Boing Boing

Two years ago today, I said the following words:

"There is a bounce house. I want to go in the bounce house."

I was in my wedding dress, and my husband was in his tux. He talked our way into the pink bouncy castle that, for some inexplicable reason, was in a ballroom at the Ritz Carlton while we were taking our newlywed pictures immediately after our ceremony.

And we jumped.

And we fell over.

And I almost tore my dress.

And it was perfect in a way that would have been imperfect had it been planned.

And that is why my husband is wonderful. I said I wanted something silly and within seconds, he figured it out because he knew it would make me happy.

And that's what he does.

And that's why he's perfect.

Happy Anniversary, babe. I love you.


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

Dilemma

I am an efficient person. Terribly so. I can do 10 things and once and still know what I'm doing, and I usually do more before everyone else gets in to the office than they do all day. I'm not bragging, but I am. Every so often, though, I get myself in to a situation where there is the efficient answer versus the arduous way of doing things, and I can't decide which would be quicker.

I am in one of those days.

I have a spreadsheet that I need to make, but there's a chance that someone already made it. It's just a matter of finding out who and getting a copy of it. I have no idea where to start, but I am almost certain that this exists. If I can get a copy from the mystery organization, I will have to do very little work to get this project started. That would be great.

Except I don't know where or who to talk to. The time that it may take me to get that information may be the same amount of time that it would take to just make the spreadsheet myself.

Let me clarify, this is not a small amount of work. It will take me hours upon hours upon hours to make the stupid spreadsheet. It's so much tedious bitch work, but it will be work that I have to do anyway if I can't track down a copy of what I need.

So... Do I put it off and hope I can get what I need the easy way, or do I put in the work and at least know that it's done so we can get started on the tough stuff?

In the mean time, I'm going to get nothing done and write a blog post about it because that really is the best use of my time.

Lawd.

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

On A Scale of Pants to No Pants...

I have a motto by which I live. Okay. It might not be a motto, but it pretty much sums up my goals and aspirations all quick-like.

"On a scale of pants to no pants, with pants being pants and no pants being no pants... Eff pants."

I don't like pants. 

In fact, my goal in life is to cash in the corporate job for a work-from-home gig that pays as much but never requires me to actually put on pants.

I call it bottomless employment. 

*Side note: While my never-ending crusade against pants rages on, I really like having an office to go to. I worked from home for a while, and I wouldn't mind going back to it, but the actual getting out of bed thing isn't so bad. Don't tell me that I said that, though.*

Anyway, in my attempt to never wear pants, I have gone on a parallel search for pants that aren't so, you know, pant-sy. This includes dresses, skirts, jeans, whatever. The requirements are that they be comfortable, inexpensive and that they don't accentuate the muffin top I'm trying so hard to get rid of. 

Okay. I'm not trying that hard. I'm busy, yo.

I have a couple of pairs of jeans that I will suffer through, some yoga pants for around the house, and a couple of dresses that I like. I have the pants (GASP!) that I wear to work. I would love to wear things like maxi dresses, but I have this odd lumpy waist that just looks bad in things that show my silhouette. It's a struggle of the gargantuan first-world kind. 

And then came these: 

Image courtesy of OldNavy.com

Meet the Old Navy Fold-Over Jersey Skirt. 

Also known as, "The Closest Thing To Not Wearing Pants That I Have Ever Come To Except For Actually Not Wearing Pants."

I bought two of them, one in grey and one in black. They were inexpensive, and I wear them everywhere. I had a little bit of trouble figuring out how to best wear the fold over, but it pretty much gives me the choice of a couple of different lengths depending on how dressy I want to be. I've worn it with heels, flats and flip flops. Futhermore...

IT'S LIKE NOT WEARING PANTS. THERE IS NOTHING BETTER. 

Except for winning the lottery. That would be better. Maybe world peace. That might also be better. 

BUT STILL.

I'll be happily over here in my comfy, almost pants-less cocoon.

You can find them here: Almost pants-less harmony at OldNavy.com. 

Also, I was in no was compensated by Old Navy, Gap, or anyone else for this post. I talk about not wearing pants for free. If someone wanted to pay me, that would be killer, but I think it would be more likely that they pay me to shut up. I'm open to that too. 

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

A Little Relief and a Lot of Profanity

Please note that, before I write this, I am knocking on wood so hard that my knuckles are bleeding. 

In fact, I feel like I shouldn't even say this, but I need a little bit of good news out there in the universe. 

Doc has really been struggling with walking lately. We had been toying with sending him to physical therapy to try and figure out what we're missing, and he is going to a new neurologist for the Parkinson's on Friday. The diabetic neuropathy will always be a thing, but there had to be something we could do to help him with this. He was struggling so much. He has this shuffle when he walks where his feet just weren't moving much, and he would get so tired while walking that he would have to take breaks. We had really good days in there, sometimes. We had a lot of not good days and some truly terrifying falls. Things are better, but the walking was just so stressful to all of us. His brain is working. His body is lagging.

Being the idiot that I am, I never really brought any of this up with my mother-in-law. She's an occupational therapist, and finding solutions for this stuff is like, you know, WHAT SHE DOES. I finally called her and asked what treatments are available for neuropathy in the feet because the lack of feeling makes him scared of falling. The only option that she really had was a no go because of his pacemaker. 

I postulated that the feet are probably more important than the heart, but apparently that's unkind.

Anyway, it really looked like we were going to have to get him physical therapy so he can finally figure out how to use the cane that he has been resisting for so long. He can't keep struggling like this and work full time. Better yet, struggling blows, and he shouldn't have to at all. While my super-amazing-mother-in-law and I were talking, she said that a physical therapist will work with him on using other senses to walk and how to get a rhythm with the cane. She said that they use mantras to develop a rhythm. 

Mantras? Why can't I do that?

So, I stood the old dude up and I told him to come up with something that he can repeat to himself while he's walking that will get him on a rhythm. While he was thinking, I remembered something that seemed to always work to get a crowd riled up at a football game. It was energizing and totally profane.

One side yells, "EAT SHIT!"

And the other side responds with "FUCK YOU!"

"EAT SHIT!" "FUCK YOU!" "EAT SHIT!" "FUCK YOU!"

I knew that he wouldn't forget that. 

So, we tried it. 

You know, once we stopped laughing from the ridiculousness of a psychiatrist walking around muttering profanities to himself.

And sonofabitch, it worked. I haven't seen him walk like this in 5 years. He's upright. He's confident. He's quick. 

I feel like I just breathed for the first time in like my entire life. This obviously isn't about me but OH HOLY SHIT THANK SWEET BABY UNIVERSE AND TOM CRUISE AND THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER AND LAWWWWDDDDDD!

We're just in the beginning, and I suppose it could stop working at any point because that's kind of how Parkinson's works, but still. 

This is just so good. 

So so good.

Eat shit. Fuck you.

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

And Again

"This happens every month," I'm telling myself.

"You've done this before. Don't get your hopes up," I keep repeating. 

Over and over.

And while I'm getting more used to things that always seem like a sign even though they're the same every month, there's still that stinging moment whn you realize that this month really isn't different and we're headed back to where we started. 

And it's easier. Every month it's easier. 

In that it's not really.

I'm lucky for having months where I'm so busy that I don't have time to think about how hard moments of this can be. I am so wrapped up in everything else that's there just isn't time for feeling ALL THE SADS. 

I am so very thankful for that. 

But there is still that short period every month where it's pretty clear it's over and yet... What if this means...?

And it doesn't.

But it could. 

But it doesn't.

And that stings just a little. 

Or a lot. 

Here we go again.

It's hip to be square, kids.

I Am Not A Fire Hose

Everyone has a limit.

That place where you get to because nothing is going your way even though life ain't so bad, and you just need something, ANYTHING, to give.

I'm sitting there right now.

The eternal optimist in me is saying that everything will be just fine because it always is. It's saying that as long as you focus on being a good person who does things the right way that there is nothing your little heart should be worrying about. It's saying that there will always be bumps in the road and bad news, but that things are not as bad as the pulsing anxiety in your heart is telling you.

Though eternal, the optimist in me is not very large. She is easily overwhelmed by the pessimist who just knows that this could be the thing that finally breaks you.

My job is to worry about other people. It's to clean up messes for people.

At the end of the day, as far as my professional life goes, there is not a damn person to clean up messes for me. Not one.

And that's exhausting.

I am lucky to come home to a man who, though frequently irritated at how much of my life goes in to my work, still begrudgingly understands it and swoops in to save the day when I need him. Every time. He has never left me hanging. He never will. For all of the times that I have fallen short for him, he has never fallen short for me.

I am so thankful.

I am also so exhausted, worn out, and ready for something, ANYTHING, ANY ANY ANYTHING to give. I'm ready for my phone to stop ringing on weekends. I'm ready for patients to stop keeping me on the phone on my Sunday asking me the same question over and over while I try to enjoy my damn food. I'm ready for people to stop being vindictive and ready to pounce because they're addicts and all they care about is lying, cheating, stealing and drugs. I'm ready to stop getting spit on because when I say no to one of these people, I mean it.

No, I haven't actually been spit on, but it's pretty much the same thing.

I feel like my fire hose is running out of water.

I feel like this next fire might be the one that I just let burn.

Still, I know that tomorrow will be a better day.

It just has to be.


As always, it's hip to be square (I think...), kids.

You Are Not Responsible For Anyone Else's Crazy

Everyone has their own brand of crazy. If you think you don't, yours is probably worse than your store-brand neuroses. I can think through my friends and family members and come up with a list of what about them makes them the best kinds of crazy.

That being said, there are people who bring the insanity in to your life, but what they bring is not the good stuff. It's the angry, divisive, whirlwind of crazy that makes you wonder if there is something wrong with you because everyone around you doesn't understand just how crazy this is. It happens to everyone at some point.

And if it hasn't happened to you, then you may be the whirlwind. Sorry to be that guy.

Good crazy means you're funny and probably a little fearless. It means you may say offensive things, but they don't actually offend people because your friends and family know that it's just your crazy.

Bad crazy is when someone enters your life like a tornado through a trailer park.

LOOK! A FLYING COW!

.....Moooooo.....

But I digress.

Yes, these people will show up in your life. They may disguise themselves as family, in-laws, friends or neighbors. They may seem warm and inviting before ramping up the drama. They may even be someone that you feel obligated to assist because of their relation to you.

You are not responsible for their crazy.

Of course, you should assist friends and family in need if it is within your means... to a point. You are required to help your minor children when they are struggling. You may have elderly or disabled family who are beyond their own ability to help themselves. Everyone else? They better earn it.

You can only help someone who is self-destructive so many times before you are part of the problem.

You are only responsible to let someone who you did not create from your loins or legally adopt turn your life upside down and inside out to a point, and you probably passed that point months ago.

If you can look at your life and find the anxiety and stress coming out of an independent adult who is capable of taking care of his or herself, then no matter what you think your requirement to care of them is, it probably isn't.

If you're worried about your screw up brother who cannot get his life in control, but every time he shows up to yours he takes it down the tubes with him, then it's time to let him make his own mistakes and hope for the best. Similar situations can follow suit.

You can detach for the sake of your own life while still loving them regardless. Sometimes the biggest obstacle to people getting their shit together is knowing that there will be someone there for them when they screw up again.

We put up with too much. We allow people to take our lives too far off track in the name of "blood" or "obligation" that few others would recognize. If you wouldn't do it to someone else, don't let them do it to you.

I know this seems harsh and heartless, and maybe it is, but I have been at this place. It sucks. The ony way to reclaim my life was to finally put my foot down and invite those people to return only when they had gotten it together. One of them did, and our relationship is incredible now. The other didn't and probably won't. And even though that sucks, my day-to-day is so much better for it. I recently talked to a good friend who was right in the middle of a similar situation, and I hated how anxious she was just by being enveloped in someone else's bullshit.

You are only responsible for your crazy. If someone else tries to get you to adopt theirs, DO NOT SIGN. Send that shit return to sender back to Crazytown, and go back to living and enjoying your own [good] crazy life.

I'll leave you with the best advice I've ever gotten. When a family member was doing his damndest to make my universe way more complicated than necessary, my mother-in-law gave me the words that I repeat to myself daily:

"It's easier for them to be crazy than it is for you to be sane, but you have to do it anyway."

And even on days where I just don't fucking wanna, I have to find a way to not let anyone else's crazy turn my good crazy into the kind of crazy that is a padded cell's wet dream.

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


EDIT: I want to clarify what I mean by "being the whirlwind". If you have things going on in your life and you need help, I'm in NO WAY saying you're a problem. People need help sometimes. I'm talking about people who don't care what they do to other people's lives or people who know they're causing problems for someone else and don't look for a way to stop or make it better. If you need help, reach out to your friends and family. Reach out to me. I'm always around to help. If you consider someone else's thoughts and feelings before bringing them in to your own needs, then you ARE NOT the whirlwind.