I'm Not Writing

The last week and a half have been rough. I'm not writing about it. In fact, I'm not writing about anything.

I feel bad when I don't post on my regular schedule, but if the last few weeks have taught me anything, it's that my schedule doesn't mean shit.

I'll be back to you shortly with the snarky, assholistic commentary that you're all used to.

I promise.

As always, it's hip to be square (and MIA), kids.

"Brave Secrets"

When we see patients who don't get any better, it's often because they're hiding something that they don't want us to know. It's usually something that they feel makes them terrible or deficient in some way. In reality, once we find out what it actually is, it's almost always something that everyone has gone through or done. Or, it's something that makes them a little different, but that the rest of the world would have no problem with. The news that they are not broken or different instantly makes them better, and then they don't need us anymore.

We love when people don't need us anymore. 

Anyway, the point of this is that everyone has secrets or quirky things that they do that they think make them different. I have a ton, and I keep them to myself because I don't want people to think I'm weird or obsessive or over-bearing. To paraphrase pretty much my favorite author in the whole wide world, The Bloggess (@TheBloggess), if we all talked about our "brave secrets" we'd realize that we all have the same secrets.

I'm collecting guest posts from fellow bloggers on the quirks that you think make you different. They will go up over the next few weeks. These aren't deep, life-changing, traumatic events. It's little things that we all do that maybe make us shy when someone notices.

Actually, screw that. None of you bitches are shy. 

You know what I mean.

If you want to contribute, shoot me an email at maternaldamnation@gmail.com. Tell me what you want to write about or send me a draft. You don't have to bare your soul, but you could talk about your high school garage band the Soul Bears. 

Dude. I'm going to start a band called The Soul Bears. TRADEMARKED.

We're all really different, and that's what kind of makes us all the same. 

I'll be posting my quirky Soul Bear over the next few days. In the meantime, send me the goods!

As always, it's hip to be square (and quirky!), kids.  

My Soul Bear

I need someone to draw me a picture of a Soul Bear so I can use it as my eventual band logo, but also so that I can have it and laugh.

Please see this post to find out what a Soul Bear is. 

For my entire life, I've just assumed people didn't like me. I have no ill will toward them, but I always felt like if it was between me and someone else, they would want to hang out with someone else because WHO WOULDN'T? I am still amazed when friends call and ask for my attention because I'm so uncool that I'm warm. I always feel like the little kid around big grown ups, even though were often the same age and I'm intelligent enough to conversate the shit out of a... conversation. 

Anyway, this extends to my Twitter life. People follow me and I get all excited and happy. Then I go all "OH MY BOB THEY ARE GOING TO THINK I'M STUPID AND NOT COME TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY AND UNFOLLOW ME AND I'LL BE DEVASTATED WHEN I NOTICE AND OHMYBOBBBBBB!"

Just for the record, when you try to dramatically write the word "Bob", it pretty much always looks like "boob". 

Heh. Boobies. 

Anyway, I have been known to occassionally (read: all the time) check to make sure people I admire out there on the Internetz are still following me. I do it with people I talk to all the damn time. It's the reason that I almost didn't want to start #SnarkLine. I was worried that no one would think I was funny or nice enough. 

I'M BOTH, DAMMIT. 

So that's my Soul Bear. Even if you love me, I probably think you hate me. If you don't answer, I assume it's cause I said something stupid. Even with all of my educations and accomplishments, I will always be the kid that didn't get picked for kickball because she was too damn small.

Hi from down here.

As always, it's hip to be square (and obsessive!), kids.

Chicken Carbonara and DEATH

Okay. Death might be a little harsh.

More like a booboo. 

I am not a cook. I am a heater-upper. I am a make-reservations-er. I am a get-takeout-er. Luckily, my husband isn't too picky and just cares that he gets to eat. Usually, when I get home from work, I'm tired and barely hungry. I've been at work for 12 hours. I don't want to cook. Not to mention that I don't know how to cook. My husband will do nothing to procure grub for himself. Once, I didn't make dinner for 2 weeks, and he lost 10 pounds. He was 160 pounds (at max.) before those two weeks.

Once in a while, though, I decide I'm going to actually make dinner. 

Last night was one of those nights. 

I got out of work a little early, did some grocery shopping and came home with an idea. I was going to make chicken carbonara. I don't think I realized how many pots and pans this would be require, but no worries. We were given all of these fancy kitchen tools for our wedding. Might as well take them for a ride.

For the record, I have learned that you cannot ride pots and pans. All you can really do with them is make things hot

Lame.

As I was pre-heating and arranging, the appliances were all like "WHHHAAAA???" The stove thought it was being molested by a stranger. It called the kitchen police on me.

Good thing they don't exist.

Anywhoozie. 

I got down to biznass on the cooking and being domestic and shit. It looked something like this: 

That's THREE pots/pans going at once. THREE. All making foods.
 All bein' delicious. One is filled with bacon. Mmm. Bacon.

I was on top of things. None of the food got overcooked because I was distracted. It was a cornucopia of bacon. Even cornucopias are good when there is bacon involved!

I made the food. It was actually good! Not like, husband is eating it because he doesn't want to upset me good, but really, actually good. I might even eat the leftovers. AOM NOM NOM.

Just to really throw the universe for a loop, I started doing the dishes right after we were done dinner. "No dishes sitting in the sink for this chick!" I thought. I probably should have been wearing an apron to complete the June Cleaver look. 

And then it happened.

I got overconfident in my domestic abilities while cleaning two knives at once. I wasn't ready for that kind of multi-tasking mastery. I cut my pinkie finger. It hurt. It scared me. There was blood. My finger had to be amputated.

Okay, that last part isn't true. I still have the finger. And the cut wasn't that bad.

BUT, you can't clean dishes with a bandaid on your pinkie, so they had to stay there until my injury heals. Maybe for a week or two. Or until I hire a chef and a house-keeper. Whichever comes first.

The next thing that I'm making is reservations. 

This experience gives me some inspiration, though. Once I have healed from all damage, I want to start chronicling my experience as a newbie-chef. I might not mind cooking if I got some recipes under my belt. I'll use this silly internet space to keep you in the loop about how many appendages I lose on the regular. This could be dangerous.

As always, it's hip to be square, kids.

Balancing Act

The biggest source of conflict in our marriage is my job. I work all the time, and when I'm not at work, I'm thinking about work. It's not normal or healthy, but it is what it is. I LOVE my job. I built this business from the ground. Almost everything we do, from a fiscal or procedural perspective, I came up with. I did all of it. It's like a child to me. I work nearly 80 hours on a regular week. It's a lot.

On top of that, I got this wacky idea to start a blog and a Twitter that I love as much as my regular job. Maybe even more. I would quit my real job if I could live on a blog-based income.

It will probably be a cold day in hell when that happens.

And then, we have this marriage that we're working on.

It's a lot.

The kicker is that I have to spend more time working on the blog in order to get it way I want to be. That takes time away from the real job or the marriage. The marriage is usually what suffers. I'm so happy being independent and isolated that I tend to ignore the people who are begging for my attention.

Unless they're my patients. Or my Twitter friends. Then they get all of the attention that they want.

That's so fucked up.

Anyway, I'm working really hard to find a way to balance all of it. I'm not doing a very good job at this point, but I think I should get an "A" for effort. Unfortunately , that's not how the world works. All the effort in the world can still pull you an "F" if you've got nothing to show for it.

Life is bullshit sometimes.

How do you manage everything you have to do and still have a happy marriage? Or, do you have to sacrifice things that you would really like to do because you can't do it all?

As always, it's hip to be square (and off-kilter), kids.

Underneath It All, There's a Gentleman

My dad and I are two peas in a very strange pod. I've only mentioned that about a thousand times. My husband caught on to that fairly quickly, and I think he has always appreciated it. He does not have a good relationship with his own father, so having my dad around has been good for him, I think.

When my husband and I were still in the earlier stages of dating, something came up about marriage, and I guess I mentioned that asking my dad for my hand was important to me. I have no recollection of this conversation.

One night, my husband (my boyfriend at the time) decided that he wanted to take some movies over to my dad. My husband had never been with my parents without me, and there had been some conflict between them. I was just happy that it seemed like everyone was getting along. He went over there after work, dropped them off, and came home a short time later.

Or so I thought.

The next day, he asked me to marry him. I said yes. Then, I put the pieces together. The movies were a decoy to get over to their house without me. Like the gullible human that I am, I didn't question it. He asked my dad for my hand, and my dad answered in the only that I could ever imagine him answering:

"I'm fine with it, but you'll have to ask her mother."

To this day, I have butterflies when I think about it.

As always, it's hip to be square (and traditional), kids.

Heart Attacks and Other Awesome Things

Okay. Heart attacks are not awesome. They aren't any kind of awesome. I've never had one, but I can assume they suck.

Yeah, yeah. I know what happens when you assume.

Anywhoozie.

I only bring up heart attacks because, as we get closer and closer to this "ready to have kids" thing, it means we're getting closer to actually HAVING kids. As stated by the modern philosopher, Juno, "Pregnancy often leads to an infant." And those are fucking LOUD.

I want to have kids. I'm ready to be pregnant tomorrow. And then I'm not. And then I am. And then I sleep in and I'm all like, "This is nice." Get used to never doing that again.

Sometimes, I feel like I forget that getting pregnant is not just an excuse to get presents and decorate a new bedroom. It's like A THING. It's like a life-changing, nothing-will-ever-be-the-same thing. Even the process of trying to conceive is life-changing. All of a sudden, you start looking at things that you might never get to do again if you have a kid to worry about. That's a lot of pressure.

Anyway, the heart attacks have subsided for the time being, and I'm not really worried right now. Some days it's all crazy meltdown city, and others are just "meh".

Whatever happens, happens.

Whatever doesn't happen will be compensated for with many fantastic pairs of shoes.

Maybe whatever doesn't happen is better. I am a big fan of shoes.

As always, it's hip to be square (and spazzy), kids.

Goodnight My Someone

I wrote this yesterday and didn't post it.

I'm getting through the day regardless how hard it is because I have to and because it's what he would want. 

But today is really hard for more than one reason.

Late last night, I found out that a friend of mine who I had not spoken to for two or three years passed away. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer recently, and it took him very quickly. 

There was no nicer person on this earth. He was giving, caring, meek and funny. He was talented and understated. He was an amazing friend. 

In this time that I should be remembering him fondly, I am so angry at myself that I can't breathe. I was not the amazing friend to him that he always was to me. I have absolutely zero regrets in life except that I did not take the time to call him when I should have.

I did not know he was sick. He had been out-of-commision previously due to a back injury that would require several surgeries to fix, but he was not sick in any way that we expected to take him from us. They said he would be fine. I got busy with other things. I got busy with life and getting married and moving on from who I was when I knew him. I didn't mean to leave him and others behind. I just meant to grow up some.

A month ago, I had a whim to call him to check in. It had been well over two years since I had last talked to him or his partner. I just missed them. A majority of the people that they interact with were friends at one point but are no longer, and I felt like an outsider so I kept away. Still, I missed him and I wanted to know how he was doing. 

I realized I didn't have his phone number anymore, and I made a mental note to get it from a mutual friend.

That note apparently got erased. 

I never called. I never checked in. I can't ever check in again. I'm so mad at myself for being so wrapped up in this new person who I wanted to be that I didn't take the time to make room for people I never wanted to leave in the past. I could have had it both ways if I just tried. But I didn't. And now I can't.

It's just going to take a long time to be okay with it if it's even possible.

Sleep sweet, friend. 

Did I Do That?

This morning, while getting ready for work, I was looking for the iPad that my husband usually keeps in the bottom drawer of his nightstand.

The room was dark because he was still sleeping, so I opened the bottom drawer quietly without realizing that he had his laptop propped up against it. The laptop fell a very short distance and was unharmed. My husband didn't move, so I assumed I got away with it. I got the iPad and went back to getting ready.

When it was time for work, I put the iPad back. My husband was still asleep. I kissed him goodbye, and he muttered something about "Love you. Drive safe."

I was almost or if the room before he said, "Come back. Wanna drop my laptop some more?"

Dammit!

Sigh. It's hip to be square (and caught red handed), kids.