kdiddy.org

A few weeks ago, the sister-in-law was in town for the weekend and we took the baby to a class he was taking at Dance Alloy in Garfield. After dropping him off, we ran down the street to grab a cup of coffee. Garfield is an area of town that is currently being gentrified. The people involved in that community I’m sure don’t like that word and would rather I say that it’s being “creatively revitalized and resuscitated from the consumptive plague of urban blight through art” or something. Whatever, I’m not judging, since I obviously participate in it. I’m just saying that building modern, eco-friendly lofts next to a crack house rings a lot of gentrification bells. It’s cool.

Anyway, I noticed that the constant, low-to-mid-level pissiness that seemed to define my personality in my 20s must have tapered off. When we exited the coffee shop, I saw a parking meter that someone had yarnbombed and it made me irrationally irritated in a way that seems to have been absent. Yarnbombing, for those of you with the wisdom to ignore the antics of idiots, is sometimes called “guerrilla knitting” and is basically putting yarn around inanimate objects because…I don’t know. All I know is that I imagine someone saying, “I made this fence a sweater because I’m so full of life and appreciate beauty and yarn lulz!” and I just want to kick something because that is moronic.

I had to ask a homeless guy to get out of the frame so that I could capture my whimsy!

None of this has much to do with anything but I thought of it because I’ve had several shitty days in a row following a kind of okay vacation in Conneaut Lake with my family last week. Don’t get me wrong, most of it was really fun. There was just stuff like the mattresses in our cottage being from the Eisenhower administration, which sort of forced the husband and I to sleep on the floor if we were to maintain any mobility. There was also me taking steps to maintain my healthy eating but getting sidelined by alcohol and candy. Despite noshing on stuff like kale most of the week, around Wednesday evening I snapped and started being that person who’s like, “I’d like a steak a la mode,” and, “This Champagne would be really good with some chocolate covered pretzels in it.” Kind of gross. And I didn’t work out once and I gained like 8 pounds which just made me mad. I also got my period at a restaurant because I’m like 13 or something and can’t handle the bodily function that I’ve had every month for nearly 20 years. Are you there God? It’s me, diddy.

For as good as I’ve been feeling all summer, and as deftly as I’ve handled upsetting moments in recent months, I find myself looking at empty hands where coping skills used to be. Everything’s fine, or rather, everything that needs to be fine is (we’re all healthy and fed and whatnot). Things have just been pretty rough for me the last few days.

That’s all.

How have you been?

I don’t know if you’ve heard but it’s been crazy hot here this week. As such, everyone is becoming a little…punchy.

For example, me taking a picture of myself first thing in the morning just so I can show you how my hair has been acting.

We don’t have air conditioning in our house and this is one of the few days out of the summer where that just sucks. So there’s lots of ice water being consumed and cold showers being taken. Last night, I climbed into bed and realized that there was no way I was going to fall asleep without cooling myself down somehow and de-stickifying my neck and cleavage. So, I hit the shower and then got back into bed. That meant that I was putting my wavy hair to bed wet and then waking up in the humidity. The results were some kind of science experiment.

If it wasn’t so messy, I would have just rocked this Shirley Temple ‘do, but it was obvious that my pillow had styled my hair so I clawed a brush through it.

Downstairs, I set about getting my coffee, breakfast, and lunch together for the day and I was supervised by my cat, who I had forgotten to feed yesterday. Today, he made sure that I wouldn’t make the same mistake.

That’s his food bin that he’s sitting on top of. And he meowed at me in a very direct tone. He’s very subtle.

After I got myself and my hair out the door, we rode in to work. Close to my office, we gaped at a man who was easily over 6 feet tall riding along on a Razor scooter.

Like this, but completely absurd.

The image of him hunched over and kick-pushing his way to, presumably, educate the youth of America has now burned itself into my brain. Imagining him kissing the wife goodbye, all, “Off to bring home the bacon, honey! Hey, son, I’m taking the Razor today,” makes my head hurt. Zombies can’t be far behind.

We went to see Harry Potter last night and the baby got all dressed up for the occasion.

He is currently devouring the books and while I don’t share his enthusiasm for the franchise, I’ve found almost all of the movies to be pretty enjoyable. I didn’t sob through the last hour of the movie like the grown women in front of me, though. I mean, I get being attached to characters that way, but histrionics in public are a little unnerving.

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:

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.

“Everyone’s so politically correct these days.”

“Political correctness has gone too far.”

“Political correctness violates the First Amendment.”

Please stop saying statements like these and find a better way to articulate yourself because you sound really, really ignorant.

Politically correct is one of those terms that makes me cringe, not because of what it represents, but for how it’s been reclaimed by nasty people to mock those of us who request or demand a more mature and respectful general discourse. But, for better or worse, that’s the term that we seem to be stuck with, since “Not Acting Like a Racist/Prejudiced/Homophobic Jackass,” is wordy and not always appropriate for the evening news.

Let me tell you first what politically correct IS NOT. There is no politically correct legislation. The First Amendment of the Constitution states that THE GOVERNMENT may not dictate what you can and cannot say. It does NOT state that you can say whatever you want about/to whoever you want and that person just has to take it, even if you’re dragging the conversation down by being tactless and offensive. So while the government can’t tell you what to say or not to say, private citizens and companies (ie, your employers) can. You are, in fact, pretty fucking free in this country, no matter whatever dipshit on Fox News you get your information from tells you.

Politically correct is a general understanding that if you say something that the person that you are talking to or about finds demeaning and unnecessary, they can ask you to stop out of respect for them as a human being. And you, if you are not a self-centered a-hole, will at least adjust your language for the sake of the understanding that we are all equals and deserve to be treated with the bare minimum of respect.

What is usually pretty interesting about protests against politically correct language is that they often come from a member of a traditionally dominant group of society. Being told by someone who was traditionally beneath them that they do not permit them to speak to them that way makes them feel uneasy and not powerful. So, a straight person pouting over someone asking them not to use the word “gay” as a synonym for something stupid or negative, or an able-bodied person upset because they were asked not to use the word “retard,” or a white person coming to the stunning realization that making fun of “Asians” is not only assheadedly insensitive, particularly now, but myopically ignorant and tacky, or a man upset that he can’t get away with calling every woman a bitch and not get shit for it are the reactions of a privileged group threatened by those whose oppression they benefited from. It’s much easier to believe that one of those uppity “others” is trying to stifle your freedom of speech than it is to accept that your words do, in fact, damage our progress as a society. Words are never “just words.”

Of course, it happens often that we unintentionally offend people. Perhaps a joke fell horribly flat and you are in the awkward position of defending your choice of words. “You know that’s not what I meant,” is not the thing to say here. “I’m sorry that you found that offensive,” is also not the solution. And, seriously, “My best friend is ______ and he doesn’t care if I say ______,” doesn’t absolve you. The members of any group of people are not all the same. Simply say, “I’m sorry,” and try to absorb what you learned from the experience.

It’s not about censorship. It’s not about manners. It’s about treating each other the way we should be.

So despite my unsettled feelings about religion, I’m a huge fan of Christmas. I imagine it pisses some people off to know that I secularize such an important holiday, but I can’t help it. It has all of the elements that I love: gaudy decorations, days off of work and school, pretty music, funny movies, hanging out with my family, presents, huge meals, cookies, candy, and really early acceptable drinking times. As long as I’m not actively being evil, I think I get to do Christmas until Christ Himself comes to my house and demands a birthday cake, at which point I will make Him such an awesome cake that He’ll drop and give me 40 rosaries and 10 Hail Marys right there.

Anyway, yes. Christmas. It was pretty good, but was generally kind of a bummer because on Christmas Eve morning, my grandfather fell. He’s 88 years old, in excellent health both physically and mentally, doesn’t take any medications, exercises every day, and still works 40 hours a week. That morning, he went for his constitutional, and tripped. He had to drive himself back to his house because no one was around and my grandmother doesn’t drive. When they got to the hospital, they diagnosed him with a dislocated shoulder and a black eye. Not the most pleasant outcome but definitely not the worst. During tests, however, they discovered an irregular heartbeat and informed him that he would need to be in the hospital for a few days to correct it. He came home yesterday and is doing well, but he had to spend Christmas in the hospital and my grandmother, being how she is, never left his side. I’m, of course, glad that he’s okay but it wasn’t the same not to have them around.

Despite that and a soul-crushing trip to Macy’s the week before, we gathered up all of our Christmas spirit and prepared to enjoy the shit out of some presents.

It helped that our tree this year is, I think, the best one that we’ve had.

It smells amazing and has barely lost any needles. I am now basically this lady:

Plus, we got some of those LED lights this year and they’re so pretty. I hope that they make up for the fact that we don’t have any decorations outside because the pre-lit garland things that usually adorn our front door became the focus of my attention after the aforementioned, ill-fated trip to Macy’s that made me hate everyone on the planet (more). The garlands are now sitting in a pile on the porch after they were ripped from their posts around the door for such crimes as, “Not keeping their green whore asses up where they’re supposed to,” and “HOW MANY OF THESE STUPID BULBS ARE BURNT OUT?!??!”

The baby had a pretty good Christmas, presents-wise. We are navigating the murky waters of whether or not to believe in Santa and his age being a weird, in-between one…too old for most toys but too young for just clothes and whatnot. We ended up giving him a lot of stuff that’s tied to specific interests of his, namely Monty Python, Star Wars, and WWE.

I think we’re sticking with Santa for now. If nothing else, he’s still fun to talk about.

And the cat was pretty pleased with how it all turned out.

The WWE thing is a fairly recent development that made both the husband and I scratch our heads. But I vaguely remember being interested in wrestling for about 20 minutes when I was his age so maybe it’s just a rite of passage for Western PA kids or something. He hasn’t even really watched any WWE on TV, but I felt the need to explain to him that it’s theater more than combat. Yesterday we ended up falling down this weird YouTube rabbit hole when I showed him how cleanly the wrestling matches were choreographed (“See how he’s not actually punching that guy?”) and then in contrast showed him a few clips of Mike Tyson doing various savage things to people who used to have names but are now just One of Those Guys that Got Knocked Out By Mike Tyson. Then I realized that it was kind of messed up to be showing him all of that. So, yeah, I apologize for contributing to the desensitization of the next generation. My bad.

Anyway, I shopped online for some WWE toys for him just a few days before Christmas and was just kind of blindly picking things. I got him this which he was pretty excited about:

But I imagine OSHA wouldn’t have very good things to say about that particular workplace.

My mother-in-law gave him this game:

The other night when my sister-in-law was visiting, we had this conversation:

Her: “Is that game…beer pong?”

Me: “No, it’s…well…yeah, actually, it is beer pong.”

Then later, the husband came home and said, “Isn’t this basically beer pong for kids?” Violence and drinking games…that’s the kind of parenting I provide.

We normally go to my grandparents’ house on Christmas Day but obviously that was out so we all gathered at my mom’s house. We have a tradition where we take a picture of all the guys and then all the girls. The Y chromosome is strongly represented in our family.

Love, Actually is one of those movies that I don’t really like except for right around Christmas. Because of this, I don’t really want to invest in a copy of the DVD and it doesn’t seem to be on any of my cable channels. I’m having trouble accepting that it’s not available on Netflix’s instant view and today I went to check again to see if it might have magically appeared. It hadn’t, but I noticed this recommendation that Netflix had for me.

Based on my interests, in Jackie Brown and The Turning Point, Netflix is suggesting “Mid-Life Crisis Movies” to me. Thanks, guys.

I’m going to squeeze in two more days of truth today: a book I’ve read that changed my views on something and my views on gay marriage.

I feel like the book question sort of corners you into selecting a non-fiction book. The first one that came to mind in that category is probably The Omnivore’s Dilemma, though I don’t know that it really changed any of my views but was just really, really informative about some stuff that I kind of already assumed. Perhaps a better example would be The Way We Never Were which is a sociology book about what author Stephanie Coontz calls “the nostalgia trap.” We accept the myth of the “good old days” without really examining data from that period. If we did, we would realize that we had a lot of the same problems that we’ve always had. A fiction book that had a great effect on me was The Road. It fleshed out a lot of feelings about life and parenting that I was really afraid of experiencing or thinking about, but it was really good to release after reading it. (That means I cried hysterically for about an hour, but, you know, a good, cleansing cry.)

As for gay marriage…if you’re against gay people marrying each other, I feel bad for you and wish that you would get your head out of your ass. If you are actively working against gay people marrying each other, I really have nothing nice to say to or about you. I wish I could say I was open to dialogue about this issue, but I’ve seen no evidence that people who are truly troubled by the prospect of consenting adults marrying each other aren’t just huge jerks. Life is too short to engage such people. But know that I think you are deeply troubled and should pray for peace. I will vote against your politicians and quash your pathetic attempts to discriminate. I will dismiss any religious backing for such hate as a truly unfortunate side effect of the First Amendment. Call me close-minded. I never claimed to be open-minded toward mean people.

Day 1 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 2 Something you love about yourself.
Day 3 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 4 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 5 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 6 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 7 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 8 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 9 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

There isn’t anyone who is really in my life right now who is so poisonous that I regret our paths crossing. Because I’m just kind of crotchety, there are plenty of people who I don’t like but their importance in my life is basically null. At worst, they irritate me for a few minutes. At best, they give me a funny story to tell. I think I used to assign much more importance to these people in the past, but I don’t anymore. My family and friends are all pretty fantastic and their flaws aren’t so big that I feel affected by them.

Day 1 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 2 Something you love about yourself.
Day 3 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 4 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 5 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 6 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 7 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 8 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 9 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

I’m just going to blurt it out: I hope I never have to bury my child. Anything else in the world I could endure. That…I’m not sure that I could survive.

Ahem.

Anyway, to try to push that out of my head, a close second to that is that I hope I never have to take a math test ever again. I thought I was in the clear after my sophomore year of college, when I finally passed the dummy algebra class after failing it twice. But then I had to go and apply to graduate school which required the GRE. I even ruled out a career as a teacher when I found out that there were hefty math requirements to get the bachelor’s degree.

Even though you generally take math tests quietly and on your own, I still feel like I’m having the mother of all naked anxiety nightmares when I have to actually DO math and then SHOW it to someone, since my computations generally look like this:

It’s not that I don’t respect math and all that is truly awesome about it. I just don’t get it. At all. I mean, I can drive a car better than I can do math and if you’ve seen me drive then you know how much of a dunce I must be about numbers. And I have always hated the reactions that I get from people when they start to grasp how little I understand math. Especially since people who have even a little understanding of it are so freaking smug about it.

So if I could avoid ever taking another math test, that would be wonderful.

Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

I really need to get my driver’s license.

I’ve taken the test four times and failed each time. I can’t seem to get my mind past the fact that I hate driving, I hate obnoxious drivers, and I hate how strict they are about the test and fail me for imperfect parking but seem to just throw licenses off of a float in the middle of a parade for, like, All Jackasses’ Day. Seriously, the stuff that I see on a daily basis? There ought to be an investigation launched into the DMV.

The other main thing that’s really keeping me from just going and taking the test until I pass is that we can’t afford another car right now and if I’m driving myself to work, then the husband is without.

It’s only around times like these that I really notice how much easier life would be if I could drive.

The husband is in Detroit for a few days and my mom, who works right near me, was supposed to take me and the baby to his piano lesson and then home. But my mom came down with the flu or something and I had to call upon my mother-in-law to get us, which obviously makes me feel guilty since she has other stuff that she’s doing.

This morning, I had to catch the bus to work, which is fine, but since Port Authority did their most recent round of service cuts, the bus from my neighborhood to downtown has the most absurd morning rush hour schedule. There’s a bus at 8:07 and another at 8:41. Missing from that lineup is the bus that I used to catch at around 8:20, which would get me to work in Oakland by 9:00…maybe a few minutes after.

The problem with that is that the baby’s school bus comes at 8:16. So I have to get the 8:41 bus, which gets me to Oakland around 9:30. Or I have to deposit the baby at his bus stop and leave before he gets picked up, which I’m not comfortable doing yet. I feel like there’s probably plenty of 8-year-olds who manage such responsibilities just fine, I’m just not sure either of us is ready for that. I’d kind of feel like he was the baby in that Dave Chappelle bit where his limo driver drove him into a really sketchy area in the middle of the night and then left him waiting there for awhile.

(Some NSFW language in here.)