September 22nd, 2009
Oh, thank god. Ken Wheaton’s book arrived in the mail this afternoon! I’ve been looking forward to it for so long, that it’s like… well, okay, you know how you get it in your head that you want a certain food (say, pappardelle al telefono) and you google your little fingers to the bone only to realize that not one damn restaurant in all of Dallas offers this tasty little number and so now you don’t want ANYTHING, thank you very much, if you can’t have that? Yeah, that’s how I’ve been about this book. Because until I finish it, Half Price Books is dead to me.
The cost of life is really doing a number on my ‘tude. I walked out of the car dealership yesterday after dropping my car off for an oil change, tire mumbo jumbo, and that rattle in the front end, and the estimate they gave me nearly dropped my bottom lip to my shoes. You know, on top of the nearly $500 out-of-pocket price of not having a ten-day gin hangover in my face. I told Sarah that it was like Disappointment and Desperation had a colicky baby and left it on my doorstep.You’ve got no choice but to take care of it and yet… the resentment! I’ve been saving money and being careful and having zero adventures and, pardon if this sounds a little dramatic, I feel like I’m dying a little. Compared to my former, irresponsible life this new practical one is hard on the spirit. Even those big, romantic, swoony Let’s Get Married! talks have all turned into, “one day when we’re out of debt and out of school and blah blah” and I can’t help but feel a little bit disappointed all the time.
We’re going to the symphony on Thursday. The Dork Lord has to go as part of an assignment for his humanities class and I would like to kiss his professor right on the mouth. I wish she’d specified “uber tragic Puccini opera” instead of the generic “live performance” but I’ll take what I can get. Cellos!
On Sunday, the Dork Lord was busy getting sunburned on the golf course when his family called to invite us to lunch. So his mom asked me to come all by myself. And I loved it. It can be pretty dicey, inheriting family (not unlike being invited to a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner), but I’ve been so lucky – none of that tofurkey crap; this is the real deal.
September 18th, 2009
The wisdom tooth thing went very well (thanking you all for the well-wishing and helpful suggestions). Dealing with some post-anesthesia nausea (god, that’s a mouthful of vowels!) but I’d say it went about as smoothly as it could. My oral surgeon was a dream. The Dork Lord casually mentioned that it would not be pleasing to him if I ran away with my surgeon, but there’s no real worry of that. Yes, he was tall, dark and handsome, but really, I was simply momentarily in love with his bedside manner. And that’s not anything to base a relationship on. His nurse was also top notch. She instructed me not to do anything that requires using judgment for the next twenty four hours. And here I am on the Interwebs. Where so much damage could be done. But she meant things like driving, calling clients, cooking (stove = bad! when one is on all sorts of drugs), or caring for small children. Fortunately, the Dork Lord is not what you’d consider ‘small’ so we’re going to be just fine.
Among her instructions – and one that she was very, very clear about – was that I was to drink a chocolate shake or Wendy’s Frosty (again, she’s a specific lady) on the way home. Period. You know, for swelling. And then she winked. True love forever, people.
I don’t have much else to say today, but I did want to share an article Miss Tanya passed on the other day. Now, you know those stories where like, a dog will nurse an abandoned piglet? Or a fawn? I live for that shit. I will sit at my desk all teary and love the whole damn world for a good fifteen minutes. Well, then there was this. It begins,
Just six months ago, Robbie and Susan Goodrich of Marquette, Mich., were expecting their second child.
Now Robbie Goodrich is the single father of two young children as hemourns the death of his wife while some two dozen women visit his housein shifts to breast-feed his infant son.
It got me all choked up. And not just because of the terrible tragedy of losing one’s wife in childbirth, but because this is how I believe the world should work – people taking care of each other, with not a single thought for what they have to gain. Please read it.
September 16th, 2009
Me: I wonder what happens to her after she stops being young and pretty. I mean, for a cheerleader, she’s probably already pushing the age thing. What does she do next?
Him: Duh. The same thing they all do. (In falsetto mock Miss USA voice) “I want to major in communications! Yay!”
Me: Hey!
Him: What?
Me: That’s what I majored in.
Him: But… but you’re good at it. It’s different.
Me: Mmm hmm.
September 14th, 2009
In case this comes up at some point, the offending wisdom tooth is still lodged in my jaw (until Thursday) and that is why I am maybe just the teensiest bit cranky. Or prone to bouts of weeping. I swear, I’m trying to keep it in check, but it’s like having a ten-day gin hangover. In my face. The antibiotic that the dentist promised would have me back to normal in a jiffy has done nothing but give me stomach issues (I won’t elaborate), the Vicodin made me spacey and gave me menopausal hot flashes but didn’t do a thing to take the edge off the pain. And so, kids, we’re at the part of the story where our heroine flies to Houston for a meeting, gets lost on campus finding the building and sits in her rental car and cries because even bad guys* don’t deserve to have a ten-day gin hangover in their faces.
It’s also the part of our story where our heroine sits at her desk and thinks, Hmmmm, heroin. Maybe that’s the ticket!
I finally sent a check off to the IRS on Friday. Wowee, does that have to be one of the more mixed emotion moments I have experienced in a while. Getting out from under The Man’s thumb? Awesome. I mean, that’s a really good feeing. But emptying my savings account? A little scary. The Dork Lord and I have been doing so well with our saving and our careful spending, but this weekend, we talked about me getting a second job. He’s back in school, which is a second job of its own, and I feel like even the few hours that I spend watching Bones or HGTV could really be better spent toward some financial security. Freelance writing gigs aren’t as easy to come by as they used to be, so I’m thinking maybe something like, Barnes & Noble. Heck, or Target Team Member. That has to come with a sweet little discount. Yeah, and khaki pants, but you know what they say about beggars and choosers.
I put my foot down when it comes to pleats, though.
* Except you, Kanye.
September 9th, 2009
Over the long weekend, a wisdom1 tooth that had previously been minding its own business decided it was high time for a little excitement up in here. At first, it was just sort of annoying. The Dork Lord and I met one of his friends out for a nice dinner and halfway through my Hawaiian rib eye (drool), I got this odd, not exactly pleasant teething feeling. Now, when my nephew was cutting some new chompers last week, we shoved a pizza crust in his chubby little hand and let him gnaw on that. But while that may have worked for the kid, I figured I’d try a more… sophisticated approach: red meat and red wine. I don’t have to tell you how successful that was.
Apparently, the alcohol content of wine is not sufficient for sterilization. Who knew?
By Sunday, I had an ice pack glued to my face. Remember how it was a long weekend and how no one was open who does things like fix impacted wisdom teeth? Yeah, that was my favorite part. In the absence of proper medical care, I tried salt water, Orajel and finally, when I was beginning to lose my mind, dug through my cabinet for an old Vicodin prescription. And that’s when the heavens parted and angels sang. And I walked around like a zombie extra from Sean of the Dead.
Yesterday, the dentist stuck her little mirror in my mouth, put on her You Poor Dear face, wrote me a couple prescriptions and scheduled an afternoon of fun with the oral surgeon. When she told me that the antibiotic would have me feeling “right back to normal” by today, I didn’t yet know she was a lying liar, so I skipped right out of her office and to the pharmacy for my magical cure. The hopeful feeling carried on through dinner, which the Dork Lord took care of with a trip to The Grocery Store We Can’t Afford. Oh, the yummy things he came home with! I immediately put a pan on the stove to heat up the gourmet green chile chicken soup.
“How’s the soup?”
“Sheepy,” I said, making the face I normally reserve for goat cheese.
“Sheepy?”
“The whole thing tastes like hot sheep’s milk.”
I abandoned the sheepy soup on the counter and reached out to sip of the wine he’d opened to go with his real-food-for-people-with-working-teeth dinner.
“Oh my god, this is DISGUSTING. How are you drinking this?”
“It’s not the greatest, but I thought it was okay.”
“No, it’s bad. Really bad. It tastes like… dirty pennies!”
And that’s when we figured out that this magical antibiotic was not only not so magical, but it made everything I ate taste terrible.
“Nooo! I’m broken!”
The Boy sampled (and by sampled, I mean finished off) the soup, which he pronounced “pretty damn awesome” and I crawled onto the couch, defeated. Without wine and cream based soups, life was *this* close to losing meaning. So as a precaution against further devistation, I’m staying away from chocolate and cheese. I just don’t think I could live with that kind of disappointment.
1Question: Didn’t you already have your wisdom teeth out?
Answer: Sorta. My dental insurance in New York only covered wisdom teeth that had made their wise way through the gums. They don’t care so much about crowding or any of that nonsense. And me, I was in no position to elect to take the others out. So, in short, I still have two. Until next Thursday.
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