I Blog to Save Money on Therapy

 2 Responses »
May 202012
 

*It’s a list post because lists are magical and only require short bursts of thought.

*Don’t blink because you might miss this one.

 

 

 

 

*Because seriously? Short bursts of thought require actual thought and I’m not sure what my head is actually doing qualifies right now.

*In any case, I’m pretty sure that if I had more than one child that their extracurricular activities would be limited to those in which I could stay bra-less and with a water bottle full of vodka flavored orange juice in hand and the remote control in the other to mindlessly help my pretend bunches of kiddos the art of channel surfing because Mommy is Busy Talking to those People Inside of the Computer again and Calling it Woooo-ooorrrrk!

*Which pretty much translates into, ya know, no actual extracurricular activities.

*They’d be bored as hell but I survived my childhood with plenty of permanent emotional damage…

*And therapy has been pretty beneficial so…

*as long as I made sure my multiple imaginary children had therapy slush funds set up in bank accounts they could access at age 18 to cover the cost of medicinally induced happiness, I’m being pretty fucking responsible as a mother.

 

 

*Imaginarily speaking, of course.

*Because as things currently stand with Buttercup’s end of year pre-K activities…

*Like her “promotion” ceremony…

*which couldn’t be called a “graduation” ceremony because the district kindergartners ceremony before moving on to the first grade is already called that so we wouldn’t want to confuse the kids and families who weren’t at the thing where all of us parents were calling it a graduation anyway so FUCK YOU KINDERGARTNERS…

 

*And her first ever ballet recital in a few weeks…

 

 

 

*Which happens to include two practices on Saturdays right now that I happen to keep remembering about five minutes before they start and we?

*Live 15 minutes away…

*Which gives me enough time to run into the studio dragging a wind-blown Buttercup behind me just as the pre-ballet teacher is reminding the responsible parents that tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m is definitely the same date and time that she has been telling us all since time began so we would be prepared to have our perfectly costumed, make-upped, and coiffed preschool magical garden rosebuds at the studio, smiling and ready to be photographed by a professional with a camera…

*Which totally changes my plan to stay bra-less and jammied at home tomorrow after staying up late to catch up on three writing deadlines, make some headway on project planning for a new site I’m working on, and possibly making some time to do this crazy thing all the kids call Reading for Pleasure because now.

*I’m chugging black coffee to calm the rushing in my head that always comes with the upheaval when plans change unexpectedly because ADHD works like that and eventually I am not acting like a crazed lunatic inside of my own head so I take another swig of iced happiness and get us buckled up in the truck with the air blasting on high because it’s in the mid 90′s and I hate Arizona any time of the year the temperature goes above 75 degrees.

*I need to rush to Target right after the second ballet lesson to buy my little rosebud some ultra-hold heir gel and bobby pins and new not dirty pink tights and body glitter and hooker red lipstick and thick rubber bands to secure the world’s strongest ballet bun and WHY THE HELL DON’T THEY CARRY HAIR NETS FOR DANCERS AT TARGET so it’s time to rush off to that Sally Beauty Supply on the way home…

*Where I get to rush through a crazed multi-tasking To Do List Mania of running the bath so Buttercup can climb in and play with some bubbles while I get the cod blackening and the cauliflower mashed into mock mashed potatoes because that’s how I roll now and Oh Shit! I can’t unload and reload the dishwasher because the stuff in there never got washed because I forgot to turn the damned thing on five hours ago which works out wonderfully with a brand new sinkful of dirty dishes just sitting there taunting me with their See? You can try, but at the end of the day you just aren’t as fast as we are-edness. …

*I could scream but that would put me even more behind on my List of Things to Do before I commit myself to a padded room with an internet connection that only locks and unlocks from the inside.

*I’ll give you a minute to figure that one 0ut, People Without Children.

*Like those three writing deadlines I need to be working on.

*Yes, right now, instead of writing this.

*And thank you for listening because I’m pretty sure y’all just saved me a 45-minute drive and a $25 copay to see my therapist whom I am not entirely sure even like and you got to laugh in all of the appropriate places while reading this and are probably now telling all of your friends who will tell of their friends and so on and so forth about this brilliantly hilarious post they read on this blog by this writer and I’ll be catapulted to instant overnight fame and you and your friends will feel directly responsible and then this single chain of events can be referred to as the biggest win-win of the millennium, probably.

*No, no, you don’t have to thank me. I did this for you, truthfully. But please, don’t let me interrupt you while you do that telling all of your friends about me thing so we can get this ball rolling.

*I’m going to get Buttercup into bed so she can fall asleep an hour after I tell her she has to go to sleep so I can drag her Not Gonna Be Happy Ass outta bed in the morning at 5 a.m. so I can turn her into a an adorable little harlot in my borrowed Russian Red  before the sun even rises and rush her off to the studio in time for the dance recital photos.

 

 

 

 

*Don’t worry. I won’t be late. Considering I won’t be sleeping, most likely, on account of those three writing deadlines I told you about.

*That I was supposed to start when I turned on my Mac and THIS happened instead.

*And DEAR GOD, STOP TRYING TO NOT BLINK because you look ridiculous.

*The end.

Zombies and Dead Dads

 3 Responses »
May 162012
 

 

It’s strange how the timing on this one worked out. But the timing could not have been more perfect for me to finally have what has got to be the most bad-ass blog post title ever. Then again, I received pretty high praise from readers on the Love, Assholes, and My Grandpa one, so I guess it’s kind of a toss up.

Either way, I’ve got a zombie to tell you about and a dead father to remember.

There’s this poem I wrote years ago. If I remember correctly, it was for a creative writing course in college and the class was silent for just a moment longer than a heartbeat after I finished reading. Zombie is not meant to be a comfortable read or to create images of beauty; rather, it’s a very real and very gritty moment that many who have ever suffered from bulimia can (sadly) relate to.

Until very recently, Zombie was in a binder with old papers until I decided to do something more with it. So I transcribed it into a Word Document, hit save, and sent my words off to the editor at Voxx Poetica. My poem appeared on Voxx almost two months ago and I just now realized it had actually been published. Thank you to Voxx for a moment to connect with others who understand and the opportunity to explain the inner-workings of the head of an eating disordered teenager to those who don’t.

Because I tend to schedule my blog posts based on the incredibly scientific When I Remember to Do it method, my plan to share my Voxx publication news with you today just now happens to coincide with dead dads, the daughters of all ages who are grieving them, and the woman who is building working to build a community of solace for those who find themselves wondering where to turn. I first met my friend Mary of Mama Mary Show a few years ago at the Phoenix Bloggy Bootcamp conference and got to see her again at Blogher 10 just a few months later. I don’t remember how we started talking about it, but we connected when we shared with each other the pain of losing our fathers decades before we had expected to deal with this kind of grief.

Mary’s goal was to publish a book and start a new web site on which contributing writers could connect, share, and heal. And I’m honored to be featured as part of the official launch of the Dead Dad’s Club.

Every time someone else thinks my words worthy of their space is a day to celebrate. Every day I am brave enough to share again is a day to smile. I survived me. And I’ll never delete my my father’s phone number from my contact list.

Every Mother

 2 Responses »
May 142012
 

No whip cream!

We are at Starbucks to shop for cucumbers and what The Husband refers to as my hippie cleaning products. Or rather, we are at Target and my almost-five-year-old’s ability to walk straight up to the counter and place her tall vanilla frappuccino with Absolutely No Whip Cream Because I Don’t Like Whip Cream order with total confidence tells me two things: 1) Both Target and Starbucks should highly consider just renaming their joint venture stores to something like Starget or Tarbucks so every storefront containing liquid happiness is easily identifiable and the ones that suck can be just as easily avoided and  2) I think I turned into a yuppie.

I give my order and flash the I Just Proved My Own Point Starbucks app on the iPhone screen to pay for our drinks and start sipping my unsweetened Trenta iced green tea. Before I walk away, though, a CD cover in front of the register catches my eye. It’s the image on the cover that stops me: a woman embracing her child.

Every Mother Counts.

I pick up the CD and skim the back, making a mental note to look it up on iTunes because I lose CDs as often as I lose my mind. I see the words under organization founder Christy Turlington Burns’ photo telling me about the cause, that the $8 of every CD sold in Starbucks stores through December 31, 2012 goes directly to Every Mother Counts and their efforts to reduce global maternal mortality rates. I think about my friend, Sara, and how she would have died during childbirth had she not been in the hands of a medical team ready for even the rarest of complications.

I hand the CD to the cashier so she can scan it. We will listen to the songs on the way home. And by tomorrow we will know all of the words.

Moments. Mothers. Days.

 2 Responses »
May 132012
 

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

 

 

Mama? Is it Mother’s Day yet?

No baby. The calendar says it’s not for a few more days.

But I want to give you your bracelet now!

I can wait.

Please, Mama!

 

 

I crumble. The excitement is shining in her eyes as she runs to get a manilla envelope that just arrived with my name on it. The return address is her preschool. She has printed her own name in the top left corner. She might not realize it, but the envelope is part of her gift to me.

 

 

 

I carefully open it and gently extract a large card fashioned from construction paper and a message telling me that her heart flutters for me. I see a bracelet and her smiling face and see her pictures for me and then collapse into laughter, tears streaming down my cheeks, and hold my defiant little princess close to me. Teacher Jessica captured her personality alright. And I couldn’t be more thrilled with what has to be the most honest Mother’s Day card in the history of the universe.

 

And then this morning

 

Open it! Open it!

 

 

It could be Christmas morning judging by the level of squealiness in Buttercup’s chirpy screams. She’s been waiting for a few days now, trying to convince me to ignore the calendar and just tear into the gift my sister, her godmother, sent for me. Receiving anything at all from someone other than my child or The Husband Who Knows He is Contractually Obligated to Forget a Card but Still Be Awesome is a bit of a surprise, and it’s a nice one.

 

I unwrap the box, cut through tape, and lift packaging materials out to find that I’ve been sent an angel. I am instantly in love with her serenity and how it so fluidly flows throughout her form.

She’s beautiful, Mama.

I know.

I set her on my desk to watch over me as I write and we continue with our day.

 

All the Pretty Things

 4 Responses »
May 112012
 

So I’m standing in the grocery store check out lane with Buttercup, patiently waiting our turn to pay when I made the mistake of actually skimming the headlines and blurbs about various celebrities relating to their weight, how they either lost it or keep it off, and why this should matter to me. And you. Because emulating Angelina Jolie did wonders for Octamom.

About that…

My eyes dart from one blurb to another and as each one gets seared into my brain and the only cohesive thought I have is that Buttercup will never be allowed to set foot in a grocery store again for fear of psychologically damaging her in an effort to pick up a gallon of milk.

BEYONCE SHOWS OFF HER NEW MOM BODY

 

Beyonce shows off her New Mom Body right next to a blurb parading empty promises.  CGI, airbrushing, crash diets, and really creative camera angles will work for us Regular People, too, it seems. I’m assuming that means I should clear our the guest room for the personal macrobiotic chef and his entourage, right? Oh, but where will the nanny take care of my child while I workout with my personal trainer in my home gym for six hours a day so I can get to headline-ready shape before  filming starts on my next blockbuster?

Wait…you mean that isn’t how this is supposed to work?

 

 

 

LOSE 13 POUNDS IN SEVEN DAYS EATING CAKE!

There’s only one way I can think of this actually happening…and that’s how I ended up in therapy the first time.

Next?

 

 

GET A BETTER BODY! CELEBRITIES SHARE THEIR CONFIDENCE BOOSTERS!

Because focusing on inner beauty and feeling good about the reflection in the mirror no matter what the scale says is exactly how y’all got onto the big screen to begin with, right?

 

 

 

DROP 47 POUNDS BY MEMORIAL DAY AND WALK OFF JELLY BELLY!

 

Hold the fucking train, people. They mean by Memorial Day of 2013, RIGHT?

 

 

 

THE BRIDESMAID STAR ON LOVING WHO YOU ARE!

FINALLY! A moment of clarity! A publication willing to buck societal expectations and instead celebrate who and what we are now instead of promoting the bullshit promising us that We Too Can Lose Six Pounds in Four Days and Feel Great!

Maybe other publications will start to do the same! Maybe a new generation of young and impressionable girls won’t be subjected to the planetary version of high school hell and come out on the other side the better for it.

Maybe…Look!

Ladies Home Journal is jumping in with more insight on the subject…

 

WHY CAN'T WE SEE OUR REAL SELVES IN THE MIRROR?

Seriously?

I dunno…I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that could possibly have something to do with the contradictory messages about self-worth and body image and their direct correlation with the engrained importance of Other People’s Opinions in our psyche regarding how society perceives us to look? Maybe it’s the fact that our value as women is measured by today’s media using our measurements and not our achievements? No, wait! I’ve got it….

It’s because we were so busy eating cake for breakfast and losing 47 pounds by this Thursday that we totally forgot to clean the mirror, isn’t it? Silly us…

Oh that isn’t it?

 

 

WHO WANTS TO PLAY "FIND THE FAT CHICK?"

 

I’m being facetious, obviously. I think Melissa McCarthy is a talented actress with an adorable voice and I love her confidence. She also, in my humble opinion, happens to be gorgeous. That being said, I’m thinking product placement and the fact that the only reason I noticed the bottom rack (on multiple magazine racks, I’d like to point out)  is because I was on my knees taking photos of random magazine covers for a blog post about how those mean old magazine covers called me Fat and Unhappy. And that’s when the cashier gives me my total and tells Buttercup how beautiful she is.

“I know,” she responds with the confidence she inherited from The Husband. Then she catches herself and notices that I seem to be waiting for something. She clears her throat. “Thank you.”

And we head for home, my four-year-old already learning that society appreciates the pretty things.

 

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