing enough and sharing too much (I mean, the minute-by-minute play-by-play of your day doesn’t typically make exciting reading unless you’re a circus performer or something).

Pick a pseudonym, don’t pass out business cards with your blog URL at fundraisers, don’t link it to your Facebook Profile, rise above gossiping about your neighbors, bitching about anyone in particular, and, if it makes you feel more comfortable, make access to your blog invite-only. If someone you know stumbles across it, well, they do. At least you’re not complaining about how gross Mary Jo’s Super Spam Casserole is.

I wish you luck, Prankster. If you take the leap, I’m sure you’ll do it well.

(and, um I totally want to be named Woman Of The Year by someone other than myself)

Dear Aunt Becky,

What the fuck? I need you! You are my mentor and I need your advice and the advice of your Pranksters.

Here goes: I began a blog back in June. I have a set of haters who are making me think maybe I need to close the blog and make it for only those who truly appreciate my…um…sense of humor…self…love of sex…and, of course, foul language.

At any rate, I would not sweat it but these haters are my fucking sisters! They creep around blog, look for shit about themselves so they can complain to my mother. Again…WHAT THE FUCK! Oh, these women are in their 50’s! Can you fucking believe that?!

My mom tells them to stop reading, but it bugs me that they still do.

I look forward to your advice because your blog is not only open but it is honest which is what I love!

Am I ruining my chances of having Mark Wahlberg read my blog if i make it “private”??

What do you suggest?

P.S. I know my spelling sucks so feel free to correct. Love ya and hope you are on the road to recovery.

Knowing there are people out there who read your blog for the sole purpose of picking each post apart to mock, criticize and laugh about is one of the hardest things to get used to. Sure, the Internet Mole People (trolls) who pop up now and again to say, “U Sux Whor,” can hurt the old feelers, but the ones out there silently waiting for you to fuck up so they can gloat and cheer; those are worse.

I can’t tell you anything beyond what I tell myself (especially when I pretend that I’m Jack Bauer working the counter-terrorist unit, and then I run around the house yelling, “DAMMIT!”): “don’t let them win.”

If you stop blogging because a couple of assholes are sitting behind their computer, wishing you ill, well, maybe it’ll make you feel better in the short-term, but in the long run, how would that make you feel?

When I do stop blogging, it’ll be because I am done. Not because a couple of asswipes – even asswipes who used to be my friends – hate me.

Sure it bothers me sometimes, just like it bothers you, but I’ll be dipped in pig shit if I let it stop me.

My advice to you is this: decide how much blogging matters to you. Decide how much it matters knowing your sisters are trolling your blog, looking for shit on you. Can you blog happily knowing that your sisters are there? Will you be unhappy if you close your blog because they’re being assjackets?

Which matters more?

That should give you your answer right there, Prankster.

I wish you luck. I’ve been in your shoes and I do understand.

In the end, I’ve decided that I have to do what I love, and if people are out there rooting for me to fail, well, they’ll be rooting for my failure whether or not I’m blogging it.

——————

Pranksters, I think this a great discussion topic. I look forward to hearing your opinion on both of these blogging issues. So please, weigh in.

And, should you have a question that you want my worthless opinion about, please submit it to the Go Ask Aunt Becky button at the top of the screen.

On my recent excursion to The Target to pick up my McDonald’s Headset to finally go “hands free,” I realized that I was also in dire need of an additional filing system.

(pithy aside, my brand new house phone, the only one I’m able to use in my HOUSE, is Blue Douche enabled. Which means that I can talk on the EAR PENIS but not my McDonald’s Headset. This seems like a steaming pile of bullshit, or at least, a conspiracy)

One of the many things I miss about school is purchasing school supplies. Buying them for my children isn’t nearly as full of the awesome, because, well, obviously. Their lists always require things so specific that I drive all over town in an endless pursuit of a twelve ring, three binder, red, plastic-covered notebook, wide-ruled, until I give up, convinced it’s a typo. Then I see the OTHER parents have managed to find said item and wonder what I’m doing wrong.

I digress.

Getting my corp. taxes done reminded me that my filing system of “throwing things into envelopes” was probably not going to cut it, especially if I wanted to go all official Non-Profit-ish for Band Back Together, so I eagerly went to see what else existed to make my life, well, BETTER.

It was like the heavens opened up and shone down upon me. There couldn’t have been a better day for it. I’d just gone to the Anxiety Doctor for a medication recheck, gone to the Tax Man, and was staring down the Pharmacist From Hell.

But there it was: A SALE on OFFICE SUPPLIES.

*cue choirs of angels*

I grabbed three or twelve-fifty-niner of those weird folding file folder thingies, a sassy three-ring binder – practically a Trapper-Keeper – and folders for it, a new notebook, a bigger day planner than the one I currently use, a white board for Daver and an address book. You know, the ones you use your hand to physically write a name and number next to? Oh yes. I’m proudly regressing.

I’ve somehow been placed in charge of all the stuff coming into and going out of the house. It’s amusing to anyone who knows me and annoying to me, who knows me.

When we prepared for the Great Move of Aught Six from Oak (no) Park (ing)* I in charge of sorting, organizing and packing up our condo. Daver can’t get rid of anything. He’s descended from a Pack Rat, but he’s not one himself, no, he’s merely incapable of sorting out what can stay and what should go.

So he saves it all and overlooks the glaring piles of crap.

When I was packing/sorting/cleaning the condo, I came across a receipt. Curious, I picked it up and looked at it.

Pranksters, it was three years old. Figuring that anything saved for that length of time must’ve been something good, I glanced down at it. Four items: a plastic garbage can, beef jerky, Fritos and…wait for it, wait for it….

…..

…..

…..

kitty litter.

Thank the Sweet Lord of Butter that he’d saved a copy of THAT! Otherwise, I’d never have known exactly what he was buying at 1:42 PM on October 22, 2003.

What was most baffling and/or frightening was that this receipt had also managed to move to three separate apartments.

While Daver was raised by someone who is physically incapable of throwing anything away, my father recently got a label-maker for Christmas. I swear to you, eyes wide with glee, he tore into that label-maker like it was a brand-new laptop. Before the day was through, I was wearing a “Stumpy**” label, Daver had a “The Daver” label, the kids each were wearing their names, and he was upstairs happily labeling everything in his extensive file cabinet.

He takes Organization Very Seriously.

He also takes Getting Rid of Shit Very Seriously.

If he’s found something that is very clearly mine, he will happily march it out to my car the very moment I arrive, lest I forget it. Or swing it by my house. In the odd event that I do not claim it in his arbitrary time-line, he donates it to charity.

Stuff = Bullshit.

Organization = Not Bullshit.

The man has it right.

I do not happen to personally enjoy labeling things, because I have a feeling if I started, I’d probably never stop. I’d be up all night, every night, labeling individual cans of diet Coke “DRINK ME,” just because.

What, ME COMPULSIVE? Why, I never!

Also, make all the Abacus Jokes you want, but I have NO CLUE how to use the damn thing.

Also, Also: new shirt idea.

This?

Or maybe this?

Or maybe something else. I dunno. Need a new idear (because my shirts aren’t Zazzle and are awesomely eco-friendly, organic, possibly made from recycled banana leaves) and screen-printed, I pay upfront, which is why I ask you guys about this stuff. You’re my brain, Pranksters. MY BRAIN.

EVEN THOUGH ME AND MY ABACUS ARE ORGANIZED.

*inside joke for anyone knows Oak Park. Parking is BEYOND bullshit in Oak Park.

**My brother nicknamed me “Stumpy.” Because I was shorter than him. I’m not exactly short: 5 foot 5 inches tall; not like 3 feet tall.

I almost felt sorry for my neurologist. He’s a big hulking man, probably 6 foot 5; looks like he just stepped off a Spaghetti Western, and he’s full of the awesome. I’d just informed him that, “the headaches are back and they’re worse then ever.”

This proclamation looked like it might make him weep. Lord knows I’d given up crying about my migraines (makes ’em worse), but to see him so visibly upset, well, now I wanted to be all, “GIMMIE A HUG!”

Except that would be kinda weird. Also: creepy. Instead, I looked at my hands.

Eventually, after much hand-wringing and sighing (from him), he suggested a new treatment regime. I’ve been taking The Max (Topamax) daily for a year and a half and had a various arsenal of other things to take “if” (pithy aside: ha!) I got a Breakthrough Migraine. I’d gone up to 200 mg/day, which, he had warned me at the time, had some side effects. Like “cognitive impairment.”

That’s a fancy way saying I got stupider. If you’ve had chronic migraines, you’ll do just about anything to get rid of them, so being a little dumb? Eh, I figured, how bad is that?

Turns out, it’s kind of a bitch.

Sure, I bought a notebook and learned to make lists, which works to some degree, but being acutely aware of losing my short-term memory? It’s discouraging.

Back when Daver was my boyfriend, he had this ridiculous friend who was in Teaching School. One night, stuck hanging out with her, she gave out her email: aphasia@….com. I asked if she had any idea what “aphasia” was. Yes, she replied, but it’s such a pretty word!!

I nearly smacked her.

Aphasia, for those of you unaware, is an acquired language disorder in which there is an inability to speak, comprehend what others say or understand the written word.

Aphasia is the loss of words. It’s not funny, it’s not cute, and even then, I was mildly offended (which is saying a lot, especially considering my AIM account was/is stinkybutt234)

Aphasia is a commonish side effect for Topamax. Higher dose, higher chance.

Trust me, when you’re asked “where something is?” (which, in my house, is every other minute) and you cannot pluck the words from your mind and string them together properly and worse, you know it, after awhile, it gets old. I’ve been tired of feeling that foggy Topamax brain, but so long as it was keeping the migraines at bay, I was willing to live with it.

I’m going off The Max.

I’m trying Depakote, which has, of course, new and improved side effects that can potentially kill me. “Hair changes are common,” he said, as he wrote out the script. “Hair changes?” I said dubiously. With my thyroid sipping Mai Tai’s with all of your MIA organs, my hair is already unhappy.

Worthless, lazy thyroid.

“Yes,” he went on. “Your hair can become brittle, fall out, or become very curly.”

He also listed some side effects about bone marrow and liver failure but I wasn’t listening because, well, OBVIOUSLY. HAIR.

If that’s me now, in my not-at-all-inappropriate and totally stylish Shut Your Whore Mouth shirt.

What would I look like bald and/or turned curly?

My mine wandered as he talked about “birth defects” and “blood work.”

Would I look like this?

I mean, Amelia’s curls came from somewhere…

(that’s an ORCHID in my hair, yo)

The likelihood of curls returning is high.

He didn’t say anything about OTHER hair growth, though. But now I’m wondering if I’m about to become Sasquatch.

Pretty much, I’m going to be the sexiest ever.

Wanna make out?

While I was waiting for my script to be filled, I wandered over to the AS SEEN ON TV section of the pharmacy. If I haven’t already expressed this to you, I’m telling you now: I love a good infomercial like I love air and Junior Mints.

It was there that I saw something so wondrous, so amazing, so inspiring that I nearly wept.

The iRenew Energy Band Bracelet thingy.

LOOK, Pranksters! It could RESTORE my ENERGY (read: my hair) and help me restore BALANCE. Since I busted my lip eating a waffle the other day, I figure that’s a BONUS. It even had a snappy logo. I love snappy logos.

And look! They’re so…harmonious! I mean, I bet if I got one of those bracelets, I, too, could do a fish-eyed vapid, yet-oh-so-meaningful stare off into the distance with Dexter, looking toward my future. My future with HAIR.

And woah, look at that Old Balls playing VOLLEYBALL. Pranksters, I’ve never played volleyball, but you know what? MAYBE ME AND MY LUSCIOUS HEAD OF HAIR WOULD…if I bought the iRenew bracelet.

I just knew that this was the Answer To My Prayers.

Until I saw it was $20. Then I realized it was Bullshit and bought some Old People Multivitamins instead.

Seemed wiser.

But man, that As Seen on TV Magic Gravity Ball has my NAME ALL OVER IT.

————-

I’m running a contest on Band Back Together to win another (yay!) shirt. A little later, I’ll be over there trolling for new shirt idears. Just have to write up a quickie post about it, yo. I have a couple in mind and I’d love your input.

The first time I saw someone talking on a wireless headset was back in 2003. I was in the bathroom at the Atlanta airport, waiting for my connecting flight, washing my hands. There was a woman standing at the sink, looking in the mirror, having a conversation with herself.

As a student nurse who spent half her time in the hospital dutifully putting in clinical hours, wiping butts and taking names, seeing someone have an actual conversation with someone who was not actually all that uncommon an occurrence. Even now, I dismiss that sort of behavior where other people might lock their doors and run, shrieking, the other direction.

Anyway, I whispered to my friend, “woah, looks like SHE went off her meds,” to my friend Jenna, who was taking this Spring Break vacation with me.

She, always more up-to-date on this sort of thing, just laughed and said, “she’s on the phone, Becks. It’s a hands-free headset.”

Sure enough, when I looked more closely, curious now, I saw the wire dangling down from her ear to the phone. Hm. Odd.

A couple of weeks later, I saw what appeared to be a man talking into his wallet while lunching – once again, with Jenna – at Panera. I eyed him suspiciously, even though he was smartly dressed in a business suit. When I saw he was wearing impeccably natty shoes, I realized that he, too, was probably not recently released from the psych ward.

“What. the. fuck? Why is that man talking on a fucking wallet?” I whispered to Jenna, pointing him out.

She laughed. She was forever explaining these things to me; a Pre-Prankster version of the Internet.

“That’s a Blackberry, Becky. It’s like a PDA with a phone.”

“That is the DUMBEST thing ever. Does he KNOW how dumb he looks? Fucking jackass.” I had a very small phone that I loved very much. I would have married it, but it was stupid (also: illegal) to marry something that had a shelf-life of two years.

Fast-forward.

I own an i(can’t use my)Phone only because I like Apple products. Had I realized how craptastic the “phone” bit of it was, I’d have gone with a Blackberry. My very own Talking Wallet.

Also: my new anti-depressants are working which means I’ve engaged in one of my favorite past-times: talking paint off walls. On the phone.

Now, because (insert hilarious joke) I have Neck Issues. I also have lots! of! energy! which means that when I am on the phone, I am also washing walls, doing dishes, waxing my cat, cleaning the garage, scheduling posts, watching dancing cat videos, and/or photoshopping pictures of myself into pictures of celebrities.

Okay, that last bit was a lie, because I don’t own photoshop. I can’t do that stuff! Gnomes can, though, and I’m TOTALLY not a gnome.

So, while I’m jabbering away, annoying whomever I’ve conned into chatting with me, I cradle the phone between my shoulder and my ear, like it’s a wee babe. Don’t think it’s helping my neck issues.

It was time to take! action!

wham!

bam!

pow!

robots!

I needed an ear thingy for my phone. Except, there are only two options (besides speakerphone, which makes everyone sound like they’re talking from inside a tin can which = bullshit):

1) Ear Penis, a.k.a  bluetooth headsets. I hate them. No, that’s not right: I loathe them. I loathe them so much that I should probably make up a new word for how I feel about them. I know, I know, they’re useful and you can’t live without yours and blah, blah, blah, squirt, squirt. Fantastic. Yay for you!

That guy is a Blue DOUCHE.

My second option:

B) McDonald’s Headset: you know, like the OLD SKOOL phone headset, with the plastic bits that go to your mouth and stuff? I had to wear one when I worked for United. It was pretty awesome, actually, but I think I’ve earned my comeuppance because every time I see The Daver use his, I walk up to him and try to order a “cheeseburger and a diet Coke, please.”

(be glad you don’t live with me)

Today, after agonizing over it for weeks (read: months), I finally broke down and bought an Old Skool headset. My neck deserves it, dammit, and hey, if all else fails, I can totally work at McDonald’s.

In order for me to Get Less Anxious, I’ve been doing a lot of purging. Getting rid of what’s not important. There’s a lot of noise and crap (literal and figurative) out there and if you’re not careful, it can take over your life.

This week, I braved the Salvation Army drop center, where I swear to you, Pranksters, they judge my stuff before begrudgingly giving me a tax receipt. I did end up holding onto a few things. Maybe I will hold an Internet Garage Sale to raise some money to try and turn Band Back Together into a Non-Profit (I’m guessing it takes more than just batting my eyelashes and swinging the word “bullshit” around).

I came across something in my garage, buried under the piles of stuff to be donated; something I’ve never quite known what to do with.

Let me back up a second.

In 2002, a freshly single mother living at home with my parents, I’d realized that I needed to figure out What Next. Since toddlerhood, I’d planned to be a diamond-encrusted, world-saving doctor. Newborn on my hip, I realized this was probably going to have to be put on hold until said infant got a little, well, bigger.

Half a degree in bio/chem meant that I could handily enroll in nursing school, which was, at the very least on a similar plan, and wouldn’t make med school too far a distant chipmunk on the horizon.

So I did.

The first year, I spent doing the typical freshman pre-reqs, falling in with a motley crew as I commuted by train to the closest school that I could get my bachelor’s degree in nursing. I earned the nickname Super Becky Overachiever, acing all the exams (a degree in bio/chem is far more rigorous), becoming a TA for inorganic, organic and biochem as well as picking up some tutoring gigs for Anatomy and Physiology I and II.

Sweet ASS, I thought, as I patted myself on the back. I loved being busy, feeling useful, and doing something with myself back then just as I do now.

The first year of nursing school dawned and I parted ways with my homies from my pre-req days. They had another year before nursing school, so I’d be meeting a whole new set of people. No bother, I figured. I tended to get along with just about everyone.

When I walked in that first day, thirty pairs of eyes glared at me. To this day, I don’t know why I was met with so much hostility, but there it was, and there I was. I slurped my coffee, smiled a big ole fake smile, walked to the back of the class and took a seat.

The instructors bounded in applauding, “AREN’T YOU JUST SO HAPPY TO BE HERE?”

No, no I was not. In fact, this was not at all where I wanted to be, but I grinned uneasily as I looked around at my classmates; the ones I’d be stuck with for the next two years of my life.

Everyone else beamed, nodded, and started applauding back.

Okay then.

I tried to make nice. Really, I did. As a (former) waitress, I can bullshit with the best of them, but man, these people, I couldn’t crack ’em. For the next four (four!) hours, I sat there, alone in the back row, listening to a discussion about wiping butts, properly changing sheets, and bedpans. Each point the instructor made, punctuated by a question or comment from my classmate about something inane.

“One time, my grandma had the bed made wrong at the hospital.”

“I like cheese.”

“Our bedpans at the hospital I work at look different.”

Four hours a week of this, four days a week.

I walked back to the train, alone, and I wept. Not the kind of cry that leaves tears dribbling out of the corners of your eyes, oh no. I sobbed. I sobbed so hard that cars passing by stopped and asked if I was okay. No. But I would be.

My heart was broken.

I did what I always do: I made the best of it. I befriended the other outcasts. I zoomed to the top of my class, got invited into the prestigious nursing honor society, while slouching in the back, playing Bejeweled on my phone. Every time I got discouraged, I reminded myself that this was temporary.

I developed an incredible respect for nurses. Still have it.

Nurses = awesome.

I wouldn’t be where I am without where I’ve been or what I learned.

A couple of weeks before graduation, there’s a big thing for nurses called a “Pinning Ceremony.” It has nothing, I learned, to do with wrestling or sex. First, you get your picture taken, something I didn’t want to have done (I’m a rebel like that, and really, who the hell wants a snapshot of a twenty-five year old?), but my friends all insisted.

I love the surly face.

Anyway, there’s a big ceremony, a bunch of yapping, and we get pins.

That’s a nursing school pin. (also, like my retouching job?)

The night of the pinning ceremony, it was unveiled that some of the class had made each of us a gift from money leftover from something or another.

I don’t remember precisely what the ceremony involved, only that I spent most of it thinking about a) how hungry I was and b) listing the periodic table of elements (Hydrogen, Helium...) in my head. I probably played Bejeweled on my phone. Afterward, I went to the alter to collect my gift, the flowerpot I still own.

As I was looking for my name-flower pot (what the fuck was I going to do with that?) two nearly identical very short, very round woman with matching tight perms and haircuts so short they like tattoos waddled angrily up to me.

One of them shook their finger accusingly in my face: “WHERE IS NADIA’S?”

“Huh?” I replied. Nadia was a classmate who, well past the normal age of the graduating class, spent most of her time bitterly gossiping with her friend Melissa about everyone else. She especially hated me because, knowing I didn’t want to be a nurse – her life’s ambition – and beating her test scores seemed to mean that I was an asshole. (I am an asshole, but not for that)

“EVERYONE ELSE HAS A FLOWERPOT. WHERE IS NADIA’S?” the woman spat at me. Clearly, sparkling personality ran in the family.

I shrugged. I hadn’t been in charge of the flowerpots. Didn’t care about Nadia or her flowerpot. She could have mine if it meant so much to her.

The two woman stood there, on the alter of a church, no less, firing insults and complaints at me. I walked away.

It was a perfect end, really.

I graduated some variation of cum laude and ended my illustrious career as a hospice case manager (nurse) at the age of twenty-six. I’d been a nurse for under a year. Longer than I’d expected.

And now I have this completely useless flowerpot in my garage. Generally, I hate useless things. But I feel as though I should want to keep it. Or smash the shit out of it. Or something. Yet, I don’t. Which is why I’ve held onto it for so long. I just don’t quite know what to do with it, so I do nothing. It sits there, quietly haunting me, reminding me gently of where I’ve come from.

Maybe, just maybe, that’s a good thing.

Dear Aunt Becky,

Wow. So, I just found an old flame on facebook. my current husband (#3) is the jealous kind. should i delete him as my friend or keep him as a friend? my husband has not seen that I’ve added him yet. More importantly is there a way to keep him and hide him? I still have the hots for him!

O! Prankster, my Prankster, as far as I’m concerned, The Facebook is good for one thing and one thing only: feeling smugly superior to ex-boyfriends. Since I have none as “friends,” and with the exception of a select few (read: Robert), I happen to think highly of my ex’s, I find Facebook mostly annoying.

Also: once I read that Facebook destroyed like 87% marriages. Although I could be wrong. Numbers aren’t my thing. And those statistical things are usually pretty skewed. Remember when they were all, “most accidents occur within five miles of your house?” And you were all, “HOLY SCHNIKES, IMMA DIE,” every time you went to get a delicious cheeseburger? (Maybe it’s just me)

Until you realized, of course, most of your DRIVING was within five miles of your house, so of course, most accidents would occur there too.

Really, that’s my long-winded way of saying this:

Delete your old flame. He’s your “old” flame for a reason. Then?

Run.

Like.

Hell.

No good can come of this.

Dear Aunt Becky,

I’m back again with another question for Aunt Becky and her Merry Band of Pranksters: I asked you before (that’s a link to her previous question) about my husband’s abusive behavior.

I know the answer to the question “Is it abuse?”

This time, the question is what do I do? I left, he can’t talk to me or come within 100 yards of me, but we have 50-50 custody of our 4-year old son. The ex has left bruises on him twice. I have had to take him to the pediatrician for. 50-50 custody.

I’m begging my attorney for an ex parte with the judge to change the custody situation. I don’t care about child support. I am afraid that he’s going to kill my little boy.

What do I do? Go to the family violence shelter and risk contempt of court charge and losing my job? Send him back and pray? Please help and pray for my baby. Please.

My heart sunk, Prankster, when I read this. Of course we’ll all pray for you.

I’ve dug around a little, and not knowing much about the law or where you live (don’t mention it, I don’t want this to get back to you), I’m not exactly sure what to do besides call the Child Abuse Hotline immediately. They have a 24-7 hotline staffed by counselors who can better navigate the law and how to protect your son.

This is the website for Childhelp.Org and the National Child Abuse Hotline is 1-800-4-A-Child.

Call social services and make sure that your child’s teacher is aware. Teachers are required to report abuse to social services as well and (according to a brilliant Prankster) may carry more weight with them.

Be sure to document the SHIT out of everything with pictures, doctors notes, you name it.

I wish I had any smarter advice but I have a terrible My Grain and can’t see very well and I don’t want to say something that’s dumber than dumb (read: my normal crap).

Prankster, I am sending you all the love and light that I can. Please be safe.

Pranksters, please, help this Prankster and her son (Prankster, JR) out with all of your brilliant advice and prayers..

These pictures are the epitome of win.

Look closely, Pranksters. Look very closely at this Facebook Ad.

You too, can be a member of the intense, elite CIA!

Then, you too can pose triumphantly with a squirrel carcass.

There is nothing not AMAZING about this picture. I’m going to frame it.

Then, while trying hard not to delete my own Facebook Profile (I was creating one for Band Back Together)(I don’t know why either), I came across this beauty, which makes me really happy, and will probably ensure that I never, ever, ever, delete my Facebook profile, ever.

Now, I’m a born and raised Chicagoan, and I’ve never, ever considered putting a tiny pig in red galoshes as “something to put on my Chicago Bucket List.” Become a mob boss? Yes. Become a Mafia Princess? Yes. We teethe on deep-dish pizza and are well-accustomed to corrupt politics and locals never go to Taste of Chicago.

I might have even once had a love-affair with Rod Blago’s magnificently luscious hair (this was also probably my favorite post):

But to dress a wee pig in tiny boots? I don’t think I know any Chicagoan who wants to do that. That sounds like something a Wisconsinite would do.

This morning, as I was getting my blueberry-flavored coffee and Junior Mints at the Sleven down the street (Breakfast of Champions, I told the guy behind me who snickered wildly at my selections), I noticed something so awe-inspiring that I simply had to take a picture for you.

Do you see that, Pranksters? PURPLE IS A FUCKING FLAVOR NOW. I have been petitioning for “purple” to be made a flavor for YEARS.

Don’t believe me? LOOK

And now, Pranksters, it is. Purple is FINALLY a flavor.

Um. UM. UMMMMM.

This exists. I don’t know why.

Next time, I’m TOTALLY buying it and leaving it out around the house so when people come over, they’ll see it and be SUPER uncomfortable when they see it. Like, “woah, does Becky USE this stuff? If so, WHY?”

I love making people uncomfortable.

Last, but certainly not least, is an email I got awhile ago from someone I do not know.

I think she’s in love with me.