I spent a good portion of the day yesterday sneezing, but was certain that I was in the early stages of seasonal allergies. “Woohoo! Spring!” I thought initially. Around mid-morning, my left nostril shut down while the right one went into overdrive to ensure that I had a steady stream of clear, watery snot. At that point, the first seed of doubt began to sprout in my brain, but I pushed it away.
“I’m cool. I just have allergies. I’m fine. I’m not getting a cold. I just have to stand in the middle of my office and forget what I was going to do while letting a Kleenex hang out of my nose. It’s my process.”
After dinner, I could feel my head start to feel like dough and finally admitted defeat. “I have a cold. Dammit,” I said. Only it sounded more like, “I hab a code. Dammid.” I was also coming to terms with the fact that I definitely had a stye in my right eyelid. I stood in the middle of my bedroom half-naked, having deliriously removed my pants at some point, and declared, “This sucks.” The combination of ailments made me feel as sexy as when I initially hurt my neck and had to adopt my Nosferatu posture.
Today there were no neighborhood watch emergencies. Instead she asked me if I had a fresh Kleenex, or “Kleeneksh,” as she calls them. Thoroughly out of it and breathing out of my mouth, I started to hand her the Kleenex that I had in my hand. “Well, I have this one, but I’ve been using it and so it has a little snot on it,” I said. She looked at the Kleenex, looked at me and, I swear to dog, backed away slowly.
“Sho, that’sh a no,” she said, reaching my conclusion for me since I was obviously in no shape for rational thought.
“Um, yeah, I guess so,” I replied.
“Becaushe we don’t want to shpread germsh around!” she called out over her shoulder, before wiping her nose on her sleeve.
My nose may be leaking and my eye may be swollen, but I can out-crazy the crazy lady when I really put my mind to it.
Frank and I communicate via text message almost everyday. We rarely, if ever, discuss anything important or substantial. It’s kind of like our iPhones are a perpetual 9th grade classroom and our iMessages are the notes that we pass back and forth. Occasionally, they give me a glimpse of how goofy we are.
"Watch" should be "watching." Stupid fat fingers.
I think it’s worth noting that this conversation took place on Valentine’s Day, which means that the husband and I were partaking in a very romantic viewing of that Michael J. Fox classic. It’s been on cable a lot recently and for some reason, I can’t not watch it. The husband and I discussed how popular it was when it came out, which is weird considering how little sense a lot of it makes in retrospect. I’ve also decided that there are far too few characters named “Boof” in popular culture. Also also wik, how awesome is the Beavers’ coach? (Be sure to note the fan with his junk hanging out at the end.)
I’m ripping that post title off of JiveTurkey because this is really just a list of stuff I want more of and stuff I’m sick of. Let’s start with the negativity because that’s my favorite part.
I have had enough of:
Statements about Whitney Houston and addiction. I know her death was untimely. I know addiction is serious. I’m just so, “Oh…bummer,” about her death. People lead messed up lives, they’re taken advantage of, and then they die in the tub. Alone. Just like all the rest of us.
Chris Brown and the cloud of bullshit that comes with him. I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to talented people who are also piece-of-shit human beings. I do know that responding to the women who tweeted appalling requests after his Grammy appearance with, “They get what’s coming to them,” or “Someone should beat them so they know better,” is pretty vile.
“Kids these days” whining. They wear their pants too low. They listen to terrible music. They don’t know who Paul McCartney is. Yeah, you know what that makes you? A cranky old person set in their ways and the reason why no substantive changes ever happen. Shut up.
Valentine’s Day hype. “Wah, I’m single and this day is so hard for me,” or “Please validate my relationship by gushing over the gifts that my significant other gave to me.” It’s just a day. Do it or don’t.
Communities on the internet and, obviously, the internet in general. I think at some point I may have been concerned about the dynamics of any given group of people on the internet, but that’s not the case anymore. It’s just one facet of life. If people are being jerks to you, disengage.
This dress is a little too small on me at the moment. I’m wearing it today and the buttons are working kind of hard. I’m really ready to get back to a normal level of activity. Speaking of which…
Cheers:
My neck is definitely getting better. This morning I was able to put my left ear close(r) to my shoulder, which I wasn’t able to do even yesterday! (Note: I started writing this post yesterday, so that fact might be relevant when considering the jeers section.) And I thinkthe numbness in my fingers is pretty much gone. I definitely still have issues with stiffness and tightness and pain, but measurable signs of recovery are so exciting. Check out this exciting physical therapy action shot!
No, that's not a booger. That's my nosering.
The husband and the baby. I really do just love the crap out of both of those guys. Despite my aforementioned annoyed indifference toward Valentine’s Day, we had a sweet time last night getting ready for the baby’s festivities at school. He signed his Valentines while I worked my crafty magic into a Valentines box in a swirl of Spongebob wrapping paper, box cutters, pipe cleaner, and ribbon.
Hold on a sec, Martha's calling me.
The husband had another Pittsburgh Track Authority performance at Belvedere’s on Saturday and it went really, really well. Again, about 300 people showed up to hear them and the headliner, Kirk DeGeorgio, and it was really cool to see so many people dancing for them. I’m so proud of him and them. I think something big might be brewing for them.
Mine's on the left. Aren't they cute? All squished together and wondering what the hell they're doing? *
Once again, I done brought the bake sale vibe to this performance and made brownies, which everyone assumed had drugs in them. (They did not.) Both were recipes from blogs that I read that I had pinned to Pinterest. They were Peanut Butter and Fleur de Sel Brownies and Mexican Hot Chocolate Brownies.
Along those lines, I’m finding that Pinterest is much more useful than I thought it would be when I first started using it. I do, however, need to start a board called, “Stuff I Tried from Pinterest that SUCKED,” because there have been a few duds.
Completely unrelated, the phrase, “Where’s Wallace?” has been a common refrain in our house and circle of friends, even though the scene from The Wire that it originated from first aired like 10 years ago.
It’s all very serious and intense, but then we got a Steeler named Mike Wallace. Whenever he does something good, the refrain, “WHERE’S WALLACE?” or “WHERE WALLACE AT?” goes flying. Imagine my glee when I came across this children’s book the other day:I have now redefined my life goals and am going to become a preschool teacher so I can read this to my young charges. What could be more adorable than a bunch of 4-year-olds saying, “STRING?!?! STRING! LOOK AT ME!?”
Today was not good for a number of reasons from the beginning. I had neglected to set my alarm. We had forgotten to put out the garbage the night before. And there was the looming knowledge that my husband’s dog, Sheba, was going to have to be put down today.
After trying to work out some details of the day’s agenda with the husband, I snipped at him a few times before heading into work fashionably late. I struggled with an ongoing project that’s been making me feel increasingly incompetent, all while trying to ignore my neck, which has decided to kick my ass the last two days.
I had just decided to lie down on the floor next to my desk to give my spine a rest when my phone rang. It was the baby’s school. He had just thrown up. I called the husband, who told me that the vet would be coming to his mom’s house to take care of things with Sheba about an hour. I told him to stay there with his mom and his dog, since they needed him there with them. I called my mom.
“The baby just threw up at school and the husband is with Sheba because they’re putting her down today and my neck is ki-hi-hi-illing me,” I said, as I began to sob. I must have been such a sight, lying on the floor of my office, crying. She kindly offered to take me to get the baby and go back to her house, which is closer than ours.
The baby seems to have been only momentarily ill, thankfully. (Right after I typed, that he threw up again, so no more diagnoses from me.) The husband called me about a half hour ago to let me know that Sheba was gone.
Sheba was 17 and in really bad shape, so there was no sense that it was too soon or unfair. My dogs that I had as a kid died very young, and that was, indeed, completely unfair. I noticed in the last year or so that I was trying to sort of compartmentalize my heart, rationalize that Sheba wasn’t really my dog so I wasn’t too sad about her impending departure. But when the call came, I cried just as hard as I feared I would, and my heart seemed just as whole and hurt as if she had been my own from the beginning.
Last night, we stopped by my mother-in-law’s house and told the baby to say his good-byes. It was as sad as you would expect and lots of tears were shed. The husband had an errand to run so the baby and I were by ourselves at home for awhile before he went to bed. He let me cuddle him on the couch, the two of us needing each other’s comfort.
“I’ll tell you one thing I know for sure about dogs,” I sighed, as my baby’s sobs settled into shaky breaths, “They break your goddamn heart every time.”
I think knowing that I restrained myself from titling this post “prose before hoes,” will make me look better in your eyes.
I did my undergrad in Fiction Writing which, I always joke, I was never very good at. I just really liked doing it. When I’ve come across stories that I wrote, I always cringe because they sound like…well, they sound like a melodramatic 21-year-old with little to no responsibility wrote them. Sure, they have moments of “good,” but for the most part they suck and I always get an urge to contact my undergraduate professors and apologize for making them read yet another story in which the protagonist guzzles a bottle of wine and then offs herself because heartbreak and stuff.
While I still write fairly often here andotherplaces, I don’t journal, which seems to be a common de rigeur activity for people who identify as writers. Every once in awhile, I’ll jot something down, but it seems like I don’t really care to write if I won’t have an audience. Not sure why that is. And when I do slip into some prose now and then, I like it much better than my short stories from my college days. So, I’ve improved somewhere, somehow. But it’s not an exercise that I make myself do as a matter of routine.
But every once in awhile, I’ll get that itch, and that happened the other night when I was brushing my teeth and noticed some shifts and lines in my face. I wrote a few things down about the experience and figured I may as well share them here. (Note that it was late and I was delirious, which is why it kind of sounds like the treatment for a movie called something like Fever Dream Flailing or something.)
Ahem. *taps mic*
Now, when I tilt my head just so while brushing my teeth late at night, I see a soft, grey apparition in the mirror. It takes me a second to realize that it’s not the smoke of a dream I just woke up from. Instead, it is the new murmurings of places where light has never hidden. They yawn to let the light nestle, and the puffs of its contented sighs cast a delicate haze that drifts slowly down to settle on my face. In the lines that peek back at me from the future, I am able to travel through time to some existence not yet conceived.
I’m not certain, but this misty lady seems content. I retire to bed to see if I can recreate and reshape this trip in my dreams.
I had to go to CVS the other night because all I do now is go to the doctor and the pharmacy. And physical therapy. I needed to get a refill on my prescription for the pills that make me not so melodramatic and miserable and I was hoping to get a refill on the Percocet. Thankfully, the pain in my neck hasn’t been too unmanageable, but I still have bad days sometimes and wanted to have them on hand just in case. Of course, since Percocet is a narcotic, I have to have an actual prescription each time I want to re-up. Because the pharmacists want to be, like, responsible or whatever.
“Ugh, fine. I’ll talk to my doctor. Just the anti-depressants then,” I sighed, and flounced out of there so I could go home and have a glass of wine. I realized that I’m morphing into a character from Dynasty or something, which is perfectly fine with me. I just need to get the proper headwear.
"This is my, 'Bitch, PLEASE,' chapeau. You like? Oh, wait, I don't care if you like."
Speaking of my neck, it’s still kind of crappy. Sometimes it feels like it’s getting better and the symptoms in my arm are going away and then other times it doesn’t. It’s frustrating. And I start to feel kind of reckless about it, like, if my neck’s just going to be annoying I’m just going to do what I want and run and roller skate and whatever. And I realize that’s immature but…FUR HAT.
* * *
The husband and the baby took advantage of the days off of school that the baby had this week and went out of town to go skiing. I got a few nights of alone time, which was nice. I knew that I would need to get up earlier than usual to catch the bus, so Sunday night I wanted to get as much done as I could so I wouldn’t be scrambling in the morning in the entirely likely event that I slept in. With our stove being broken, I decided to experiment with making oatmeal in the rice cooker. The oats needed to soak overnight and would start cooking around 5:30.
I had trouble falling asleep because (cheese alert) the husband was not there. When you sleep with someone almost every night for 11 years, the bed can feel oddly cold and lumpy without them. When I finally drifted off waaaay too late, I woke up seemingly 5 minutes later. What’s that smell? I wondered. Did someone break into the house to cook me breakfast? I finally figured it out, which was exhausting, and fell back to sleep for a little bit.
The oatmeal was a success, by the way. I’m going to write about it tomorrow for FoodieParent.
* * *
I have had the most psychotic earworms over the past few days. Sometimes, it’s the most wretched Michael McDonald song.
There is so much about this video…the tiki bar, the Hawaiian shirts, the rollerskating biker chick, Billy Crystal as a babe magnet. This is both what was magical and horrific about the 80s. This would make no sense in today’s context. If you tried to present this as your music video people would be like, “I don’t…understand. Why are the other two guys lip syncing now? Are they in the band?” My new dream job is 1980s music video director, when, “I don’t know…just stand over here and pretend you’re singing the song. No, we don’t need a choreographer,” was considered visionary direction. This reminded me that I had a huge crush on Gregory Hines when White Nights (11 pirouettes!) and Running Scared came out, which is a little weird because at the time I was about 7 or 8 and he was, um, 40.
That song plays ping pong in my head with this NSFW one:
Which is really great for singing quietly (but just audibly enough so people start to back away slowly from you) when you’re at work or physical therapy or the salad bar at Whole Foods. “Feel mah muthafukkin’ bass in your face…kale…and some grilled tofu…feel mah muthafukkin’ salad in your face…feel mah muthafuckin’ kombucha in your face.”
* * *
The husband was mentioned in an article in City Paper this past week about our friend’s record label and when my dad stopped by on Saturday, we showed him the article. This reminded him that he wanted to ask Tom about these DJs/musicians he had read about in the New York Times recently, one of which was Skrillex. The husband kindly informed him that Skrillex is something of a joke and immediately remembered that there is a Cooking with Skrillex Tumblr. He showed my dad, and kind of had to explain internet mockery. I don’t know that my dad understood. I mean, he was laughing, but I don’t think he knew what he was laughing at.
So, physical therapy for my neck is going alright, I suppose. The heat, stim, ultrasound, and massage are wonderful and give me so much relief from the discomfort. And I’ve noticed that I’m getting a tiny bit of energy back. One of the therapists that I had on Tuesday was a year into recovery from herniated discs in her back, so it was really nice to trade stories with her and know that nothing that I’m experiencing is at all out of the ordinary.
I am a little concerned about my nerves, since the numbness in my left hand hasn’t gone away at all and at times seems to be getting worse. I still have tingling from time to time and it’s just kind of like having pins and needles constantly.
I go back to the neurosurgeon on the 9th to check on my progress and I guess I’m worried that I’m not making progress. But the therapist who had herniated discs did tell me that it does take a while to really get better.
I’m supplementing my therapeutic exercises with regular exercise, squeezing in a trip to the gym when I can. (I got to physical therapy 3 times a week during work hours, so I can only go to the gym on days that I don’t have PT.) Yesterday I took yoga and for the most part it felt fine. The only real modification I had to make was not doing the back bend, since the possibility of struggling to get or stay up with my weaker arm and then landing on my head was too high. Of course, during some twisty triangle pose, my left hamstring went, “Ahem.” I think because my left side is all tight and scrunched up from trying to protect my neck. I’d really like my body to quit falling apart.
Another side effect of this whole thing has been the emotional aspect. I’m not in severe pain all the time, so I get impatient with myself and want to just do everything that I’m used to doing. Then when I do that, my body is immediately like, “What the hell were you thinking?” And that bums me out because I feel like I’m old and decrepit already. And then I eat crap because I have poor coping mechanisms sometimes. And then I gain weight and feel like even a bigger piece of shit.
Frank posted this picture from Belvedere’s and I know that the only thing that I should see in it is how much fun everyone is having.
That's me in the green dress in the lower left
But the main thing that I see is how heavy I am and I get furious with myself.
I know it’s not permanent. I’m just really annoyed with my body for not acting the way I think it should, you know?
I’m wearing my glasses today, which sucks for several reasons. Primarily, those reasons are that they’re from a prescription strength or two ago and I am going to the gym later to ride the stationary bike again. They will become foggy and uncomfortable.
But it also really sucks because I’m wearing my glasses because I don’t know where my contact lenses are. Last night, before bed, I took my lenses out, put them into the case, fiddled with one that got folded and stuck, closed the case, put my glasses on and went to bed. Just like every night.
This morning, I realized that my contact case was not on the sink. Figuring the kitten probably swiped it off of the counter in the middle of the night, I started looking around on the floor for it. I found the case underneath the bathtub. But when I opened it up, there were no lenses inside.
This is the second time that this has happened in the past two months. It’s extremely annoying, but also kind of disturbing, because what the hell is happening to my contacts? The case is screwed tightly, so it’s not like the kitten manages to knock it around enough to spill the contents. My only guess is that I’m sleepwalking and going through some kind of self-sabotaging process of dumping my contacts down the sink, filling the case up with fresh solution, possibly poking at my eyes to take out lenses that aren’t there, closing the case, and going back to bed.
Remnants of the admissions stamps from Belvedere's
I always feel weird when I write about the music that I listen to. I know that a lot of people think dance music is all Jersey Shore nonsense, which is just…ignorant. I mean, I don’t really know or care about rock music, but I know that whoever is playing on the radio or on MTV or burning up iTunes isn’t the whole story of the genre, you know?
I guess because I don’t really know who all reads this crap, but I’m certain that a decent portion of the people who do read this site are not really that concerned about dance music. I’m certain about that because it’s a pretty tight-knit group and, yeah, it’s a subculture that’s perfectly happy flying underneath the radar. Most of the time, you probably wouldn’t be able to pick a dance music nerd out of a crowd. But you would only need to overhear a fevered conversation about records or the coordination of a much anticipated vacation to Detroit to realize that they’re an odd little bunch. They have jobs and families and leaky faucets. But on the weekend they have this amazing ability to have fun with absolute abandon.
It’s definitely one of the main things that I have in common with the people that make up my “chosen family.” And our gatherings are always fun, but every once in awhile there’s a night that’s just…legendary.
The husband has this recording of a DJ set by the group The Three Chairs at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival from 2003. I didn’t go that year and listening to that set always makes me wistful. The music, of course, is amazing, but you can hear the crowd going completely berserk. There have been a number of sets that have been epic enough to be placed into the same sentence as that Three Chairs set, and I think ever since then it was the husband’s goal to have one of his own. Saturday night, along with our dear friends Jwan, Frank, and Chris, he accomplished that.
Over 300 people packed themselves into a smoky Belvedere’s and danced and danced and danced. I had positioned myself at the front and every time I looked behind me, the crowd had grown thicker. Eventually, the room was completely full and every single person there was dancing their fool heads off, smiling and laughing and having the best time. The husband, Jwan, Frank, and Chris were on fire, completely ruthless with their track selections, intent on working the room into a frenzy that looked deserving of some holy water.
The lights came on at 2 a.m. but neither the music nor the dancing stopped. The Belvedere’s staff let us go for a little bit longer, but eventually made it clear that they were ready to go home. Our friend Preslav authorized an after party at the Machine Age studios and a decent portion of the 300 people caravanned over there with us.
We packed into the tiny hallway of the studio where the turntables were and the husband, Jwan, Frank, and Chris picked up right where they left off. Drinks kept flowing thanks to a stashed case of IC Light Mango (I don’t know) and a grocery bag full of the odds and ends of someone’s liquor cabinet that they were nice enough to grab on their way over. We kept dancing and laughing and hugging and singing.
As the clock neared 5 in the morning, the party was still going strong, but I began to notice that my neck had had just about enough for one evening. (Honestly, I’m really proud of it for making it as long as it did. That’ll do, neck. That’ll do.) I told the husband that I was fine to stay, but that I was hurting. He wanted to play just one more record. We kept bobbing along as he waited his turn, and I had to pathetically lean on the sister-in-law to give myself some relief.
Then, the husband stepped up and put on this:
Oh, yes he did.
The place erupted as everyone cheered and sang along and I thought, “My god. This is incredible.”
As the husband wrote in his post about the event the other day, Pittsburgh has had a fairly rich history of dance music for years. And I know that that might sound weird, but somehow it just works here. Things were pretty anemic there for awhile, but in the past few years, something has clicked. That there were over 300 people out and dancing for local DJs, not some relatively well-known performer from out of town, is wild. And I can tell you that there is zero pretension involved. For whatever reason, everyone is ready to just go out and have a good time. It’s amazing to witness.
Something is happening here in this city. While we all passed around The List from WaPo declaring Pittsburgh in with a snicker and our tongues in our cheeks, they might really be onto something. It’s fun here and people seem to be realizing that the kind of fun that we like to have, which has been a punchline for so long, is actually a really good time. It’s an opportunity to get lost and forget about everything else for a few hours and realize that, yes…you are beautiful.
Among the gifts underneath our Xmess tree this year were a few board games. The husband, the baby, and I enjoy playing games together, but had run into a problem recently where we (okay, I) hated all of our games. My kid would sweetly request my time over a board and a couple plastic peg things and then I would suck the joy out of life by lying on the couch, shouting out rejections as he ran down the list of available games.
“Mouse Trap?”
“Naw, man, that takes forever.”
“Clue?”
“That also takes forever.”
“Monopoly?”
“Aw, dude, Monopoly sucks.* What’s wrong with Candyland? Candyland owns.”
“I don’t want to play Candyland. The Game of Life?”
“Dude, you said you were never playing Life again after last time when you had five kids.”
“True.”
Last night, we decided to try one of his new games, Stratego, which they play at the baby’s after-school program. Apparently, this game has been around forever, but the husband and I had never heard of it. The husband was laid up on the couch with a headache so the baby and I opened up Stratego. This was at, like, 8:30. I did not realize, however, that prior to actually playing the game, we would have to finish assembling the goddamned thing, which meant putting decals on 60 game pieces. Suddenly, the baby’s innocent question of, “Are you any good with decals?” which he asked while I was busy dropping stuff with my gimpy hand in the kitchen, made sense. The husband mumbled that the baby should NOT apply any decals because GOD FORBID any of them be crooked. So this task was left to me, the chick with terrible eyesight and only one truly functioning hand. Some of the decals were still crooked, shockingly enough, but the sun still came up today so I guess it’s cool.
The baby started reading the directions aloud and they were more than three sentences long so my mind started to wander. I skimmed over them when he was done and went about setting up my pieces, trusting the directions that said that I could arrange them any way I wanted. We started playing and quickly realized that neither of us had any idea what we were doing.
The husband emerged from the couch and came to join us. “Uh, I think I set up my pieces poorly,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, you did. Why did you put all of your bombs around your flag?”
“Well, it said I could put them however I want. I didn’t realize that I needed to set them up in any kind of strategic way.”
“For Stratego. You didn’t realize you needed to use strategy for Stratego.”
“Correct.”
The baby, despite reportedly playing this game before, wasn’t much better. And we crossed off, “General of any armed forces” of our mental list of career paths that we might encourage after seeing that his strategy was basically, “Uh, don’t attack this. It’s nothing. Honest.” All of this strategic failure led to the husband and I saying, “Strategery,” a number of times, which made us need to watch a YouTube compilation of Dubya’s more absurd moments, which made us laugh until the inevitable, “Holy god that man was president,” depression took hold.
We’re attempting Stratego again tonight, now that the decals are in place and we’re all on the same page as far as the strategy aspect of gameplay goes. It’s cool that we’re able to squeeze some games in because it’s indicative of the baby being more mature about getting homework and piano practice done with only a minimal amount of histrionics. It’s been way less upsetting and stressful for me and I keep saying, “Quaaality tiiiime,” in my best Diane Keaton voice. Because Baby Boom was my favorite movie when I was, like, 11 before re-watching it post-feminist-awakening-working-mom-existence made it almost excruciating, analytically speaking.
* I maintain that Monopoly does indeed suck. But I also suck at it and I mostly just don’t get it at all and I suppose that this comes as no surprise to people who read my uber-commie rant about privatized healthcare on Facebook this morning. Comrades or whatever. Cranium is the jam, though.
