The truth about pregnancy:

Trust me. I'm an expert...

There are some things about being pregnant that you can't possibly fathom until you are pregnant. Considering, statistically speaking, there are slightly more men than women (WOOHOO!) and as of yet it is impossible for a true male to get knocked up I would like to reminisce for a moment or two. I would like to explain pregnancy to the 51% of the population that will never be expected to push a bowling ball from between your legs, and warn the 49% that is dumb enough to try it; I would like to explain Pregnancy: 101.

First, if you are pregnant, it's normal. Doesn't matter what 'it' is. More than likely, 'it' sucks, and more than likely 'it' has an odor. If 'it' isn't 'normal', then don't worry about it, that won't do you any good. That is easier said than done when suddenly your world has turned into research and development of Kevlar stomach armor and trying to think of a way to cause your placenta to take EVERYTHING that could possibly be questionable away from your parasite...

Which ever genius decided you can't eat lunch meat will burn in hell for inciting paranoia among the expecting. It's bull shit. It's lunch meat. Imagine for a moment that you are an expecting penguin. Sardines, your major food source, have of course been exiled from your diet due to heavy metals. After visiting your penguin gyno with an extra creepy latex flipper glove you come to the realization that there is nothing else you want to eat! A completely helpful, wise penguin offers his advice (because we all know that men are experts when it comes to pregnancy cravings, and no-no's) "Try tofu!". Right, I would rather milk a plant, let said milk ferment into a gelatinous blob, and pretend it tastes anything like meat than eat a damn fish. There is nothing wrong with lunch meat, you really don't have to microwave it before you eat it. As far as cheese? "You can't eat soft cheeses like Mexican, or Blue cheese". I believe that one. I mean, Mexicans are clearly becoming extinct because of the great cheese die-off...

Second. If you've ever thought you could be pregnant, but not sure what to do... Is it really difficult? You piss on a stick. How hard is that? You can count to two, right? Two lines means you're knocked up, I don't think it's hard to read those test results... And no, just because the new fangled tests sometimes comes with a smiley face instead of a second line doesn't mean the stick is a mind reader, it's saying "Yay! you're pregnant!" not "Yay! I knew you would be terrified if I showed up as a positive, so I'm smiling to make you think you aren't pregnant!". If you're really confused, try a digital pee-stick. Even a complete illiterate can read those results...

When I got knocked up, the first thing we did was tell our folks. Biggest. Mistake. Ever. Let them squirm. Let them guess if you've really got food poisoning. Let them wonder if you just spent an extra few minutes in the sun. Because if you don't (and your family is as fucked up as my mother) they will not only have longer to torment you, but they will start guessing conception dates, times, and places. My mother swears her grandson was conceived in her basement on Christmas Day. Little does she know it was Christmas Eve, at our house, on the couch that my mother in law gave us, doggy style (go ahead and try to sleep tonight). What can I say, Celebrating a dead guys fake birthday turns me on...

The first thing my folks did when we told them was celebrate and congratulate us on a job well done. Weirdest moment ever. "Did my dad just congratulate me for having sex?!" My mother came at me, reaching out to touch my parasite housing stomach as if instantly I went from perfectly normal old Sophie, to a Buddah belly luck charm that couldn't be passed by a single person without a good rub. Hell. No. Just cause I'm about to start packing on the pounds like a bear preparing for the apocalypse, does NOT mean you have the right to touch my stomach!

I wasn't so prepared for my mother in law's reaction though. I've never been the touchy-feely-crying type (you may have guessed). So when my mother in law broke in to tears, sobbing hysterically on her knees before Mike could finish saying 'baby' I thought she was dying, not trying to congratulate us on 'a job well done'. Before I knew it this sobbing woman was on her knees, at my feet, arms wrapping creepily around my stomach, and head pressed firmly where the little parasite should have been (conveniently uncomfortably close to my crotch.) I wanted SO badly to let one rip, and blame it on the kid. But I was far too stunned. Who does that?! Would you bury your face in your newly expecting daughter in law's lower abdomen??

I felt so violated. I would have taken a hot shower to sanitize myself, but the guy who said lunch meat is a no-no conspired with another idiot who said 'no hot water'. Turns out that was a good thing. Cold showers are indicated when you're jacked up on hormones. Teenage boys have nothing on pregnant women. I'm normally horny, but poor Mike couldn't catch a break for nine months! "What's it gonna hurt? You can't knock me up again!". And being that horny, with your mother in law's face pressed to your stomach... Nothing can induce morning sickness as readily as that!

That covers the first month out of nine. Kind of. See, by the time you know you're about to kiss your freedom and sleep goodbye you are already four weeks pregnant. But then, how long is a pregnancy? Nine months? Technically speaking, it is 40 weeks. FORTY Fucking WEEKS! A quick double-take tells you that is ten months, four weeks to a month... But in reality, it is about 9 months, and a little over a week. None of this matters as it will feel more like 9 years. And by the end of it you will be screaming, "I just want to SLEEP COMFORTABLY!" to which the invariable retort is, "Oh, just you wait. When that baby is here you won't sleep at all"... Well, no shit, Sherlock. The key words there were 'want' and 'COMFORTABLY'. My kid is the epitome of 'bad sleeper'. And I had a rough time post partum, BUT I was comfortable! And when allowed, I could actually close my eyes and sleep instead of writhing in agony as everything ached and my legs felt like they were crawling away without my body. I could breathe, and I could turn over in bed with out the help of ten world class body builders...

In any event, because only the first month (kind of) took so long, 'Pregnancy: 101' will have to come in installments.

Oh, and you're not a penguin any more.

Rain that lightened the mood?

After that last post I feel obligated to share a conversation with my husband:

We were walking around East Lansing when I was attending MSU when it started to rain:

Me: Is it starting to rain?

Mike: No.

Me: Then why am I getting wet?

Mike: I don't know, you're feeling things?

Me: Hmm. Must be a figment of my masturbation...

Three years later we were walking around our new home in Flint when it started raining again.

Mike instantly told me to stop masturbating because he had yard work to do.

Good times! It rains quite often around our house...

Too much and not enough.

I'm really not too sure where to begin here. I know the bull shit about starting at the start, but I'm dyslexic, so that has never held water with me.

My mom is a recovering alcoholic, is stable on mood altering medication, taking less pills, and has quit smoking. I'm so proud of her. These are things she has done my whole life and the resentment for such has run deep.

Wait, rewind, and delete the words 'recovering', 'stable', and 'less'. Also, replace the words 'has quit' with 'is still', and insert the word 'not' in front of 'so proud'. (Let me just say that I'm sure everybody has their own story, and I know my mom has not had a perfect life and at some point anti-depressants were indicated... But not when you are on more than two or three when a doc only prescribed one?)

My dad has saved my life in more than one way. But it is to the point where I resent him now, too. No matter what pills my mom is on, she's always right, and I'm always way out of line. But that's a different story. One I'm still trying to come to terms with. One that I won't be able to come to terms with for the foreseeable future. I mean, the man was my hero, but when I need him most, time after time, all I get is kicked in the balls and told that my mother killing herself is none of my concern.

I've always followed blindly, so okay. I'll run with that. Go ahead Mom, take those anti-depressants with that jack and coke, hold the coke. See ya around!

Long story short: I moved out a bit early. Mother and I would get into fights, real fights. Approximately seven minutes and thirty-two seconds after said fight, I would get a call from my father, explaining why I had to go and apologize to Mother because I was such an unruly beast and how he couldn't believe he had raised such a disrespectful little spoiled brat. The man had me so wrapped around which ever finger suited him at the time that he convinced me to move back in because "Mom is so hurt. She thinks it is her fault you moved out." How the fuck did he pull that one off?? Of course it was her fault! But, I moved back anyway. For a whole day too! Then she came home from the bar at 2am, woke me from a dead sleep, and started screaming at me.

Even my wedding wasn't mine. I'm antisocial, and I have the people skills to prove it. What the hell made my folks think that I wanted a 400 guest wedding? I don't know, but I got it. Sure, it was great seeing friends and family, and everybody wishing us well on our future life together, blah, blah, blah... But Jesus, had I been required to hug one more person from my parents high school that I had never met before I was going to loose it. I did loose it, actually. I was so sick with anxiety that I didn't eat all day - those poor photographers, my patience was so thin! I'm pretty sure my maid of honor wasn't the only one who snapped, "Don't touch me again!"...

But it was what Mommy-Dearest wanted...

Very few people know about this, but with all that happened I was pretty screwed up. Really screwed up. I don't drink, because controlling myself is the only thing I have. I don't voluntarily lose control (it happened once, and I've yet to forgive myself). I was so screwed up that I only lashed out when I was asleep. I would wake up to holes in the wall and bloody knuckles. The bottoms of my feet would be cut and bloody because in my sleep I would take a knife to them. I would scream. I would sleep with my eyes open. I would stop breathing... And I wouldn't remember it. All I know is that I would wake up, terrified and bloody, I'm pretty sure I socked my husband a few times. I dealt with that alone from the time I can remember, to about two years after Mike and I started dating.

He was my first real kiss (awww, so cute). I avoided falling asleep around him because I was scared of what would happen for over a year. Eventually though, things got better, slowly but surely, with time, I stopped having so many night terrors, and when I did have them, they weren't nearly as bad. Mike saved my life, plain and simple.

To illustrate the dichotomy of Mother though, she was livid that I didn't sleep around when I had the chance (had being the operative word there, she has pointed out more than once in the last nine months that my body isn't what it used to be). She kept saying when I was 16 and 17 that I should play the field, and not be afraid to make 'connections' when I went on a trip... Right... How awesome is a mom like that?! She told me to sleep my way to the top! Screw my way onto TV for playing with sharks in South Africa where AIDS is rampant! SWEET!

And so the controlling continued. And continued. And continued.

When the fuck am I supposed to grow my own pair of balls and tell them to suck it? When does being fed up with the bull shit out-weigh the concern for family? I'll tell you when: With a donut. Or so my mom thinks. She's no longer allowed to babysit my son because of a donut, she's convinced.

So I don't ramble, here are the highlights:

1) My mom watched my son three or four days a week.

2) My mom felt that sour candy, donuts, and bacon was an acceptable diet for a baby. I didn't.

3) "If I don't pack it for him, please don't feed it to him" somehow got misconstrued into, "If you gave him x, y, z, I just assumed I could give him (insert completely nutritiously empty and disgustingly bad for you food here)" which inevitably turned into my love of drama spread over her facebook wall, and my controlling personality and it's inability to let her feed my son crap.

In the last 24 hours I have gotten over a dozen emails asking why I'm so mad, where my son is being cared for, and why I haven't gotten enough drama. I don't think she understands when I say, "I'm done explaining myself and having my words taken out of context, then used as fodder for your facebook rampages about my love of drama".

I defriended my own mom from facebook. That should tell you something. If somebody defriends you, you know it's irreparable. Kind of like, if it's not on facebook, it didn't happen. Yea, according to my friend list, she's not on facebook. Please God, tell me she didn't happen (in the sense of as far back as I can remember resenting my mom for who she is, and who she pretends to be).

So what is the real trigger to growing a pair and telling somebody they need to clean up or clear out? Having a kid. That's right, a kid. You've heard that you're not supposed to poke mamma-bear, right? Let me tell you how true that is!

Most people blame their child for their lack of life and independence. I blame my child for giving me my own life and independence. I owe him, and by association, Mike, everything. Absolutely everything. Since that kid tried to kill me at birth he has become my world. And damn skippy, if you try to mess with my world hell WILL rain down on you with a vengeance best compared to ancient Greek Gods. If it weren't for that ingrained, inarguable instinct to protect your offspring with every fiber of your being I would still be firmly placed under my dad's thumb, and my mom's ass, wondering when too much was too much, and when I could officially say I'd been hurt enough to not care enough to try and change it anymore.

Facebook said it best; "There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad, and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who don't. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living."

Thank you, Callen, Mike, and the family who knows. Thank you, for letting me live.

The last couple of blogs explained me in the proverbial nut-shell. Now, I shall go forth with my jaded and completely inappropriate sense of humor (interrupted by rants, I'm sure)! But damn, that feels good to let out...

Hook, Line, and Sinker?

I'm trying, for some unknown reason, to think of a way to draw readers in. Probably some deep seeded issue dealing with the suppressed consciousness of the immature mind is causing me to lash out and seek attention and approval... To hell with that. The best shrinks in the world would have a field day with me. I'm not saying I could fool anybody, by any means. I'm just saying sometimes, people dig WAY too deep.

I'm one of those idiots who says what I mean, and I mean what I say. The deeper you dig, the more I ignore you. Fair warning.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: How do I go about growing my army of loyal readers? How long will it take to amass a following large enough to achieve my life-long ambition of taking over the world with common sense and corporal punishment? Wait, should I have admitted that? Crap, too late now...

Maybe I should explain why I'm so jaded? But that might scare more people than it attracts. Although, the people who would be attracted by those stories would be great generals in my army... Hmm... The truth will come out, I'm sure, but later.

I was thinking about a few anecdotes. Maybe explain why my friends call me bait-rope? Or about the psychic who was talking to my unborn child! Or how I threatened to sleep in the ball pit at Chuck-e-Cheeses because the security guards were hoarding children...

The best I can come up with (seeing as I have the memory of a gold fish) off of the top of my head is this little gem: I was researching great white sharks in South Africa for four months. Pretty sweet, right?! Well, my last day there I was desperate to see, and say good bye to my pretty little sharkies. I was chumming my little heart out, stomping on sardines and squeezing shark liver in order to draw the big fish to our boat. You could see our chum slick for miles! And what a day it was!! We saw shark after shark and they all gave us great opportunities to get pictures of their pretty fins and say our tearful good byes.

Over the previous four months, any time we would see a sea lion cruising somewhere near the boat we would watch with baited (?) breath, chanting, "Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!", just hoping, wishing, and praying that our lucky day had come and that we would see a sea lion turn into used shark food. But alas, our prayers were always unanswered. So, as I stood knee deep in chum, with a bucket in the water I thought nothing of the sea lion slowly making its way directly up our chum slick, toward our boat.

Within minutes the sea lion was less than five feet from the boat. Starring me in the eye, begging for a sardine. It was almost cute! With its huge, pleading eyes and a quick bark... I bent over the side of the boat to drop more chum in the sea when I saw it.

Without a split second to analyze what was about to happen I realized that that cute little sea lion had barked its last bark (which as it turns out, wasn't quite true). Sure enough, a 10 foot shark breached on that silly little sea lion less than five feet from our boat, less than two feet from my arm dangling in the water.

Where once there was a playful, begging, happy sea lion instantly turned into a pool of red, and only half of a live, begging, not-so-happy sea lion. It took all of five seconds for everybody on the boat to realize what had just happened before I started laughing hysterically and giggling with glee as this sea lion bled out within arms reach, desperately pleading with us to put it on the boat. It would have been sad, if it weren't so amazing!

I grabbed my camera and started clicking pictures as I did a not-so-discrete happy dance at the turmoil and resulting death of that poor, unsuspecting sea lion. Sorry, but I don't feel bad for it. Survival of the fittest/Darwinism, call it what you will, the damn dumb sea lion swam up a trail of sardine in water infamous for its great white shark population... It deserved to die.

And that, my friends, is me, in a nut-shell. Or nut-house. Depending on how long I can ellude capture...

The beginning of the end.

And so it starts:

I've come to the realization that my life, in all of it's insignificant glory, could indeed be a source of entertainment to others.

Believe me when I say that I've been in denial, and fighting the urge to open my eyes to 'normalcy' for quite some time now. I'm what? 23, 24 years old? Shit, I just turned 24. I've known something was awry for 24 years, 9 months, 1 week, and 5 days now. (Well, assuming I actually gestated for 9 months. I probably didn't. Even in infancy I was defiant, "Let me the fuck out, NOW!". I knew it was better in the long run, I'm convinced.)

I'll start by saying, "I love my family". I'm spoiled rotten, a pain in the ass, and a complete bitch. But, I am what they raised me to be, tenacious and goal oriented (spoiled), independent (pain in the ass), and a complete bitch (a complete bitch).

I love my family because they are, well, my family. But sometimes I wonder if my dad wasn't lying about the rock that they found me under...

If it were just my parents I thought were off-kilter I wouldn't be too alarmed. But apparently, unannounced to me, the whole world has gone mad!

Let me preface that a bit: I'm a new mother. I had my bouncing baby boy in September of 2009 (Well crap, I don't even know my son's birthday... September 2010. 2010! Awesome parent FAIL!). Since I am a new mother I expect that everybody see things my way, and I'm flabbergasted when, lo and behold, they don't! Don't you know I'm infallible?!

Long introduction, only slightly shortened: I've decided to start writing about my life. If not for the amusement of others, then for a historical database of my ineptitude!

Please, enjoy.