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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.

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.

“Alright, let’s get going. We still have to go to the store.”

I gathered up my purse and my camera. The baby girl stared up at me from her swing and I bent down to tickle her behind her ears one more time and pressed her tiny, round feet in between my forefingers and thumbs. We hugged her daddy good-bye and walked outside into the late afternoon sun.

The smell was almost intoxicating. The ground was warming up on the first legitimate spring day. It inhaled the sun and exhaled the possibility of life beginning again, much like how the baby girl’s sighs and giggles had filled the room. The nearby steel mill pumped its scent into the air. The baby girl’s mother had commented on it earlier with a somewhat weary tone, not looking forward to another hot summer with that smell permeating the humidity. “I kind of really like it,” I admitted. “There was a mill in my neighborhood where I grew up. I’d forgotten all about that smell.” That mill was long gone now, the land being reborn into luxury apartments and townhomes. Those don’t have a scent, as far as I know.

The train roared past, announcing our departure from Braddock. Entering that small town had been like a trip back in time for both me and the husband. Despite the tremendous efforts pouring into the community to restore it, it remained a worn version of itself from when it started its rapid decline when we were kids. “This is exactly what Pittsburgh looked like when we were little,” we marveled. “All of it. The houses, the streets…” and the intangibles that we couldn’t quite grasp, like the way your dad smells when he comes in for dinner after working outside. Everything seemed…slower…drowsier. Happy and sad with the knowledge that life just keeps on going, like spring afternoons and baby toes and a groaning, creaking steel mill that used to pump the lifeblood of a community and now just pumps weird scents into the air.

We rode toward our end of town and I let the wind create small knots in my hair, brief suggestions of red lace. We sped past Carrie Furnace, which imposed itself against the landscape of still brown trees aching to burst with yellow-green buds. The rusty red stairs and bridge demanded that you look and respect it. As my baby dozed off in the back seat, the husband turned up the song that had come on.

Home is where I want to be. But I guess I’m already there.

I was sure I’d been somewhere else all this time, lost and alone with no way back. Looking at that huge furnace and its bright red appendages, my chest suddenly ached. This is my home. This landscape created me. It shrivels and dies and seems to disappear, but its elegant beasts remain, landmarks to remind me of where I’ve always been.

I posted to MamaPop last week about a UK show called Big Fat Gypsy Weddings (or My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding according to some sites) and wailed about how it wasn’t available to watch in the US. I forgot, of course, that this is the internet and anything can be had if you know the right people. I won’t reveal my sources, but a few discs with some episodes arrived in my mailbox last week and I spent Saturday afternoon devouring them.

It’s pretty wild. The gypsies and travelers regard themselves as very strict and traditional. Gender roles are severely defined and haven’t changed much in the face of several waves of feminism and a sexual revolution. Girls marry young and move immediately into their roles as homemakers. They do this in their mid-to-late teens, which is around the time that many girls begin exploring their sexuality. So they’re able to say with some degree of authority that there is no pre-marital sex.

Because of the young marital age, gypsies and travelers seem to be far more tolerant about outward displays of sexuality extremely early in life. I watched, slack-jawed, as a group of 8-year-old girls celebrated their cousin’s First Holy Communion by grinding in high heels and tiny skirts and tops. Their parents and grandparents sat and watched and beamed with joy, the same expressions that they might have if they were watching the kids play Duck, Duck, Goose. They’re not concerned about the early sexualization of the girls because a) they’re only a few years out from being married anyway and b) they’re merely imitating the behavior of presumably chaste adolescents. The boys display a sense of territoriality by participating in “grabbing,” a courtship ritual that sounds a lot like accepted assault to me.

I wish the show would explore these gender roles and sexuality conventions more thoroughly, but they spend a lot of time on the bridal attire, if for no other reason than how absurd it is. I’m really curious about the general attire of the young people, which is, again, sexually provocative but to the ends of securing a husband, and other outfits that almost look like stereotypical/racially offensive gypsy costumes that you might see around Halloween in the US.

Anyway, all that pondering aside, I suddenly found myself feeling a bit of a pang during the Communion scenes. It occurred to me that the baby is around the age, perhaps even a bit older, that he would be making his First Communion if we were raising him Catholic. I remember being extremely excited about mine and in the context of this show I began to wonder how much of that was because of the dress and the veil that I got to wear. We looked like mini-brides and were giddy about that. But the important thing about my Communion outfit was that it was my mom’s. I was the latest in a long of people who had made the same sacrament. It was presumed that I would continue the tradition…until I knew that I wouldn’t.

Parenting and life are so scary sometimes, that maybe traditions, even those surrounded by yucky things like inequity, are comforting because they give us some road map that was laid down by people who lived and took care of their families with what seems to be a degree of certainty. Of course, the old ways were once new and there’s nothing stopping us from forging new traditions that are more appropriate for how we feel about and experience life. But I can’t help but look at even the most ridiculous, competitive dress for a young gypsy girl and think there’s something at least a little nice about it, the sheer celebration of survival of it.

I had made a half-hearted promise to myself to impose a NaBloPoMo-type requirement for February, since I just don’t post here enough and it’s silly because this is my space. This is where I should hang out. I have a few more hours of February 1 and it’s a short month so I think I can swing it.

Today was one of those tough days, too many big things going on, too much grown-up stuff, too many realizations that the people who were the grown-ups for us aren’t always going to be around. It makes me feel vulnerable, like soon there won’t be any grown-ups left in the world, or maybe they were never there. Just big people who managed to make me feel okay.

This afternoon, I found my thoughts wandering to Sunday’s episode of Big Love. Bill’s mother is exhibiting signs of dementia and Barb says to him, “I’m strong. Let me shoulder some of this burden.” I didn’t feel at all strong or capable or grown-up until I was able to grab the husband’s hand and ask if he was okay. Later, he let me hug him a little longer than he usually does and I felt strong. I felt like I could shoulder some of his burden. I never think I can be strong until I just flex my heart muscle and carry some of this big world around.

The baby has not had a full day of school in close to two weeks due to various things like holidays, school closings, doctor’s appointments, and Surprise! Your Strep Test Is Positive! parties. I’m not entirely convinced that he has retained the ability to read.

On Sunday, I started displaying symptoms of the husband’s Man Cold that he was just getting over.

This resulted in me doing things like NotLaundry and NotGrocery Shopping. The husband and I both ended up passed out on the couch for a good two hours in the afternoon. During that time, the baby turned on Adventure Time and helped himself to a bag of Cheetos (aka our AFC Championship buffet). I half-opened one eye about 1.5 hours into my nap and mumbled, “Yo. Take it easy on those Cheetos, dude,” and went back to sleep. It was a proud moment for me as I have long yearned to reach the same level of parental competence as Britney Spears.

After a night of sleep that could only be described as, “Really weird…and moist,” I went to work yesterday fueled entirely by DayQuil. Aside from being rather drippy and cycling in and out of sweating spells, I felt surprisingly okay. But last night, I started to feel kind of woozy. I told the husband this and he cackled and told me that I had not yet reached the zenith of my sickness. Yay.

Speaking of parenting, over the winter break, I started watching…nay, devouring episodes of Intervention on Netflix. The husband finds this habit of mine entirely absurd and even I reached a point about halfway through season three where I thought, “I can’t watch this anymore.” The situation was so disturbing and I had a pretty sick feeling that we only knew the half of it. Just to be clear, I’m not referring to the episode featuring Sylvia, the alcoholic Southern belle. Though that episode was disturbing because when they first showed her cracking open a mini-bottle of vodka while driving, I said, “Holy shit, is that Lucille from Arrested Development? Is this like the April Fool’s episode of Intervention?” The resemblance was that uncanny.

But the whole thing has me freaked out about parenting. I mean, plenty of the people featured on the show had some really horrible experiences and I don’t think anyone can blame them for just checking out of life. But then there are some people who had relatively good existences and then blam. “My mom pushed me to get good grades so I started doing heroin. My dad criticized my cooking this one time so now I weigh 30 pounds. My mom was tired that one time and couldn’t devote her entire consciousness to me so now I’m 90% Jack Daniels.”

I’m not terrified of the baby trying alcohol or even some drugs when he’s older. But I am scared of him finding any number of my imperfect behaviors devastating and running with that to the crack house. Now, every time I shout, “DO. YOUR. HOMEWORK!” I panic and hide all of the liquor. But I know I’m oversimplifying and overreacting. If something as crazy as addiction could be simply boiled down to bad parenting, I doubt it would be so hard to overcome. I just…I just see a bunch of people who love ya like crazy and they feel like they’re losin’ ya.

(Sigh. Right after I finished writing this, I had to angrily reclaim my iPhone from the baby after I asked for it three times so now I’m wondering what in our house can be used to cook up a shot.)

The baby was sick all weekend with some weird viral thing that the pediatrician diagnosed as “some crud.” Immediately after the Steeler game on Saturday, he puked, but that portion was mercifully over right away and replaced by a fever and sore throat. He was mostly better yesterday, but I kept him home.

Then last night, in the midst of cooking dinner (black bean soup, of all unpleasant visual things), this crap happened again. I’m now fairly certain that the culprit was not a virus but some protein mix that I had put into a smoothie both times that may have turned. I shuffled upstairs to brush my teeth and while I was in the bathroom, the baby adjusted the bed covers, laid a towel over my pillow like I do for him when he’s fighting stomach nastiness, placed a bucket next to the bed, then got some books out. When I came out of the bathroom, he splayed the books out in front of me, three Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and Tales of Beedle the Bard. “Mum, pick one,” he said. I picked the Beedle book. “Uh, not that one,” he replied. Then we climbed into bed and he read Diary of a Wimpy Kid to me while I closed my eyes and tried to think about all things non-vomitous.

It’s really nice to be taken care of sometimes.

Happy New Year!

What’s that? You say that 2011 is practically almost over already? Well, I’ll be…

Yes, this is my first post on here for 2011. My poor little blog. I started back to work after the winter break and felt completely spun around. I think it’s mostly seasonal. When the days are short, I get overwhelmed. In addition to the 9 to 5, I’m still writing at MamaPop,** plus I’m now officially the managing editor at We Covet. It’s a lot of work, but it’s good. And I feel like I’m really making use of my MA, which means a lot to me. But I’ve had literally no time for regular internet stuff and nearly cry every time I click “Mark all as read” on Google Reader.

But, really, not much has happened since we last spoke. I got a new retainer! I had a permanent one affixed to the back of my bottom teeth when I got my braces removed when I was…uh…13? And it was fine up until about September, when we were at a barbecue and someone made deep-fried corn on the cob. And I was like, “Put that in my face.” It was very tasty, but obviously harder than regular corn and it broke the wire on the retainer.

I went to my dentist to get it removed so that it wouldn’t cut up my mouth and then our conversation was like:

“Do you want to get another one?”

“Uh, is that what I should do?”

“Well, you don’t have to get it replaced.”

“Then what happens?”

“Well, your teeth will probably shift and that could cause serious problems down the road, from having to get braces again to getting teeth extracted.”

“Uh, so, it sounds like I should get it replaced.”

Like, why was I even presented with an option? When you go to the emergency room with a broken leg, do they get your opinion on whether or not you want a cast? No! They say, “I went to school for a million years so that I could be an expert in these situations, unlike you, who is still struggling to understand the nuances of the last Real Housewives episode. You’re getting a cast and some crutches and then I’ll tell you how long you’ll keep it on and then I’ll tell you how much physical therapy you need. You see this ‘M.D.’ after my name? That doesn’t stand for ‘Mad Dog,’ my friend.”

Anyway, getting an appointment with the orthodontist was a whole other ordeal because I had to keep rescheduling and then one day I went to the wrong location and another day the bus never came. But I finally got there and sat in a chair in an open room with lots of other exam chairs (are they standard for orthodontists?). And the orthodontist said, “So, your retainer broke and you would like to get a new one? That’s what you want to do?” This did not make me feel any better. I’m lying down with my mouth stretched out and dude is asking for my medical opinion on my teeth, which, by the way, I can’t see and know nothing about. Yes. Please. Give the goddamned retainer.

The orthodontist’s office was above a Starbucks and after I had my new retainer, my mouth tasted like cement so I went to get a coffee. There was a lady there who had a nervous tic of loudly saying, “Hold on! Wait! Hold on!” in a very irritated tone. She either had a) Tourette’s or b) a couple of kids.

*Eddie Izzard’s impression of entrances in British movies, which is what this post feels like.

**Psst! Please read my Big Love recaps! I work really hard on them and it’s the last season and I can’t take the Henricksons alone!

I have a year-in-review meme that I thought I did every year but I can’t seem to find it for last year. Weird.

Anyway, here it is for 2010.

1. Where did you begin 2010?

In my living room with the husband and the sister-in-law and her boyfriend.

2. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?

I ran. Writing this post, I looked back at my posts from the beginning of the year, and especially from when the husband’s job fell through. I was so sad. So, so sad and so very scared of what would become of us. When the winter finally started to let up, I started the Couch to 5k program. I really didn’t think I would be able to finish it, but I just kept doing it. Jogging a few times a week gave me 30 to 45 minutes where I was working toward a goal, sweating out a lot of nastiness, and pounding the ground beneath me, leaving everything behind for a bit. It was cathartic in a way that I didn’t know was possible. I still jog at least once a week and would like to do it more.

I walked across the stage of an auditorium and had my master’s degree placed in my hands. The associate head of my department, who works closely with me and who was the person to give me the diploma, said to me, “This is really such a rush,” and grinned the grin of an educator who sees her life’s work being well spent on someone who truly wanted to learn. I made a lot of people proud that day and that’s pretty cool.

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

I don’t really make resolutions because I think I like to ease into things rather than be like, “Okay, doing this starting NOW.” I want to jog more and figure out a way to work it into almost every day. I’ve lost about 20 pounds over the past year and would like to lose about 20 more. I started eating much better and adopted a much better attitude toward food and my body and would like to continue that. I also need to read more books.

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

No! I’ve had momentary flashes of, “Ooh, that class sounds interesting,” but they’re quickly replaced with the realization that I could just do anything else and it goes away. Maybe in the next few years I’ll have the strength to audit a class here and there, but I think I’m officially done with formal education.

5. Did anyone close to you give birth?

My co-worker/officemate had a baby girl and I feel like I haven’t really met her yet because both times she’s come to visit her office aunts she’s been asleep. The brat.

6. Did anyone close to you die?

No. Though we thought that my mother-in-law’s dog was going to kick the bucket (again) and she made a miraculous recovery (again) and it’s emotionally exhausting so I’ve decided that the goddamned dog is immortal the end.

7. What places did you visit?

Washington, D.C., Detroit, MI, New York, NY, Philadelphia, PA

8. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

Less fear and I would prefer that we accomplish that by having two incomes but some kind of like inner peace or whatever would work, too, I guess.

9. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

The only big date that I can think of is my graduation ceremony but I can’t remember what the precise date was. So, “some time in mid-May” will be the date etched upon my memory.

10. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

The aforementioned Couch to 5k and general big strides in my health and wellbeing, my graduation ceremony. I think I calmed down a lot.

11. What was your biggest failure?

Though I did calm down a lot, I’m stilly pretty anxious a lot of the time and get too upset about things that I can’t control and then lash out at people about it. It’s shitty. I don’t like myself for it. I wish I was better.

12. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Thankfully, no. Just the stomach virus thing a few weeks ago. And my PMS seemed to turn some kind of corner into crazytown. Need to tend to that.

13. What was the best thing you bought?

Roller skates! Though I’m still far from being an expert roller skater, I feel pretty bad ass marching into the rink with my skates. And they’re much prettier than those brown rental skates.

14. Whose behavior merited celebration?

The baby is 9, which is a weird age. He doesn’t really know how to behave because he’s not a little kid anymore but he’s not a big kid yet, either. So he’s struggling with handling responsibility and wanting more privileges but not acting in a way that affords him that. And getting mad at us when we point that out but mad at himself for knowing he could do better. But really, he’s a good kid, very self-aware, and wants more than anything to be a good person. It’s hard to know how to do that and I don’t think any of us ever figure it out, but at least he’s trying.

15. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Pretty much everyone else. I really kind of don’t understand what people are thinking and why they feel they can just do and say any stupid thing that comes in their head.

16. Where did most of your money go?

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

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

Getting past this shitty point in life somehow and moving forward. It’d be cool if that could happen.

The husband and I celebrating 10 years together. I think that’s pretty cool.

18. What song will always remind you of 2010?

Moments in Life by Andres

19. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Both.
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner.
c) richer or poorer? Poorer.

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

Reading books, taking pictures, writing, and being with people. I live inside my head too much and that is, uh, a bad neighborhood. Sometimes I need to do that, just be alone so I can think through some stuff, but it’s better for me to be around other people.

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

Being on the internet. I think I became a little better about just walking away sometimes. I’m having trouble balancing out the time that I spend on here being something that I actively enjoy and something that I do because I’m bored or don’t feel like doing something else.

Fretting about things that I can’t change.

22. How did you spend Christmas?

Christmas Eve was at my mother-in-law’s. Christmas morning was at our house, then we went to my mom’s house, then we went to the husband’s family’s house. The actual familial relationship I’m still not clear on, despite being part of the family for some time now.

23. Did you fall in love in 2010?

I fall more in love with the husband and the baby every day.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, The Walking Dead, Big Love, True Blood

25. What did you do for your birthday in 2010?

We had a small party at my mom’s house and went trick-or-treating.

26. What was the best book you read?

Oh, god. I don’t think I actually read any one book from beginning to end this year. This has to change. I used to devour books.

27. What did you want and get?

A new couch, thanks to my mom and a big sale at a local furniture store.

28. What did you want and not get?

Less stress and fear for both me and the husband.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

I’m really glad that we saw True Grit the other day because otherwise it would have been a pretty lackluster movie year. True Grit was awesome.

30. Did you make some new friends this year?

Yep. BlogHer was kind of a goldmine for funny bitches.

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

I know it’s stupid to get pissed at a meme, but isn’t this the exact same question as what did you want and not get?

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

Same as its always been: dressed.

33. What kept you sane?

The rad people in my life. Movies. Writing. Louis CK’s comedy.

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

Celebrities can eat a fat one. Seriously. I don’t give a flying frack.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

The one where people acted like ignorant, over-privileged jackholes. Oh, wait, THAT WAS ALL OF THEM. Yeah, seriously done with every politician, every Republican, every Democrat, every Conservative, every Liberal. None of them has a clue what’s going on or what to do about it but they can’t admit that because shit would be chaotic.

36. Who did you miss?

I don’t know. Frank maybe?

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.

I’m not very cheery.

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.

Plush Knight Who Says Ni anyone?

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.

There are even a few missing here and this, of course, doesn’t include the extended family.

Please note the various tactics employed here to avoid a double chin.

I’m off of work all of this week so I’m chipping away at Mt. Laundry and doing cheery things like watching Intervention and Hoarders.

How was your Christmas and/or December 25th?