kdiddy.org - Part 3

smell ya later, 2011

I have clear memories of doing this meme for many years and I even went through my LiveJournal archives looking for previous volumes. I can’t find them at all. Did I dream that I was doing them? Could I not dream more interesting things? Like, interesting but not as disturbing as the dream that I had last night in which I made kitten soup? (I blame the Percocet for that one.)

1. Where did you begin 2011?

At my mother-in-law’s. I was not pleased. The sister-in-law and her boyfriend were driving up from DC and the husband had to go DJ, so I was there with my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law, which is fine. However. The MIL and her mom insisted upon watching Wild Hogs which is really, really terrible. Then the husband texted to tell me that he was just going to stay out, which made me incredibly angry. The sister-in-law and boyfriend-in-law showed up a few minutes before 12 and brought those little canned Blanc de Blancs from Sofia Coppola. They were surprisingly not bad but I was very upset that I didn’t get to kiss the husband at midnight.

2. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Ran two 5ks. The Race for the Cure I don’t really count since I was forced to walk so much of it, but the Great Race was awesome. I really got why people like running races so much.

3. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Last year I said that I wanted to jog more and figure out a way to work it into almost every day. I didn’t quite accomplish this, though I was pretty good about going to the gym at work every day. The last few months of this year I got knocked off of my schedule and am definitely feeling crappy because of it. I’ve obtained a treadmill and want to get it set up in my house, which requires a room that’s been in progress for a long time to get finished so that I don’t always have to stress about fitting a workout into my workday if I can’t do so. I also have a lofty goal of running the Pittsburgh Marathon half marathon in May, but because of my recent injury I don’t know if I can swing that. I haven’t jogged in a few weeks because of it and I imagine it could be at least a month before I’m able to do so again.

4. Were you in school (anytime this year)?

Nope! I still have no desire to do any extracurricular learning.

5. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No, but some friends of ours are expecting baby #2 in 2012.

6. Did anyone close to you die?

No, thankfully.

7. What places did you visit?

Washington, D.C., Detroit, MI.

8. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Good health. I mean, I’m not riddled with disease but I’m potentially facing surgery and that’s scary. So no more of these things, thankyouverymuch.

9. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

September 25, 2011: I ran the Great Race 5k. December 6, 2011: my kid turned 10.

10. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

The Great Race 5k, taking really good care of my mental health, overcoming a really difficult professional situation.

11. What was your biggest failure?

I felt like I had less patience than ever with my kid. His tweenness is at odds with my inability to deal with snotty behavior. I’m trying, but it’s really hard.

12. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Yep. I ran over my toe with the dishwasher. That toenail finally fell off and is slowly being replaced with this tiny, total failure of a nail. I’m far too embarrassed to get a pedicure now, which sucks. I hope it gets better. I also herniated a disc in my neck somehow because I’m talented like that.

13. What was the best thing you bought?

Workout clothes. Spare tshirts and whatnot are fine but dedicated workout clothes are a treat.

I bought WWE tickets for the baby twice, which is not at all my cup of tea but he had a blast.

Our kitten!

iPhone 4S!

Sade tickets!

My kid’s 10th birthday party at Games N’At!

And I’m going to say that laptop that I impulsively purchased because I eventually made the responsible decision to return it and not accrue that large chunk of credit card debt.

14. Whose behavior merited celebration?

I’m always proud of my kid. He is, indeed, being a very trying individual but he has moments of being aware of how uncool that is.

15. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

I can’t really talk about it.

16. Where did most of your money go?

Repeated answer from last year (SIGH): All of my money went to paying the bills that I can pay right now. None of it went to savings or toward paying the bills that I can’t pay right now (student loans). And that’s all I want to say about that because it’s so embarrassing and depressing that I don’t want to get into it.

17. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I’ve had a kind of cheesy year where I have moments of being aware of how much good I have in my life and how much I love the people in it. I’ve always been such a sourpuss and to be able to be present and grateful has been very exciting.

18. What song will always remind you of 2010?

“By Your Side” by Sade

19. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier
b) thinner or fatter? I think I’m about the same. I would have been thinner but the one-two punch of my neck putting me firmly on my ass for the time being, getting a little depressed and therefore overeating because of that, and the massive food fest of the holidays has me on the pudgier side of things for sure.
c) richer or poorer? Richer. In many ways.

20. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Same as last year: Reading books, taking pictures, writing, and being with people. I’ll also add that I wanted to jog more, do more yoga, and roller skate more. In 2012, after my neck is fixed, I’m going to go nuts.

21. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Whatever it was that caused my disc to herniate.

22. How did you spend Christmas?

Same as always: Christmas Eve was at my mother-in-law’s. Christmas morning was at our house, then we went to my mom’s house, then we went to the husband’s family’s house. There was a, um, high-spirited game of Cranium that nearly ended in fisticuffs.

23. Did you fall in love in 2011?

Yep. The baby is the love of my life. The husband and I have been together for 11 years and married for 5. And on more than one occasion, I looked at him and thought, “God DAMN!” That’s a good thing, right?

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, The Walking Dead, True Blood, Bored to Death, Whitney, 2 Broke Girls, Beavis and Butthead, and I just recently started devouring American Horror Story.

25. What did you do for your birthday in 2011?

We had a small party at my mom’s house and went trick-or-treating. I also co-opted the Louis CK show that happened like a week later as part of my birthday celebration. The husband and I went to Morton’s beforehand which was CRAZY DELICIOUS. Drinks with JiveTurkey happened after the Louis CK show, which is always fun.

26. What was the best book you read?

The Great Gatsby and Slaughterhouse Five (I’ve been trying to read a lot of books that I should have read by now.)

27. What did you want and get?

New Christmas stockings (I’m blaming the pain medication, but I went on Pottery Barn Kids a week before Christmas and got us all fancy stockings with our names embroidered on them. Including the cats.)

A new iPhone. Mine was still functioning but really slow and old.

28. What did you want and not get?

I wanted to qualify for the public service loan forgiveness program but I am just TOO RICH (lulz). So, I’m back to the drawing board figuring out how to pay my loans. WHATEVER.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

I have such a hard time remembering what movies I’ve seen. Wikipedia to the rescue! The Muppets was rad, I liked The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I imagine I would have liked Drive if I hadn’t been drunk when I went to see it. The Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean installments that came out were good. Rango was rad. Limitless was meh. I did not love Bridesmaids as much as everyone told me I should. Super 8 was cool. Bad Teacher had its moments. The Rum Diary was great. Immortals was decent.

30. Did you make some new friends this year?

Yeah. I think I sort of opened up to people I already knew more.

31.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

The Steelers winning the Super Bowl. Duh.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

My stock answer is “dressed.” But I did make an effort to look a little bit nicer this year.

33. What kept you sane?

My therapist and some related pharmaceuticals. Taking frequent breaks from life. Jogging. Yoga.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Louis CK

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

I really shut down my emotions with regard to politics this year. I just can’t do it anymore. And, yes, I realize that I’m able to do this because I’m extremely privileged.

36. Who did you miss?

Frank. Bolt. Anybody who I don’t get to see once a week.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

To quote the husband, “Just chill out, man.”

2010

Apparently I skipped 2009

2008

2007

kiss it and make it better

When I found out about my herniated disc, I had a couple of emotions run through me immediately. Relief, because it wasn’t something really terrible. Confusion, because how did I do this to myself? And fear/worry, because the strong possibility of surgery in my future and the relative seriousness of this injury threw me. Since then I’ve done a lot of googling and a lot of rationalizing. I’m not in constant pain so maybe I won’t need surgery, etc.

Wednesday night, we took the baby to the WWE show. Tickets to that were his big present this year. The husband and I just can not get into wrestling, but the baby really loves it so we go. The show was long and somewhere around the three-hour mark, I began to notice some pain. When we got home, I took one of the painkillers and relaxed.

A few hours later, the painkiller had worn off, and I had a hard time settling into a comfortable position in bed. This frustrated me and suddenly all of the emotions that I’d been swirling around burst out. The husband was concerned that the tears were all due to pain.

“No. I’m in pain but I’m mostly just scared and upset.”

He talked me down and I sat up for a bit to drink some water and pet the cats who had come to check on me when they heard me crying. The husband scooched up and kissed my neck. It felt better after that.

the worst phone conversation i've had while in a petsmart. so far.

So! Last Friday, I had my MRI. It was not bad at all. The only questionable part was when I was in the tiny waiting room with the other patients and someone who, I think, had taken sedation was coming out of her MRI and having a rough time coming to. She notified everyone of this by SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER. “NO! NO! NO! WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME? WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?” The other to-be-MRIed patients and I shot our heads up (gingerly, in my case) from our 1998 issues of Redbook and peered, frightened, down the hall. It was not the most reassuring sound for an MRI n00b like me. The nurses saw us getting ready to lose our shit and started shushing the woman and quickly got her out of earshot.

The MRI itself was fine. I was in the tube for about 20 minutes and didn’t really experience any feelings of claustrophobia or anxiety. The noise didn’t really bother me, either. I guess all of these years of listening to pounding dance music were good for something. After that was over, I set about the rest of my Christmas activities.

I know I say this every year, but our tree this year was the best.

It didn’t look that huge at the lot, but once we got it set up and the branches had a chance to settle, we realized that we had a gorgeous, wonderfully fragrant, evergreen beast. It bears repeating:

Christmas itself was awesome, if exhausting. I love the shit out of Christmas.

So, Tuesday I called the get the results of my MRI, which ended up being a bit of an ordeal. My doctor was at a different office than where my results were and would need to call me back later. But the office where my results were closed early. This was particularly upsetting, since the nurse had told me, “Yeah, you definitely have something going on there.” In the hours during which I had plenty of opportunity to obsess over what this meant, I had pretty much written my will because “something going on” had become flesh-eating alien brain tumor in my mind.

We had to go to PetSmart that night because the kitty litter situation in our house had gone all wrong, with both cats completely saturating the litter in their box and then revolting against us. One pooped on the floor, another puked. It was anarchy. So we were in the middle of spending a somewhat absurd amount of money on a second litter box, a 42 pound bag of litter, and other stuff and I was scrunching up my face at the wet cat food when my doctor called.

He said stuff about C5 and C6 and whatnot and then told me what was the problem: a herniated disc. As he was giving me the information for the neurosurgeon that he recommended, I interrupted him and said, “I have to have surgery?” My doctor was certain that I do, but I’m hoping that neurosurgeon will want to try something else first. Getting my neck cut open and whatnot is rather freaky and I’m not a fan of having surgery whatsoever.

So. That’s what’s going on. Thankfully, I’m not in constant pain. I only notice it when I make an effort to correct my posture from my Nosferatu stance, and I can definitely feel something hitting a nerve all the way down my arm. And my fingers and arm are still numb and tingly, but I haven’t really lost any function in them.

Stupid broken kdiddy.

kdiddy SMASH

So my neck woes haven’t exactly improved. The muscle relaxers and painkillers that I got from MedExpress did indeed help, only to reveal that I still had a great deal of tightness in my neck and this really cool new feature where my left arm and my left thumb and index finger were kind of numb. I called MedExpress and explained what was going on in a please-let-it-be-nothing, “That’s okay, though, right? Loss of feeling? Right?” nonchalance and they explained slowly that this was a cause for concern. They made me call my doctor, my doctor ordered me to go get X-rayed, and this morning I met with my doctor.

I had the unique experience of explaining that I did this to myself in my sleep, though I’m now realizing just how embarrassing that is and need to get a better story. “Oh, you know, I was on safari and had to tackle a lion. Yeah, my neck hurts but I messed that lion UP!” But, no, 33 is apparently the age where you just spontaneously injure yourself. Which I guess is why the cashier at CVS, after surveying my haul of Aleve, heating pad, and Ben-Gay, suggested that I get a Craftmatic adjustable bed. (She’s buried in my yard now.)

The X-rays showed that my vertebrae were slightly out of whack, most likely due to me stiffly holding my neck at a weird angle for two weeks, and were pushing on a nerve which was causing the numbness. I need to get an MRI done to make sure I haven’t completely mucked things up and in the meantime I get to take steroids to reduce the inflammation. “The steroids will make you hyper, and hungry, and…angry,” she explained. Sweet! I can’t wait to tear downstairs on Christmas morning and bite the tree in half. Here’s what I’ll be wearing:

"HULK MAKE TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS MORNING BREAKFAST OF PANCAKES AND BACON! HO HO HO!"

I was slightly disappointed that they didn’t give me any kind of neck brace. I was really hoping to perfect my impression of Joan Cusack in Sixteen Candles.

I also went ahead and took her offer of a Percocet prescription because it makes a dandy eggnog. I am currently on EIGHT different medications for various ailments and I told Tracey last night that my purse now sounds like Paul Abdul’s with all of those pills rattling around.

this entry brought to you by pain meds

Every once in awhile, I wake up to find that I’ve slept in such a way that I’ve caused my neck to spasm. It sucks, especially since it happens at least once a year. I spend the next two days or so moving very stiffly until it works itself out and I get my full range of motion back. Last week, I woke up to a slightly stiff neck that gradually got worse over the day. The next day it was pretty bad, but I figured I needed to just grit my teeth like every other time.

Fast forward to today, and I’m still dealing with my painfully stiff neck. For over a week, it’s been like this, on a frustrating cycle of loosening up somewhat during the day only to revert to its ickiness during the night. Getting out of bed in the morning is excruciating (I mean, more so than usual). I’ve adopted a posture and gait not unlike Nosferatu’s.

Me, heading upstairs to seduce the husband. Oddly, I was unsuccessful.

I kept working out on my usual schedule this week, finding some relief in yoga and Pilates during all of the stretching and floorwork. But during yesterday’s Pilates class I realized that going there was a mistake. I had to lie on my mat for at half of the 30-minute class and found myself tearing up from pain and frustration. I went to see Fat Beckett with Gayle last night and felt fairly good during that and our dinner date beforehand. (During dinner, we came up with a HEE-LAAAAR-EEE-US viral-video-to-be that I sincerely hope we can bring to life. The word “dupa” features prominently.) I put my heating pad on it for a little while before bed, but woke up this morning in possibly even more pain than ever.

I realized that I needed to quit waiting for it to get better on its own and headed to Med Express during lunch. They had mercy on me and gave me some prescription Aleve and some kind of pain medicine that makes me reeeeeeally drowsy. Hold on, gotta take a quick nap.

oh what fun it is n'at

The baby’s friend wasn’t actually wearing aviators. I added those to protect his privacy and ensure that I’m exploiting only my child. If that kid’s parents want to exploit him, they’re on their own. I can’t do everything for everyone.

Something (else) that my kid might eventually hate me for is conceiving him in March, causing him to be born in December. He hasn’t yet made it evident if he is at all bitter about this, but I’ve heard from plenty of people that having a birthday in December sucks. Apparently people experience their birthdays getting kind of swallowed up by Christmas, which I think makes Jesus, like, the most annoying first-born sibling ever, getting all of the attention and stuff.

From my perspective, my kid’s birthday falls in the midst of one of the busiest times of the year. There are lots of parties and events to attend, plus the irresistible urge to just DO stuff, like clean and decorate the house and go on baking rampages. When he was born, I ventured out of the house for the first time when he was about two weeks old to go Christmas shopping. I tell you that Hunter S. Thompson, with all of his fear and loathing, would not have been able to handle the experience of a Bed Bath & Beyond in December after popping Percocet for a few weeks and existing in a weird twilight of breast milk and interrupted naps. I nearly had a psychotic break. Also, I got people like the shittiest Christmas gifts ever. I think my mom got a picture frame and my dad got a handkerchief or something. The husband got a Kendrell Bell jersey, which was cool at the time, but quickly became a dud when Bell got injured 830 times and then fell off of the face of the earth.

Anyway…what was I talking about? Oh, yes, my kid’s birthday. If it fell during a less hectic time of year, I would be able to focus more time and energy on it. But as it stands, I’ve outsourced his birthday party almost every year. That way, he gets to have a special day and I don’t collapse in the corner crying. High fives all around. As a result, he’s had some really cool birthday parties at movie theaters, roller rinks, and museums.

This year, we kind of blindly decided on an arcade called Games N’At. We had intended on checking the place out first, but about a month ago I realized that we needed to just go for it, lest we end up with nothing to do. Let me tell you, if you have any kind of party coming up, kid’s birthday, adult birthday, holiday party, whatever, consider going there. It’s fantastic.

It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside there are all of these rooms with every kind of video game you could possibly want to play, everything from air hockey and skeeball to XBoxes and old school Pac Man and Dig Dug. I had told my grandparents not to come because they would probably find it too loud and crazy, but the big party room that we were in (one of two) was quiet and relaxing, with a fireplace and a nice big TV to watch if you needed a break. The kids were able to pick what they wanted to eat…basic party fare; pizza, nachos, chicken nuggets…nothing gourmet but on occasions like these I CARE NOT. Parents got to eat, too, which was awesome. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve nearly passed out at a birthday party because the food is only for the kids. The staff also provided candy bags, so all I had to do was bring cake, which was fine because the baby always has me make him cupcakes anyway. The kids each got free tokens for the games that dispense redemption tickets, but we got a few extra because they had double-booked the party room. Another party was slightly overlapping ours, which really wasn’t even an issue, but the owner was so apologetic about it, which was really nice of her. For three hours and all of that service and amenities, the total was about $180. I guess that’s generally kind of expensive, but I felt that it was a total steal.

I also have to talk about the cupcakes that I made. The baby always asks for chocolate mint cupcakes and for the past few years I used a recipe that I didn’t particularly like. Then, one of my favorite food bloggers, Annie’s Eats, posted a recipe for some fancier mint chocolate cupcakes just a few weeks ago. The moist cake with the mint ganache filling and the mint Swiss meringue buttercream was so much better than my previous iterations. But, as my mom pointed out, were kind of wasted on the kids. I had braced myself for this and thought I would be cool with it, but had to bite my tongue when one of the guests promptly scraped off the buttercream. “I don’t really like icing,” he explained. THAT’S NOT “ICING” YOUNG MAN! THAT’S SWISS MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM, GAWD!”

But the baby had an awesome time, which is the most important thing. I’m hoping to go back soon so that I might redeem myself on the air hockey table. The husband doled out a horrible smackdown and I had the added insult of getting laughed at because my gameplay looked like my coach had been our kitten. I got all dizzy following the puck back and forth.

a very strange, enchanted boy

I had grand plans to make this really lovely photo montage for today, but because my kid is SO OLD, he was born before digital cameras were really A Thing and was several years old before they were cheap enough for us to afford one. So, the montage requires a great deal of scanning. I’m not saying it’s not happening at all, but it’s going to be delayed.

My son is 10 years old today. That is blowing my mind in every possible way.

Last night, I put him to bed and told him that I would see him when he was a 10-year-old. He grinned as he snuggled down into his blankets with his beloved stuffed dog and the little alligator baby toy that we had unearthed. I lingered for a second, staring at the top of his head, and wished for a second that I could keep tomorrow from coming. Not because I grieve for time lost or the fact that my child is getting older, but because I wanted just a little more time with him as a little boy.

I can’t seem to recap the past year of his life in terms of milestones and achievements. Things like “started to play saxophone” jumble up in my brain with “laughed for the first time” because it all seems like it has happened in an instant. When he was born and when the nurse first showed him to me, everything stopped. I think I’ve been existing mostly in that moment ever since, face to tiny face, staring into the greatest love of my life while everything continued around us. So while he has grown and changed and become this wonderful little person, I’m still there, seeing his face for the first time.

i slapped a jerk and i liked it

I’m not, by nature, a violent person. At least I don’t think so. I used to describe myself as having a short temper. But I think that was a combination of two things: my admittedly bad habit of getting irritated too easily and my tendency in my earlier days to bother having an opinion or caring about stuff that wasn’t actually worth the effort. I’ve gotten physical a few times. One time that stands out is when I was about 10 and at a high school reunion picnic with my parents. Some kid was harassing me and the other kids I was playing with. I became furious. I pushed him. He pushed back. He won. I got gravel embedded under the skin of my palms, which hurt like hell.

Most of the time, if I’m angry about something, I’ll rant about wanting to sock someone, and maybe in the moment I do. But I know that it’s not really worth whatever consequences would follow.

My thought process was not as logical this past Friday night.

I was out to see the husband’s band and a few DJs and I was, admittedly, intoxicated. I was, however, behaving and just generally having a good time, and tweeting things like:

Just don't ask me to explain any of these.

At one point, however, some guy who was not holding himself together, stumbled through the crowd and was dragging another inebriate, who was dragging a bar stool. This choo-choo train of fail ran right into me, knocking me down and trampling me a bit. My memory of this event is fuzzy, but my sister-in-law tells me that I stood up and thrust two middle fingers in the air. I then approached the guy who ran into me and talked to him for a bit in what I’m sure was an enlightening conversation. I then removed his glasses, set them on the table next to him, and slapped him across the face.

Photographers were on hand to capture my self-image

There was no retaliation on his part or on the part of his companions. Probably because I was nice enough to spare his glasses. I wear glasses. I know they’re expensive. If I had a slap coming, I would want to make sure my glasses wouldn’t get bent.

I’m really thankful that it didn’t escalate. Obviously because I wouldn’t want to test out whether or not I had any actual fighting skills but also because people starting fights at bars is so cliche and trashy. But I’m mostly just really…impressed? surprised? with myself that I got up the guts to do such a thing when the situation really called for it.

That said, I’m pretty sure I’m hanging up my gloves.

thankful for perspective

I did something kind of dumb a few weeks ago. As I mentioned the other day, I got a new iPhone. I initially went to buy it after having brunch with Laurie, Kim, and Jessica. I walked into the Apple Store with a small list of questions having to do with the fact that my laptop was from several OSes ago and could no longer support newer versions of iTunes and therefore could not update newer versions of iOS. This wasn’t a huge problem, since iPhones now have cloud storage, but the only thing to consider was that I would have trouble transferring images and contacts and stuff from old phone to new.

If you’ve been to an Apple Store, you know that everyone who is working there during your visit (all 50 of them), are extremely friendly and personable and have drunk enough of the Apple Kool-Aid that they’re JUST SO HAPPY FOR YOU THAT YOU’RE BUYING AN APPLE PRODUCT. The college student that I ended up oddly attached to was nice and kind and seemed to genuinely like me. And I’m not sure what happened, but I eventually heard myself saying, “I’ll take a MacBook Pro, please.”

The next 20 or so minutes were a blur of credit cards and rebates and Cloud set ups. I walked out of the store with a new laptop and a free-after-rebate printer in my hands. And I was pretty happy about my purchases until the fumes from the store wore off. Then I began to wonder if I’d acted foolishly.

I did want a new a laptop, though I wouldn’t have gone so far to claim that I needed one. But the one thing that I knew for certain was that I couldn’t afford one. I had, as I said, put it on a credit card, which wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world if it wasn’t the credit card that had been the bane of my existence since I got it as a wee college senior. Its interest rate was too high and the balance had been circling the same embarrassingly high amount for years. I would pay a chunk off and then something would happen and I would need funds that I didn’t have and out it would come. But for the most part, I had protected it from big impulse purchases.

When I got home, however, the majority of my brain was still excited about my new toy. The husband looked at my haul, puzzled. “Uh, why did you buy that?” he asked. I didn’t have an answer besides, “I just really wanted it.”

We didn’t argue and the husband didn’t try to make me feel bad, but I quickly began to feel ashamed of myself for doing something so impulsive and selfish and financially reckless.

I kept the laptop in its box and over the next few days tried to determine whether or not I could really afford the payments that I would be making and trying to deal with the fact that I had essentially put myself back a whole year in paying down that card. Eventually, I realized what I needed to do.

On Saturday, I went to a different Apple Store than the one where I had purchased the laptop. I didn’t want to risk seeing my buddy from the big purchase. The face of the Genius who helped me fell when I told her the reason for my visit. She seemed personally hurt and sad that I would return such a wonderful thing. And I’d be lying if I said that a tiny part of me didn’t hope that there would some reason that they would say that they couldn’t accept the return, that I would be forced (or “forced”) to keep the shiny pretty thing. But eventually I walked out of there, empty-handed but with the promise of a thousand-dollar bad idea soon to be erased.

I’m thankful for my impulses, for whatever it is that tells me to go for it. Those impulses got me a partner that I can’t imagine my life without and a son who makes the world a little bit better every day. They got me a house that surely does it what it can to drive me crazy, but that I can tell is going to be a center for us and my kid and his kids for years to come. They certainly give me some headaches, like when they drive me to make major purchases without really thinking them through. But if I don’t do that sometimes, I don’t get the opportunity to remind myself that I’m pretty good about fixing my mistakes.

don't look at it, no matter what happens

So, I’m on this rosacea medication and that illicit acne cream. And I guess they’re working because, as I mentioned on Twitter yesterday, I feel kind of like this:

What’s even worse is that while I was searching for an image of that guy, I came across this:

Why, internet? Why?

It’s not that I don’t love Richard Simmons. I find him to be endlessly entertaining, especially since he only seems to pop up in the oddest places in my cultural existence.

I’m just unnerved by salad being potentially wasted.

Anyway, I had a somewhat exciting weekend in that I finally got a new phone. My iPhone 3G was 3 years old and not in terrible shape, but it was pretty slow and rickety. I ventured to the Apple Store twice in the space of one week on this quest and I think that place needs to come with some kind of warning. Despite the fact that there’s a recession, there are always 100 customers in there. Though, of course, they’re probably not all buying stuff but are instead there to huff the fumes of pretty shiny things. The, admittedly wonderful and numerous, staff are all so…buddy buddy. All of the Apple Geniuses that I interacted with were so…I think “stoked” is the best word for them. They were so stoked that I was there, they were stoked that I was getting a new phone, they were just really stoked. This is truly the genius of Apple: that gentle hypnosis that convinces that anything you want to buy is totally awesome and you so totally deserve it just for being you.

Speaking of happiness-inducing things, I’m starting to think about the cookies that I’m going to bake for this holiday season. I have a really good cache of recipes, but I always want to find some new ones to try every year. My source for that the past however many years has been Martha Stewart, who used to always put out a special holiday issue. She doesn’t really seem to be doing that anymore. She has a “holiday handbook” but it’s light on recipes and heavy on crafts, which I don’t really get into at all. Martha seems to be on the forefront of the shift to digital media, as her magazines are now available for iPad and iPhone, plus she released a “Cookies” app just in time for the holiday baking season. Iiinteresting.