kdiddy.org

Well, my trip to the eye doctor was an adventure. I started off late, of course, and subjected my darling son to the harsh morning sunlight and the ear-splitting sounds of the demolition team up the street as we set off galloping on Penn Avenue. About five minutes into the journey I stopped dead in my tracks and said out loud, “I'm going the wrong way…I'm such a FUCKING moron!” I did a 180, burned some Evenflo stroller rubber and set off in the right direction. At that point I had about five minutes until my appointment and I considered just calling and rescheduling since I was definitely going to be at least 15 minutes late. But I was determined and set off speedwalking once again. By the time I got to the entrance of West Penn Hospital I was drenched in sweat and my son was looking a little stressed out. I went in the main door naively thinking that I would manage to get where I needed to go with little difficulty.
Wrong.
No directories, no signs, no receptionists. Just a bank of elevators and a courtesy phone. I stopped a woman who appeared to be a staff member, who pointed me towards the courtesy phone and more or less told me to knock myself out. Thanks. I picked it up and asked them to courteously direct me to Dr. Kobaly's office. They gave me a phone number, which I called, and spoke to a very confused lady. She was confused because they gave me the number of Dr. Kobaly's associate in the North Hills. Great! Through several more convoluted conversations I discovered that I needed to go to the Mellon Pavillion, which required me to get on the elevator, go to the second floor, follow a bunch of arrows down a long and winding hallway, speak to troll and tell him my name, quest, and favorite color, cross a suspension bridge, joust with Xena, get on another set of elevators, go to the Mezzanine level, outwit David Bowie, then go through the labyrinth that is the Mellon Pavillion until I arrive at Dr. Kobaly's office.
I dashed in, 25 minutes late, and yelled from the doorway, “Do I need to reschedule?” They just sort of shrugged off my tardiness which endeared them to me. The baby and I settled in the waiting room and I started getting worried that he was going to be “that baby.” You know, the one who climbs all over everything and pisses everyone off. He was relatively chill, though.
When we got called back they did the usual, “Better 1 or 2? Better 1 or 3? Better 3 or 15?” Then I got the oh-so-fun pupil-dilating drops. Sent back out to the waiting room and of course I had left my glasses at home so I had to navigate the twists and turns with my shite vision and my pupils dilating to the size of saucers.
I sat down next to an older man, perhaps late 70s, who complimented me on how sweet the baby was. I squinted at him and said thanks. The baby looked at him and said, “Elbow,” then tried to kiss his own elbow. The older gentleman then started to tell me about how his daughter married an “Aim-ish” (Amish) man so his grandson, Matthew, was half “Aim-ish” and very cute. But his son married a very sweet girl who already had a 3 year old son. But there was some kind of custody battle with the father and, “Ohhh, don't ever deal with lawyers…especially in New Jersey…or just women lawyers in general.”

…
Okay, I realize that we all share some sort of vision impairment but can't the dood see that I am obviously a woman and might take offense to such a statement? And what if I was a lawyer? What then, huh?
Well, we finished the rest of our visit without further incident and I was once again sent out to the wild jungles of West Penn Hospital. I got lost no less than three times navigating my way out and forgot to put my sunglasses on before we egressed the building. Consequently, I nearly collapsed in pain when the sunlight hit my face.
We walked home through Bloomfield and I stopped into the Groceria Italiana, bought the baby a pretzel rod for being a doll, bought myself some water and meringue drop cookies, and bought the boyfriend a meatball sandwich. I thought for sure I would hand it to him, he would burst into tears from gratification as I told him how the old Italian babas had slaved over the meatballs and bread as “Ave Maria” played in the background.
Instead.
“Oh…um…I don't like meatballs.”
Wha–? We've been together almost three years and somehow this piece of information managed to elude me. Pfft. Whatever.
Also accomplished today: finished most of my article, I'll most likely be sending it in tomorrow. Wish me luck. did a couple of loads of laundry. saw my first review for www.wintermittens.com go “live.” very cool. cleaned the bathroom, paying particular attention to the toilet due to an incident early this morning. It was kind of gross and I'll only tell the tale to people who really want to know (men-folk, you probably don't want to know). Now my hand is all dried out from the Soft Scrub with Bleach. Walked back and forth from West Coast Video twice because I forgot to put the Mulholland Dr. DVD in the case. I rool.
Now the boyfriend is at Kelly's and I'm here since my mom is out in Oakmont tending to my grandmother.
uhhh, I think I had a lot more to say but my brain is pretty shot.

Who needs an alarm clock when you have the demolition team starting at St. Francis at 7 a.m. every morning?

I'm going to be late for my eye doctor's appointment so that he can say, “Wow, you have really poor eyesight.”

I want some Chupa-Chups.

NEED COFFEE!!!
Rargh!

I've officially lost 20 pounds. Ahhh.

I'm just having a really tough day. I just don't feel like I can do anything anymore. I can't be a mom anymore. I can't change one more diaper. I can't wipe up one more teaspoon of yogurt off of the floor. I can't write one more word of this article because it's shit. I can't take this headache for one more second. I can't deal with my family. I can't put in the effort for a relationship. I can't care about anything political or philosophical. I'm just going to turn into a self-absorbed blob of shit.
Yay.

http://www.filmwise.com/invisibles/invisible_136.shtml

I was only able to get three of them.

In other news, yesterday was total shit. Stress over grandmother's injuries, my mom and her goiter were being jerks, minimal progress on the article, HUGE argument with the boyfriend dredging up shit from three years ago, AND I got my period.
Anyone up for a murderous rampage?

Good stuff today: found lime Tic Tacs at the grocery store. Yum. Fit into very swanky bathing suit that I bought when I was 17 and it didn't look like total ass. Nice.

Bad stuff: No progress made on article due to lack of coordination with family. augh.

I'm not sure what the problem is this morning but I've been sneezing non-stop. Eugh.

So, here's the deal. Yesterday afternoon my mom called me to tell me that my grandmother had fallen while she was downtown. Now, this is hazardous for any elderly person but my grandmother had hip-replacement surgery about two years ago. My mom told me that they were taking her to the hospital to get checked out and to make sure that her hip hadn't done anything foolish. I wasn't really worried since it didn't sound like a big deal. A few hours later I called West Penn Hospital after getting irritated that I hadn't been updated. I talked to my grandfather who told me that my grandmother had broken her kneecap and her elbow. Owwwwwwwww! Poor thing. She has to wait until Monday to see her regular (orthopedic?) doctor to find out if she has to have surgery on her knee or not. They gave her a prescription for Percocet but she refuses to take them for some inexplicable reason. I told her to get the pills and then just give them to me. I'll make sure that they don't go to waste…or I'll get entrepreneurial and sell them. I had Percocet after getting my wisdom teeth removed and after my C-section. They were very nice indeed.
So now my mom, who seems to be less and less able to deal with any kind of stress as she gets older, has been frantic since yesterday. When she came home last night she was extremely teary and short with me. I asked her if she was okay and she snapped, “Yes, I'm FINE! It's just very upSETTING when someone you LOVE is HURT, oKAY?” Okaaay. So I asked her to remove my head from her jaws and told her that my grandmother will be just fine. She just sort of glared at me and stomped off to bed. She's always trying to pull this guilt trip on me and accuse me of not caring about my family. It's such bullshit and it's very hurtful. When the baby was sick a few weeks ago my mom seemed to think it would be best if we all completely freaked out and moved into Children's Hospital and hold a prayer vigil and maybe become nuns, you know, just for good measure. That was really too much. I found it increasingly difficult to take care of my son and to fend off my mother who was apparently trying to set a world record for nervous breakdowns in a 72-hour period. She kept saying that I wasn't worried enough which was extremely offensive. I'm no doctor, but I read up on childhood illnesses a lot. Yes, he was quite sick with strep and the intestinal virus but I knew that he just needed care and rest and that he would be fine. Lo and behold, he was. Afterward my mom kept saying, “Wow, you really held it together. You were so calm and focused on making him better.” Yes, no thanks to you, fruitcake. Now do me a favor and throw this shirt in the laundry. It has puke all over it.
Sigh.
Anyway, I'm kind of getting away from the issue at hand. My grandmother is going to be fine. I know this but no one else seems to realize it. And I know this is going to sound selfish but I'm just going to go ahead and mention it since this is my journal. I'm irritated with my grandmother for getting injured when I have to write this article this weekend. Okay, there, I said it. I am, indeed, the worst granddaughter ever to walk the Earth. I just can't help but notice that my family and I have the worst luck as far as the scheduling of crises goes. During college my finals/midterms/other important work always seemed to coincide with a death or other important family event. I can't remember how many times I would stumble home after a 10-hour wake and slur, “Hooo-kay, let's write a Philosophy paper! It's due in eight hours….snore….” Now it seems that that pattern is going to continue for many years.

So…last night, after my mom let me have my head back, I was watching some crap on the Discovery Health Channel about plastic surgery or something. (ick) Around 12 the phone rang. I have to admit that one of my first paranoid thoughts was that it was my grandfather calling to say, “She fell again,” or “Her leg just went ahead and fell off. Meet us at the hospital in five minutes.” But instead it was telling me that he was going to come pick me up and bring me to Ray's. It was very nice of him but I was so tired and the thought of being at a bar was just really not appealing, even if Ed Um was going to be playing. I thanked him and we hung up but instead of going to bed like I said I was I, predictably, came down here and wrote a little bit. I've still only got one paragraph done but it's something. I think I'm just going to have to confine myself tonight and tomorrow during the day until I get it more or less finished. Ergh. I need an office, dammit!
Well, I'm starting to sweat and I think my son has pooped. He's also imitating a car alarm at the moment so I'm going to remove him from the situation before he starts acting even stranger.

I called my son a “total spaz” today. I'm such a bitch.

That's the sound of my head banging on the desk as I go through my de rigeur “I'm a horrible writer, how do I get myself into these situations?” stress whenever I write an article.

1. Do you remember your first best friend? Who was it?

Yes. Anthony Lascola. He and his mother lived next door to me on Delaware Avenue until we were 4 or 5, then he moved to a different neighborhood.

2. Are you still in touch with this person?

Nope. After kindergarten, I stayed at our Catholic school while Anthony went to the public school. We ended up going to the same high school for freshman and sophomore years but never really spoke to one another. Occasionally I see his mother and she gives me updates.

3. Do you have a current close friend?

Yes. My closest friend (besides the boyfriend and other family members) is Stacey.

4. How did you become friends with this person?

We met in high school, 9 years ago. We were both in the PBT/Schenley High School Program (think “Fame”). We had a lot in common and have just remained close throughout the years.

5. Is there a friend from your past that you wish you were still in contact with? Why?

Not particularly. The people who have come and then gone from my life have done so for various reasons and I don't think that we regret any of those reasons. I would like to know what my friend Alexis Kehayes is up to. If anyone knows her, tell her I'm looking for her.