No, I'm not pregnant.
STOP ASKING.
It annoys me. I don't know why. Maybe because people don't really ask. They look at you as if they know and what follows is usually a loud outburst of maternal enthusiasm, after which some crowd control is usually necessary to prevent the wildfire of rumors that could culminate from the cigarette butt of whatever stupid allusion to motherhood you unintentionally uttered.
That's neither here nor there. I just had to let it out. No, you see, every year has a theme. There was the wedding year and the new house year and...I dunno, doctorate year or something. This year is baby year. I think Laura called it first. She has a post listing all the expectant or recently post-expectant mothers we know, but I'm too lazy to go find it.
The reason this preoccupies me today is that I fear God is trying to trick me into getting pregnant. I'm tempted to shake my fist in the air and tell Him it'll never work, but then He'd just cheat and do the whole immaculate conception thing just for spite.
Wal-Mart is holding my birth control for ransom. I'm a Sunday starter, people. It's Tuesday. AFTERNOON.
See, I've known all month that my prescription was due to expire sometime soon, which is why I've been trying for weeks to get an appointment with the lady doctor. Why can't I accomplish this? Because my doctor is booked up? No, I don't have "a" doctor. I just ask for first available. I know most women have preferences about that kind of thing, but the way I see it, it's going to be one of the most mortifying, undignified, uncomfortable experiences you have to look forward to every year, no matter whose hands are doing the walking.
I digress. I couldn't get an appointment because, and I quote, "Our computers are down. Call back in a few days."
Your computers are down? Is your pen out of ink too? Poor you.
I called three times in two weeks trying to convince them to take my money so they can violate me. Their computers were down. So, the time came for my trip to the pharmacy and lo and behold, my prescription had expired.
This was Saturday. Nothing to be done until my doctor stumbles into his office sometime around 2pm on Monday. So I called my pharmacy first thing on Monday to see if they'd gotten in touch with my doctor. No, they hadn't, and it might actually be quicker if I tried calling myself. Fine. I called my doctor's office and they said they'd handle it. Fine. I called my pharmacy around lunch to see if I could pick it up yet. Still no word from my doctor. Fine. I called his office back to get an ETA. Sometime around 5pm, they'd make sure and call so I could pick it up that night. Fine. I go to the pharmacy that evening to pick up my prescription, where I find out that my doctor's office never called them, nor did they ever get around to calling him.
FINE.
This morning, I spent over an hour calling my pharmacy, then my doctor, then my pharmacy, then my doctor, then my pharmacy. Apparently, they're mad at each other. The pharmacist must be shtooping the doctor's wife or something. Well guys, it could be worse. SHE COULD BE PREGNANT. BUT I'M SURE SHE'S NOT BECAUSE SHE'S PROBABLY TAKING MY BIRTH CONTROL PILLS. Bitch.
The last call I made to my pharmacy this morning was mostly begging for them to please, for the love of God, please break the wall of silence and call my doctor. They said they would call and to check back before they went to lunch to see if my prescription was ready.
I just checked back in to find that sadly, my pharmacy was unable to reach my doctor's office, the same one I've called half a dozen times in the last two days. But they're sure everything will be cleared up by this evening. Well, sing me a song and call me Henry, because I think I've heard this verse before.
Next week, Liz develops a hormonal imbalance! Will she get her birth control in time, or will she begin inexplicably crying at the sight of a pineapple? Tune in and find out.
2.28.2006
2.15.2006
Exercises in Humility
Hope everyone had a lovely VD. Jaimie's fleegan dumped her last night to go to his niece's basketball game, and my husband dumped me to go to work. How lame are they? Good thing Jaimie and I don't believe in Valentine's Day.
So as not to be total humbugs, we went on a date without the guys. TUESDAY NIGHT BOWLING WITH THE LUTHERANS!!! YOW!
Bowling with the Lutherans is so much fun. We drink and cuss and bowl. Except not all Lutherans cuss. One sweet old lady on our team would say "BAD WORD!" everytime she wasn't happy with her roll. It made me giggle.
I learned something about myself last night, bowling with Lutherans, that I'd like to share: I have no luck. I am luckless, for better or for worse.
We bowled two games, and my scores, respectively, were 72 and 45. The first is bad enough, but the second is shockingly bad. People's eyes got wide when I told them. I felt like they were going to put my picture on the wall next to the people who've bowled perfect 300s, because my achievement warranted recognition as well.
There was this lane beside ours with a bunch of high school kids playing, most of which were not what you might call proficient bowlers. One guy bowled like he thought the gutter was the target. Watching them over the course of the night, I noticed something. No matter how bad they were, they made a decent shot at least one time in four. Most of them had scored at least one strike by the end of the night. In the two times I've bowled with the Lutherans, four games total, I've scored exactly one spare and no strikes. This, I have decided, is because I have absolutely no luck.
That's not at all a bad thing from a certain point of view. Those kids beside me had luck, like most people do. They had good luck and bad luck. I have neither. I can't think of anything in particular about myself and my life to make me believe that anything terribly unlucky has ever happened to me. Lots of bad things have happened, of course, but not unlucky things. No flukes, abberations, or tragedies of fate. Which brings us to good luck.
Let's take bowling. I know nothing about bowling technique, the feel of the ball, the right throw, what weight I should be using, any of that. So, is it bad luck that I bowled four zero frames in one game? No. It stands to reason. It displays, rather, an exceptional lack of good luck. Some kind of good luck would have to be involved for me to do well in any endeavor for which I am so poorly equipped.
The way I'll interpret this is that in most things, I'll get no tip of the scales in either direction based on any unfair influence of fate. I can handle that. I'll work on my bowling skills and eventually get better, knowing that while I may never acheive an undeserved strike, I'll also never blow the big game.
So as not to be total humbugs, we went on a date without the guys. TUESDAY NIGHT BOWLING WITH THE LUTHERANS!!! YOW!
Bowling with the Lutherans is so much fun. We drink and cuss and bowl. Except not all Lutherans cuss. One sweet old lady on our team would say "BAD WORD!" everytime she wasn't happy with her roll. It made me giggle.
I learned something about myself last night, bowling with Lutherans, that I'd like to share: I have no luck. I am luckless, for better or for worse.
We bowled two games, and my scores, respectively, were 72 and 45. The first is bad enough, but the second is shockingly bad. People's eyes got wide when I told them. I felt like they were going to put my picture on the wall next to the people who've bowled perfect 300s, because my achievement warranted recognition as well.
There was this lane beside ours with a bunch of high school kids playing, most of which were not what you might call proficient bowlers. One guy bowled like he thought the gutter was the target. Watching them over the course of the night, I noticed something. No matter how bad they were, they made a decent shot at least one time in four. Most of them had scored at least one strike by the end of the night. In the two times I've bowled with the Lutherans, four games total, I've scored exactly one spare and no strikes. This, I have decided, is because I have absolutely no luck.
That's not at all a bad thing from a certain point of view. Those kids beside me had luck, like most people do. They had good luck and bad luck. I have neither. I can't think of anything in particular about myself and my life to make me believe that anything terribly unlucky has ever happened to me. Lots of bad things have happened, of course, but not unlucky things. No flukes, abberations, or tragedies of fate. Which brings us to good luck.
Let's take bowling. I know nothing about bowling technique, the feel of the ball, the right throw, what weight I should be using, any of that. So, is it bad luck that I bowled four zero frames in one game? No. It stands to reason. It displays, rather, an exceptional lack of good luck. Some kind of good luck would have to be involved for me to do well in any endeavor for which I am so poorly equipped.
The way I'll interpret this is that in most things, I'll get no tip of the scales in either direction based on any unfair influence of fate. I can handle that. I'll work on my bowling skills and eventually get better, knowing that while I may never acheive an undeserved strike, I'll also never blow the big game.
2.14.2006
Memed
Laura invoked the tag (albeit a week ago). I am it.
By the way, happy Valentine's. If you're into that.
Four jobs I've had
1. Newspaper desk clerk/obituary writer
2. TV production studio writer/director/producer/editor/talent/grip/chode
3. Art museum graphic artist/receptionist/tech support/carpenter
4. Family business Girl Friday
I never was happy with just one hat.
Four movies I can watch over and over
1. The Fifth Element (Why do I love that movie? I really shouldn't. But oh, how I do.)
2. Any Jack Ryan movie (Um, except that one with Ben Affleck. Nothing wrong with it, just not the same.)
3. The Pelican Brief
4. Boondock Saints
Four places I have lived
This may strike some of you as sad, others as endearingly old-fashioned, but I don't move around a lot.
1. The trailer my family lived in when I was 3 months old
2. The house I lived in with my family (about 2 miles away from the trailer) from ages 1-23
3. The dorm room I where I sort of stayed my first semester in college
4. The downtown dreamplex
The dorm room wins the prize for Farthest Distance from Birthplace, coming in at a whopping 25 miles. It may be disqualified, however, since I'm not quite sure "having a place nearby to crash two nights a week" is the same as living there.
Four TV shows I love
I think I've mentioned that I go through TV phases in life. I'll go months forgetting that there is a thing called television which exists to entertain me. I kind of prefer these phases. I get a lot more done. Then there are other times, times like now, that when I sit down on the couch, I am compelled by some deep-seeded conditioning to turn on the TV and keep it on for the rest of the day. I don't even have to be watching it. It just has to be ON. I think there's a mind-controlling gnome in Chris's TV. I knew we should've used mine.
Anyway, even in times like these when I can't seem to have enough mind-numbing entertainment, I've never had a lot of regular shows. Sure, I'll get obsessed with one, maybe two shows at a time and that's cool. It doesn't cut into my schedule too bad. But it's funny you should ask about shows I love at this time in my life because I'm telling you, all of a sudden, there are millions. That's a slight exaggeration, but let me just say I'm hard-pressed to pick four. And for me, that seems like MILLIONS. I have chosen multi-genre representation as my method of selection.
1. Drama: Medium (Can Jake Weber be my TV boyfriend?)
2. Sci-Fi: Battlestar Galactica (If you're not already watching this, don't start. You'll sleep better.)
3. Comedy: Family Guy
4. Animated: Boondocks
I realize there's some overlap with the Comedy and Animated categories, but I rationalize it by saying that the fact that Family Guy is animated is itself a comedic device. And Boondocks, although funny, can certainly be appreciated from a purely aesthetic point of view.
Four TV shows I hear I should be watching, but as yet am not
I picked up this extra category from kottke.
1. Lost
2. Veronica Mars
3. American Idol (Could 37% of the viewing public be wrong?)
4. 24
I almost listed Six Feet Under, but I don't subscribe to HBO or Netflix, so I see myself as having insufficient opportunity to have brazenly ignored this one.
Four places I have vacationed
I choose to exclude cruise destinations, because I vacationed on the boat. The destinations were more like beer runs.
1. Santana Maya, Central Mexico
2. Savannah, Georgia
3. Chattanooga, Tennessee
4. Just about everywhere in Florida that's not a retirement community or the restricted area of an airforce base
Four of my favorite dishes
1. Chris's Greek chicken pitas with cucumber sauce
2. Santa Fe soup
3. Anything with noodles
4. Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper
Four sites I visit daily
1. www.google.com
2. www.fleegan.com
3. www.dooce.com
4. Any random combination of the other links you see to your right
Four places I would rather be right now
1. Camping at Horse Pens 40
2. Watching a really awesome meteor shower
3. In bed
4. Someplace where it still snows
Four people I am tagging
Sharight.
By the way, happy Valentine's. If you're into that.
Four jobs I've had
1. Newspaper desk clerk/obituary writer
2. TV production studio writer/director/producer/editor/talent/grip/chode
3. Art museum graphic artist/receptionist/tech support/carpenter
4. Family business Girl Friday
I never was happy with just one hat.
Four movies I can watch over and over
1. The Fifth Element (Why do I love that movie? I really shouldn't. But oh, how I do.)
2. Any Jack Ryan movie (Um, except that one with Ben Affleck. Nothing wrong with it, just not the same.)
3. The Pelican Brief
4. Boondock Saints
Four places I have lived
This may strike some of you as sad, others as endearingly old-fashioned, but I don't move around a lot.
1. The trailer my family lived in when I was 3 months old
2. The house I lived in with my family (about 2 miles away from the trailer) from ages 1-23
3. The dorm room I where I sort of stayed my first semester in college
4. The downtown dreamplex
The dorm room wins the prize for Farthest Distance from Birthplace, coming in at a whopping 25 miles. It may be disqualified, however, since I'm not quite sure "having a place nearby to crash two nights a week" is the same as living there.
Four TV shows I love
I think I've mentioned that I go through TV phases in life. I'll go months forgetting that there is a thing called television which exists to entertain me. I kind of prefer these phases. I get a lot more done. Then there are other times, times like now, that when I sit down on the couch, I am compelled by some deep-seeded conditioning to turn on the TV and keep it on for the rest of the day. I don't even have to be watching it. It just has to be ON. I think there's a mind-controlling gnome in Chris's TV. I knew we should've used mine.
Anyway, even in times like these when I can't seem to have enough mind-numbing entertainment, I've never had a lot of regular shows. Sure, I'll get obsessed with one, maybe two shows at a time and that's cool. It doesn't cut into my schedule too bad. But it's funny you should ask about shows I love at this time in my life because I'm telling you, all of a sudden, there are millions. That's a slight exaggeration, but let me just say I'm hard-pressed to pick four. And for me, that seems like MILLIONS. I have chosen multi-genre representation as my method of selection.
1. Drama: Medium (Can Jake Weber be my TV boyfriend?)
2. Sci-Fi: Battlestar Galactica (If you're not already watching this, don't start. You'll sleep better.)
3. Comedy: Family Guy
4. Animated: Boondocks
I realize there's some overlap with the Comedy and Animated categories, but I rationalize it by saying that the fact that Family Guy is animated is itself a comedic device. And Boondocks, although funny, can certainly be appreciated from a purely aesthetic point of view.
Four TV shows I hear I should be watching, but as yet am not
I picked up this extra category from kottke.
1. Lost
2. Veronica Mars
3. American Idol (Could 37% of the viewing public be wrong?)
4. 24
I almost listed Six Feet Under, but I don't subscribe to HBO or Netflix, so I see myself as having insufficient opportunity to have brazenly ignored this one.
Four places I have vacationed
I choose to exclude cruise destinations, because I vacationed on the boat. The destinations were more like beer runs.
1. Santana Maya, Central Mexico
2. Savannah, Georgia
3. Chattanooga, Tennessee
4. Just about everywhere in Florida that's not a retirement community or the restricted area of an airforce base
Four of my favorite dishes
1. Chris's Greek chicken pitas with cucumber sauce
2. Santa Fe soup
3. Anything with noodles
4. Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper
Four sites I visit daily
1. www.google.com
2. www.fleegan.com
3. www.dooce.com
4. Any random combination of the other links you see to your right
Four places I would rather be right now
1. Camping at Horse Pens 40
2. Watching a really awesome meteor shower
3. In bed
4. Someplace where it still snows
Four people I am tagging
Sharight.
2.08.2006
Quitting
Chris is kicking the camel. As in The Camel. As in soft-pack menthol filters. It is now Day 2.
Pray for him. Also, pray for me. If you've ever "been there" for someone who's detoxing, you'll know you should pray for me more. I kid. Sort of.
Jaimie, just so you know, that's why we didn't go bowling last night. We both really wanted to, and we both thought it would probably be a bad idea to subject him to a dozen chain-smoking Lutherans at this juncture.
Chris's mom gave him some Nicorette for Christmas, and he'd wanted to quit for a long time anyway. I was all for it because I want him to live a really long time, and because he has annoyingly expensive taste in cigarettes. Why can't he just be a Marlboro-smoking redneck like the rest of us? Anyway, we had the cruise coming up and that just wouldn't do, and then he had a particularly difficult group to deal with at work. While I'm sure there's no good time to quit, he thought things might calm down enough by this week to give him a little more of an edge.
Things don't ever really calm down, do they? I'm sure it could've been worse, but have you ever tried car-shopping and/or groveling for a bank loan while kicking a 12-year-old smoking habit? It sucks. Then again, so does blinking.
Pray for him. Also, pray for me. If you've ever "been there" for someone who's detoxing, you'll know you should pray for me more. I kid. Sort of.
Jaimie, just so you know, that's why we didn't go bowling last night. We both really wanted to, and we both thought it would probably be a bad idea to subject him to a dozen chain-smoking Lutherans at this juncture.
Chris's mom gave him some Nicorette for Christmas, and he'd wanted to quit for a long time anyway. I was all for it because I want him to live a really long time, and because he has annoyingly expensive taste in cigarettes. Why can't he just be a Marlboro-smoking redneck like the rest of us? Anyway, we had the cruise coming up and that just wouldn't do, and then he had a particularly difficult group to deal with at work. While I'm sure there's no good time to quit, he thought things might calm down enough by this week to give him a little more of an edge.
Things don't ever really calm down, do they? I'm sure it could've been worse, but have you ever tried car-shopping and/or groveling for a bank loan while kicking a 12-year-old smoking habit? It sucks. Then again, so does blinking.
2.06.2006
Milestones
Carrie Married - There's some reason that those words rhyme which goes beyond the natural. My cousin is one of those people whose destiny and primary ambition it has always been to start a family. Her wedding was two Saturdays ago. I was the matron of honor.
I should explain that when children of our clan get married, they have a choice to make in regards to their representative maids. Two roads diverge in a wood, as it were. There are five of us cousins who are, shall we say, birthing age, and we're all pretty close. So when one of us gets married, it just makes good sense for the other four of us to stand up there and look pretty. Four is a good number; not too many, not too few. The choice comes when one of the brides has other friends that she would also like to have in the wedding. You can't have just one friend-maid, because she'd have to hang out with a bunch of cousins who've known each other all their lives and probably don't know her from Adam. Wouldn't be fair to her. So you'd have to have at least two friend-maids, which now brings your total to six or more. For a family which seems to prefer smaller weddings, this will not do. Also, how many guys do you know who could come up with six groomsmen? We're also into symmetry.
When I got married, I went the friend route. It was a small, outdoor, informal wedding and even four seemed a bit much. I had a matron of honor and a maid of honor and that was it. As a sidenote, I also find it interesting that two of the cousins are married now and neither of us saw fit to designate any attendants as simply "bridesmaids". Equality for all. Hm.
Carrie went with the pre-packaged family plan, and it was a lot of fun. I always wondered if she would turn out to be a bridezilla, but that wasn't the case at all. It was just a good time, even after ten hours in heels. She even gets bonus points for not freaking out when she got mud on her satin wedding shoes.
That makes two down, three to go in our quintuplet of cousinly couples, and all smooth sailing so far. Another interesting tidbit: so far, we're getting married in birth order.
I should explain that when children of our clan get married, they have a choice to make in regards to their representative maids. Two roads diverge in a wood, as it were. There are five of us cousins who are, shall we say, birthing age, and we're all pretty close. So when one of us gets married, it just makes good sense for the other four of us to stand up there and look pretty. Four is a good number; not too many, not too few. The choice comes when one of the brides has other friends that she would also like to have in the wedding. You can't have just one friend-maid, because she'd have to hang out with a bunch of cousins who've known each other all their lives and probably don't know her from Adam. Wouldn't be fair to her. So you'd have to have at least two friend-maids, which now brings your total to six or more. For a family which seems to prefer smaller weddings, this will not do. Also, how many guys do you know who could come up with six groomsmen? We're also into symmetry.
When I got married, I went the friend route. It was a small, outdoor, informal wedding and even four seemed a bit much. I had a matron of honor and a maid of honor and that was it. As a sidenote, I also find it interesting that two of the cousins are married now and neither of us saw fit to designate any attendants as simply "bridesmaids". Equality for all. Hm.
Carrie went with the pre-packaged family plan, and it was a lot of fun. I always wondered if she would turn out to be a bridezilla, but that wasn't the case at all. It was just a good time, even after ten hours in heels. She even gets bonus points for not freaking out when she got mud on her satin wedding shoes.
That makes two down, three to go in our quintuplet of cousinly couples, and all smooth sailing so far. Another interesting tidbit: so far, we're getting married in birth order.
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