kdiddy.org

One of the churches in our neighborhood (I’m not exactly sure where it is because, surprise, I don’t seek these things out) is having a festival this weekend. I’ve seen signs posted all over for it and whenever I read the name of the festival, Resurrection Fun Flair, I can feel my tongue locking up because my brain wants it to be “Fun Fair” and that extra L just totally messes with me. So my brain goes through several iterations of “Resurrlection Fun Fair,” “Resurrection Flun Fair,” “Lesurrection Fun Fair,” trying to figure out where exactly that L goes until I finally read, “Resurrection Fun Flair.” Then I have to take a nap from the exertion.

The signs are mostly very basic that someone with an old version of Microsoft Publisher or something did. Then there’s this one rogue sign on a barrier rail on Brookline Boulevard that is made up of a huge banner with the church’s name and a very plain sign next to it with the name and dates of the festival. Its size and starkness always strikes me when we go past it because it’s like:

RESURRECTION FUN FLAIR JULY 6, 7, 8, 9

So while half of my brain is doing its usual, “Resurrl–…Lesurr–…Flun–…” tap dance, the other half starts giggling about the word “resurrection” being so prominently placed next to the word “fun,” and suddenly this image is all I can think about:

Party up in hurr!

Clearly, no thought is safe in my head.

Speaking of my head, I wrote a little bit about my bummedness over on MamaDojo this week, which was partially prompted by facing my student loans and being completely terrified by what I saw. I spent some time being upset about it for all of the usual reasons: debt, paying for something I kinda sorta regret a little, handing over money that I would rather set aside for my baby, various other dreams that might not come true because of this money, etc. Pure melancholia. But in this period of, “Less mope, more action,” that I’m in, I put fingers to keyboard, got it out, invited others to share their current woes, then got to work. I researched my options without panicking and quitting and sticking my head back in the sand and I think I actually found a feasible solution, a way through this financial muck that won’t choke me. I’m only kind of irritated with myself for not doing this sooner and instead allowing myself nearly two years of anguish because that somehow seemed like the most appropriate way to deal with it. I can’t get mad at myself for being ignorant in the past.

Alright, enough of this Stuart Smalley business. The weekend is upon us.

I posted on MamaDojo the other day that I’ve been putting some effort into my appearance. For me, 32 has been a particularly shifty year when it comes to my self-image. I’ve never been so at peace with my body, but I’ve also never been so proactive in changing it. Well, changing probably isn’t the best way to put it. I think I’m finally at a point where I’m recognizing how good this bag of bones has been to me and I want to treat it right. I eat well, making almost all of my meals with a focus on what my body needs, what will make it feel good. I exercise, but not so much that I risk hurting myself. I regard the tiny lines that are quietly etching their way around my eyes with a sense of, “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

Pretty much the opposite of what I was doing 15 years ago when my body was, outwardly, Holy Shit Amazing to most standards.

This is not to say that I’m “cured” of all of that nonsense. I still fret about the size of my belly and how weird it is that the meat on the side of my left knee is so much bigger than that of my right. Stuff like that.

But I’m noticing that I want to be more…visible? Like I mentioned in my MamaDojo post, Joan from Mad Men rocks my world. She’s got boobs. She’s got hips. She’s got an ass. And we know all of this, but more importantly, we know that she knows it. I’ve been trying to adopt some of that attitude while remaining true to the fact that I like being comfortable and somewhat conservative.

So, today, I was a little apprehensive about my outfit, especially when the husband sized me up and said, “What…what’s with this outfit?” I then peppered him with questions, paranoid that I was, to use a somewhat offensive and not at all feminist word*, skanky. Of course, this recalled another hilarious exchange between the two of us when I had some anxiety over a pair of shorts that were shorter than I usually buy.

“Are they skanky?” I fretted.

“I think you and I have very different definitions of skanky,” he replied. “You look like you’re about to go golfing.”

“But not, like, skanky golfing?” I confirmed, because you know how skanky golfing is totally a thing.

I just want to make sure that I’m not overdoing it and that I’m projecting a relatively youthful vibe without looking like I’m denial over the fact that I’m 32.

So, here’s me in the bathroom at work this morning while our network was down. (What else was I supposed to do? Write things down on paper? Pssh.) I’ll provide the inner monologue.

Conservative shot…terrified someone will walk in.

Try to emulate one of those ladies who document their outfits everyday…ow, I think I pulled something.

Getting really daring now. Attempting to look up without falling over. Oh, why does my posture look weird? Can you tell that I have a wad of paper towels in my left hand?

I need to stop messing around. Jaunty, flirty pose. Vogue.

Not pictured is a bracelet I was wearing this morning…until I remembered that I really don’t like wearing bracelets.

It’s shorter than I would normally go for and the addition of a belt was, to me, completely impulsive and weird. And I would have worn a necklace but I was so thrown off by the belt and the bracelet that I was worried my head would explode. But how do you think I’m doing?

* I’m usually really conscious of my language but sometimes I just have to go there.

The husband called me one afternoon last week and told me that he and the baby were stuck in a good deal of traffic coming home from the Pirates game and would I mind taking the bus home? That was fine with me. I left work a few minutes early to beat some of the rush and on my way to the bus stop, I could see a cluster of inbound buses idling at the stop light. I knew that I was way too far away to catch them before they pulled up to the nearby stop and decided to just take my time and catch one of the next bunch.

Then this…nonsense ran through my brain.

As dumb as they are, I kind of wish I had a Segway right now so I could just make one of those buses…

But Segways are for douchebags.

I should jog more so that I can build up my speed so that I could just run to the bus stop…

But then I would have to wear my big ol’ sports bra all the time just in case I have to take off and my sports bra gives me UniHooter.

What would be really awesome is if I could fly. Then I could fly to the bus stop…

But wait…if I could fly, why would I be taking the bus? Wouldn’t I just fly home? Why is my imagination making me a pigeon?

Around this time I realized that I need to quit being so absurd.

Last night, I was talking in my sleep so loud that I woke myself up. I took a few seconds to wonder who I was talking to and about what before I realized that the answer to my questions was “No one real,” and “Probably bacon.”

I took the day off of work on Friday because I had a dentist appointment at a weird time. I was also, apparently, very exhausted as I slept on Thursday night through Friday morning for something like 12 hours. That evening, we headed out to Oakmont for the annual Greek food festival, which was unfortunately rained on but not before we had some delicious chicken, lamb shank, and loukoumades.

Saturday I was not feeling well, physically or emotionally. My mom came over and was trying to do stuff around my house while the husband was going to his grandmother’s to pick up his grandfather’s old hi-fi and there was too much stuff going on for me to handle. I burst into tears quite irrationally, but to my credit I haven’t done that in WEEKS. The baby felt really bad for me, though, and gave me a bunch of hugs, then took me by the hand and led me to the couch. “Lie down, Mum. Take a nap. You’ll feel better,” he said, and put a blanket over me. He then brought me some books, his DS, and a cup of water and patted me on the shoulder. It was the sweetest thing ever.

Of course, this morning, I was trying for 15 minutes to get him out of bed amidst his whining and groaning. While brushing my teeth, I yelled, “Are you out of bed yet?” He replied, “Yes! Gawd!” And technically he was. He had climbed out of bed…and then curled up on the floor and was falling asleep again.

The husband returned from Chicago yesterday and was able to resume his Driving Me to Work duties this morning. Of course, I got to experience one more morning commute to work aboard Port Authority Transit. On a Monday, no less.

Pittsburgh doesn’t have the worst public transit in the world, but it is beleaguered by a perfect storm of inadequate funding and the city’s troublesome topography. It’s also just not the simplest system. You kind of just have to KNOW how it all works. And with frequent service and route changes, I’ve had multiple experiences in my close to 20 years of PAT history of shuffling up to the driver and saying, “Uh, I think I screwed up. This is not where I was trying to go.” (But, then again, I’m kind of an idiot.) This has made me less than confident in my ability to get anywhere and last summer when I was in New York, I had a great deal of anxiety about navigating the subways by myself. Of course, as I soon found out, NYC’s transit is amazing and idiot-proof. After all, it’s a huge city with all manner of people in it. And really, this guy, whose mind is obviously preoccupied with other things, gets around just fine so I should really quit getting my ovaries in a bunch about it.

Anyway, yesterday the bus was a little late, but I had told my boss that I was going to be arriving around 9:30 on the days that the husband was out of town because that’s just how it is when I have to get the baby off to school first. We meandered out of Brookline and I turned my attention to my phone as we headed into downtown. I looked up a few minutes later because I noticed that the bus had been idling awhile and realized that we were in Allentown.

I immediately became concerned because while Allentown is far from the worst place on earth, for me I’m always wondering, “Why are we in Allentown?” if we hadn’t intended to go to Allentown. I glanced at my fellow passengers to gauge how I should be feeling, because I sincerely thought that maybe I had passed out or something and managed to get on the wrong bus. This seemed reasonable because I had two sleepwalking episodes (and one sleeptalking episode in which I requested some chicken) when I was a kid and now I’m just waiting to become one of those people who is like, “Oops, stepped off a building.” Everyone else had that Allentown face, too, though which brought me some relief until I realized, “Holy shit, no one knows why we’re in Allentown!”

The bus driver sped past people at two stops who were trying to flag him down and at that point I concluded, “Well, this is it. He’s driving us to the woods somewhere and is going to make us dig our own graves behind the murder shed.” But then I remembered that I hold the internet in my hands and was able to ascertain that there had been some massive power failure in the Mt. Washington tunnel. This was but a detour, which made a little more sense than my murder shed theory.

We finally pulled into town a little after 9 and a 61B quickly arrived, thus beginning the second part of my journey. I anticipated a quiet ride to work.

No.

The 61B was filled with one of each of the characters that God created specifically to ride the bus and make your commute that much more interesting. It was like the Noah’s Ark of mass transit. Loud Talker was there, as was Smelly Guy. The lady who refuses to sit on the seats or touch any of the handles was there, stumbling about and bumping into people. I mean, I get where she’s coming from. I, too, have seen those Dateline specials that have titles like, “Fecal Matter Everywhere” and “Feces Pieces” and “How Much Feces Are You Inadvertently Eating Right Now?” But I figure at some point someone told me to, “Eat shit and die,” and I’m just kind of going along with that. But if you’re going to go the germaphobe route, own that shit (no pun intended). Get on the bus in your hazmat suit and gloves. Don’t put all of your faith in your ability to defy physics. It’s annoying.

I realize I’m being very snotty, but that’s what such an eventful bus ride will do to a person. It changes you, strips you of your compassion. This seems to be a universal experience:

The other day, I noticed a few ants in the kitchen. I wasn’t concerned and disposed of them pretty quickly. The next day I was slightly alarmed to see two more surveying my cat’s food bowl. Disposed of those as well, and cleaned the bowl.

And then.

Yesterday morning, I came downstairs and was horrified to see that my cat’s food was now moving and wriggling. The call had gone out and the buffet had begun. A steady stream of visitors were marching through my kitchen and my entryway looked like Grand Central Station for Disgusting Insects.

Of course, this discovery came right when the baby and I had to rush to get to his bus stop and mine, so I did the only rational thing I could think of and grabbed a hand vac. I sucked up a good hundred ants or so and dumped them outside, then ran back in to throw some kind of lunch together for my kid and put some kind of clothing on me.

When we came back downstairs to get our shoes on and leave, I was extremely upset to find that the ants’ cronies had replaced their predecessors with a vengeance. For reasons I won’t get into now, I had a box of unopened potato chips in my entryway and worried that they had somehow attracted the ants. With three minutes to finish getting ready and out the door, I grabbed the box and tossed it onto the basement steps. My cat, constantly curious about the existence of Basement Cat, zoomed past me. Once he gets down there, he doesn’t emerge for hours. Flustered, I yelled after him, “Well, I guess you’re staying down there all day, then!” and closed and locked the door, not realizing until later that I could have left the door open, since I lock the door to keep the cat OUT.

I was upset all day, feeling shame and disgust with myself that I had ants, and worried about leaving my cat to his own devices all day without food or water. Maybe he’ll make himself useful and kill a mouse or something, I thought.

I burst in the door that evening on the way to the baby’s Little League game, certain that my entire house would now be made of ants and that my cat would have managed to kill himself in the basement. I thought of the husband, returning home from his Chicago trip on Monday to an ant-house and a dead cat and a frizzy-haired wife shrugging and saying, “I dunno. It just went all wrong,” and how he would realize that I can’t be left to my own devices.

I turned to the MamaPop distro for advice and heard about cinnamon sticks and talcum powder and traps. I pictured my entryway and kitchen looking like something out of The Blair Witch Project with a cinnamon stick man seated on a boric acid trap surrounded by a circle of powder while I stood nearby chanting. I opted to go with the basic ant traps and warned my cat to not manage to kill himself on those, either.

This morning, the situation was still…a situation, but seemed to have improve somewhat. I went about packing the baby’s lunch and wanted to slice a peach for him. That’s when I remembered my lack of ability when it comes to stone fruits. I slit all around one peach and tried to pull it apart, but I was too forceful and it became mush. I grabbed another that felt firmer but the same thing happened. With time running out before we had to leave, and my neurotic need to never waste food, I stood over the sink and ate both mangled peaches. “Get your shoesh on, dude! Come on!” I shouted, mouth full of peach and spitting juice everywhere.

Husband, don’t worry. Everything’s under control.

A recurring problem that we’ve had this half of the school year is the baby’s school bus. At least once a week, we’ve had to deal with it being extremely late or not showing up at all. I’ll call the bus company. They’ll apologize. Things will be fine for a few days with a new bus driver…until that bus driver disappears into the ether, taking my son’s ride to school with him or her.

I have no idea what it’s like to be a bus driver. It seems like one of those jobs that’s probably very stressful and woefully underpaid, because that’s how we tend to treat difficult but essential jobs in our society. And I imagine that for my son’s bus route, which is made up of a very small group of kids from our area going to their magnet school, a low-seniority bus driver is usually stuck on that route. It has seemed like the drivers that we’ve had were kind of young and maybe just starting out.

All of this is to say that I understand where the problems might come in. That doesn’t make it okay, though, and it really doesn’t make the 40 minutes that I waste on the corner any more worthwhile.

Yesterday, after the bus was again absent, I called the bus company and was told, “Oh! We’ll send someone!” What the? Do I need to prompt them now? Did they morph into a cab company? The deal is, at the beginning of the school year, they say, “We’ll be picking up your child and transporting him to school at this time, Monday through Friday,” and I say, “Great! See you then!” and place the one and only fruit of my loins into their care as they navigate potholes, construction, and *gulp* Pittsburgh drivers. There’s no, “Hey! Guess what, bus company? I’m sending my kid to school again today! I know! Two days in a row lulz!”

Yesterday’s flub was particularly bad because the husband had to go to the airport and having to take both the baby and me to school and work wasn’t really on the agenda. Also, the longer I stand at the bus stop, the better chance I have of encountering some of our neighborhood’s, er, characters. Like the under-toothed woman who, a few months ago during a similar incident, alerted me to a used condom lying on the ground nearby. But, like, in an insane way. Like, she got all in my face with her Newport breath and lisped, “There’sh a yewshed condom over there. A yewshed condom. What should we do?” and I wondered when, exactly, my life turned into a David Lynch movie. Yesterday, I heard her yelling, “MA’AM! MA’AM!” as I was finishing up ordering a school bus and she approached me and said, “The poleesh are looking for a light-shkinned fella who broke into a lady’sh houshe. An 80-year-old lady. And he had a gun. I’m sho glad you have a shell phone. If you shee him, call 911 becaushe he’s light-shkinned and hash a gun.”

Got it. Neighborhood block watch in effect but seriously NOT RIGHT NOW, OKAY?

Anyway, we eventually got to school and work and the airport and no light-shkinned armed fellas or yewshed condomsh were encountered. I put in several stern phone calls to my son’s school and the Pittsburgh Public Schools’ transportation department and today, the bus arrived, manned by a very professional older gentleman who gave me his card and introduced himself.

I managed to saunter over to my bus stop in plenty of time because apparently the earlier PAT bus never showed up, which sucked for the people who had been standing there for 30 minutes in the 90 degree heat. Of course, I was then in the direct line of my enemy, the sun, and tried to avoid getting a sunburn first thing in the morning by positioning myself behind a five-inch wide utility pole.

Survival skills. I have them.

Alas, the bus came and I boarded without incident…until I found an ant crawling on my face.

Remember on Friday when I admitted that we hadn’t been grocery shopping since, like, Bin Laden was still alive? Yeah, still haven’t gone. Normally, we would do such a thing on the weekend, but, well…my weekend was wack. It was a wackend.

Saturday I had to work, which is inherently ugh. Yes, it was for a fun thing (graduation) and yes, I’ll get overtime, but it’s still working on Saturday. After that was over, we headed to the baby’s first piano recital, which was in his piano instructor’s storefront church in Swissvale. The baby, always one to tempt that struck-down-by-lightning thing, displayed the kind of religious tolerance that comes from only having brief glimpses of opulent Catholic churches and loudly commented, “This isn’t even a real church. It’s small. And plain.” I have a feeling this is going to be one of the things that comes up if The Rapture is, in fact, this Saturday. The recital was nice enough and not too long. The baby was adorably nervous but got through his piece, “Yellow Submarine,” just fine.

The husband had to DJ after that and I, after putting the baby to bed, passed out on the couch holding my drink. Classy!

Sunday should have been devoted to groceries and laundry but instead I had to attend a Ladies’ Luncheon. I was not in the mood, but went anyway because I decline them fairly often (they’re always at the worst times of the year) and I know it bums my grandmother out when I don’t attend. Of course, I started coming down with a bear of a headache and contributed little to the conversation, but that was good because I started babbling about Ghost Adventures and saying stuff like, “I wonder how much ass Zak gets in those small towns.” Nobody offered up any guesses.

I came home, still vaguely intending to go to the grocery store, but ended up nursing my headache the rest of the day.

Last night, the baby was supposed to have a baseball game but it was cancelled because the weather here has been less than cooperative. It’s rained so much that my grass is starting to look like something that people work on with sickles.

Speaking of baseball, Jwan came over for a little while last night and we were discussing the Pirates and their quick slide back down beneath .500. The husband commented that he still has faith in them ultimately having a winning season, that this recent streak of losses was a momentary hurdle. “More like a HURRDURRDLE,” I replied. The husband laughed but Jwan, who apparently is not aware of DERP, thought I was having a stroke or something.

see more Hurr

My friends, I stand…er, sit…before you today as a changed woman. I ran my first 5k on Sunday.

It was cool. Like I mentioned before, I signed up for the untimed*, non-competitive 5k run/walk because I was intimidated by the competitive runners.

I set my alarm for 6:00 p.m. that day because I am kind of dumb, but luckily my mom called around 7 a.m. to wish me luck and ask me why it sounded like I was still asleep. We made it into town with relatively little trouble and I left the husband, the baby, and my mom near CMU to make my way over to the start. I followed a few people who looked like they were participating and then suddenly came upon a mass of people in Schenley Park. I could tell from the timing chips on their shoes that they were there for the timed race and so walked over to Flagstaff where the tents and booths were set up. I wasn’t willing to admit that I had no idea what I was doing, so I just kept walking until I saw a sea of people walking toward Phipps and over the bridge. I shuffled into line with them and asked a few people around me, “Are you going to the untimed run/walk thingy?” “Um, I think so?” was the response that I kept getting. For some reason, I found it comforting to be moving slowly along toward an unknown destination with a bunch of people who were as clueless as I was. This might explain so much about my life.

Eventually we stopped just over the bridge near what I figured must be the closest we could get to the starting line. Right around the time that the wholly unnecessary blasting of “Runaround” by Blues Traveler was giving me the shakes, the crowd started moving slowly forward. “Great! The race must be starting! Or we’re moving toward our slaughter. Whatever! At least the Blues Traveler will end!” I thought.

I had been expecting a lot more joggers in the mix, but it turned out that the vast majority of the tens of thousands of people there were indeed intent on Walking for the Cure. Or, in some cases, Standing for the Cure. I had been taking baby steps for at least 10 minutes when I finally caught sight of the official starting line. My heart sank because I thought that I wouldn’t be able to run at all and that this, my first 5k, would end up being a total dud. I texted the husband that it looked like I might just be walking the whole thing. Then I saw a few people jogging along the side and decided to try to follow their lead. I walked sideways and then trotted for a few feet, but it was still so crowded that if I wanted to jog, I would have to do so on the side of hill. Since my goals for the day did not include breaking any ankles, I fell back in with the crowd, frustrated.

Around the time that we hit the .5 mile mark, the crowd was finally starting to thin out and there was enough room for me to jog without risking mangled feet. So, off I went.

And it was fun! I started to see other joggers, which was extremely encouraging. Whatever anxiety I had about being the slowest one disappeared and I allowed myself to just go with it. And the normal feeling of, “Ugh. Can’t wait for this to be over,” that I usually get when I’m jogging by myself never showed up.

I took a few walking breaks as there were a few hills that I was just not up for and sent the husband updates on my progress, right up to the finish line.

Or the "finjishef" line, for when you've just completed your first 5k and are a Swedish chef. Bork bork.

It took me about an hour and four minutes to finish, but I didn’t really care considering it took me so long just to get started.

The husband and the baby and my mom greeted me afterward and congratulated me. I felt legitimately proud of myself and resolved to do another one as soon as possible.

Since Sunday, I’ve been having some kind of extended celebration. That, coupled with a huge work event on Saturday, have me going into some kind of maintenance mode. I’m functioning on like the bare minimum level of adulthood. I’m going to work and getting the baby off to school, but I scoff at grocery shopping or cooking dinner or any of that bullshit. Last night, I felt totally justified in having a hoagie and some of that Jimmy Fallon potato chip ice cream for dinner. Then I got a gross stomachache and passed out in a food coma around 10 p.m. As for housekeeping…

That’s two empty milk cartons that are waiting to be rinsed out and put in the recycling. And some knives and shit. But, hey! The milk is (was) organic. That counts for something, right?

Tonight, after the baby’s baseball game, we’re running to the store to get cereal (and, uh, milk apparently) so that my child can have something to eat in the morning. Parenting, FTW. Maybe I’ll invest in some TRIPLE HEALTH ENGLISH MUFFINS.

Seriously, what’s triple health?

* Can we discuss the gross misuse of “un-” as a prefix? It’s not like the run/walk was timed and then that time stricken from the records. Unsweetened is another one. You don’t sweeten something and then take the sweetener out. Surely there is a better way to distinguish such things.

I did something really immature about two months ago and unsubscribed from a blog in a huff. The author, who I have never interacted with, had hurt my feelings by posting her thoughts on recreational runners: people who set out to run a 5k during some crisis period in their life. It’s not that activity that bothered her so much, it was the perceived oversharing of said recreational runners, posting their results on Twitter or Facebook and proudly displaying their post-race pictures with their participation medals. She assured any recreational runners reading the post that this was highly irritating to everyone and anyone who hadn’t pointed that out to them was just being nice. She also informed them that real runners, those who had been doing it for a long time, thought they were a huge joke. The comments validated her, with both friends of recreational runners and “real runners” confirming that such people were both irritating and full of it.

It made me feel very sheepish and upset. I have no evidence that anyone in my life, either online or in meatspace, is actively irritated with my jogging and the fact that I share my jogs on the internet. However, to the above blogger and her supporters and anyone in my life who feels that way: it is not the mark of a good friend to mock their efforts at turning their lives around or literally slogging through a dark time. You are doing them and me no favors, so please remove yourselves from our lives.

Like I said, this is immature and overly sensitive of me, but that’s just kind of how I am these days.

ANYWAY.

For those of you still here, I’ve been shuffling on treadmills and around Pittsburgh for over a year now and on Sunday I’m going to participate in my very first 5k. I’ll be doing the Race for the Cure. I’m extremely anxious about this. I’m afraid of making a fool of myself because, honestly, I’m not very good at running and I know that I’ll have to walk at least a little bit of it. So I’m doing the non-competitive, un-timed run/walk.

I’m excited about it, though. I’ve been feeling really, really down on myself lately and I think being able to do this will give me a little boost. And I’ve heard lots of stories about how cool it is to experience an event like this.

It’s for a good cause, too. So, hopefully I won’t be too irritated with myself for voluntarily getting out of bed so early on not just a Sunday but Mother’s Day.

The baby’s school bus actually showed up this morning. And then we recovered the bananas that we purchased last night that had mysteriously gone missing. They were in the trunk of the car. Both of these events made me feel triumphant.

My expectations out of life are pretty low.

A light scarf seems like a cute accessory. Until you have to tend to feminine matters and the scarf wants to be all up in your business.