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My buddy Frank was my “bridesman.”

That’s him all the way over on the left

At that time, Frank had just recently started seeing a lovely girl named Andrea.

A little over four years later, Frank and Andrea are getting married, and I am going to be Frank’s “groomswoman” (or “groomsbitch,” as he’s been calling me).

Groomsmen are usually in charge of throwing the bachelor party, but as it came closer to being about that time, it turned out that Frank wasn’t going to be able to squeeze it in. Money, the fact that he would need to travel from New York to Pittsburgh, saving up vacation days, and so on all prevented our hedonism. I felt kind of bad about this and told Frank that he should do something “bachelory” and we would watch via video chat and cheer him on. Since he’s not into strippers, my suggestions were to leave clothes and pizza boxes strewn all over his apartment while we watched and screamed, “WOOOO! YEAAAHHHHH! WOOOOO!”

Sounds silly, right? What actually ended up happening was not that far off. Armed with a new laptop, Frank pinged me on Gmail’s video chat on Saturday night and we decided that that would be his online bachelor party. He grabbed some beers and I made some half-assed margarita concoctions. Our conversation turned to Kicking and Screaming (alternate title: Kicking and Screaming…No, Not that Will Ferrell Soccer Movie), which is a favorite movie of ours. Rather than spending the whole night exchanging our favorite quotes, we decided to watch it…together.

“Okay, on ‘3’ I’m going to press play. Ready? 1…2…3!”

It was fun and nice and very much indicative of our friendship, but we agreed that it was kind of the most old person bachelor party ever…at least until I dozed off on the couch and Frank had to wake me up via video chat so that I could cart my old self to bed.

At least we took pictures of the wild and crazy time that we had.

Struggles that I Overcame:

I only had two beers at the MamaPop party the night before, but when we got back to the hotel, I was struck by how badly I missed the husband and the baby. I turned into a total sap and started getting weepy because I had arranged to stay until Tuesday to see some of the city and was totally regretting it. So in the morning, I had post-beer, post-karaoke, post-cry headache. But nothing will keep me from a breakfast buffet, so I staggered out of the room leaving my snoozing roommates to sleep for me.

Sessions that I Attended:

Since I was in need of a lot of coffee, I ended up staying for the morning keynote that included a panel with the International Activist Blogger Scholarship recipients. Four women, Esra’a Al Shafei of mideastyouth.com, Dushiyanthini Pillai of humanityashore.org, Marie Trigona of mujereslibres.blogspot.com, and Freshta Basij-Rasikh of Afghan Women’s Writing Project spoke about their experiences as bloggers. These young women put their lives in grave danger with every keystroke as they document injustices in their countries. It was tempting to listen to their stories and feel sheepish about my blog, which I repeatedly described to people as “just about my life.” (Like, “Oh, don’t read it. It’s terribly dull.” I clearly haven’t mastered this pitching thing yet.) But I didn’t. I can’t rush over to Afghanistan and change things there, but I can listen and try to understand where they’re coming from. And I can appreciate the communication tools that I have at my disposal that allow me to write and relate.

I attended the Women and Sports session that Sarah helped to lead. It’s too bad that Rob Dibble didn’t say that nonsense about women at sporting events until a few days later, because it was almost exactly what we discussed for a portion of the session.

Since I just have my son, I don’t have too many tales about encouraging young girls to participate in sports. But since I didn’t eject myself from the sisterhood the second we saw a tiny weenis on the ultrasound screen, it’s definitely something that I would like to see more of.

The only other session that I went to was the Humor Writing which…meh. And unfortunately not that funny. But I think I was getting tired and hungry at that point.

Before Humor Writing, Amber and Danielle and I took a spin around the expo hall, which is just this huge orgy of marketing. It never fails to both awe me and weird me out. Sometimes there’s cool stuff there, though. Like sausage dipped in pancakes and this guy:

That was my only celebrity sighting.

I also checked out a few of the suites, namely the Firefox suite where I fudged my way through a survey about add-ons and got a teeny-tiny tshirt.

Parties that I Attended:

Saturday night was MamaPop’s Sparklecorn party which was just huge and crazy and sweaty and fun. Also, there was cake.

It was from Charm City Cakes and I’ve always been skeptical of them. I suspected that they were mostly hype and the cake wasn’t that good.

My friends, the cake was so good. SOOOO GOOOOD. It had several different flavors: blueberry muffin, bananas foster, and peanut butter and jelly. I tried the bananas foster and the peanut butter and jelly and they were both extremely delicious. Charm City Cakes: I am now a believer.

Ryan was on hand with his camera skills and documented the party in both stills and video. Like last year, I didn’t make the final cut, but maybe that’s because I look like this at parties:

Sweaty, drinky, scowly, with my arms sticking out. Photo by Amy.

Injuries Sustained:

One gigantic blister on my left foot. And one of my stockings didn’t even survive being put on, but I forged ahead with a huge run, looking somewhat deranged.

This is how parties end sometimes. Shoes, hair accessory, and tattered hosiery discarded, feet damp from doing the Hustle in a puddle of vodka.

People on Whom I Mouth-Breathed:

The husband rolled his eyes when he saw me packing my running gear. “You know you’re not going to go running while you’re there.” Ordinarily, this would be the case. But Saturday, before the party, I went for a quick jog through Central Park with Jess. It was really nice to jog with someone. One thing that is hurting my motivation for running right now is, I guess, getting bored and just wanting it to be over. Running with someone is different. We chatted (breathlessly) and took in the sights of the park. It was really cool. I wish I could do it all the time.

Because I’ve been stretching this recap out for so long, my memory of who I met when is pretty feeble. So I’m going to do a quick run-down of the business cards of the people I haven’t yet mentioned: Bookish Penguin, Delightfully Sweet, Life After Bagels, Sarah Granger, Multi Tasking Mama, Carrie Actually, Knotty Yarn, Dimple and a Smirk, Smarty Pants Mama, Average Jane, Stephanie Himel-Nelson from Blue Star Families, JavaMom, and Diana Lee.

I’d say I accomplished my goal of meeting blogging types that I didn’t already know. It was pretty cool, actually, just introducing myself to strangers that I knew I had at least one thing in common with, chatting with them for a few minutes, finding out a little bit about them before the busy days swept us apart. It’s not something that I would normally do, but what’s life without new experiences?

Pictures that I Took:

In the interest of wrapping this thing up, two whole weeks after the fact, I’m going to punk out and put my flickr slideshow here.

The actual conference was Friday and Saturday. My official, stated goals were to: not sleep through breakfast, meet people I didn’t already know from the internet, attend sessions, and nerd out as much as possible.

Struggles that I Overcame:

I realized that whatever lingering childhood shyness that I used to have that would cause me horrendous anxiety when thrown into a group of strangers has all but disappeared. If anything, it’s made me more empathetic to people who feel the same way. Look at me! Growing! Changing! Not mumbling into my oatmeal and avoiding eye contact or eschewing society all together to tremble in the ladies’ room!

The handful of people that I sat with at breakfast were lovely and we had no trouble chatting. After the opening keynote address, there was a “speed-dating” session that sounded like it would be chaotic, but I managed to just remain in my seat and allowed people to come to me, like I was the Godfather or something. The key to these things is to act like you’re super important. Next time, if there is a next time, I’m hiring somebody to stand behind me and look like Secret Service. Then watch the business cards pile up. That’s how 50 Cent got where he is today.

My other struggle was referencing American Psycho when I went to lunch with several MamaPoppers at this place called Johnny Utah’s. It was suggested that we go there because there was a mechanical bull. But I guess lunchtime on a Friday isn’t prime bull-riding time, because it just sat there like…well, like a giant inanimate bull in the room. I mentioned that the restaurant reminded me of the no-longer-popular restaurant that Patrick Bateman takes Paul Allen to in American Psycho and everyone got kind of quiet. Like, maybe referencing a misogynistic serial killer that was dreamed up by a bougie misogynistic a-hole is a faux pas in the midst of a women’s conference. I don’t know, I’m not always in tune to these subtle social cues.

Sessions that I Attended:

The first was a session on resume-writing and social media profiles and it was really, really good. My internet-writing experience is not insignificant. Far from it. But I really don’t know how to incorporate that into my resume and I don’t know how to get over my fear that people will see that and read, “I WRITE INAPPROPRIATE THINGS AND SHAME MY EMPLOYERS! CALL ME! LOL!!!ONE1 twitter.” So it was really helpful to hear from people who have done so successfully and see examples of resumes that do this in a professional way.

There were a couple other social media sessions that I wanted to go to, but I ended up lugging my camera to a photography session that ended up being more about composition than actual, hands-on technique. And I kind of already know a little bit about composition from taking a couple history and theory classes about photography in college. I was hoping for more practical advice on getting comfortable with adjusting manual settings for various shots. But I have a book for that, I just need to find it.

Parties that I Attended:

The MamaPop writers spent some quality time together, drinking, eating burritos, and doing karaoke. Funny. Drunken karaoke sounds a whole lot like shouting and giggling. This was actually my first foray into karaoke and Laurie and I belted out “Me and Bobby McGee.” I got a little too into it, I think, because after I handed off the mic, Amy looked at me and said, “That was…something else.”

Injuries Sustained:

I banged my knee on something getting out of a cab and got a small but healthy scrape. I dramatically declared that I would soon be coming down with hepatitis in that knee, but so far it seems okay.

People on Whom I Mouth-Breathed:

I know for sure that I met these people at breakfast or during the speed-dating: Pine Creek Cottage, Hide the Cheese, The Bellini Bunny, Dana from Rodale, and Naomi from Ketchum. I know I’m missing a few but I’ll do a round up of all of the cards that I’m having trouble placing with memories later. I also bumped into Jason and TwoBusy in the morning who were in search of that fine lady Mrs. Potato Head. Pimp! Adam P. Knave met up with us for drinks before the MamaPop party and I talked to him and his friend for exactly 2.5 seconds. I finally met Melissa and called her Christine.

Pictures that I Took:

This was the view from our hotel room. When we first walked past that LOVE sculpture, I pointed and yelled, “HEY! IT’S THIS THING!” I should be a tour guide.

Adam, Friend of Adam, and Palinode

BHJ and Amber

Schmutzie!

Jodi, Tracey, Palinode, and Ryan. I don’t know why there’s so much bending in this picture.

Kelli, Laurie, Schmutzie, Sarah, and Marilyn cracking up over something with a cardboard cutout of somebody. Based on the direction of their gaze, I imagine it’s something PG-13. I don’t remember taking this picture or what was going on, which is weird because I really didn’t even drink that much.

Karaoke action with Palinode, Tracey, Amy, Catherine, Schmutzie, Amy, Amber, and I believe Miss Banshee is back there, too.

This picture doesn’t do them justice but Jodi and Amy are, like, radiantly beautiful in real life.

Last year, when I went to BlogHer, I didn’t feel like I had really taken in the conference. This was mostly my fault, as I cut too loose the first night that I was there and spent the first day of the conference recovering. The rest of the time, I mostly focused on soaking up as much time as possible with people that I had been friends with online. It was fun, of course, but not really the best use of the hundreds of dollars that I had spent to go there.

This year, I was determined to get my money’s worth. See, I had bought my ticket back when we thought the husband was about to start a job, so I nearly burned a hole in my MasterCard, reasoning that we would be paying it off within a few weeks. Then the job evaporated and I agonized over whether or not I should move forward with this trip that we definitely could not afford. But, obviously, I decided to go, resolving to squeeze every last drop, knowing that I probably wouldn’t be back.

But my experiences of every day that I was there can be summarized into one of a few categories: Struggles that I Overcame, Parties that I Attended; Sessions that I Attended; Injuries Sustained; People on Whom I Mouth-Breathed; Pictures that I Took.

Let’s start with Thursday.

Struggles that I Overcame:

I screwed up planning my flights and landed at JFK at 4:30. I nearly fell off the airplane because they let us off right onto the tarmac and I didn’t know you could do that unless you were the Beatles or on a private jet. Amber swooped by in a taxi and then I got to experience rush hour in New York City. My jaw is clenching just thinking about it. About two hours and countless brushes with death later, we burst into the hotel looking for our fellow MamaPop writers, who were in the lobby bar last we’d heard. And Amber was all, “I HAVE TO PEE!” and I was all, “NOBODY’S HERE AND THEY’RE NOT ANSWERING THEIR PHONES!” Eventually I got a hold of Danielle, who told me they were at the SocialLuxe party. I apologized to Amber as I ditched her around the taxi line because I really wanted to go to a party that I’d been invited to at the Martha Stewart offices.

Parties that I Attended:

The aforementioned Martha Stewart thing, which was…well…I don’t want to say it was bad. It wasn’t. But it took forever to get there and then we stood in line so that we could stand in another line so that we could shuffle through the hallway and then squish into a tiny room with an admittedly amazing view. And I’m not complaining about that, really, I was just worn out at that point and gripped a glass of Prosecco and kept an eye out for the male model that was dispensing refills. At one point, we called him over and his eyes widened in alarm. Whatever, dude, just stand there and look pretty with a heavy hand while I veer into baby-cougar territory. Kelli then asked him if he watched Party Down and he got all irritated. But maybe he just doesn’t have cable.

When I told my mom and grandmother that I was going to this thing, their eyes rolled back in their heads and they clutched their pearls and asked what I was going to wear. (The correct answer to that, by the way, is a black shirt and white and black skirt and thirty buckets of sweat and angst.) But rumor was that Martha was in and out promptly at 6 leaving us to mingle with the staffers who were good sports but who were obviously thinking, “I’m so glad I could stay at work until 8 on a Friday so that this chick from Pittsburgh could stare at me.”

On our way out, I noticed the test kitchen and pressed my nose up against the window. And then I tried the door and the security guard made a move toward me. It was locked, but I guess he was concerned that I was going to try to take a refrigerator with me.

I was glad that I got to see the offices, but my first private party left me with the impression that they aren’t really worth the strife that they seem to cause. They’re just parties, man.

Sessions that I Attended:

Nothing official was happening that day but we did have an impromptu panel in our hotel room. I don’t remember what we talked about.

Injuries Sustained:

Four insect bites of unknown origin that are still red and angry looking nearly a week later.

People on Whom I Mouth-Breathed:

At Martha, I met the Bitchin’ Wife, KBestOliver, Tall Tara, Always Home and Uncool,
Cagey and two of her lovely friends (we shared a cab over there and I’m so sorry that I didn’t get their names), and got in Miss Grace’s faces who had the stunning Califmom with her. I also met Charlie for the first time, who gave me the fiercest hug ever.

After our hotel room session, we ventured about two blocks away from the hotel to find food and managed to find the one diner in New York City that closes at like 10:30. Part of the closing process includes glaring at the table full of bloggers who are shoveling food into their faces and having a cook pointedly punch a pile of meat. I don’t know, man.

Pictures that I took:

Just these two, with my phone.

Vintage Heimlich instructions in 10 point typeface posted in a corner of the room that will surely be of great use should someone start choking.

Tracey is not falling asleep at the table but taking pictures of our dinner mates from an artsy angle.

I know multi-part BlogHer posts are obnoxious but that’s too bad for you. More tomorrow

My family and I started making annual trips to Conneaut Lake in 2000. We had been there many times before, but that year it was determined (by some matriarchal figures, I don’t know, I wasn’t invited to the tribunal, I just show up when they tell me to) that as many of us would gather there at the same time every summer. Conneaut isn’t the most upscale vacation destination, but it’s affordable and family-friendly and just generally very nice.

The times that we spend there tend to run together in my memory. I can’t remember for sure what year it was that it rained all week or when the husband discovered the little gold mine of a record store in Meadville. I’m sure the fact that we spend most of our evenings tossing back libations doesn’t help, either. The landmarks are stuff like, “The first of two years that we stayed in that one cottage,” “The summer before the husband and I got together,” “The next summer, when I was pregnant,” etc.

I think this year’s landmark will be, “When the baby took off on his own.”

As I mentioned, the baby had a crush on a girl, one of his older cousins’ friends. And in general, he spent most of his time with his cousins, a group of boys ranging in ages from 2.5 years (though that one was still very close to his mama) to 18. At night, he slept at my grandparents’ cottage. Not with us in ours.

I wasn’t nervous for a second about that. His cousins, though rambunctious, are very good kids and would always make sure that the baby was safe. But it was tough to go the whole week without hanging out with him. It was my first real taste of not being his preferred companion.

Of course, having a week where I only had to half-parent was kind of nice. The husband and I did our own things. I got up early to jog. He slept in and traveled to the aforementioned record store in Meadville. We reunited in the evenings to watch Arrested Development and laugh our fool heads off. Then we’d squeeze together onto the Carter-era mattress that rolled us unwillingly too close together.

“Dude, give me some of the sheet! I’m freezing!”
“Get OFF me!”
“I can’t help it! There’s a divet!”

And we took an intimacy quiz from an old issue of Oprah’s magazine. Going by their measurements, we’re basically doomed. After tabulating our results, I peered at the husband with a grave expression and told him that we needed some work. “After all, marriage is serious business,” I noted, before we both dissolved into laughter.

It was an odd sort of loneliness last week. Surrounded by a ton of family members, the same people that I’m fortunate enough to see once a year, the one person that I wanted to spend time with and couldn’t is one of the people that I live with. I would try to hug him, he would push me away and insist that he was a big kid and I was treating him like a baby.

By the time we got home, he was more or less back to his old self, eager to join in our conversations and willfully giving me hugs on demand (though his kisses are growing more restrained, which just won’t do at all).

Right now, I’m in a weird space between trips. Still readjusting to regular life, I’m scheduled to depart for BlogHer on Thursday. While I’m in New York, I’ll miss the baby’s swim meet. I already can’t wait to get back.

Note: I promise that I’ll stop being so wistful every single post some time soon. 😉

I’m tapping this out on my phone from the shores of Conneaut Lake. We’re here for annual family vacation.

Apparently this is the year that the baby turned some kind of maturity corner. I was banished to my towel because, “You’re embarrassing me in front of my date.” He fancies one of the teenagers here and she is being very good-natured and sweet about the whole thing.

He’s too cute. And I don’t want to embarrass him. So I’ll just be on my towel chuckling until I start quietly weeping.

Want to hear something kind of mushy and pathetic? The husband was out of town the last two nights, therefore I couldn’t get to sleep. I guess when you sleep with someone most nights for 10 years, not having them next to you is distracting.

Wednesday night, I tossed and turned until after 2 a.m. and didn’t have a very restful sleep. I woke up a little bit later than I wanted to and when I reached for my glasses on the nightstand, I couldn’t find them. I started cursing my cat, because he occasionally takes it upon himself to nudge my glasses onto the floor, which is really just kind of mean considering how bad my eyesight is.

As I looked around, I realized that everything looked very strange and it took me nearly a minute to realize that the reason my glasses weren’t on my nightstand was because I never put them on the night before. And the reason I never put them on is because I never took my contacts out. And the reason everything looked so strange is that I’m not used to being able to see anything first thing in the morning.

So, summing up: tired, squinty.

Before he left, the husband and I had a pretty good conversation about our direction in life. I don’t know if I can say that any resolutions were made, but it was a far more productive conversation than the one we had the other night.

We’re struggling to adjust our perceptions, I think. We agreed that things beyond our predicament are changing. If the economy recovers, it won’t be the same.

We both grew up steeped in the ethos of, “If you work hard and go to school and keep aiming high, you’ll be fine.” None of our parents went to college. But they got decent jobs and worked hard. While they did okay, they struggled and believed that if they had gone to school they would have been in much better positions in life. Building some savings, not having to worry so much during hard times, and being able to set money-related goals and meeting them. The husband and I were never interested in becoming rich, but seeing our parents worry about money so much and the strife that it caused made us resolve to do whatever we could to not live that way. We were going to take off from the foundation that our parents provided and end up on a higher plane.

What we’re realizing, REALLY realizing, now is that it’s not just our resolve and hard work that controls our fate. It may end up that our investments in our education were riskier than we thought. It may be that they/we weren’t as successful as we just knew that they/we were going to be, that we weren’t on a voyage toward financial security, but instead taking a gamble and crossing our fingers. And, you know, I guess it’s okay that we might fall short of our goals.

But we also agreed that things could be much worse for us. We could have no education, we could be stupid, we could be without families that help us any way that they can.

Last night, the baby and I ate dinner on the porch because it was too hot to eat inside. Afterward, he wanted to take a walk up and down our street. As we got to the end of our block, he managed to convince me to keep walking down to our main street and get some ice cream.

“Let’s play follow the leader!” he shrieked as we headed back home. I imitated his hops and robot moves and then it was my turn. I led him in the Ministry of Silly Walks walk, which is kind of difficult to do uphill.

I forget what we had argued about. Most likely the fact that it was time to take a bath and go to bed. And most likely the center of the disagreement was the fact that it was still light out. Because it was summer, the sun was still blazing in the sky at bedtime, though heavy with August and reflecting an almost sepia tone on our street, making even the cicadas sound drowsy and sweaty.

My mom stomped to the bathroom, muttering, and angrily turned on the bath. I flung myself onto my bed with all of the angst that I could muster in my 5-year-old self and cried because it, whatever injustice I was suffering at the time, was simply not fair.

I fell asleep within seconds and quickly dreamed about sliding down a long, long tree trunk. I woke up, startled, just a minute or two later. The bath was still running and I was surprised at how deeply I had slept in such a small space of time.

My face was still wet from my tears and my curly, red hair clung to my temples, glued by the feverish sweat of an early summer evening nap. My eyes fluttered up to see the house across the street. Old, yellow brick and so very, very bright, especially with that lazy sun beating down on it. Its garish warmth did something to me, reset me somehow. A car roared down our cobblestone street and I gathered myself up off the bed. I stripped my clothes off and tiptoed to the bathroom, sheepishly avoiding my mom’s gaze as I dunked myself into the tub.

Last night, we came home and I stared at the mismatched contents of our kitchen. Payday and mortgage due date had come and gone, leaving us with just a few dollars for the next two weeks. In that space, we needed to eat.

Nothing was going the way I wanted it to. I was so fucking sick of our unemployment and underemployment woes I was ready to kick something. How had we screwed up so badly in our march through adulthood? And how much of this was our fault?

The ceiling fan buzzed above me, circulating the same stale air over and over as I grabbed a half-used box of elbow macaroni and a half-used box of tubetti. I knew we had butter and milk and flour and cheese. I poked my head into the living room and said, “Macaroni and cheese?” My husband shrugged and said, “Sure. That’s fine.”

I went through the motions of boiling water, adding the collage of pasta, adding the flour to the melted butter, the milk, the cheese. But something went wrong. The cheese started to melt but then coagulated into a disgusting lump in the middle of the pot. I stirred and stirred and it got worse. It veered into ruin when I optimistically added the drained noodles.

I angrily stabbed at the lumpy mixture with my wooden spoon and for a second entertained the thought of dramatically tossing the whole mess into the street and stomping it into the ground. I can’t make more money and my husband can’t even get a job and I think we’re giving up and now I can’t even make fucking macaroni and cheese?

This is just not fair. It’s not fair, dammit.

I stomped into the living room and dramatically flung myself into the big, blue, faux-leather, hand-me-down recliner with all of the angst that I could muster in my 31-year-old self. “Dinner’s fucking ruined,” I spat, not really looking at my husband from his spot on our creaky hand-me-down couch that regularly shit grease and sawdust and odd nuts and bolts onto our hand-me-down rug.

“Eh, whatever, dude. I’m not that hungry,” he said.

“I want out. Out of this house, out of this city, out of everything that isn’t working here.” I babbled.

He didn’t have any sympathy to offer and we bickered for a second, exchanging sarcastic suggestions in sharp tones, saying things we didn’t really mean but taking sick pleasure in making someone else feel shitty.

I stopped talking and the tears came. It wasn’t a dramatic cry, just a spilling over that needed to release. I was quiet, but breathed a little heavier as I waited for it, whatever this was, to end.

After a few minutes, I felt a little calmer, and the whine of the cicadas outside made my eyes dart toward the window, where I saw the yellow house across the street. Old, yellow brick and so very, very bright, especially with the lazy mid-summer sun beating down on it.

I wiped my face and swiped at the sweat on the back of my neck, stood up and went back to the kitchen. Looking at the ruined dinner, I rolled my eyes. “So typical,” I muttered. “Don’t have any money and I waste a ton of food.”

Looking around, I grabbed a baking dish and switched on the oven, then dumped the whole sad affair into the dish. When the oven clicked, indicating that it was done heating, I shoved the dish into the oven and waited about a half hour.

My son and I piled onto the couch and turned on Jaws and I told him my estimates of how many times I’d seen that movie. “At least 100 times. Maybe even 200.” He was impressed.

I pulled the dish out of the oven and was satisfied with the results. Not great, but not ruined anymore. I stuck my head back into the living room. “Somewhat salvaged macaroni and cheese?” I offered.

Work. Collapse. Wallow. Try again. The yellow house across the street cooled as the sun disappeared for the night.

(Wee warning: this isn’t entirely safe for work or for environments where people are sensitive to nipples, the F word, Rosie Perez, Spike Lee, and/or awesome scenes from awesome movies.)

Aside: I started writing this post and began thinking about how Spike Lee focuses on heat waves and how they make people crazy in some of his movies. Do the Right Thing and Summer of Sam are two obvious examples, but there are some very memorable monologues from When the Levees Broke in which Katrina survivors describe the oppressive heat in the days following the storm, including Phyllis Montana LeBlanc who uses the phrase, “Africa hot.” Interesting.

I don’t know if you heard, but it’s hot here.

Hotter’n hot wings, in fact. We are in the midst of a heat wave that includes such awesome features as temperatures in the mid-90s and freakish humidity and haziness. Those who have not entirely lost their will to live have morphed into bitchy, sweaty beasts or total psychos, doing stuff like shooting up wave pools.

I was telling the husband this morning that I remembered a drought period during my childhood. I feel like I must have been 5 or 6. It seems pretty universal that being uncomfortably hot or cold doesn’t really affect kids. I don’t remember ever cursing the summer heat as a child, but rather itching to go outside and play all day. However, despite my young age, I distinctly remember not liking that drought period and thinking, “I am really hot and uncomfortable.”

We don’t have air conditioning in our house and for the most part, this isn’t a problem. Neither the husband or I like air conditioning and we definitely weren’t trying to deal with the electricity bill that would come with cooling a house our size. Because our house has high ceilings, lots of windows, ceiling fans, and is on a hill, it’s pretty comfortable most of the summer months. But there are some times when it just sucks and now is one of them.

One of my quirks is that I have to have at least a sheet covering me when I sleep. I feel vulnerable without it. (And you know how impenetrable a high-thread count is!) But last night, I collapsed into bed and slept the whole night with nothing on top of me. Nuts.

Our cat is, I think, sarcastically thanking us for adopting him from the air-conditioned animal shelter so that he could endure the summer in a fur coat.

He spends a lot of time in this position. Occasionally, I put a mirror up to his nose just to check.

Before we started living life on the surface of the sun, the Fourth of July happened. I’m not what you would call patriotic, but I enjoy any holiday that primarily consists of grilling, drinking, blowing shit up, and the 1812 Overture. We spent the day at my mother-in-law’s house, where there were babies…

…and swimming with cousins…

…and eschewing the rush to find a good spot to watch the city’s fireworks for some sprinklers and the like in the back yard. Not a bad time whatsoever.

On Monday, I had off of work so I got to go see the baby in action at one of his swimming lessons. We had to sit in the sun to be able to observe and this was when the 95-degree highs kicked in. I endured it for as long as I could, but at one point I was pretty sure I could feel my brain actually melting, so I moved to a patch of shade.

The baby’s actually a good little swimmer and has grand ambitions to join the swim team in a few weeks if he can work on his breathing during the freestyle stroke.

Remember a few months ago, I wrote about how I was doing the Couch to 5K program? Well, I just finished the ninth week of the program yesterday.

It took me longer than 9 weeks to do the whole thing, there were a few times that I didn’t feel well and took a few days off and other times I just had trouble scheduling it into my day.

I’m also not yet able to run 5K. I’m somewhere around 2 and 1/4 to 2 and 1/2 miles in a 30-minute run. I would guess that I’m still about 2 or 3 weeks away from being able to run the full 5K.

But! I can now run for 30 minutes at a time, which is something I could NOT do back in March when I started. In fact, I could barely run for 1 minute at a time back then. I remember looking forward in the program and wondering how the hell I was ever going to run for several minutes at a time.

It’s still really hard. I don’t think it ever gets “easy” and I’m not sure that it’s supposed to, but I know that I’ve gotten much stronger and will continue to get stronger the longer I keep at it. And the pain that I was in at the beginning is gone now, which is a huge improvement.

I’m not going to lie and say that I love running now, but I like it a lot more than I thought I would. And I would really like for it to remain part of my life. I would also like to try running in a 5K at some point. Hopefully by the end of the summer I can attempt one.

I’ve also been throwing in a yoga class here and there, which I like because it’s similar to the muscle memory and flexibility that I already have from ballet. I’ve noticed that if I run the day after a yoga class, that run actually feels pretty good.

I’m able to devote more time to exercise right now because summer is less hectic at work, so I can be at the gym working out and then showering for an hour without things getting too out of hand in my absence. During the school year, I’ll have to figure something else out, which worries me.

Still not “dieting,” per se. Despite still battling with ballet-era demons, I have no interest in doing any kind of calorie restriction. Small changes that I’ve made include trying not to eat after 9 p.m. and just eating healthier (lots of veggies) overall.