DailyDebs

Re-Birth

The clock is winding down. With any luck, I will have given birth by this time next month. I am just now getting used to my life being entirely different from Little Man’s arrival, and now things are about to change all over again. But more on that later…

It’s funny how pregnancy is so long and yet, I feel like I am just now really thinking about the logistics of giving birth and having a baby. I re-watched my first birth video (yes, I have a video of myself giving birth. It’s from a tasteful angle. You could probably air it on the Disney Channel if my first words when he was born weren’t “Holy Shit! Holy Shit!”) and it reminded me of what a physical transformation and feat it really is to birth a child. And that transformation doesn’t stop there. You keep transforming through the first year over and over again and I realized that becoming a parent is a chance to live your life all over again. I don’t mean that in a cheesy, sentimental way like a “Christmas is for the Children!” sort of way. I mean that you figuratively (you like that, George?) re-live all the stages of life in that first year.

Labor and Delivery
You’re a baby again. On the table, screaming and whaling while everyone coos around you saying “shhhusshh shhhhusshhh, it’s ooook. It’s ooooook” but there is no reasoning with you. You’re pooping and peeing all over the place and not only is no one surprised by this, but people are cleaning it up for you and STILL saying that you’re doing a good job. The baby finally comes out and like any tantrum, you go from screaming to smiling and maybe even laughing. You’re a baby. With a baby.

Postpartum
You’re a toddler. Everyone is just so proud of you! “Look how good you are walking around!” the nurses say. “Now, do you think you can pee? Why don’t you try to pee?” (My nurses even sat beside me, coaching me along. “Do you want me to turn on the water? Would that help?” I nodded enthusiastically. When I could finally do it, I showed them with such pride. “See! I did it! I can pee in the potty!”)
“I can’t believe you made that!” You show your baby off like a piece of artwork in craft time. Like a new toy, you hold onto your baby tightly and check on it obsessively. You toss and turn in your sleep. You cry in the middle of the night. You eat from a tray in the hospital and drink OJ out of a small plastic cup. You describe your pain via a Smily Face chart. “I’m mean-faced smiley face right now.” You’re a toddler. With a baby.

Life After the Hospital
You’re a child. You cannot do ANYTHING for yourself. Your mom does everything for you and you don’t even fight it anymore. You just sit on the couch and say half sentences like “more water please!” If you drop something, someone is there to pick it up and give it back to you. Everyone puts up with the emotional basketcase that you have become but it is not really cute anymore and it’s getting on everyone’s nerves. The SMALLEST things entertain you. “He smiled at me! Did you guys see it? He JUST did it. Oh my god, he’s asleep with his hands over his head! Everyone look at this!” Finally, you fall asleep in the most random places and everyone is just so relieved that you actually passed out that no one even tries to move you. “Shhhh. Just let her sleep.” You’re a child. A small child with a baby.

1 Week Post Partum
You’re a teenager. Just super hormonal and bleeding everywhere. You can’t even wear tampons. You have to wear big ugly pads and you are convinced that everyone can see them through your pants and that they just KNOW you are on your period. Your boobs hurt. You’re getting used to this new body and feeling self conscious AF. You want to eat healthy but you’re crying into your ice cream bowl every night. And you are so in love with this baby, it feels like the first time anyone has ever been in love. You snap selfies of you and your baby everyday. You’re a social media queen now. You ARE a teenager. With a baby.

6 Weeks Post Partum
You are blossoming into womanhood and there is only one thing standing in your way of crossing that threshold: sexual activity. Your husband knows what your doctor is telling you at that 6 week check up appointment. She’s going to tell you that you are clear for physical activity. ALL physical activity. And just like your first de-flowering experience, the guy is ALWAYS more excited about it than the girl. “Will it hurt?” you ask your more experienced mom friends. “Its… different” they say cautiously. “It gets better with time.” You bite the bullet and begrudgingly follow his lead into the bedroom and just pray it will be over soon. And it is over so soon. You’re a woman now. A sexual woman with a baby.

Back to Work
Finally, you are a mom. It took a long time to get here, but you finally made it. Your pants fit differently. You have food on your clothes before you have even eaten. You are older than you have every been in your entire life. And you are so aware and somehow everything makes sense even though nothing makes sense. With that knowledge comes a smugness that you need to keep in check when you talk to other mom’s-to-be, because you want to tell them everything because this journey is so fresh. You just lived your whole life again creating this new life, but you don’t want to spoil it for others. It’s their journey to go on, not yours. And that’s ok because…

6 Months Later
You are a senior citizen. You go to bed by 8pm. You actually laugh at greeting cards and Family Feud. Everything hurts all the time. You’re just so tired. But most importantly of all, you have severe memory loss. You forgot why you walked into this room in the first place. You forgot what day of the week it is. Most importantly, you forgot how hard pregnancy, labor, and birth are because…

You want to do it all over again.

Making up my Mind on Making a Murderer

Fun Fact: I am a libra. While I don’t really follow the signs of the Zodiac, there is one trait about me that I feel is in my Libra nature and that is an intolerance to injustice. The sign of a libra is actually the Justice scale. As a child, I hated seeing people unfairly picked on and would stick up for them, I would always know if someone (*cough* younger brother *cough*) was given special treatment or given more than I was and I hated to see people get away with things without punishment. As an adult, all of these traits are satisfied in one activity: watching True Crime television shows.

I L O V E true crime. Not Crime Shows. There is a difference. I don’t watch CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Law and Order (even SVU!) or any of that crap. I have no interest in wrapping up a storyline with a nice bow in 30-60 minutes. I like the REAL stuff. I’m talking 48 Hours and Dateline, sometimes 20/20 when they cut back on the cheesy graphics. These shows are what my weekends are built around. I actually paid for the 48 Hours app on my iPad so I could have unlimited access to all of the episodes. I’m still waiting for Dateline to have that option. There is just something so soothing about Keith Morrison’s narration (and something so grating about Josh Mankiewicz AM I RIGHT, YOU GUYS??) My husband has grown so tolerant of this hobby and has actually stopped rolling his eyes when a double feature comes on. “TWO STRAIGHT HOURS OF CRIME, BABY!” I’ll say, as I reach for the high five. Sometimes, I’ll get a treat and one will be a double murder. “Two Hours, Three Murders! LETS DO THIS!” What can I say? I’m approaching my mid-thirties and this is how I get my kicks.

Recently, my True Crime itch has been greatly satisfied with podcasts like Serial and HBO specials like The Jinx. As these shows became immensely popular, I didn’t feel so alone in my love of True Crime. If you weren’t watching or listening to these shows, YOU were the outsider, not me! As I wrapped up the Jinx and forgave Sarah Koenig for not doing another murder story for season 2 of Serial, I started to get impatient for my next fix. Then, the Gods smiled upon me and presented one of the best docu-series I have ever seen: Making a Murderer.

First of all, if you have not watched this show, do NOT read any further. I am going to spoil the shit out of this show. Second, if you did watch this show and loved it as much as I did, you might want to brace yourself, because I am going to spoil this show for you in a whole different way. I have thought about it a lot and I finally feel confident to say this: Steven Avery is a guilty man.

Just let that sink in for a second.

Before we get into specifics, I do want to say that I am a HUGE fan of this series. I finished it in 2.5 days. Not weekend days either. Work week days. And I have a toddler. And I am a solo parent who is pregnant and tired all the time. I made sacrifices to finish as soon as I could because I could not. get. enough. I was racing toward the finish line with one eye closed because I knew in my heart that this man would be convicted and that his idiot nephew would also be convicted and that there would be no resolution, but I had to watch it. I’ve never felt so many emotions watching a story like this. I was yelling at the TV at points. My heart would sink in certain moments, like seeing the tiny hole in the blood vile or seeing those god awful interrogations with Brendan Dassey. I had dreams about it and couldn’t wait for other people to finish it so we could discuss everything and, of course, come up with a plan to save the Averys!

That’s actually one of the stages of grief when watching this show. Stage 1: Disbelief. Stage 2: Anger. Stage 3: Denial (no WAY did he do it!) Stage 4: Depression. Stage 5: Vengeance. I scoured the internet to see if there was something, ANYTHING, that the defense team could have missed. I looked at updates on the trial, found reddit threads and subthreads, tried to find information on Teresa’s ex boyfriend or even brother (Does anyone else think its weird that she NEVER mentions her brother? On that creepy video, she says “I love my life, my parents, my sisters” but never mentions a brother AND her voicemail password that her suspicious ex boyfriend magically decoded was all about her sisters birthdays. Were her and her brother even close!?!) I looked up anything I could to try to satisfy my mind that he could not have possibly murdered her and that he was set up by the police. After all my digging and reading counter-articles, I came to a bleak conclusion. He did it, guys. He really did it.

Here is how I came to this conclusion. I try to make it a point not to always drink the Kool-aid, no matter how delicious it is, and Making a Murderer is some deeee-lish Kool-aid. You have to remember that the POV is entirely from the defense so our Hero of this story is naturally going to be the defendant. But there is a reason that 7 jurors changed their initial vote from Not Guilty to Guilty and thats because of the evidence that the prosecution presented; evidence that the viewing audience of MaM did not see.

There are a lot of sites that are now up that go over this evidence, but this one is pretty detailed (http://onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/evidenceagainstavery.html)

The big take-aways for me are in the fact that he not only requested Teresa to come to his house that day, but he had called her multiple times before she arrived using *67 to conceal his phone number. She had also reported to her boss that he made her uncomfortable and that once, he answered the door wearing just a towel. This was not just a chance meeting of 2 people. He made sure that she would be the one that took the photographs and that he was at home to help her do it. Secondly, although the DNA evidence in her car is questionable, they didn’t just find his blood. They also found his sweat DNA in the car and under the hood. Now, I was all about the idea that the police planted his blood (which they had access too) but his sweat? That’s harder to do. Finally, there is the idea of the police moving the remains onto the Avery property. Wouldn’t have it been easier to discover the body in the original burn pit and THEN plant Steven’s evidence around it? Think about the logistics behind moving a pit of ashes from one location to another. Little drops of blood would be easy to do discretely, but transferring an entire burn pit of stuff? Then just hoping there would be a fresh burn pit at the Averys residence? Not to mention, if you were going to transfer it, wouldn’t it be easy to just put it in a barrel and move the barrel? How would no one else see an officer bring a trash bag full of ashes to the site and pour it into a pit.

In order to accept that Steven actually did kill her, I had to accept 3 things. 1) He obviously did not slash her throat or stab her. The blood evidence is just not there to support that theory and there would have been a lot more to clean up in his room if he did that. Even if he killed her in the garage, they couldn’t even find have one drop of blood. 2) Brendan had nothing to do with this crime. The police definitely used his low IQ and lack of reasoning skills against him in order to strengthen their case against Steven. They were able to not only get a confession from him, but one that was so horrific that it added kidnapping and sexual assault to the crime, which would only improve their odds of winning at trial. Which leads me to 3) The police definitely planted some evidence to strengthen their case and seal the deal. It’s obvious how much distain they have toward the Avery family and they certainly had access to do it. But, even though they planted evidence to insure a conviction, that doesn’t mean that he didn’t do it. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe he did sexually assault her and accidentally killed her. Who knows. But he did it. Because who else did? Is he really that unlucky? He has as bon fire the same night as a woman goes missing and her remains are found to be burned? And maybe you concede that she was killed and burned elsewhere, but what a lucky break is that for the cops. Oh, we found a body and it was burned AND Steven can’t refute that he had a bonfire that same night. Score! Let’s just move it to his house! C’mon. These are small time cops. Sure, they have a proven history of concealing evidence to get a conviction, but finding out that someone is going to be at Steven’s house, killing her and planting evidence at his house is another level of conspiracy.

In the end, I have to take the same standpoint as Sarah Koenig did at the end of Serial. Did he do it? Probably. But if I’m on the jury, I have to acquit. The evidence that the state presented did not match up to their own timeline of events and I feel the defense did a good job at creating reasonable doubt. So why did they convict him? Because the defense did TOO good of a job creating reasonable doubt. If you can believe that the police officers, the same ones who wrongfully convicted and imprisoned a man for 18 years when they KNEW he didn’t do it, set him up again to be framed for murder, how are you going to feel acquitting him? Would you be a little afraid of being a citizen in that town where everyone knows your name? Would you want to be pulled over by those police officers a few months later after you essentially said that they were corrupt? Look at the jurors from Casey Anthonys trial. They are STILL hated by people who think she did it. The nation thought they got it wrong and were out for blood, which is why most of them have still concealed their identities. But the jurors in this case? The police officers know exactly who they are! There is no escaping them once the trial is over. So, the 3 hold outs probably used that logic to sway the rest of the jury.

At the end of the day, Making a Murderer is about the injustices in the justice system. His lawyer summed it up perfectly: The Accused Lose. It’s so hard to overcome an indictment, let alone a conviction. Which is why I want to state publicly, for the record, if I EVER become a person of interest for a crime, I am not talking to the police without a lawyer because THOSE ARE MY RIGHTS! It’s not because I refuse to cooperate or because I am hiding something, but for me, this is where innocent people take the fall. AND I’M NOT GOING DOWN FOR THIS!

Whatever THIS is, they better make a Dateline episode about it. Call me, Keith Morrison!

Songs That Make You go “Hmmm”

On my drive to work, I am listening to one of three things: A random podcast, my son’s children sing-along CD, or the radio. I’m not fancy enough to have a satellite radio and I’m on a shared data plan so Spotify or Pandora are out of the question. Mostly, I listen to the radio. In this moment, driving in my CR-V and listening to Kiss FM, I’m as basic as they come. I can’t help it. I’ve become accustomed to hearing the same songs over again on my barely diversified preset stations. And though I may sing along, I’ve made some disturbing observations about a particular set of songs and I’d like to share those observations here.

“Honey I’m Good”
This is the newest One Hit Wonder from singer/songwriter Andy Grammer that is incredibly catchy. Most people (women) like this song because it really sounds like this guy is one faithful dude. I mean, some leggy blonde is throwing herself at him at the bar but even though he has had a few drinks, he says “nah honey, I’m good” and goes home to his lady. How sweet, right? But take a look at the actual lyrics of the 1st verse:
It’s been a long night here, and a long night there
And these long long legs are damn near
everywhere
(hold up now)
You look good, I will not lie
But if you ask where I’m staying tonight
I gotta be like oh baby, no baby, you got me all wrong baby
My baby’s already got all of my love

Did you catch it?

if.

IF you ask where I’m staying tonight.

Not “when” or “since you obviously asked”, but IF. The entire premise of this song is a lie! This is not a guy who is bravely rejecting the advances of some floozy at the bar. This is a classic guy reaction when they think that just because a girl is giving him any attention whatsoever, they obviously want to go home with him. I would love to hear the girl’s version of this interaction. It would probably be a song called “Dude, you’re creeping me out.” Now I will forever associate this song with this clip.

“Cool for the Summer”
Ok, we get it Demi Lovato. You’re a woman now. You’re in your sexual prime. You and your bestie Selena Gomez have successfully completed your transformations from child stars to sex objects for sleazy men that pictured you that way since you were child stars. Good for you. But who EXACTLY is Demi singing about when she says “Don’t tell your mother” in this song??? How old is the guy that she’s singing to that him telling his mother is a legitimate concern??? “Son, show me on the doll where Demi Lovato touched you.” “EVERYWHERE, MOMMY!” Check out the full lyrics here.
Now that I read these over, this song is SO CLEARLY about statutory rape. First of all, no adult refers to Summer as a dating period of time. All adults know that summer is the same thing as every other season because we work all the time and seasons have no meaning anymore. The only people who refer to Summer are kids that are still in school. So the person she is singing to is, at best, still in college and at worst, still applying for college.

Exhibit B:
Even if they judge
F@$% it all
Do the time
I just wanna have some fun with you

Even if they judge? Do the time? Oh, you’re doing the time, lady. For sleeping with some underage kid! And yes, it is just as bad when an older woman violates an underage boy, despite how awesome the underage boy thinks it is.
Finally, she makes several references to a cherry and I don’t think I need to spell out exactly what the innuendo is there.
In conclusion, Demi Lovato is clearly raping young boys.

“Hello”
Ok. I know. It’s Adele. It’s perfect. She’s an angel with an angel voice. My mom cannot get enough of her. Once, in a fanatic fit about how great she was, my mom actually uttered the sentence “I mean, I just wish she was my daughter!” Not gonna lie, that one kind of stung, but my mom has a point. She’s amazing and her talent is second to none right now. But, c’mon Adele. Let’s move on, shall we? I mean, her whole last album was an homage to her ex-boyfriend that broke her heart. The best art can come from heartbreak and this could not be more evident than the massive success of this album. We all cried in the shower while singing Someone Like You or stared blankly out of the car window as we thought of the one that got away. It resonated with just about everyone. But then look at what happened to Adele because of the album. She became the biggest singer in the world, won every single award possible, started dating again and had a baby. Things got pretty good for Adele! So I was expecting her 1st single to be more about those things. I wanted songs about how she rebuilt her life and how she is one bad ass B. But no. Old, sad Adele rears her ugly head. And sure, she might be singing this song “from the other side” but we all know she’s still not over this guy. She even says that she ain’t done much healing. Really? The millions of dollars, the fame, the lover, the baby… none of that helped you to move on? Also,what was her new man thinking when he heard this song. I’d be like “uuuuuuuuhhhh, so, it’s still about that guy? Even now? I mean, we have a baby together.” So let’s put the past behind us, Adele. It’s time to move on.

Anything by Fetty Wap
This artist makes me realize that I am definitely not in my 20’s anymore and I am completely out of touch with youth. That name. His voice. I hate everything about it. And yet, people love it. I can’t even understand a word of it. I am officially the whitest and oldest person in the world.

Anything by (new) Justin Bieber
Even though it is impossible to picture him as anything but a 13 year old boy with a high pitched voice, I gotta hand it to him with this new record. I don’t immediately change the station when it’s on, and that’s saying something! But I realized that a huge reason that I like the song What Do You Mean is because it is essentially a depiction of me trying to understand my 2 year old son. When you nod your head yes but you wanna say no… when you want to go left but you turn to go right. So true. This is my life.

In conclusion, I am taking more Podcast recommendations (and don’t you dare say Serial. I’ve been listening to Serial since it was on TAL. Early adapter, baby! I ain’t no basic B!)

Sick and Tired

Is there anything more maddening than being sick and not knowing what you have? Yes, of course there is. Have you read the news? The world is falling apart. But in my selfish life where I only think about myself, trying to self-diagnose is INCREDIBLY annoying.

If you know me at all, you have probably heard me say this phrase: “Me? I never get sick. Got an iron constitution. Rock solid.” I pretty much stand by this statement. Somehow, even though I am not a model citizen to my own body, I manage to stay really healthy. I don’t think I have ever actually gotten the flu and I rarely get the flu shot. If I do feel under the weather, it typically clears up in a couple of days- three days, MAX- and I usually don’t even take medication. Usually, I will just make a killer green smoothie and get on with my life. I tell everyone that this is the secret to my success in not getting sick. Filling out a doctor’s form is a breeze. I have no reoccurring anything. I am not allergic to anything. I have no medical history to speak of. I usually draw a line through that page and just write “No”. Gets the job done.

Which is why what I endured the last 8 days was not only exhausting, but it shook my belief system to the core. It also showed me that our medical professionals don’t really have any idea what they are doing.

Here is an overview of my symptoms in the order they appeared.

Day 1: Runny nose, cough, slight headache.
Day 2: Stuffy nose, sore throat, cough, slight headache.
Day 3: Stuffy nose, sore throat, tongue blisters, laryngitis, for realzies headache.
Day 4: Fully blocked nasal cavity, multiple blisters on my tongue, complete inability to speak above a whisper, difficulty swallowing, major sinus headache.
Day 5: I am a full-blown mouth breather, no sense of smell or taste, my tongue feels like I chewed broken glass, my throat feels like I swallowed broken glass, there is no speaking. I work from home and go on vocal rest.
Day 6: Vocal rest was a failure as I still have no voice. My tongue feels better though! Maybe I’m finally coming out of this.
Day 7: My orbital and jaw bone are swollen and throbbing. My skull feels like there is not enough room in there.
Day 8: I vow to not rest until I get answers. I would cry but it hurts my face too bad.

I didn’t seek medical assistance until day 4. Being pregnant, I knew that my medication options were limited and I did not want to hear the doctor say “ugh, unfortunately I can’t give you that since you are pregnant. Just drink lots of liquids and try to rest up!” And that is exactly what she did say. I ran some of my ideas by her to see if we could get a real diagnosis going. “Well, I haven’t spiked a fever so I don’t think it’s strep, and my mucus and snot are clear so I think it’s just allergies.” “Oh yeah?” She said, as she was clearly doing something else and not listening. “No, allergies don’t give you laryngitis. You probably have some kind of viral infection, so all you can do is let it run its course.”

Just some kind of viral infection, guys. No need to look into it or treat it or understand what it is or tell me the types of viral infection it could be or warn me if it’s contagious or if it will harm my son or unborn child. Just your run of the mill viral infection that attacks your vocal chords and nose and tongue and ruin your life. Good news is that I can have Robitussin! I’m really hoping that this will help.

You can go ahead and scroll up to look at day 5 and see how that worked out for me.

During this time, I decide that the internet will tell me exactly what I had. This is when I realize that my computer is truly trying to learn who I am. ALL of my searches with symptoms immediately take me to parenting magazines and talk about what to do if my toddler has it. For a few days, I was convinced that I had Hand, Food and Mouth disease. Maybe I’m a rare case of a full-grown adult with HFM and they can take me in for further studying to save other adults. The problem there is that my hands and feet were just fine… for now.

Then I experience the dark side of WebMD. How is WebMD still a website? The “show me on the doll where you hurt” must be the most out of date technology on the internet. Chest region and head? You have cancer. Or a sun burn. None of this is helpful.

It’s not until my face started hurting that I start getting somewhere. I find that sinus infections, SOMETIMES CAUSED BY ALLERGIES (thank you very much, Doctor No-its-not-allergies) can sometimes infect your vocal chords and, if untreated, can infect your orbital and jaw bone. Yahtzee. It hadn’t gotten to the point where my eyes were swollen and my mouth got infected but I wasn’t going to let it get worse. I stormed into the Urgent Care, figurative guns a-blazin and demanded answers or a prescription before I would leave. I either said that or cried and said “help me!” I don’t remember. But the vindication came when she AGREED with my self-diagnosis and gave me Z-pack. “It should be safe to take while you’re pregnant, but let me just check,” she said as she pulled up Google on her phone. Comforting.

And on the 9th day, I started to feel better. I had never been so happy to wake up and speak normally as well as breathe out of both nostrils. I missed my good health and vowed to appreciate it daily. Personal health is probably one of the most overlooked privileges we have. There are people who are chronically ill and struggle for years to find a diagnosis and treatment for things far worse than a sinus infection, and I am so grateful that I have yet to endure that. I told myself to wake up every morning and count my blessings and include one for my health.

Now, a week later, I’m admittedly behind on that promise. In fact, I’ve basically forgotten everything. A coworker now has similar symptoms. I looked at him with pure empathy, knowing the battle in front of him. “Try drinking a green smoothie,” I said. “I drink them everyday and I never get sick.”

Up in the Air

Here it is. My “that time I flew alone with my son while pregnant” post. This is something I have dreaded for a long time, as you can imagine. It was hard enough the previous three times when I had the support and physical buffer of my husband. Having that 2nd person meant that one of us could actually have a few moments at a time where we could stare off and dream of a more tranquil existence. Instead, when you fly alone with your son while you are pregnant, there is absolutely no time to yourself whatsoever. Every mere second of the flight and the layover were entirely spent entertaining and maintaining my child. Even when he slept, he did so when I was in the most uncomfortable position. One symptom I have had in this pregnancy is a pinched nerve which makes sitting for a long time really painful in my quads. So when he did fall asleep, having a 25lb hot little meatwad sprawled over me and being too afraid to shift my weight was kind of a nightmare. Plus, when he woke up, boy was there hell to pay. He actually stood on my legs, faced all of the rows behind me, and screamed the song of his people to the entire plane. As if they didn’t know where we were sitting, he made it clear to everyone that the child crying on the plane was sitting in seat 9a. And that his mother obviously hates him and everyone else.

Before this plane ride, I kept thinking about how to keep him contained in order to not be the worst person on the plane. I see those looks of the onboarding passengers when they see me with a child on my lap. There is a frantic look at the seat number, and a double-take to their own ticket to make sure that they do not have to sit next to us. I get it. I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. No one wants to sit next to the kid on the plane. But midway through my flight back to the midwest, my perspective on this situation changed drastically. I realized that I don’t give two shits how anyone else feels about me and my lap-riding child on this plane ride. I did not pay way to much to fly to Ohio, plus a checked bag fee, plus an upgrade to get the “premium main cabin seat” which claims to have more leg room to make sure that YOU are having a good flight. I have no obligation to make sure that you can sit quietly and sleep, even though it is 1pm and you are a grown-up that doesn’t need to take a nap. My only obligation, besides to sit with my seat in the upright position with my tray seat secured and my bag placed under the seat in front of me, is to sit back, relax and enjoy the flight. Those are the captain’s orders!

And while we are on the subject, where did this unspoken rule that no one can talk on an airplane come from? Sure, people carry on quiet chit chat with each other and there is always that stranger sitting next to you that tries to make friends, but for the most part, airplane rides are pretty quiet. On one leg of my trip, you could hear a pin drop (over the jet engines, that is). On that flight, my son was the ONLY child on the plane. I just felt like everyone was just waiting for him to flip out (which he did) and were stock piling their last moments of silence. It was oppressive.

When he did freak out, I would bust out all of the tricks to get him to calm down to no avail. I would pick him up and he would do that slinky thing that toddlers do where they effortlessly slide out of your arms. I would get him food and he would bat it away. I would try to get him to watch Thomas the Tank Engine and he was over it already (probably because it had been on loop since we got on the airplane). And then something happened on both plane rides. Women sitting in front of me thrusted me their devices. “Here,” they said. “Try this.” The first woman handed me her iPad that had a bug-squashing game queued up. “My kid loves this game,” she said, handing it to me frantically. And it was entertaining for me to play and for him to watch me play. The 2nd time, the woman (different woman, different plane ride) handed me her cell phone with her photo gallery open. “My cats,” she said. “I have seven cats. My nephew loves them.” That interaction was a little more confusing. So, you want me to scroll through pictures of your cats? When should I stop? When I see humans? This ploy also worked, but both efforts were short-lived and equally awkward. The game was nice but how long am I supposed to keep the iPad? The whole flight? Till he stops crying? What if he starts crying when I return it? Are you going to give it back? And let’s not overlook the woman with seven cats. SEVEN CATS. You’re telling me that she’s the expert on child-rearing? I’d argue probably not.

This is the part of my story that my mom reminds me that these people were just trying to be nice, and this is probably the case. But let’s not forget my perspective as the pregnant and alone traveler of the 18month old. These people weren’t helping me. They were helping themselves. Both of these people have husbands/male partners who were constantly giving me the passive aggressive side look. The man friend of cat lady ordered a few bloody marys in a tone that suggested he “really needed it”. Ok pal. Settle down. You might be the guy who got a seat in front of the crying child but I am the SINGLE PREGNANT MOTHER OF SAID CHILD. My flight is way harder than yours, in fact, it’s worse because I am the single pregnant mother of crying child who ALSO got stuck behind an alcoholic A-hole. So your lady friend has to overcompensate for your irritability by 1) not judging you for drinking at 12pm on a 2 hour flight and 2) making sure that my kid stops crying so you’re not in a bad mood the rest of the day. That is why I got all of the cat pictures, not because she didn’t want my son to cry. I see right through your plans, lady.

By the time we got home, I was completely spent. I hated everyone I saw, even the flight attendant who made sure to say goodbye to my “adorable little traveler!” Get outta my way lady. I still have to wrangle him in the stroller he hates, use the elevator downstairs to get our luggage, schlep it on over to the shuttle and try to get a stroller and luggage on board, and THEN convince my son to get strapped into just ONE MORE SEAT for the car ride home. It seemed like the traveling had no end in sight.

When we got home, he skipped inside the house and gave our dog a big hug. He seemed totally unphased by what we had just endured. And maybe it was the sight of him being so happy or realizing how tiny he really was, but all of the frustration washed away. I patted him on the head like a good doggy. “You were such a good boy,” I said. “I know you did the best you could.” We both did.

I Got the Blues

There is a scene in the movie “Brokeback Mountain” when Jake Gyllenhaal says to Heath Ledger, “I wish I knew how to quit you.” Every fall, I think about that quote as I start to watch college football; more specifically- Michigan Football.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a Michigan Football fan. My oldest sister is 10 years older and went to U of M when I was in 2nd grade, which was only about 45 minutes away from our house. She took my sister and I to a game a few years later and going to the Big House was one of the coolest experiences of my entire life. From that point on, I was hooked. And what wasn’t to love? The Maize and Blue uniforms, The largest stadium in the US, the winningest team in college football history during a time where we were actually winning too! It was the late nineties and Michigan Football was a dominating team.

If only we could go back to that time. That precious time. If only we knew what the future would hold…

In my adult lifetime, I saw the rise but mostly fall of Lloyd Carr, the flash in the pan that was Richard Rodriguez, one great year of Brady Hoke and the downward spiral that followed, and now, Jim Harbaugh. Jim F@#!ing Harbaugh. I have been cautiously optimistic since that late December press conference when he walked out onto that basketball court to confirm the worst kept secret in college sports. “He’s coming home, you guys,” we said to one another. “He’s just coming home.”

But this post isn’t about Jim Harbaugh, or even Michigan Football. It’s about the agony and the ecstasy of watching sports. I’ve experienced both, though the latter seems harder and harder to find. And yesterday, it was all agony. I can’t even bring myself to talk about it, but you can click here to find out what happened.

I can’t even watch the link I just posted. I can’t even read stories about it. Someone sent me a video of a man crying and throwing up after the game. I couldn’t even watch that. It might as well have been my brother, since he did throw up (and that’s a true story). I could barely carry on solid conversations after I saw that happen. I would be midway into listening to someone and my mind would just drift away to those last seconds. Those last, terrible, oh-my-god-is-this-really-happening seconds have haunted my dreams. I am not being hyperbolic. I had the worst night sleep last night. I woke up anxious and unsettled and then I would remember why. We lost. We lost in the last second of the game. A game that we were winning the entire time except for the last second when we lost. “Get it together, ok? Just calm down and think happy thoughts,” I told myself as I sat wide awake at 2am. “There are other things going on in the world far more important than this. You have nothing to do with this! You don’t even know these people!” It didn’t matter what I told myself. There was no erasing the memory from my mind. It just hit so hard.

The kind of loss that Michigan endured might end up being known as the worst one in history, and that is saying something, because there have been many terrible losses (Like Appalachian State, or pretty much every OSU loss, or all the other MSU losses). But this will likely put us on the reel forever. As it turns out, we are in good company. To make myself feel better, I looked up other Devastating Losses in football history (because when you hurt, it helps to watch others hurt more). I couldn’t believe how selfish I was being. I live in Texas! I am literally surrounded by fans who feel the same way! They actually felt the exact same way in 2008 when they played Texas Tech and they also lost in the last seconds of the game. And not too far from here is Alabama and I think we all remember when this happened. (Is it just me, or do the announcers really have a knack at rubbing it in to the losing team? I get the excitement, but there are people grieving here!)

Sometimes, you can’t help who you love. Fandom chooses you, not the other way around. Every year I watch Michigan, I swear it will be my last. I’m a wife and mom now. I don’t have time for these football shenanigans. But for every year I try to walk away, something keeps pulling me back. Maybe it’s the chance to be on the receiving end of good fortune; to be there when things finally turn around and to witness the ball being picked up by our team for once, instead of watching them drop it one more devastating time.

(Finally, for all of the smug Spartan fans out there, let’s not forget about this. Is it so hard to have a little bit of empathy?)

Dress to Impress

I have seen the future of our workforce, you guys, and I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t look good. I don’t mean skill wise. Despite all of the stereotypes of millennials being entitled, short-sighted, and way too distracted by shiny objects like cell phones and Apple watches, they do bring a lot of edge to the workforce. (And yes, THEY. I am technically in Generation Y, so lay off!) When I say that the future doesn’t look good, I mean that they make terrible decisions when it comes to dressing themselves. At least they do when it comes to interviewing. And really, is there a more important time in your professional life to dress well?

When I was in college and I got the call that a company wanted to interview me, I reacted like the class leper who was just asked to go to prom with the most popular guy in school. After getting over the initial glow that they liked me, they REALLY liked me, I made sure that my outfit was going to be on point. Off to Target I went to find an outfit that was professional but not flashy. I didn’t want them to be more distracted by what I was wearing but it had to be memorable and professional. I also didn’t want them to think that I was taking the job so seriously by wearing a full-blown suit but needed to make sure that I fit in with the company’s “business casual” attire. It was a tight-rope walk, for sure. In the end, I settled on a black pencil skirt, a plum button-up blouse, and a black suit jacket, but like a cool jacket. I also got a haircut the next day and spent a few extra dollars at the drug store to dye my hair. It was an investment in my future and it paid off. I got the first and only job I interviewed for. I’m PRETTY sure the plum shirt sealed the deal.

Fast forward 10 years later and man, is it a different playing field. First of all, companies are actually spending a lot of money on recruiting college kids. COLLEGE KIDS. Kids that are waking up on futons, eating ramen noodles, and complaining about their early morning 10am class are being recruited heavily to join companies before they even graduate. So, knowing they are being recruited for a job before they get their degree, do they run to the nearest mall or dust off their finest attire for the occasion? No. As it turns out, they still just wear whatever the hell they want to wear.

My company recently did a very large push at recruiting students out of school. They went to several campuses, scouted resumes before arriving, held interviews on the spot with good applicants, scheduled them to come on-site and sometimes even flew them down to be able to interview. To me, this felt like an overreach. Don’t get me wrong, these were some of the best and the brightest students at fantastic universities and I completely back the effort, but it felt like how Richard Gear went after Julia Roberts with the hotel, the champagne, the chocolates… Her standards are pretty low, dude. She’s just happy you called her by her first name and not something creepy. I mean, what are her other prospects? Now, that analogy doesn’t apply to our current batch of millennial candidates because as it turns out, their prospects are pretty good and they know it. This is likely where the “entitled” attitude comes from and probably why they don’t put any thought into what they wear for the interview.

Apparently, “business casual” means your cleanest pair of dirty jeans and your favorite bands t-shirt. And you might be thinking that this only pertains to men, but actually I have seen that women are some of the worst offenders. The better ones actually throw their unwashed hair in a ponytail while one didn’t even bother to dry her hair. To me, nothing says “I completely did not prioritize this interview that you have strategically planned for me” than waiting until the last possible minute to shower and then leaving no time for any other form of personal grooming. If you don’t have that kind of time, just shower the night before! Or, oh I don’t know, MAKE THAT KIND OF TIME! It’s a freaking job interview!

When I was in grad school, I taught communication and more importantly, I tried to teach my students that they are always communicating. The words they used represented their viewpoint of the world and the clothes they wore represented how they saw themselves and how they wanted other people to see them as well. When you go to an interview, all of your communication should be saying “I want to work here and here is why I am qualified!” If you go to an interview wearing jeans and a dirty t-shirt with a backpack on one shoulder, you are saying “You tell ME why I should work here.” Or if you are wearing an outfit that leaves little to the imagination, you are saying “who cares about my qualifications! Check out my rack!”

**Before anyone gets all up in arms about the last comment, know that I don’t say that lightly. I have worked with some Bad A women who can wear whatever the hell they want because they have earned that right. They also understand timing and tact, which is probably why they are Bad A women**

Maybe all of this will be a good thing. Apparently by 2020, millennials will be 46% of the work force. That’s 5 years away, people. So while that might mean that you will be lucky to have a conversation with your coworker for over 30 seconds before they start checking their phone or compulsively start taking selfies, it might also mean that in 5 years, we can stop drying our hair and wear whatever the hell we want to work. And really, if thats not what I’m working towards, then what is this all for anyway?

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Cry

I have a difficult son. When he was an infant, people would always ask me if he was a good baby and I never knew how to answer that. He cried a lot, was difficult to nurse, rarely slept at night, and never let me sit down and hold him at the same time. I had to be standing. No, he was not a good baby. He was difficult. I remember someone saying that they had such a good baby because she really only cried when she was hungry. I thought, “well, so do I, I guess. But as it turns out, he is hungry every hour and a half, all day everyday!” I knew motherhood would not be easy but I never knew it would be this hard.

That’s what every mother says, right? “It’s so hard, but you know what? It’s the most rewarding thing in the whole world!” Yeah, yeah, ok. Obviously it’s rewarding. Everyone knows having kids is rewarding, ok? You don’t have to remind me of that every time I try to convey to you that I have a difficult son. Just, let me have my moment and then at the end of the day, I’ll let the mom guilt marinate and remember that this time is fleeting. You don’t get to take away my moment of complaining and find another way to make me feel bad for not “enjoying every moment” with my difficult son.

And yes, he is a difficult son. He wants to be picked up and not touched simultaneously. It’s a classic move called “Pick me up, don’t touch me”. He wants food but doesn’t want to eat it (or “I’m not hungry, now feed me”). He constantly wants something out of reach. He will always find the most dangerous thing in the room to play with. He hits me in the face and laughs and it hurts me physically and emotionally. I am convinced he gets enjoyment from my torment. He’s difficult, man! He really is!

You’re tempted to console me or tell me it will be ok or share war stories of how you had it even harder right about now. I don’t want you to do any of those things. I don’t need or want your advice or condolences. This is just the way life is. This is just the way that he is. I just endure and move on. Survive and advance. No sense in dwelling on these things by talking about my feelings all the time.

And THAT is probably why I had a slight nervous breakdown this morning.

This morning was not unlike most of my mornings but it was just that all of my difficult son’s bad behaviors happened in the span of one hour. He just woke up angry. His breakfast pouch spilled all over him and as I cleaned it, he threw a tantrum and there was no pleasing him. He pulled out all of the stops. I got the “pick me up, don’t touch me” followed by the “I’m not hungry, feed me” and just throwing himself on the floor in between these two acts. Then my husband Skypes in and I think “thank GOD! Maybe he can help!” Normally, difficult son loves talking to his daddy. NOT TODAY! He cried the whole time and just had no interest in the iPad. Now I am starting to run late and we are way behind schedule. I tell my husband that we can’t talk this morning and that I have to get ready and get him ready and there is just no time. We catch eyes for a moment and he knows.. oh he knows that it’s coming. He knows, but I don’t know it yet, so I just continue to endure and move on.

I resign to the fact that he is just going to keep crying no matter what I do, so I decide to make my breakfast and ignore him. He presses on, I press on, and with each passing moment of tears and tantrum, a part of me withers away. I put my smoothie in the blender and when I take container top off to put the tamper tool in to break up the fruit, the smoothie furiously erupts out of the top and gets all over my shirt. That’s when it happened. I officially lost it. I scream “DAMMIT, SON! YOU THINK YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN HAVE A TANTRUM? WELL, WHY CAN’T I HAVE A TANTRUM!” (This is putting it nicely. There were way more curse words involved.) I catch my breath and I shake it off, pushing back the inevitable one more time, and reach for a to-go cup. As I pull it down from the top shelf, my poor organization skills with Tupperware get the best of me and all of the lids come falling out and onto the floor.

And THAT is when I started crying. I cried hard. REALLY hard. I hooked my arm around my face like Dracula with a cape and sobbed out loud. The tears ran the makeup off my face and started to drench my chest. My shoulders were shaking and I keel over. It all just got to me. The deployment. The pregnancy. The difficult son. Missing my husband. Missing my sanity. Trying to figure out how we got here in the first place. I just let it all out. It was a raw and real and an ugly cry. I’m talking Clare Danes kind of cry. And all the while, my son had finally stopped crying and I was feeling horrible that when he had stopped crying, I was the one crying. He just looked up at me with his huge, delicious eyes and slowly walked toward me. He went to the table and got his bowl, walked it over to me, and sat down in the chair that my lap created by kneeling on the floor. As he sat, I stroked his hair and smelled it deeply. “I love you so much, you beautiful, difficult boy.” We sat there for a few minutes and when he was ready (or when I was ready), he walked with me out the door, and back into the chaos that is our daily life.

I guess we both just needed a good cry in order to get on with our day. And now we continue to endure, survive, and advance.

RSVP!

Today, I turned to a coworker and asked: “Should I, or should I not, write a blog about the fact that I don’t think that too many people would go to my funeral?” She about died laughing (pun DEFINITELY intended), probably because I said it out of nowhere, but most likely because she had the same response that most people have when you talk about your own funeral. “Don’t say that! Why would you say that!” And I get it. For face value, it does sound self-deprecating at best and pity-seeking at its worst. But I feel that I’m just being practical!

Hear me out. Sometimes, there are these tragic events where someone dies before their time, and you’ll hear people say “but you should have seen the service. I mean, they couldn’t even fit in the church. They had to put tents outside. There were over 500 people there!” Those stories really show you how one person can impact so many lives. Me, though? Meh. I mean, I have INCREDIBLE friends and a great supportive family, but I am not a “strength in numbers” kind of person. Most people make the assumption that I am an extrovert but I actually recharge the most when I am alone or with a small group of friends. I have a wide reach but I keep a lot of people at arm’s length. And those types of people don’t just drop everything to come to a funeral.

Here’s how I see it. If my funeral were a Facebook invite, there would be a lot of people who respond “Maybe”. They might even leave messages on the invite saying “ooooh, I wish I could come SO BAD but I have to work 😦 Loved knowing you as a person, though!” Those would be the really well-meaning people. Others would say “Ahh, my coworkers funeral is that day. I’ll text to see if people are still hanging out for the wake!” There might be a good amount of people who see the invite and just don’t respond either way. And that’s fine! That is fine. I have done that to plenty of invites. Mind you, they weren’t to funerals, but to each their own!

The reason why I think this is because this is already what happens for normal events in my everyday life. I can’t tell you how many parties that I have hosted where people have said “oh man! Wish I could go but we have this other thing that we are also going to, even though I never make plans or commit to anything, I already committed to this other thing that now I have to go to that thing.” I can’t decide if it’s better or worse than the person who shows up right as the party starts and stays for 45 minutes, then leaves because they are heading to “another party”. Please. There is no other party. NO ONE has parties. People go to bars. Not house parties. I am old and enjoy having people come to me, so I host parties, but my youthful friends would rather go to bars, and that is actually where they are going when they tell me that they are going to another party. As a result, I don’t host wide-spread parties outside of my core group of friends. I also stopped calling them parties. “Hey, if you’re not doing anything later, you can stop by. There will be food and stuff. Whatever”. This lackadaisical approach has really helped the numbers, probably because it doesn’t sound too desperate. That’s probably the approach I will take with my obituary. “If you want to pay your respects, come by around 1pm. Or don’t. No big deal”.

There is also the case of logistics. Say, and god forbid any of these things happen, but say that I die before my parents and they want to bury me in my home state of Michigan. That knocks out like 65% of the potential funeral attendees. “Oh, it’s in MICHIGAN? Ugh, yeah, there’s no way I can go up there on such short notice.” Valid. Understandable. But say that I am laid to rest in Austin. Half of my family would ask “is there going to be a memorial or something up here? I mean, it’s just so hard to travel.” Ok, ok, they might be right, depending on their age. But here is the group of people that I am really talking about: It’s the old coworkers, friends from undergrad and graduate school, ex-boyfriends and those out of touch that will be legitimately sad but come to the point of their conversation where they will ask out loud “so, are you going to the funeral?” And there will be a pause because the other person will think “well, I was going to, but if YOU’RE not going, then… I donno, would it be weird if it was just me that went?” I feel like that group of people makes up a lot of the potential attendees for my funeral. but, that’s what you get when you keep people at arms length, I guess.

Here is what I know for sure. My tier 1 friends and family are the best tier 1 friends and family in the world. They will mourn. They will rally around some cause and slap my name on it and carry my legacy like a torch and keep my name alive for as long as they live. Maybe they will get tattoos! But if I only have enough people at my funeral to count on my two hands, I would be the luckiest person in the world.

Well, maybe not THAT lucky. I mean, I will be dead and all… And at such a young age! (Hopefully not. Dear God, hopefully not)

Forever Young

Recently, there have been a lot of revelations that remind me that I am no spring chick anymore. It spans from activities like leering through my blinds to shake my head at the latch-key kids across the street when they make a ruckus late at night all the way to checking TVGuide.com to see if there will be a new episode of Dateline or not. I don’t understand new social media trends like SnapChat or GroupMe (I mean, why can’t we just text? I don’t even have 30 friends that I need to message at the same time). Young people call me Ma’am. I am constantly reminding my friends to wear sunscreen and stay hydrated in the summertime. Finally, I write letters to the manager.

Getting older is a long process that doesn’t happen over night and if I’m a lucky woman, I’ll continue this process for a long time. Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile who I was with the person I am becoming. To make myself feel better, I decided to list out some things that remind me that not only am I still young, but that I have no idea what I am doing.

Fitted sheets. Can’t do it. I can fold a lot of clothes both big and small but fitted sheets is not one of them. I even go to Youtube and follow step by step instructions and it always ends up as a large ball that is shoved into the bottom of my drawer.
Doing my make-up. My mom never really taught me how to do my make-up and while I think I get away with looking put together, I make a lot of mistakes. I don’t think I have ever put on mascara without smudging it on my eyelids first. Also, not quite sure I am applying basic things like foundation or bronzer appropriately. I’m almost certain that the classier women in my life notice this regularly and probably discuss it when I am not around. They’re right to do so.
Fart jokes are still funny to me. In fact, at work just the other day, I used LinkedIn Professional Services to do an advanced keyword search on the word Fart in people’s resumes. Over 600 profiles came up in the USA and I surfed through most of those profiles. And I laughed so hard that I cried. Obviously, I encourage EVERYONE to do this.
Halloween is still something I take super seriously. In fact, I went trick-or-treating way longer than acceptable, if you think going after the age of 12 is unacceptable. Which it is. And the answer, if you’re wondering, was my senior year in high school.
I still let my mom buy my work clothes. Not ALL of my clothes, obviously (I mean, who am I, my younger brother? #AMIRIGHTROBERT??) I do, however, wait until major holidays or birthdays to mention that I need to go shopping for new clothes and then I just let nature take its course. She has started to say things like “you can just pay me back” but we both know that check is not coming in the mail anytime soon.
My handwriting. There’s no way for me to convey this online or on this post, but if I drop a piece of paper at work with my handwriting on it, most people look for a lost little boy with a broken hand because he’s obviously the one who wrote it.
I hate spending money on utilities around the house because when I graduated college, I was super poor. I’ll splurge on top shelf tequila for my Mexican Martini, because I am an adult, but I won’t buy batteries for the remote control when it runs out. I mean, why spend money on something when you can just walk up and change it manually?
Finally, no matter how old we get, I will always treat my brother like he is 8 years old. I used to do this thing where I would wake him up super early and say “IT’S CHRISTMAS DAY! SANTA CAME! HE REALLY CAME!” and then jump on his bed to make sure he was awake. I still do this every time we sleep under the same roof.

So while I might make responsible healthy meals from scratch and overuse Pinterest, this list reminds me that I still have a long way to go until I actually FEEL grown-up. And as the late, great Aaliyah once said “Age ain’t nothin but a numba”.