Silly Little Girl

Rule #23402032984 of blogging:

If you promise to post, you'll run of out things to say. Alternately, if you say you're NOT going to post, you'll suddenly be full of shit to muse on.

I just wanted to take a couple minutes to say this:

Four years ago I met a boy with too much gel in his hair and an overly pressed white shirt. He was funny, cocky, unbelievably arrogant, and handsome. I fell hard into infatuation and lust with him rather quickly.

It was a hard couple years. We had a lot of ups and downs, broke up a few times, and there are still some things that I look back on that make me cringe. I had written something about the course of our relationship, but when I reread it, though I felt it was honest, it felt one-sided and unfair. Besides, most of it doesn't matter now.

That boy was a lot of things to me - he made me feel a myriad of emotions that I didn't think you could feel all at once.

Today, he's my best friend, my cheering squad, my kick in the ass when I get myself down. Through everything we went through, I told him (and myself) over and over again that I'd never give up on him. I'd never give up on us, on what we have.

One week from today, I'll stand in front of God and 120 other people and tell them the same thing about him. That I'll never give up. I'll never stop loving him. And I'll believe him when he tells me that he'll never stop loving me.  And once again, when I think of that, I'm reminded that he can still make me feel a myriad of emotions so deep and profound that it blindsides me, each and every time.

I never thought that by 21...(SHIT! TWENTY TWO. I keep forgetting that my birthday is two days before the wedding) I'd be married with a kid and another on the way. But when I look at where I was five years ago, where I THOUGHT I wanted to be now, I can't imagine changing anything for the world. I am unbelievably grateful to God and everyone else who had a stake in my life for where I am today.

It's ok, I don't read this crap, either.

I am a BAD pregnancy blogger.

I probably should have told you early last week that we scheduled the ultrasound to find out the sex for Friday, the 22nd. Then I should have updated immediately after the 7a.m. ultrasound with pictures and cutesy graphics to tell you the sex. But, I am lazy and did neither of those things. So I'm telling you now - It's a boy. And we are thrilled.

Nik and Donovan were gunning for a boy from the start. I was on the fence. A girl would have been nice, right? Balance out the family, cutesy dresses, little bows...but the more I thought about it, the more I thought about how boys just...rock. Honestly, they do. For me, anyway. I love my son, I think he's hilarious, and he's funny in ways that I just wasn't as a little girl. And besides, if you know my son, you know that with having another little boy around, it'll be almost like having a boy AND girl anyway. You know what I'm saying.

Anyway, I just wanted to update ya'll real quick. Baby X is confusing the hell out of all of us - every time we go in for an ultrasound the due date jumps forward about a week, so no one can really make heads or tails of beginning of January or very end. I suspect that with as much as the due date jumped again (almost two weeks by every measurement conceivable) there's going to be another ultrasound scheduled to see if anything stays consistent.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that I will not be posting again until after the wedding, which is in HOLY FUCK 10 days. Consider the following sentences a half-assed shout out to any regular readers out there - I realized while mentally preparing this entry this morning that you folks have been with me through some pretty fucking momentous occasions of my life...and it rocks beyond comparison that I had your support through those things. Thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking by me and reading this drivel on a semi-weekly basis, thank you for your comments, emails and various other gestures to show you sometimes, a little bit, sort of care. You people rock.

To wrap up Guest Week at Chez Silly, I bring you a post from the person who I like to hear speak the least. The man who gets bashed insistently on this site, and who probably never gets a fair shot at things. So if you were ever wondering the other side of the story...here it is.

There is probably a decent split of opinion about me on the internet. This is why I decided to address myself on this blog. Since the focus of the blog is someone else, I shall concern my writings with the subject and how I deal with her.

 

            I, personally, am not an easy person to deal with. I am arrogant to the point of not knowing if I’m better than everyone else or if Jesus and I are on par. I’m stubborn to the point that you sooner convince John McCain that he should run a positive campaign than you could convince me that I may be wrong. I have ADD to the point that I am already bored by this and I figure there has to be a bad decision for me to make somewhere. All of this, and I have a brilliant sense of comedic timing. My issues pale in comparison to the woman I’m marrying.

 

            Kate is making my hair look like a black guy whose melanin ran away. Since I began living with her, it has made my heartburn turn into a heart volcano. It may not always be erupting, but there’s something brewing constantly under the surface. I generally run on the assumption that she’s in a worse mood than a kindergartner who did not get a toy they wanted. This is due to the fact that if things don’t always go Kate’s way, waves of negativity which rival tsunamis come off of her. While I’m adrift on

Negative

Sea

, Hurricane Anger isn’t far away. There may or may not be reason behind the outbursts, but they are destructive and have been known to end in broken objects.  When I’m not walking on eggshells, I’m trying to walk on water because it often feels like I have to be perfect to avoid the wrath, though that doesn’t always work.

 

            Now, I know that she has some issues. I’m always (by always, I of course mean never) completely understanding. I have endless (short fuse) patience. I work very hard to leave her alone when she asks me. (Actually, I bug her till she can’t contain her anger anymore and then act like it’s all her fault.) I don’t understand how she can ever find fault with me.

 

            Despite this, the real way I relate with Kate is a deep, passionate, and enjoyable love. She is the most loyal woman I have ever met. She has stuck with me despite my massive failures. She is unbelievably funny and enjoys my sense of humor, which I find flattering. She doesn’t like Monty Python though, so there is a serious mental disorder somewhere. She has made me understand my own sexuality and desires better than I thought possible. She understands that I’m a very complex person, and forgives me my tendency to be way too passionate about issues. She knows I am a giant nerd in a lot of ways and loves me for it. She pushes me when I am disappointed in myself. If I had to sum up Kate for those on the Internet, I would describe her as poopy. If I was being serious though, I would say she is an outstanding woman.

And on..

Can I give up on witty introductions? Please? Cuz, honestly. I'm not fooling anyone, here. I don't know these people, I don't care what they write, I think they all smell like mildew and I honestly just wanted to get out of blogging for week. SO SUE ME.

...I'm KIDDING, OF COURSE. OF COURSE I love all these people. Including, the lady below!

First off, I'd like to thank Kate for asking me to guest post on her
blog. By "asking me" of course, I mean "saying yes when I asked if I
could guest post." I'm like that girl that hears you talking about a
party, invites herself along and then drinks all of your wine and hits
on your boyfriend. I promise not to throw up in your bathroom, though.

At least, I can try.

I've been trying to think of something witty and poignant to say.
Something worthy of a guest spot on one of my favorite blogs.
Unfortunately, my own blog <a href =
"http://www.hoperoth.com/blog"

>Randomness</a> is usually neither
witty nor poignant. So, I don't have a lot of practice with this
stuff. Mostly, I just tell stories about how I tend to trip over
things and I can't drive my own car.

I am, quite often, not so good at things. Like, you know, life.

Do you know what I am good at? Sitting on the couch eating while other
people exert themselves physically. Football, the Olympics,  the
Biggest Loser... all of these are much more enjoyable with a bowl of
ice cream and/or some nachos. The thrill of victory, the agony of
stepping on the scale the next morning.  Eating and watching TV, it's
the great American pasttime.

Do you know what turns the dynamic duo of junkfood and competition
into a perfect trifecta? Smug superiority. And this is why I think my
idea for a new reality show is so perfect.

"I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing!"

Picture this. The contestants (average, everyday people) think that
they're entering into an eating contest. In reality, it's a calorie
counting contest. The contestants finish their meals and a snarky host
comes out and tells them just how many calories they just consumed.
Cue the shot of the poor slob looking shocked and expressing just how
surprised they are that they ate 3,517 calories in one sitting. A
smart looking doctor-type comes out and tells them in a smarmy manner
how many calories they should be consuming in a day. And then they
have to run on a treadmill until they burn off all of the calories
above their recommended daily allowance or they puke. Whichever comes
first. Any puking will be replayed several times, many of them in slow
motion.

It's like watching the Biggest Loser without that last few weeks of
the season where the contestants are all smaller than you and you
start feeling fat and lazy. And just a wee bit guilty. For all of the
ice cream that you ate. And the nachos.  My show would be all of the
pathos, none of the personal growth (or loss, as the case may be).

I think that my show would make a lot of money. Americans love to
watch people eat, we're super competitive and we enjoy feeling
superior to reality show contestants.  Why else would Wipeout be so
popular? The only reason that show isn't absolutely killing its
competitors in the ratings is the fact that the contestants aren't
racing to see who can get to a cheeseburger first.

Hey, it couldn't be any worse than Kid Nation.

Part Deux

Again, I've been struggling to come up with witty and clever things to say about my next guest poster. As she's family, I could tell stories that date back 18-20 years or more, and I could regale you with times she tried to kill me, but duty calls and work is bullshit, and blah blah blah so I'm left to just post and run. Enjoy your foray into the stream of consciousness of Theresa, my beautiful and talented cousin who is taller, smarter and prettier than me.

THERE’S A WORD FOR THAT.

 

The ocean in your chest. It isn’t really an ocean, is it? But, it is big. It feels big. And there is that non-stop swishing sensation. You lie down. You stand. You walk around your quiet, boring block. It matters not a bit where you choose to go to try to lose your own chest. Ocean is not going anywhere.

 

Ache. Ache. Ach du.

 

I used to document my dreams every single day. It got to a point though where I felt I was much too influenced by what was going on in those conspiring hours. Recently, I’ve been remembering my dreams in terrific detail, but I haven’t put them onto paper. I’m nervous. That probably sounds incredibly ridiculous, but it holds me. For six nights in a row I have had wild water dreams: tempests and tsunamis. Bridges drowning, and fish everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Shiny, Crayola fish. Dotting landscapes like poppies. Writing it down in those terms makes it seem not so terrifying, but each of these dreams has shaken me awake. Water fills me up. I cannot breathe. And I am always struggling and weeping in futile attempts to save another/others.

 

Dictionary unnecessary.

 

And so it begins...

When I first asked Crys if she wanted to do a guest post, she coyly responded via text, "Do YOU want me to do a guest post?" I, in turn, kindly responded "What the fuck are you, a 15 year old girl getting asked to junior prom? Lyk, OMG, only if u want 2!!!" She then said something about me carrying an alien baby, which is clearly an inferior comeback, as mine ruled the earth.

Since then, I've been striving to come up with some clever and witty introduction for the guest post that was delivered to me this morning, and I've failed. Or, more accurately, I HAD some things in mind, but they all went out of my head when I read her post, it was that damn funny. So without further ado....

In keeping with the true nature of this forum, let me toss my guest blog “hat” into the ring and blog about Kate; The good, the bad, the fugly.

 

She’s a huge pain in the ass. I’m sure you’ve all figured that out by now, simply by reading her thoughts and how they jump from hating herself to hating the world, wanting to kiss babies and then punch grandmothers (never her own, let me be clear)…

 

Let me explain how our friendship started:

 

We worked at the same company.  She was in a different department. Every time I saw her, she looked pissed.  Not even “mildly annoyed,” pissed, but the kind where if we took an underground company poll, Kate would easily have won, “Most Likely to Come into Work with a Sawed Off, 12-Gauge Shotgun.”   Little did I know, she’s really “Most  Likely to Come into Work with a Case of Silly String and Half-Filled Water Balloons That’ll Only Bounce Off when They Hit You,” but I’m getting to that.

 

I had looped her in on a Happy Hour email I was sending around.  She had the audacity to respond and tell me she wasn’t old enough to drink.   What I should’ve done was let it go, but what I actually did was write back. And we started chatting back and forth. And then we started going to lunch.  One day, we were sitting on the curb outside our office. Neither one of us wanted to go back inside, and neither one of us was going to play the part of the ‘responsible adult,’ either.  We got talking about fashion and colors, and how orange was the new pink or some stupid shit like that, and I mentioned that I had heard brown was on its way to becoming the new black.  Kate was quiet for a moment, seemingly deep in thought, and then she said, with a bit of passion, “Fuck Brown.”   She said it in much the same way that Pamela Anderson slips into every conversation that “Wearing fur is bad!”  I knew right then, that any chick who could have such hatred for a color was cool.

 

Some of our best conversations have been at the gym, dying on our own machines, judging the prima donnas on the treadmills in front of us that we secretly envied. 

“Look at her run!”

 “How can someone that stupid-skinny have that kind of energy?” 

“She probably has herpes.”

 “No doubt. She looks like she does a lot of ass-to-mouth moves, too.”

 

Hey, I didn’t say we were fair, made sense or that anything was based on reality.

 

The things I like the most about her are probably the things society doesn’t appreciate.  She has no patience for stupid people. She doesn’t humor anyone.  She’s ridiculously judgmental and she won’t back down from a fight. I don’t care if you’re a male or a female; if you can’t appreciate any of these qualities, then blot your big vag with a tissue and go play “Civilization” with your geek friends.

 

 

 

And so, this is the short version of the long version of the Kate version.  She’s a super cool chick (the good). She doesn’t give herself ANY credit (the bad).   She thinks my hair is boring (the fugly).  All I have to say to that is…she’s so clumsy, she could probably inadvertently kill herself in a random flossing accident.  Plus, I look good in a ponytail.

 

THANKS Kate, for letting me do a guest blog-appearance.  I can’t wait to bear witness to your marriage in the next few weeks, and God help you if anyone gives me the mic and I’ve been drinking…prepare for a speech coming your way.

 

Fuck Brown.

CALLING ALL LITERATE WHORES

I've been thinking for a while (read: about two hours) about letting some people guest post here. I have a few people in mind, namely Crystal of the post immediately before this, and hopefully, if she'll consent, my cousin Theresa. (If, you know, she starts answering her phone. Whore.)

While trying to come up with some other people to invite, I got a BRILLIANT idea. Why don't you ALL guest post? Seriously. Leave a comment here if you'd like to write a piece (small or large) about whatever the fuck you feel like. Whether you have your own blog or not. You can even write a whole entire piece about how much I suck!

After you post your comment, I'll be in touch and you can take a couple days to put together whatever your creative little minds desire. The only editing I will do will be of the grammatical and spelling kind. So you can go ahead and call me a flatulent, narcissistic, petty, selfish bitch, and as long as you spell flatulent properly, I'll let it post.

Promotion

I despise MySpace's blogging platform. I think it's poorly constructed and difficult to navigate. I don't usually read people's MySpace blogs (which is fine, since they're usually just song lyrics anyway.)

BUT. There is one person whose blog I will brave the poorly coded tundra to read..and that is my friend Crystal's.

Crystal is juuuust about the biggest bitch I've ever met. In a GOOD way. I know (and love) some bitches that are bitches because they're just vindictive and mean, but Crys is a bitch in that way of brutal honesty mixed with deafening sarcasm, and it shows in her writing. I LOVE her blog.

I've been looking for excerpts to include here, but I can't pick 1 without picking 1,000. The point is, I'd like to invite you all to read it, because it is for the funny.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=139778602

MySpace blows pretty hard with their "privacy" and bullshit, so I'm pretty sure you need an account to read it. So if you haven't succumbed to the lure yet, rest assured - I'm working on getting her to switch to her own domain, and I may have a guest spot for her here in the future.

The Wedding

I had a number of different titles for this particular post that's been brewing since Sunday. However, each of them was more bitter than the last, and on the whole, this wedding shit is really not that big of a deal.

I know. That's totally the opposite of most bride's philosophies, isn't it? The truth is, when this whole wedding business became a reality, I had a really basic list of things that were important to me.

1. I knew I wanted a wedding party. I wanted our friends to truly share the day with us. Nik's friends, and my girlfriends (and cousin) have been an integral part of our lives and our relationship...a few of them have gone above and beyond the call of duty to help us individually and as a couple, and it was incredibly important to me that they share in the biggest occasion of our life together thus far.

2. I wanted Nik to have his family there. It was the most important thing to him, and I promised myself I would stand behind him. (He would argue that I don't actually feel this way, but only because I don't think his dad's college roommate counts as family.)

3. I wanted it to be an affair that was true to us. We're not conventional. We're not particularly fancy or ostentatious. We don't like orchestrated wedding procession music. We want metal and punk and polka played at our wedding. There were a lot of things we were flexible about, but we both knew we definitely wanted aspects of the wedding to reflect the geeky and quirky that we are.

Beyond that, at first, I really didn't care. I let my bridesmaids pick their own dresses. I went with the caterer that was cheapest - there was no other qualification beyond that. I left decorating and photography decisions to people who know better than me. I decided to have the wedding at my uncle's property because dude, it was FREE.

But as the event - and the budget - grew, I started getting caught up in things that were in hindsight, not that important. I romanticized the venue - my uncle's place! Where I spent a good chunk of my childhood! The home of the man who influenced me almost more than any other man in my life! (He's second only to my late grandfather) Nature, and beauty and blah blah blah! I refused to allow myself to think of the possible consequences - rain, intense indian summer heat, parking limitations, restroom limitations...the list goes on. I found my decisions and choices were under intense scrutiny, by myself more than anyone. I started getting caught up in the whole damn thing, to a point where I was losing sleep over it.

Let me be really clear about something - I had a LOT of delusions about how this wedding was going to go down. I don't know if this is singular to idiots like me, or if every bride has fantasies that just aren't compatible to that little thing we call "reality".

The biggest of these delusions was that I could put this shindig together for under $1,000. For anyone who ever planned any party for over 20 people, you know how ludicrous this is. For those of you who remain blissfully ignorant (STAY THAT WAY IF YOU CAN), let me just tell you that food alone for more than 30 people can quickly grow to over $1,500, even if you think you can cook everything yourself. (Which you can't.)

I also quickly learned that MY idea of family, and Nik's idea of family, differed greatly. This was a source of a LOT of problems between us while composing the guest list, but in the end I realized that, seriously, who the fuck am I to tell him these people aren't important enough to be included?

And, as it turns out, I was not considering a LOT of additional expenses. Like napkins. Dude, who needs napkins? Isn't that what sleeves are for? And silverware? You people are greedy. And don't get me started on cups and glasses, you bitches need to learn how to do a keg stand and be done with it.

Anyway, the point of all this back story is to explain that, when things changed on me, I had a lot of soul-searching and re-prioritizing to do.

The long story slightly less long of it is that it was decided last week, with very little input from me (although I am reminded constantly that it was ultimately my decision, I still feel I was not given sufficient time or a pressure-free environment to make the call) that the wedding was going to be held in a hall in Philadelphia, instead of on my uncle's property.

I'm not even going to try and make myself sound more mature than I am - I LOST MY SHIT. I cried, I got really defensive, I became extremely angry, both about rational and irrational things. I had a lot of good points, the most justified of which was that HELLO. THE INVITATIONS WENT OUT THREE WEEKS AGO. I also got upset about more subjective things, like the fact that it was MY damn wedding, and why the hell wasn't I consulted about this? I was angry about the fact that I was presented with the choice around 9:30pm on Sunday night, and an answer was expected by 10ish that same evening. Regardless of all the hype surrounding it, the choice was made, and we booked a hall in the city that we'd never heard of, let alone seen.

Over the course of the week, NOTHING occupied my thoughts more than the various pros and cons related to the switch. And as I distanced myself from the emotion of the thing, and concentrated more on the logic, it became increasingly clear that while I may disagree with the way it was handled, I can't disagree with the advantages having an indoor reception presents.

I'm not going to go ahead and list all the pros and cons like I originally intended...you're not stupid people, you can figure it out. But I will say that what I'm most grateful for is the way this change brought me out of the swirl of bullshit I was getting caught up in. I realized that in the end, I'm still getting everything that was really important to me, minus a lot of the stress and expense that my original plans were presenting.

And yeah, maybe I look a little dumb for changing the venue after the invitations went out, but you know what? I AM a little dumb, and didn't I say I wanted a wedding that was true to who I am?